Three Thieves
by Ysabet
Summary: Co-written by Ysabet and Rednightengale. Adversaries can become acquaintances and acquaintances can become friends; it takes time and it's difficult, but anything is possible- especially for Kudo Shinichi and the Kaitou Kid.
1. Feather, Ruse, Father Brown

_**chapter one: "feather, ruse, Father Brown"**_  
**Three Thieves**  
by **ysabet** & **nightengale**  
A story about crossing boundaries. Kaitou Kid and Kudo Shinichi and a shared journey neither of them expected.

Book One is complete at 71,000 words in eight parts, to be posted weekly at the dedicated LJ community that we've set up for the story. Readers are encouraged to watch **threethieves** for updates, though we will be crossposting notifications of new chapters as well.

_Warnings:_ Extreme length. Please forgive us this first chapter...the quality is rather salmon compared to the rest of the novel. We were warming up. And yes, "salmon" **is** a curse word, Kaitou Kid says so. *firm nod*

**Chapter One**

"feather, ruse, Father Brown"  
_theme music:_ "Spectrum" by DBA

* * *

_A notice has been sent anonymously to Kaitou Kid, daring him in terms of extreme rudeness to steal a certain gem before it can be stolen by the sender. The notice is pretty clear: a gem-- a perfect piece of red amber shaped like a quail's egg with a tiny feather in its heart, set in a silver pendant-- belongs to the Kikoman family (of the great Kikoman Soy Sauce zaibatsu; *those* Kikoman) and it normally lives in the jewelry box of Kikoman Meiyuko, the matriarch of the family (89 years old and supposedly a very good shot with a handgun). Kikoman-sama has a fondness for dogs, LARGE dogs, and her estate is full of them-- dobermans, mastiffs, rottweilers, you name it; they're everywhere._

_It's the middle of summer, horribly hot and everybody's temper is on edge. Mouri and company have been invited to investigate the situation; they're staying at the estate, which is large and hypermodernistic to a ridiculous degree (if there's a gadget, Kikoman-sama or one of her numerous descendants has it. The house is alarmingly automated) and has hideous modern art everywhere. Hakuba's busted his ankle, Heiji AND Kazuha both have the flu (how romantic) and Nakamori's at a seminar in Hokkaido that he very much doesn't want to be at. So it's just Mouri, Ran and Conan... and a piece of amber. And an arrogant, insulting, rude, taunting dare of a robbery-notice._

_So: What's Kaito going to do about it, hmmm? _

* * *

It was several hours after they'd settled into the Kikoman estate; and Conan Edogawa was, for once, grateful for his transformed state. He'd been more than a little nervous that he'd end up stuck in a room with Ran (something that'd happened all too often before and was terribly hard on the nerves), but his small suitcase had been borne off by a servant and installed into a room of his own. A kid's room, granted, but you were supposed to count your blessings, right? At least it wasn't too cutesy.

And so he sat on the edge of the small European-style bed (one where, for once, his feet actually touched the ground) and went over the points of the estate in his usual mental catalog.

One: well-guarded. The place had a more-than-decent security system, top of the line-- the Kikoman family didn't stint on the electronics.

Two: way too many damn windows. Conan sighed. Even the best security couldn't get around a smash-and-grab.

Three: not enough people around. A handful of servants, a couple of the older relatives, Kikoman-sama's personal assistant Noyen Iri, himself and Ran and Mouri, and that was it.

...except for Kid, wherever the hell he was.

* * *

The Kikoman estate boasted an indulgent quantity of old hardwood trees scattered about its grounds, many of which were lit from below by footlights aimed up into their branches. The others stood in darkened silence, and it was through several of those that Kaitou Kid made his approach, making no more noise than the wind through the leaves. The scene was eerily quiet, and though the house itself was flooded with lights in all its rooms, there were no exterior floodlights or guards watching the entrances. Used to the bustle and friendly chaos of the Task Force, Kid clucked softly at the casual mood that he still hadn't been able to shake. He'd cased the building the previous night, and again during today's afternoon, but still didn't let the confidence he felt about the upcoming heist cloud his knowledge that there were certainly parts of the situation - and security net - that he couldn't predict.

Usually this wasn't even a conscious concern - with the Task Force running things, what unpredictability there was inherent in the gathering of a large group of people, officers or not, was overrun by the overwhelmingly predictable movements of all the Task Force's members and bullhorns, floodlights and helicopters. The unpredictable factors that mattered were considerably fewer, and much more of a challenge. They could direct the largely blind and dumb force of Nakamori's men in more effective ways, using the Task Force as an oversized extension of their own wills, and it was they who Kid had come to perform for. The thrill of wowing the crowd was still there, and always would be, but a more potent satisfaction lay in the chance to outmaneuver those he considered his equals.

Tonight, however, there was only one of them within that house, and he was without the backing of Nakamori's several dozen Task Force members, without the power of the prefectural police, and without the coordinated aid of his peers - small or large. Kid smiled thinly as he took the final leap that would land him on the roof of the mansion, careful to hold all that he carried up and out of the way to clear the laser motion sensor that trimmed the roof's edge. Light as cat's paws he touched down, then stripped quickly out of his oversuit of soft black cotton, revealing the white suit beneath. Pulling the black boot covers off his glossy white shoes, Kid rubbed away a small spot on one toe, settled his hat and monocle carefully in place, and clipped the cape to his shoulders, lacing the tips of the glider frame into their fitted pockets with the speed and ease of long practice. He folded his black outfit carefully out of the way, in the shadowed lee of the roof where it would be unlikely to be found, and stood.

The wind above the house caught his cape, lifting the military-grade tensile, lightweight fabric easily behind him. Kid's grin returned, broader and wild, and he bit back a laugh as he walked primly to one end of the roof and deliberately waved the toe of one shoe through the laser tripwire. Alarms instantly screamed from several places within the house, and Kid tipped his hat before hopping off the roof and snapping open his glider. It was showtime.

Several stories below, Conan's head jerked up at the frantic klaxon-wails that had shattered the silence. Sharp blue eyes with nothing of a child behind them gleamed; and with a calmness that belied the earshattering alarms going off overhead, he slipped out into the hall and was on his way, small house-slippers noiseless against polished wood.

He had no reason to hurry, after all. It wasn't like the Amber Wing was on display anywhere; if Kid wanted it, he had to come and get it, now didn't he? No; all the thief had done was present his calling-card. How very professional of him.  Conan smirked a little to himself, pulse thrumming with the eagerness that always lit up like a roman candle during these episodes. They were *safe*-- the closest thing to play that he had in his detective's profession. Nobody got hurt, nothing got damaged (short of a little property and Nakamori's blood pressure) and the goods, supposing Kid got his way, were always returned.  A win/win situation, when you looked at it right; pity it'd taken him so damn long to figure that out.

The breeze was strong, supporting Kid's glider effortlessly as he circled the Kikoman estate, heading for the front door. Just in before he reached it he angled down, cutting his speed and altitude, and pulled the glider's nose up sharply when he was just ten feet from the door. With the wind out of his wings, Kid dropped, landing softly in a half-kneel on Kikoman-sama's well-groomed lawn. Standing as he collapsed the glider, Kid calmly walked up to the front door and picked the lock. Another alarm woke up as he pushed the door open without giving the security code, but Kid barely noted it. "Itadakimasu?" he snickered to himself, slipping into the well-lit corridor silently, the door clicking neatly shut behind him as he slipped down the hallway to the right, headed through the sitting room toward the banquet hall.

_Right on time,_ thought Conan from his place on the stair landing, belly flat to the floor. And if he angled just a little, just slightly, he might even be able to get off a shot from his tranq-watch that'd hit home. Not that it'd do much good; the cape and hat and the folds of the suit made a good enough deterrent that the tiny darts'd be about as much good at this range as spitballs.

Time to bring out the big guns, then. No use in making this too easy for Kid. With no attempt at subtlety he blew as hard as possible through the slim metal whistle that he'd been gripping in his teeth; the tone that emerged was very nearly inaudible to his ears (there was a thin, tiny sound like the scream of a moth) but apparently it was enough to do the trick, if the resulting cascade of barks and the incoming thunder of multiple dog-feet was any indication.

Kikoman-sama LIKED dogs. Large ones.

At the whistle, Kid bolted, running fast down the hallway and through the sitting room. In the banquet hall he vaulted onto the long, glossy table, coming to rest in a crouch at the center of it. Within seconds he was surrounded by a platoon of wildly barking, snapping, and growling dogs, pushing against each other, the chairs, and standing on each others' backs to get at him. Kid pulled his cape in close, standing to minimize the area of himself that the dogs could reach, and waited. Just one second more...one more...until the last of the pack was pressed as close as possible to the center of the room, crowded together like very large, very angry sardines. Then, right on time, the time-release gas capsule that Kid had rolled under the table as he entered the room cracked open, spilling plumes of pink sleeping gas that enveloped the whole dog pack at once. Some five feet above their head level, Kid delicately covered his nose and mouth with one hand, waiting with patience until the last of the dogs had wobbled to a crouch, then a sleepy slump. He trotted to the far end of the table, smiling at the 'cute appeal' of two or three dozen large dogs snuggling against each other in a heap, some already beginning to snore.

_Kudo-kun ought to keep clear of the lingering gas,_ Kid mused, stepping lightly from table to chair to floor, and making his way through the servants' kitchen and out the other end into what appeared to be a smoking room of sorts, walls lined with bookshelves.

'Kudo-kun' was doing just that, actually; the familiar, bitter odor had warned him off fairly quickly; not like his short legs could've been much use in pursuit, but... He'd grabbed something from his still-unpacked bag back in the room for just this sort of thing, socks or whatever; he wasn't sure, he'd just shoved it into a pocket and now had the soft cloth up to his face in one hand, filtering the drifts of sleep-gas as he breathed shallowly.

No use listening for footsteps; Kid was no amateur. As the faux gradeschooler edged around the heaps of sleeping canines (and hoped they wouldn't wake up; the majority of them were as tall as he was and had sniffed him in a very unsettling way upon his arrival), Conan moved towards the room's only other exit and considered his options.

Ran and her father were guarding Kikoman-sama's bedroom door; _he'd_ been supposed to be keeping to his room (although he didn't think Ran believed he'd do that for a second); and Kikoman-sama herself had utterly refused to leave the bedroom itself, informing Mouri in no uncertain words that he could, ah, perform a number of acts of dubious merit on himself if he thought she was going anywhere.

Quite a turn of phrase the old lady had, mused the detective, cloth still to his face as he slipped through the servants' kitchen. But then, she hadn't started out with a zaibatsu; she'd begun life as a housemaid, and one from the lower classes of society at that. Kikoman Aoi had seen her, fallen in love with her, eloped with her, married her and gotten her pregnant all in the course of a few months' time, all at the tender age of seventeen; he'd been the heir, and the Kikoman clan tended towards tradition-- you didn't just disinherit the jewel of the family (heh) because he'd knocked up a housemaid. Of course, the marriage had posed a problem...

(Conan glanced around the kitchen, smiling when he saw what he wanted; a few seconds later he gripped his prize tightly in one hand and, very carefully, made his way towards the open door that he could see just beyond the exit. Some sort of library?)

...but one could get around that, if necessary. Not that it proved to be; the housemaid turned out to have a brain as well as a body, studying up on the business in a way that a less-practical family would have been horrified by. However, tradition was tradition; and who kept shop while the men were out handling business abroad? In the Kikoman family, it was the women; and as it grew from fairly wealthy to staggeringly so, the little housemaid-turned-businesswoman had done very well by herself indeed.

His hands were sweating. Expecting more gas, sonic grenades, God knew what... Conan peered around the door.

What he found, however, was Kaitou Kid sitting in the open bay window, one knee crossed over the other, an old clothbound book open in one palm. As Conan entered, Kid looked up, lifting the book to block the parts of his face that the monocle didn't cover, and nodded to Conan in greeting. Then he placed the book, open and facedown, on the windowseat beside him, braced both hands on the window frame behind himself, and slithered backwards out the window, dropping out of sight. Even if Conan leaned out the window to look, he wouldn't see anything - the bushes below and the yard beyond were equally dark and undisturbed, silently absorbing the continuing klaxons of alarm.

The boy muttered something beyond the vocabulary of most gradeschoolers and, hopefully, most adults; picking up the book, he couldn't help but crane his head the window. Nothing; leaves and branches and not a flicker of white anywhere, not that he'd expected to see anything. _Trust Kid to play Jack-in-the-Box,_ he thought irritably, and then bit back a laugh as much as himself as anything. If this was a game for him, then it had to be doubly so for the thief.

The book was _Detection By Gaslight_; the story it lay open to was _'The Eye Of Apollo'_, not one he was familiar with; and Conan sighed. Was he supposed to take time out to read it or what? Kid was increasingly moving into a position of control, which was... not surprising; it fit his usual pattern of behavior.

Well, eventually he'd end up where the Amber Wing was, no matter what route he took. Trying to walk and read at the same time, Conan headed towards their mutual goal.

* * *

_Father Brown, Father Brown,_ Kid singsonged to himself as he scaled the exterior wall of the mansion, heading up and over the roof to the far side of the building. It was by some scales, particularly the ones Kid employed, the shortest distance between the first-floor library and Kikoman-sama's third-floor bedroom, and the path had the added advantage of neatly keeping Kid outside the range of surveillance for the evening. With no exterior guards, Kid was free to move about the outside of the house as he pleased. If he hadn't already pegged Kikoman-sama's method of guarding the Amber Wing from her profile, this would have given it away. None of those inside the house were worried about Kid proceeding in an _unsupervised_ manner to a holding point that they could not see. The jewel was certainly in their active possession at this very moment, which meant that everyone in the house that he had to worry about - now that the dogs were taken care of - was likely to be in one location.

Rappelling the short distance from rooftop to window ledge of Kikoman-sama's large bedroom, Kid peered in the window coyly, grinning through the glass at the woman's proud shoulders as she sat guarding her treasure.

_Father Brown, Father Brown, do you stare at the sun?_ Kid hummed, pulling himself out of view of the window again. As he tucked himself back up to the roof, Kid set a small listening bug against the glass of the window, affixed with light adhesive. Since the alarms were finally off - either they'd timed out or someone had mercifully taken note of the fact that nobody in the vicinity needed additional warning of the events taking place - Kid felt confident as he settled in to listen, waiting for the approach of his favorite detective.

The story was, in an anachronistic way, very clever. Father Brown had quite an eye for the tiny warping of _wrong_ in the bland flow of the obvious; the man didn't miss a thing, and as he hurried down one hallway and turned down another, Conan wondered a little sardonically if he was supposed to consider himself flattered by the fact that Kid apparently liked to read detective stories. He supposed it was a lot like a bored housewife indulging in risque romance novels, or maybe more like 9-to-5 officeworkers reading fantasy-based manga on the train home. It wasn't as if Kid could identify with the pursuit of justice, could he?

Of course not. And Conan was just your average gradeschooler with a head full of manga and a crush on Ayumi. Riiiight.

Mouri was just around the corner, talking to one of the few servants that Kikoman-sama had allowed to remain in the house; his voice was, for once, businesslike and terse-- he seemed to be worried about the one other door to the bedroom, the one that opened through the matriarch's maidservant's quarters. It _was_ locked; still, a weak point was a weak point. Lingering at the corner, Conan placed the book carefully on the hardwood floor and paused to think for a few minutes before choosing which way to go.

On the roof, Kid shifted position carefully, tapping the earbud of his listening device more snugly into his ear. Over the quiet hum of static on the line, Kid could just barely make out the rumble of discussion outside the bedroom suite. _That would be the Sleeping Detective,_ Kid smiled to himself, noting and then dismissing that frequency as white noise. Next, he picked up the hum of air-conditioning ducts, running quietly but steadily. Beyond that, nothing: all was still and quiet in the bedroom suite.

_Come on in and play, little detective,_ Kid wished. The eager thrum of heist energy circled his bloodstream like kinetic energy waiting to be released. Kid held himself still, blocking the urge for motion and theatrics, with barely a conscious thought. It wasn't time yet to play his hand.

_...aaand easy, and twist, and-- last tumbler, there. Hah._ Conan turned the knob to the maidservant's room with commendable silence, smirking ever so slightly; Kid wasn't the only person who could pick locks. Sometimes he-- Shinichi-he, not Conan-he-- wondered just how much of an edge he'd gained from his father's rather unconventional lessons in odd things of that sort during his early adolescence; someday he'd have to thank him. Or maybe not; knowing Kudo Senior, he'd probably stick his son somewhere in one of his Night Baron mysteries. _Thanks, no,_ thought his unfortunate offspring, and opened the door.

The room was small but nicely laid out, with cabinets and a walk-through closet and dressing-room of unspeakable proportions extending towards a second door; presumably that one led into Kikoman-sama's bedroom, which was situated at one corner of the large mansion. Conan eased the door shut behind him, listening hard even as he took in the more unusual details of the maidservant's quarters, of which there were several.

There was an amazing amount of... well... he blinked. What the hell--? Rather cautiously he approached the collection of devices stored away on open shelves beside a sturdy ironing board. That one, he supposed, was some sort of garment-steamer; and that was a rather oddly-shaped iron, and that was-- he had absolutely no idea what that was, but it looked lethal and probably imported. And there were other things: implements for hair, curling irons and flatteners and crimpers and-- Conan glanced at the long row of wigs that lined one shelf, eyebrows climbing towards his own hairline.

Kikoman-sama was how old? Eighty-nine? Apparently she wasn't giving in to age without a fight.

Beyond the door there was a commotion of sound: three voices, two male and one female. The faux gradeschooler held his breath, listening: he knew them-- Kikoman-sama, her assistant Noyen Iri and her nephew, Kikoman Sou. All three sounded agitated. _Now_ what?

"You can't sit here all night, obasan!"

"Well, no, I'll have to go to the bathroom at some point."

A groan. "Not what I meant. He's going to figure out where you are if you --"

"Oh, I _intend_ him to know exactly where I am," returned the second voice, self-assured and more than a little smug. "I'm much safer if I wait for him to come to me."

"_Your_ safety isn't really under consideration, obasan, the--"

"That is enough, young master."

"Oh, come on, Kid's not going to--"

"Accidents happen, and I will not allow your arrogance - and madame, with respect, nor yours - to let an accident happen to Kikoman-sama. We are perfectly safe within this room, and Kikoman-sama is correct, it is much more risky to go wandering around the house looking for a dalliant lunatic in a white suit."

"Darling, as...bluntly...as Noyen has put it, he's still quite right. If this thief is any sort of a gentleman, he'd at least show up when he said he would! I'm not about to go running around _looking_ for him to save him from being late."

"And indeed you shouldn't have to, madame," purred a fourth voice, just preceding the hiss and snap of an exploding smoke bomb, clearly audible through the maidservant's door.

_Now how the hell did he get i-- Never mind._ Conan cursed silently to himself; not that things were going badly exactly, no... but he--

He could open the door if he wanted. Except that if he did, he'd screw up the whole setup, Kid'd take off like some sort of formally-dressed bat out of Hell, and the whole damn plan'd go down the toilet. So he'd just sit tight and hope he didn't--

"Don't you dare come another step closer, I'm warning you!" said Mouri Ran in outrage.

--didn't hear a fifth voice in the room, the one that should've been outside with Mouri. Conan screwed his eyes shut, sighed, and mentally waved goodbye to the aforementioned plan. _Well, so much for that._

Within Kikoman-sama's bedroom, Kaitou Kid let his smile touch the corners of his eyes as he executed a shallow bow for his newest challenger. Standing on the bed only a foot away from Kikoman-sama's head and shoulders, a scant yard from the jewel box that lay in her lap, still clutched tight in her hands even as she lay drugged, Kid straightened from his bow and carefully took a step backwards, edging away from both the unconscious magnate and the very conscious, very angry young girl at the foot of the bed, currently threatening him with her glare and her posture.

Careful of his unsteady footing, Kid backed to the edge of the mattress, then hopped down onto solid ground, hands up in the air to show no harm as he moved. Once grounded, he tipped his head so the light reflected off his monocle, and flashed Ran a smile.

"Good evening, Mouri-san," he said, slowly beginning to move to his left, toward the foot end of the bed, a path that would eventually put him and Ran next to each other without the bed in the way. But his movement also put the bed between him and the window, a fact that he didn't seem bothered by as he approached open-handed and with loose, confident stride.

"I'm very sorry to have had to send off our hosts here," Kid told Ran conversationally as he approached. Wary, she backed from him as he approached, keeping him outside her personal space - and at the right range for a good kick to the head (or groin). Unconcerned, Kid continued speaking, but came to a stop at the center of the foot end of the bed. "But it's so distressing to have angry people around me while I work. I hope you can understand?"

"Oh, sure." Eyes blazing, the young woman let her body drop just a little, joints loosening and flexing, hands up and ready to strike if possible. "I understand you're a big enough bully that the first person you pick on is an old woman!" The assistant Noyen had gotten a breath or two of the sedative-smoke; he was supporting himself against the wall several feet away and in no shape to be of any help. The nephew, on the other hand, had slumped beside Kikoman-sama's bed and sprawled half on it, apparently unconscious.

Mouri Ran edged a little sideways, wary and undoubtedly nervous; she'd covered her face instinctively as soon as she'd realized what was happening. And now, very aware that she was the only truly conscious adversary that Kid had, she swallowed hard and moved slowly away from the main door and towards the smaller one, the one to the maidservant's room. If she could just get the thief to grab his prize and exit into the main part of the house--

On the other side of the smaller door, Conan bit back a groan and listened intently. He was just the right height to peer through the keyhole...

_Bully_? Kid's grin shifted downgear into something more irritated and less playful, and he moved swiftly toward Ran, darting toward her personal space with a snarl on his face. A scant handful of inches from her punching range, he planted his leading foot, shifted his weight to his other hip, and threw his trajectory sharply to the right, toward the wall with the window. With the moonlight at his back, he felt better, and could settle the unreasonable anger in his gut at Ran's comments.

"_Bullying_? Is that what you think of my games, Mouri-san?" Kid's voice was a quiet purr just a few shades off of a growl, and one hand rested under his suit jacket on the handle of his card gun, weighing the value of bringing it out. He didn't know Mouri Ran-san personally, but to make an enemy of her - well, a personal enemy, rather than enemies of just-business - would sour the rivalry between himself and Edogawa. The prospect was distasteful at best. He needed Edogawa - as a rival, as an equal, as a resource, and as a challenge - far too much to risk their relationship by insulting Edogawa's girlfriend.

Now there was an interesting image, Kid thought to himself, distracted from his emnity with the comical image of Edogawa holding a door open or pulling out a chair for Mouri-san. _And he __would,__ too,_ Kid thought to himself. Snickering, then giggling, he felt the moment of true bad blood passing, and his features smoothed out as he let himself indulge in a giggle at Edogawa's expense, keeping only half an eye on the Mouri girl as he did.

The expression that had crossed the master thief's half-visible face had, even as fleeting as it had been, rattled Ran considerably, and she bit back a choke of breath; her hands came up defensively, clenching-- and then relaxed slightly as she blinked, perplexed as the man went from visibly angry into laughter. "...you-- um-- you drugged her, she's just an old woman. If that's not bullying, what is it?" A couple of steps and she'd be at the door.

And on the other side of that door, the sound of Ran's footsteps and their evident goal finally clicked. _CrapCrapCrap!_ Conan looked around wildly, reaching for the nearest thing that looked to be of at least some use in the situation.

"'Just' an old woman?" Kid laughed, lifting his hat with one hand - but keeping the brim angled down to shield his face - while he ran one gloved hand through his hair with the other, ruffling his bangs. "Mouri-san, that 'old woman' - though I prefer 'esteemed gentlelady' - is the most potent person in this room," Kid admitted with an insouciant look, "and I include myself and our venerated detective companions in that estimation."

Settled, Kid moved to stand at the bedside again, looking fondly down at the unconscious pair slumped over its foot end. Withdrawing another gas capsule from his pocket, he pierced one end and set it down on the bed between Kikoman-sama and her nephew; he was just about to withdraw his hand when another clamped around his wrist, fingers cold and thin, all bone where they pressed against his bare wrist.

Kikoman-sama slitted one eye open, struggling with an effort to speak. "You shouldn't count...me out...so soon, honey," she said, a confidently saucy note in her words even as hard as she had to strain to form them.

Impressed, Kid stared at the tough old magnate, then with a smile picked up the sluggishly hissing gas capsule and chucked it away from Kikoman-sama, to land in her assistant Noyen's lap. "My apologies, lady," he said, sounding truly contrite. "If you'd transfer your grip to my other wrist, now, I might help you sit up again?"

"Certainly. I'd never--" and Kikoman-sama paused for a second to take a gasp of clearer air, "--turn down a handsome man's arm," she finished, eyes twinkling in a wrinkled face that still showed traces of the strong beauty that had graced her younger self. Her thin hand, nails painted delicately, left Kid's wrist... but instead of gripping the opposite arm, her hand came down to grip his own.

There was something in her palm-- something small and shining, something smooth and glinting all the colors of honey. When she slid her hand away and back up against the thief's elbow for stability, the something was no longer there.

"Take it," she murmured beneath her breath as she steadied her slight weight against his arm.

Kid's gloved hand closed smoothly over the Amber Wing, simple slight of hand disappearing it into his sleeve with hardly a conscious thought. A slight frown of concern crossed his face, turned toward Kikoman-sama, as he helped her rise. But she blithely ignored it, and that glance was all he could spare before she was stably seated upright on the edge of the bed, ankles crossed in a misleadingly prim manner, and Kid turned to face the Mouri girl again.

"I hope I have assuaged your concerns of my...bullyhood," Kid addressed her, smiling slightly through the shadows and reflected light that played across his face as he walked toward the window once again. "I believe this evening's jaunt has been a successful one, and I truly do not want to test your mettle against mine. I don't like entering contests I might not win. So, for now--"

He lifted the window sash, smiling as the evening's cool breeze came in the window. Kikoman-sama's assistant and nephew would perk up quickly with this influx of fresh air, he was sure, so it was time for the Kaitou Kid to be on his way.

It was at this point that several things occurred simultaneously:

One-- Mouri Ran's hand, which had been reaching slowly for the knob to the maidservant's room, clutched at said knob unconsciously and turned it.

Two-- Conan, who had just reached towards the selfsame door with every intent of shoving it open, came through at what could only be called a stagger. In one hand he brandished an oversized blowdrier, the cord trailing behind him.

Three-- From the bed, Kikoman Sou (who had apparently not been sleeping at all, oddly enough) suddenly leaped to his feet, snatched the jewelry box from his great-aunt's lap, bellowed "I'LL SAVE IT!" and darted towards the door behind Conan. Or tried to...

During his stint as a somewhat shrunken detective, Edogawa Conan had been labeled a nuisance, a pain in the nether regions, a know-it-all and a few other less polite terms; now he proved his worth as an obstacle, stumbling just as Kikoman-san hit him in full run. The man went down with a yelp; the blowdrier followed after, smacking him squarely on the head as it swung from the boy's hand on its cord, and the two ended up in a pile on the floor.

Silence.

Kid looked from the pile of detective and well-meaning nephew, to Mouri Ran, who was staring in somewhat stunned horror, and did his best to hide his disgust. Well, bemused disgust. Still - this was Edogawa's best plan? A blowdrier? _Oi._

Kid saluted Ran and threw himself head and shoulders out the window. If anyone looked after him, they wouldn't even see his glider floating away - nothing but an empty, quiet night sky above the darkened Kikoman estate grounds.

* * *

A little later, after Conan had been scolded ('But Ran-neechan, I got lost! Really!') and the groaning Kikoman Sou had had his bruises cared for ('.....aaagh.....') and a surprisingly light-hearted Kikoman-sama had been ensconced in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea ('Be a love and pour a little brandy in that, would you, Noyen? --a little more; there. Now, what did you say your name was, dear? Takagi, was it?'), a lone figure slipped into one of the quieter hallways and into a disused room.

A cellphone flipped open; by the dim blue light of its screen, nimble fingers flicked a control into a familiar configuration, and a number was tapped out. Somewhere in the house another phone beeped.

_"Moushi moushi... One sec, Takagi-tantei, I have to take care of this... Is that you, Kudo-san?"_

Conan-- Shinichi-- smiled to himself and spoke into his voice modulator. "Of course. Did the plan work, Kikoman-sama?"

The old woman's voice was merry. _"Like a charm, darling. The copy of the Wing went into the jewelry box, my disgustingly corrupt nephew tried to run off with it just as you said he would, and--"_ She paused, tone darkening; _"--I'll have a few words to say to that little bastard when he stops whining to the police about how he did his best to save it. I always said his mother threw one over on my son; the brat looks just like the gardener I fired when he was a baby."_ She snorted. Kikoman-sama might have had common roots, but at least they'd been honest ones. _"He would've hidden it and claimed that handsome thief'd taken it from him, wouldn't he?"_

"I'm afraid so," said Shinichi calmly, fighting back a snort of his own at the 'handsome thief' comment. "It's a pity he didn't try for it a few seconds earlier; if he had, you wouldn't've had to pass it over to Kid."

There was a soft laugh on the other end of the line; quite a girlish one, with a strong hint of mischief. _"Well now, darling; if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't get to see him bring it back to me, now would I?"_ She was smiling; you could practically hear it. _"And he always returns what he steals, after all, doesn't he?"_

"Yes," said Kudo Shinichi; that was certain at least. "He does."

The Kaitou Kid might be a thief; but he was, in this one and certain thing, absolutely honest. No one, not even the Detective of the East, had a clue why he stole jewels and returned them; but he did-- safe and sound, unmarred and exactly as they had been the day they were stolen.

Always.

It was, considered Kudo Shinichi, a very strange world when your most dependable way of keeping a valuable thing safe was to make certain that it got stolen by the best thief in the business.

* * *

It wasn't easy to pick a disguise in a climate like Kikoman's mansion tonight; every head counted, every badge carefully checked, what precious few of them there were. Kid eventually resorted to duplicating one of Takagi's supporting detectives, stuffing the man himself in a closet on the second floor. It was more risky than being a face in the crowd, as in this identity he could be found out relatively easily through forced conversation, but the whole evening wasn't sitting right to him, and he had determined not to leave the mansion until he'd figured out why.

He was now wishing he had. Though he could only hear Kikoman-sama's half of the conversation, that was still plenty; he could easily fill in the missing pieces. And the rage that he felt bubbling up to his surface quickly had him finding an excuse to leave the room and drop his disguise. Poker Face or no, Kid was pretty sure that at this rate, his anger would soon be palpable enough that even the half-rate Mouri would notice something 'off' with Detective-- Detective--

Kid looked at his badge as he laid the uniform next to its original owner. _Ishida._ Detective Ishida. He had to get clear of the scene. He was off his game and his guard was flagging, a dangerous situation in any cirucmstance. Even more so when his judgement was so clouded by anger.

As Kid made his way away from the mansion in civilian garb and on foot, the Amber Wing clutched tightly in one palm, his mind kept circling back to the same concept, over and over, and the further he walked, the deeper into icy, immovable fury he descended.

_Cat's-paw. Cat's-paw. Edogawa - Kudo - used me as a __cat's-paw._

He was already composing his next note.

* * *

It was, thought Kudo Shinichi behind Edogawa Conan's eyes during the trip home as he (supposedly) dozed in the back of Mouri's rental, a bit of a pity that the Phantom Thief hadn't stuck around a little longer. If he had...

...if he had, he might have heard a certain Detective of the East admitting to his client (whose number he had gotten hold of after she had called Mouri) that the most hazardous moment of the night had been when she had slipped the Amber Wing to Kid. If the thief had rejected it as a possible trap, then the fragile gem might have been damaged. There were only three certified pieces of amber with actual prehistoric feathers in them; the Wing was not only a choice piece of art, it was a priceless scientific treasure.

...if he had, he might also have overheard the slight qualm in said Detective's voice as he asked Kikoman-sama: What would she do if this gem, this particular gem, was the one that 1412 was so obviously searching for? What if the thief _didn't_ return it?

...and if he had, he might have caught Kudo's client's response as well. _"Sweetheart, if I had a choice between seeing that lump of fossilized pinesap vanish forever or seeing it sold for a pittance to cover Sou's gambling debts and bordello tabs, I'd tuck the damn thing into that thief's knickers myself. You don't worry about that."_

But-- well. If wishes were horses and so forth, thought Shinichi a little morosely; he closed his eyes, head pillowed against the car's armrest. If wishes were horses...

His thoughts blurred; and as sleep began to steal away his consciousness like the thief it was, he wondered just how much he'd pissed off Kid _this_ time.

He supposed he'd find out, sooner or later.

Conan didn't hear from Kid for a week after the Amber Wing heist. Nobody did, actually, and there was no laughing newspaper ad printed to declare one side or another the victor in the mysterious, anonymous challenge. The media didn't know what to make of it; Nakamori claimed Kid was sulking, though his only proof seemed to be that he _wanted_ Kid to be sulking.

When the note finally came, it came privately, to Conan at the Kudo mansion, addressed to Shinichi. There was no postmark or stamp on it to reveal the date it was delivered. It was very terse.

_"These _detectives_ always fail by their strength. There came a crash and a scream...and the priest of Apollo did not start or look around. I did not know what it was. But I knew that he was expecting it."_

_I am disappointed in you, Tantei-kun._

_Kid._

The caricature face that always accompanied Kid's signature was there, but instead of a toothy grin it wore a deep frown.

Standing just inside the Kudo mansion's foyer, Conan-- Shinichi-- gritted his teeth. _Yeah, fine, FINE already, I get the picture._ It wasn't like he hadn't expected censure from the Phantom Thief, but...

The thing was this: Conan, like all children, was a manipulator. It was how kids survived, mostly-- they changed their environments by being cute or intelligent or quick or stubborn or by wearing down the adults that cared for them. Add one transformed almost-adult to this mix, and you had an additional tool: logic. And Shinichi/Conan had gotten rather good at manipulation. He'd had to.

So when the plan to keep the gem safe from an inept, clumsy, stupid thief (one who'd made several unsuccessful attempts already and nearly smashed the priceless thing in doing so) required that Edogawa Conan fail and the Kaitou Kid succeed, Kudo Shinichi was willing to let this happen. Kikoman-sama hadn't been willing to turn over her nephew to the police; and rather than see him go to the extremes of injuring her or worse, she'd agreed to go along with the famous Kudo Shinichi's plan.

...which had, in its success, included his alter-ego's failure.

The note crumpled in his small fingers, and Conan rubbed the crease between his eyes; he was getting a headache. How did Kid DO these things to him? He'd pay for this one.

_But Kid failed by __his__ strength, too; he did what I wanted him to do, exactly what I wanted him to do, because he was what he was: damn good at his job._

Carefully folding the note and slipping it back into its envelope, the detective rubbed his forehead again and stepped outside into the late afternoon sunlight, locking the door behind him.

* * *

Kaitou Kid pulled five heists in the span of six nights in the middle of the month following the Kikoman heist. The last of these was announced first, a full calendar week before the Saturday when it was to occur. With sufficient warning, Nakamori set enough paperwork in motion to cover a thorough and excessive mobilization of resources in opposition to the Phantom Thief.

The following Monday, payment for a full page of black and white ad space arrived at the headquarters of all the papers which printed weekday evening editions. Each of them ran the requested ad, a heist announcement for _that night_, with no mention of the anticipated Saturday heist. The Task Force, which had been making its preparations on a rather longer timeline than three hours, was caught with its pants down, and only a third of its resources were levied against the Kid that evening. His target was a bank which displayed one diamond as the punctuation in each instance of its logo, displayed on many of the bank's interior and exterior walls. Though not jewelry-quality, the gems were still of significant carat, and Kid's glider rode low in the sky as he coasted home with six of them weighting his pockets.

Tuesday night, the next heist announcement was made by radio during the afternoon lunch hour. Some of the city's bolder employees and students, Suzuki Sonoko among them, simply didn't return to class and work for the afternoon. A queue of excited fans gathered outside the targeted department store hours before the intended heist, hobbling the law enforcement and Task Force members who attempted to set up barricades and police lines. In the end, they needn't've bothered; Kid revealed himself in disguise as the store's manager at the height of the heist, then dove head-first off the top floor of the building with the opal face of the store's decorative grandfather clock in his hands, cackling madly. The glider opened at the fifteenth floor and he zoomed away over the heads of the gathered crowd, eyes fixed forward, ignoring the screaming, swooning fans below him.

Wednesday night, the heist note came to Nakamori's desk as an inter-office memo, but Kid had done such a good job of making it look like any other memo that Nakamori didn't realize what it actually was until hours after it had been delivered, sandwiched inbetween junk mail and drafts of late press releases about the prior night's heist. It took the decoding team two tries to be sure that they'd gotten the message right, and by that time it was too late to do anything but send a troop of cruisers over to the electrical power plant on the edge of the city to disperse the press that had gathered there. Of all things, Kid had - largely without witnesses - made off with a small plate of palladium that functioned in the operation of one of the big generators, and in taking it had shorted out one-sixth of the city's residential power. The city tried to pin the cost of replacement on Nakamori's team; he spent the entirety of Thursday informing them that the full moon was in one night and that they could damn well ration the power to make up the difference for that time until the plate was returned.

Thursday night, the heist (politely advertised in chalk on every blackboard in the third years' first-period classrooms) took place at Teitan High itself, where Kid relieved the principal's office of its brass plaque studded with tiny ruby chips, one to commemorate each year that the teaching staff had received "Excellence in Education" awards from the district. Nobody, not even Nakamori, could make sense of this theft, the value of which was dismissable even in comparison to the other strange thefts of the week. Teitan students decided among themselves that Kid was showing favoritism to his beloved fans, and a rivalry festered quickly between students of other schools and a faction of elitist Teitan members who publicized the heist's significance with great emphasis on their own loyalty to Kid's "cause."

Friday night, the full moon, there was no heist.

* * *

And on the night of the full moon, Edogawa Conan sat at the top of the stairs that led to the Mouri Detective Agency, elbows on knees, thinking hard about patterns.

_Diamonds, opal, palladium, rubies. Words, time, power, rewards. A bank, a store, a power-plant, a school._ Conan's eyebrows drew down, a line forming between them as he considered. _Kid could be sending a message, he could be trying to taunt me-- that last thing with Teitan, dammit-- or he could just be working overtime. What the hell?_ His best bet was on the second set of symbols, if the thief was actually trying to spell something out...

_...and not just trying to drive me insane,_ thought Conan with a wince.

Overhead, the full moon rode high in the clouds; behind him he could hear the television playing some late-night drama full of muted explosions. It was well after Edogawa Conan's bedtime, which was why Kudo Shinichi'd snuck out with little trouble; Ran had gone to bed and Mouri was snoring in front of the tv screen, his last beer sitting half-full on the table in front of him.

Words. Time. Power. Rewards. The faux gradeschooler ran one hand through his hair irritably, making it stand on end; what was he supposed to read out of that?

"You're thinking too hard," came a whisper from some distance behind him - far enough to be at the doorway of the agency, or perhaps a bit further into the hallway. "Or else you'd have gotten it already. I tried to make it crystal clear enough for even you."

Conan stiffened; as much as he hated reacting so visibly, this was _his_ territory, and-- He forced his shoulders to relax. "Fine," he said as civilly as possible, refusing to turn around. "So you're a master of the obvious. Just what did I miss?"

The silence that followed Conan's question was just long enough for a scathingly unimpressed glare. Crouching in the open doorway with Mouri, moonlight, and ambient light and noise from the television turned low behind him, Kid pulled out his card gun and cocked it, using its sound to dissuade any bright ideas from lingering in Conan's mind.

"How would I know what you've missed, my _dear_ detective, if you haven't told me what you haven't missed yet?" he asked, tone emphasizing the simplicity of that particular oversight.

The sound of the card-gun being cocked wasn't a welcome one, to say the least. "There's the jewels; no pattern," said Conan calmly, keeping still. "Ditto for the locations. And there's the symbolism-- words, time, power and rewards. Well?"

"Wrong on two counts. Though I suppose the fourth one is a bit obscure if you don't have the mental syntax in place. Here's a freebie: The rubies were for learning."

Back still turned, Conan-- Shinichi-- hiked one shoulder up into a shrug. "Words... emphasis? Time and power and learning..." he trailed off, thinking hard. "Sending me off to college, Kid?" The boy laughed a little. "I don't think I'll fit in."

There was the sound of fabric, the tap and slide of Kid's heels on the floor as he sat down behind Conan, one leg extended out in front of him, the other gathered beneath him. Conan could probably see the toe of one shoe from the corner of his eye. Kid sighed, and uncocked the gun. "Either I'm slipping, or you are, or neither of us were great to start with." He sounded not like himself. Very tired, but bitterness laced his words like a steady flashlight beam through latticework. "Where did you get words from, anyway? Diamonds at a bank, Kudo. Money."

Shinichi muttered something beneath his breath that was probably better left unheard. "Punctuation, words. I _am_ off my game." Oddly enough, Kid's proximity was far less threatening than the distance of a moment before, card-gun or not. Perhaps it was the fact that they were both (more or less) on the same level now. The boy gave a mental shrug, thinking about what the other had just said.

"Money, time, power, learning." Conan leaned against the staircase wall, still resolutely not trying to look behind him. "I was being too literal." He rubbed at his eyes and winced. "...I'm tired." Wait, he hadn't meant to say that last, but since he had-- "And so are you. Or you sound that way, anyway. Why? Why four heists in a week?"

"Five," Kid reminded him, "Tomorrow. If Nakamori-keibu isn't ready for it, after I gave him a whole uninterrupted _week_ to prepare..." A little of the mischief was back in his voice as he teased, moving on too quickly for Conan - Shinichi - to take verbal issue with it.

"It's your fault, you know," he said then, numbly shocked at himself for confiding so much even as he said it. It struck him again how much attention he'd given, the past week, toward _not_ interacting with Kudo as much as possible. It had been exhausting, in its own way. "The riddle is for you, the heists are because of you, and tomorrow's heist is--" He paused, then put on a girlish tone as he gathered his feet beneath him, preparing to depart. "_All for you~_, Tantei-kun."

The movement as much as anything made Shinichi finally turn around. "Wait--" he said, and swallowed his pride before it had a chance to choke the words in his throat. "Kid? I-- want to apologize." He kept his voice level, hating the boyish tenor that squeaked slightly when it shouldn't have. "For what I did in the other heist. I had a limited range of choices, and-- I won't apologize for the results, but I will for the means."

There, he'd done it. He'd hated it, but he'd said it.

Conan stood taller than Kid himself did now, with the thief perching crouched on his toes, gloved fingertips holding himself in gentle balance against the hard floor. The cape hung in curls around him, making him look bigger than he was, an effect not dissimilar to the mantled posture of birds' half-open wings just before an attack. The backlight from the window cast him in hard shadow and brightly lit Conan's face, twisted like he'd swallowed a lemon, but willingly. Kid relied on shadows alone while the reflection of light off glass played off of Conan's lenses instead.

A long still moment passed between them, Kid using every advantage of position and lighting to scrutinize the detective's face and let him squirm in wait for the thief's answer. Finally he shifted, moving one arm to tuck his card gun away in its shoulder holster. The line of his mouth shifted, a hair less firm, but no more encouraging. He spoke very carefully.

"In case you have missed your mistake yet again, Tantei-san, I will elucidate it for you. It is not that you successfully manipulated me that galls so harshly. It is that the notion to do so ever occurred to you. There is no partnership between us, no comraderie."

He stood, pulling one half of the cape across his chest to cover his suit and his form, and looked down at Shinichi's diminutive new body with no strong emotion of any sort. Half a dozen thoughts passed through his mind, and he discarded each one, seeking the proper wording for the thorny conflict he still held unexposed. To Conan's credit, he maintained silence for the couple breaths that it took for Kid to gather his words.

"But perhaps I fooled myself into believing that there could yet be an understanding in that space between us, instead. I expect your best, every night that my heists summon you. You expect the same of me, I suppose. And yet - there is nothing of that understanding in manipulating your supposed equal into a contrived victory, a tin puppet on strings, while you swan about with small appliances and play the fool -- even to _me_."

A sharp, shallow intake of breath followed the last phrase - an admission far beyond what Kid had intended. Yet again, his guard was in tatters. He was leaving, now.

"You're... right in that. It wasn't a victory for me either." What else could he say? He'd saved the Amber Wing from being sold or destroyed by Kikoman-sama's idiot nephew, but the accomplishment had been ashes in his mouth.

"Goddammit, I'm sorry," he growled, looking away.

With his back to Conan, framed in the doorway, Kid halted yet again and, despite every alarm in his head telling him not to, turned to face his -- his conversational partner, he decided. With things as they were, nothing else fit. "But the Amber Wing's safe," Kid offered, an olive branch to recognize the vulnerability Shinichi was showing in his apology. "And you didn't set up a trap to catch me, either." He took a step forward, toward Shinichi, and paused.

"Take off your watch," Kid murmured.

Shinichi blinked. 'Take off his--' _What?_ He turned back, and his breath caught the way words had not a few minutes before.

The thief still held his card-gun; but now it dangled loosely from his hand, one finger curved to allow it to hang beside his knee as it was slowly lowered to the concrete. As slowly, understanding the gesture but not really allowing himself to think about it too hard, Shinichi slid a finger beneath his watchband and undid the catch. It slid, a slither of silver, to drop gently onto the steps below.

And then he waited. What else could he do?

Kid breathed out, something in his shoulders unwinding subtly, and smiled broadly at the other. "There, that's better," he said, much more cheerily than before. "Do you think that's unreasonable of me, Kudo?" Kid asked, picking up an earlier thread of conversation as though there had been no interruption. "Thinking of us as equals, I mean."

Shinichi breathed out as well, unconsciously following suit. "Only if you don't make any height jokes," he answered wryly. "God knows you give me more trouble than most of the murderers I've met. And at least," he added with what was almost an attempt at humor, "there're no corpses around afterwards."

Kid smiled at that, dropping back into a crouch, but following that to sitting position, one leg folded under, one folded out as before. With a negligent wave of his hand, he affected a different voice, mimicking Hakuba Saguru. "Bloody hard to clean up after, that lot," he deadpanned, a little more strongly than before. "Can't even teach them to leave the dishes in the sink."

Even as Kid chuckled at his own joke, massive red klaxons were going off in the back of his head, flashing warning and paranoia and alertness. But like a rat in a trap, Kid stood his ground squarely, bearing the electrical zap because the cheese, he'd discovered, was just so damn good. _This will not end well._

The boy raised an eyebrow at the sudden Anglicization of 1412, slightly startled and more than a little amused. The conversation was getting distinctly weirder and weirder with every passing second. "No, but they're pretty good at hiding the evidence," he answered. "Just not good enough."

Kid opened his mouth to answer, froze, and grabbed his card gun. Without even a glance over his shoulder, he threw himself silently and swiftly down the short hallway, moving as far from the open office door as possible, then pressed himself against the near wall and completely froze.

Even as Kid's cape fell still, swinging to a stop around his shins, Mouri Kogoro appeared in the doorway of his office, blearily rubbing sleep from his eyes, alcohol and stale-smelling chips on his breath. "C'nan? What're you doin' up this hour?"

Conan-- did a kind of full-body stutter. "Uh..." It would occur to him later that he could have done any of a dozen things just then: pointed and yelled, grabbed his watch, even taken off in a dead run down the stairs in a manner sure to make Mouri raise the alarm. Instead, for reasons that seemed perfectly good and logical at the time, he simply goggled at the groggy detective for a second or two before replying "...I heard a noise?"

...and docily headed up the stairs and in through the door, pulling it closed behind him.

Leaving his watch where it lay.

Kogoro watched Conan go, blinking after the boy; then he turned back to his office door, rubbing at his hair as he shuffled back inside.

Two steps inside the office, he paused, belatedly putting significance to the sleepy signals from his peripheral vision. He ducked head and shoulders back into the hallway, looking down the length of it to its darkened end.

Empty walls and bare floor stood dark and still.

Confused - hadn't there been a light on at that end of the hall? Something bright? - Kogoro dismissed his mistake as an oversight and laid down on his office couch, lulling himself to sleep with the sound from a VHS of Yoko-chan's Kansai performance from two summers ago, the good one where she chatted with the audience in between songs.

* * *

Saturday.

Nakamori wasn't sure if he was relieved or frustrated that the day had finally come. He hadn't slept well the night prior at all, jerking awake every half hour from nightmare visions of heist notes fluttering down around his shoulders like snow while Kid, in his pure white suit and, strangely, equally white tie and white shirt, did loops above the heads of all the Task Force members. At Nakamori's side, Conan held a remote-controlled handset, like those used to drive small R/C cars, turning the dials with focus.

The inspector looked again at the heist note. It had been scanned and enlarged to one hundred times its normal size, but not even such close scrutiny as that could reveal any hidden characters or codes in the lines of ink that formed its simple message. No embossed, heat-sensitive, invisible ink, or woven message was integrated into the paper. There was, to the best of the Task Force's resources to deduce, absolutely nothing fishy about the note, except for every aspect of the note itself. It was too short, too direct, and for crying out loud--

_Let's have a Saturday picnic: Beika Park, noon._

_--KID_

--it set a date for the _daytime!_ Nakamori let his head drop to his hands again, tipping forward in his office chair to rest his aching head. It was eleven-thirty: whatever Kid had planned, it would happen soon.

Surprisingly, the thought was comforting.

* * *

Thank you for reading. Please let us know what you think, and get ready for the next chapter, one week from today.

_--Ysabet and Nightengale_


	2. Bento, Angels, Brawl

_**Chapter Two: "Bento, angels, brawl"**_  
**By rednightengale and ysabet**

A daylight "heist." What had he been thinking?

The answer to that came all too easily.

"Benten dammit." Kid, disguised as Kuroba Kaito, sat idly swinging in a playground swingset scaled for smaller bodies than even his own narrow hips. The chains dug into his hipbones as he kicked at the ground rubber padding that was laid across the whole playground. From his vantage point, he could see the two nearest entry points to the park, as well as the intended point of the first diversion. The Task Force was already stationed in an orderly (and overkill) method all around the park, though Nakamori wasn't on the scene yet. Kudo was, eyeing everything around with his trademark acuity, so out of place in any child's face but his own.

At the sight of him, Kid kept the frustrated fondness off his face, instead focusing on the trio of children - actual children, if their behavior was any clue - who were tagging along after "Conan." One of them, the girl, had a voice naturally destined for the stage; it carried clearly, across the playground to his ears. Scanning the crowd again, Kid noticed a fourth child - this one was either having a bad day or was another nonchild like Kudo himself.

With this many children underfoot, there had to be a guardian somewhere, as well, Kid reasoned. Would do to keep them in mind as the heist proceeded, then. Though they seemed comfortable in a regulated setting like that imposed by the Task Force, they still looked longingly at the rest of the children that scampered around the playground, and the adults of all ages who had brought blankets, picnic baskets, and entertainment, and had arranged themselves all across the park and even the playground itself. Kid's newspaper announcement had contained no more specific location than the entirety of Beika Park; every one of his fans in attendance was, he knew, desperately hoping that they'd picked the right spot to be up close and personal with the Kaitou Kid himself.

A few of them would be, Kid smiled. But not in the way they expected.

_Showtime,_ he murmured to himself.

* * *

"A picnic." Ai's voice was, if anything, more blandly sardonic than usual. _"Which_ picnic? You're spoiled for choice here, aren't you?" She spoke quietly enough that the other three Shonen Tantei couldn't hear-- not that they would have anyway, what with what seemed like thousands of shrieking children running in all directions. Beika had apparently declared Saturday to be a sort of thievish semi-holiday in honor of the Kid.

_Bread and circuses. The whole damn thing's a huge show. So where's the showman?_ Conan shrugged the thought away, uneasily certain that the audience (himself included) was playing a dual role, acting as props in addition to being 1412's cheering squad.

Ayumi had picked them a place against a fence, between the swings and the largest contingent of Nakamori's men; despite the knowledge that they were there for a serious reason, the general excitement and noise had the three actual children of the small group pinging off each other like rubber balls. "Is it noon yet? Do you see him?" she asked Conan, craning her neck to look past a tangle of older kids. "Maybe he's in a tree? Maybe he'll fly in like he did to my place? Maybe he's gonna--"

Genta and Mitsuhiko both looked at their watches. "Just about--" said the larger one, and "Noon!" said the smaller of the two simultaneously.

Conan nodded silently to himself, fingers sliding up almost unconsciously to the trigger-catch on his own watch as the second hand crept around. "Good," said Ayumi cheerfully, leaning back against the fence. "I'm getting tired of waiting."

_So am I,_ thought Conan as the hand reached its mark. Beside him, Ai shrugged, watchful eyes ever so slightly amused. _So am I._

Noon. All three watch-hands stood straight up at attention.

* * *

Beneath an otherwise innocent-looking elm tree, an elm that was completely minding its business, was a nice orderly park citizen, never dropped its leaves in anyone's tea, thanks very much, and really didn't ask to be located at the center of all this hubbub with all these police officers just over there, rather too close for comfort, really; beneath that tree, there was abruptly a picnic basket. Just there, from one moment to the next. It was a nice honey wicker contraption, with a white fabric liner that peeked out from beneath its double-hinged solid wooden lid. The lid was closed, but the toggles to latch it shut were not tied.

The basket sat, obediently behaving as basketlike as was possible, under the elm tree, as though it hoped anyone who might have witnessed its instantaneous arrival would pardon it that indiscretion, and go on with believing it to be the most perfectly-behaved and perfectly-arranged basket ever.

Unsurprisingly, the basket's case was weakened by the presence of a small triangular charm, silver and grass-green enamel, dangling on a delicate bead chain from the center top of its handle.

Not that the basket knew where that charm came from, of course. It didn't have anything to do with that charm. It was there when it got here.

* * *

The sound of expectation isn't so much a sound as a hush: an indrawing, an awareness and the sudden moment when a crowd holds its breath and makes a wish for _something to happen._ As noon broke across Beika Park, it was accompanied by a complicated rush of silence composed entirely of People Looking Around For The Kaitou Kid.

Including Conan and the Shonen Tantei. And Nakamori and his squad. And a very nervous batch of park security guards. And (presumably) the Kid himself, somewhere.

So when the teenagers who had settled down beneath a tree roughly thirty meters or so away nudged each other about the abandoned picnic basket that some idiot had apparently left behind, nobody was particularly disappointed at what happened when one of them opened the lid.

The girl who'd leaned in closest to see the basket's contents was quickly sorry that she had; a sudden faceful of strongly flapping feathers (borne by a bird who really doesn't give a crap whether you're in the way or not, it's going to fly right through you unless you move) turned out an effective deterrent, and she fell back onto her rump, squeaking in surprise. The boy beside her let out a shriek, then blushed fiercely as his companions momentarily forgot the contents of the picnic basket to glare at him.

(A hundred meters away, Kid snickered. _Good girl, Yukari,_ he thought. _Wait in the apple tree till we're done._)

As the teens crowded around the basket again, relatively sure that no more doves were going to come fluttering out of it, the rest of the crowd in the near vicinity pressed in around them too, trapping them and the basket within an arc of excited humanity. Shrieks from the center of the crowd indicated distress, but the veracity of it came into quick doubt as others in the crowd took up screaming as well, and the area around the very embarrassed elm tree became a shrieking, dangerously packed-together mass.

"EVERYBODY MOVE, NOW!"

Nakamori blasted his way through the press, Task Force members behind him to hold open the aisle created in his wake, and escorted the group of teens, as well as the mystery basket, quickly away from the foot of the elm tree, bellowing at the top of his lungs. "Back off, get out of my way! Pinch everyone! MOVE!"

Ignoring the relief of that deciduous worrier now left to groom her leaves and watch from a distance, Nakamori began to examine the basket's contents within a perimeter of Task Force members. The previous week's heists were stacked neatly, wrapped in bento cloths, beneath a pair of actual bento boxes, which by the weight of them were full. One was marked "Edogawa Conan," and one read "Nakamori Ginzo." A written note laid flat beneath the whole bundle.

Maloderously dead fish-- no, a maloderously, disgustingly dead body would have received a better welcome than the leaden-eyed stare that the boxes were allotted from Nakamori Ginzo. "Camera! Probe!" he barked; and then, resignedly: "And has anybody seen that-- that--" He hadn't come up with an appropriate epithet for Mouri's ward as yet; frankly, Conan gave him the creeps, but this was a very public situation and the prodigy had made his mark in the news. "--the Edogawa boy?" he finished, chewing on his pipe as one of his men hurriedly began taking measurements while another snapped photo after photo.

"Right here, Nakamori-Keibu," said a cheerful voice from about waist-level (how the hell did he DO that?) and the highly-trained, heavily experienced head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force nearly bit the pipestem in two. "I'm right here."

He was, too, glasses and too-bright stare and all. And that little smile of his, sharp as teeth, smack in the thick of things-- Nakamori never could look at the boy without being reminded of some sort of horribly intelligent terrier. Or, just possibly, a psychopath. Someday the boy'd be on the wrong end of a case file, the inspector was sure of it-- probably something that'd make the papers for weeks, all photos and _MISSING CHILD_ headlines...

He had slipped past Nakamori's legs and was peering around the probes man (who was, rather unhappily, prodding the hanging charm with an extendable metal wand while a fellow squadsman wrote down notes about the whole thing). "Shouldn't you set up a cordon?" he asked in that clipped little voice of his. Nakamori growled; he couldn't help it. Nearby, two squadmembers looked at each other, blinked, and beelined it to the equipment truck for some boundary tape.

The note from beneath the bento boxes was, with some ceremony, duly extracted. With trepedation, Nakamori read it aloud:

_A treasure hunt?_

_The gem that never shimmers the same way twice, that shines brightest as the light runs from it (and as it runs, following the light)._

"A light that moves," muttered the inspector, examining the thin paper; as usual, there seemed to be no watermarks, hidden text, etc. "A spotlight? Beacon? Signal light on a building? Some kind of illumination, followed by..." He was barely aware of the voice below his elbow, carrying on its own monologue:

"...never the same way twice; brightest in darkness, illuminated by the lack of something else's light." There was a silence. "The moon, following the sun?" A longer silence. "No. Never the same way twice-- what changes constantly?"

Nakamori smoothed the note through his fingers, unconsciously tracing the characters over and over and thinking hard. "Crowds, traffic patterns--"

"Leaves in the wind, water-- water? There's a stream--"

The inspector blinked. _What?_ He looked down.

The boy was staring, not at the note but at the basket; his eyes glittered behind the transparent mask of his glasses, and as he glanced up at the man the sunlight glazed one momentarily in a flash of white: like a monocle, like the moon. "What about the bentos?" he asked in a slightly more childlike voice than he'd used a moment before. "Should we open those too, Nakamori-Keibu?"

"Probes already should have," the inspector answered gruffly, looking over his shoulder to check on the progress of that team. "Well?"

"Rice and seaweed salad, keibu," one of the team answered back, looking puzzled as he held up one bento for examination, tilted at an angle so that Nakamori could see it. On the surface of the rice, packed densely into a large section, was a sheet of nori cut out in the shape of Kid's signature caricature. Beside it, in a smaller section, was a dark green tangle of seaweed salad. A tiny twist of pink ginger finished out the bento, which was packed in a black lacquer box with dark red sakura and maple leaves on it. It was clearly homemade and really quite simple, and proportioned generously enough for a man of Nakamori's size. Conan's bento was similarly arranged, and exactly the same size as the other, but packed into a light blue box with white and pastel kitties on it.

"Edible?"

"Yessir, so far as we can tell. Home-made; no marks from any of the local shops, no receipts, no signs of chemical additions." The squadmember cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. "Uh-- the boxes, you can find those in the local supermarkets; my daughter's got one've the cat ones." He flushed red, an odd combination with his gear and helmet.

"CONAAAAAN-KUUUUN!" The wail came from the perimiter of the crowd, and beside Nakamori the boy's shoulders twitched slightly; through a gap in the squad the Inspector could see Edogawa's small band of-- could a gradeschooler have groupies? "CONAN-KUN, WE WANT TO SEE TOO!" That was the little girl, the dark-haired one.

Nakamori made a Command Decision. "You-- you're in charge of the kids. Keep 'em out of the way, keep 'em safe, do NOT let them near." The appointed squadmember hurried off, met with a chorous of disappointed "Awwww"s, and Edogawa shot him a glance that he could swear was full of gratitude. _Right, back to the subject._ "Water?"

"Water. There's a little stream that runs through the park," the boy answered promptly. "Over there." He pointed, and then looked up innocently at the Inspector. "Shouldn't we eat first, Nakamori-Keibu? If he's watching, he'll expect it, won't he?"

* * *

A hundred yards away, Kid could just make out the proceedings of the officers and associated personnel. He smiled fondly as Ayumi and the others were turned away - _sorry, chibiko, I didn't have enough bentos for everyone_ - and then squinted to peer closer, choking back a delighted laugh as Conan accepted his bento with two hands and a little bow, then dropped out of sight behind the crowd - most likely sitting down to eat it, or just a side effect of being so unbelievably short. Nakamori, looking awkward, accepted his bento with considerably more irritation, and began to consume it slowly. The afternoon was turning out rather enjoyable after all, and they hadn't even gotten to the second clue yet.

Kid smiled, running a hand reflexively back through his hair - it felt strange to be out of disguise entirely at a heist, but it was actually safer this way. The Task Force cheek-pinch would defeat even his best latex, and it wasn't like his presence at a heist would seem strange to the Inspector, anyway. He'd seen Kuroba Kaito in Hakuba's company at Kid heists several times - and, by the same token, seen his alibis established as well. Aoko wasn't here - despite the crowd of hundreds (possibly a thousand), Kid knew that she hadn't arrived. He smiled. She would be here soon - but not yet.

* * *

Nakamori was stolidly chomping his way through the seaweed salad; from the way the man had first eyed the small nori Kid-caricature, Conan had expected him to throw it down onto the grass in disgust. However, the Inspector had glared at it for a good five seconds before savagely grinding it between his teeth-- and the faux gradeschooler had been hard put to fight back a very real, very childlike giggle.

He swallowed a bite of his rice; it was seasoned just right, not too much vinegar, not bad at all. And the salad'd been decent too.

_I owe the thief lunch; great. He'll find a way to collect, too. Oh well._ With the Inner Kudo Shinichi fortified, the outer Edogawa Conan turned his mind back to the problem of the heist. _Dessert. Hope it doesn't disagree with me. 'As it runs, following the light'..._

"Nakamori-Keibu? Where does the stream go?"

The man grunted, wiping his mouth and fingers with a napkin (thoughtfully provided along with lunch.) He flicked the tiny charm swinging from the basket's handle, shooting the boy a Look. "Good question. Why don't you know, you play here, don't you?-- nevermind. Big park, I suppose. I'm not sure; what I _am_ sure is that the b-- ah, that 1412 expects us to follow it." Standing, he looked over the heads of the crowd that still ringed their impromptu picnic, noisy and ready to be entertained. A few words to his men, and the cordon of open space widened; without a look back at his companion, the Inspector headed towards the stream, leaving the boy to catch up.

_Jerk._ Muttering something uncharitable beneath his breath, Conan scrambled to his feet and did just that.

The pair, and Nakamori's associated retinue, followed the stream for a good hundred meters with no luck, skirting large trees that grew into the bank, before the shining message was located. Written on the wrong side of a square of origami paper and folded into a clover shape with the paper's metallic silver display side to the outside, it had been pinned to a tree right where the sunlight, shading to an angle now as two o'clock approached, would catch it and reflect brightly. Conan snatched it out of the officer's hands to read it.

_Congratulations, you've found the first treasure!_

_"That singular smoky sparkle, at once a confusion and a transparency, which is the strange secret of the Thames."_

_The second treasure: What covers that which is not closed, surmounts that which is buried deep, is finite and takes in additions? Not so high as the angels, not so low as the scrolls._

Conan frowned down at the glossy scatter of sun that spangled the small stream. "Light on moving water," he murmured, watching how it cast flickers back at the trees. "Illusion and clarity, just like the Kid; he's good at that, visibility that doesn't really show a damn thing except the surface. And as soon as you see that, you want to see what's underneath." He toed a pebble from the bank beside him loose, lobbing it into the center of the widest bit with a soccer enthusiast's aim before shrugging and turning away. "S--"

Nakamori was watching him, a distinctly weirded-out look on his face. _Uh oh._

"That's what Uncle says, anyway... but don't tell him I said a bad word, please, Nakamori-keibu?" _Careful, careful, this is not a stupid man. He's got a temper, but you don't make rank like his by being an idiot._ Conan did his best Wide-Eyed-Painfully-Earnest-Awwww-Isn't-He-Bright expression, hoping it'd be good enough.

"....Sure."

_Definite_ uh oh. Distraction time. "Do you know what the second riddle means?"

Nakamori took his time answering, looking from Conan to the note. "Buried deep. ....Graves? There's a graveyard--"

Conan knew about the place; Mitsuhiko, for all his scientific bent, was nervous of the markers and monuments, something that both Genta and Ayumi had teased him mercilessly over. It was just outside the park gates, kind of an odd place when you thought of it; but decades before, the park had been part of a private estate with its own cemetary, the upkeep of which had been a part of the family's land bequest to Beika. "'What covers that which is not closed'," the boy murmured, thinking. "A tomb? A vault?"

"Officer!" Nakamori barked out over Conan's head, making the boy jump and all three officers in hearing range startle and spin to face him, "How many crypts in the graveyard outside the park?"

It turned out that there weren't many, just the family's main mausoleum (built back in the late 1800's, when above-ground burial in the European-slash-Victorian style was in vogue among the more progressive families) and a couple of smaller, less accessible mortsafes. Conan had wondered about the pun inherent in those, but even Kid would have difficulty breaking through iron and stonework--

Well. Possibly. _Some_ trouble, at least.

As the pair climbed the slight hill toward the mausoleum - followed at a short distance by Nakamori's officers and evidence team, and at a further distance by a line of determined officers maintaining a cordon against the crowd - the features of the graveyard seemed to shift and slide against each other in perspective, gaining and losing height in proportion. The highest upthrust wingtips of an angelic sculpture came into view above the roof of the mausoleum over which they swept; then the angel's head, face uncharacteristically tipped up to the sky, rose over the soot-blackened stone structure. Iron scrollwork and grilles adorned the edges of the roof and the doors, several bars swooping from the lip of the roof all the way down to bury themselves in the ground in front of the building. Sunlight shone through the latticed iron, dappling the reflection off of Conan's lenses as he and Nakamori came to a halt in front of the mausoleum's doors. Nakamori pointed up, narrating his thoughts in a quiet tone for the benefit of the child at his side.

"Angels...." He shifted his hand down, indicating the most elaborate scrollwork, that just above the doorframe. "Scrolls." Then he pointed between them, to the shadowed and sooty nooks and crannies of the stonework that edged the roof. "Ought to be there."

Conan's gaze had also fixed itself onto the mausoleum's eaves. "Good thing I'm still pretty light," he said absentmindedly, stepping forward to just below the most direct point in line with the angel and glancing back at the inspector. "Well?" he added impatiently. "Pick me up, will you?"

The Inspector blinked. "??"

The faux gradeschooler fought the temptation to roll his eyes. _Seven years old, you're a seven year old prodigy, right? Keep it at seven, Kudo._ "I can't pick up **you**, Nakamori-keibu," he pointed out, putting on his best Cooperative Edogawa face. "But you can pick me up and I can check for you. It's what," he added carefully, "Megure-keibu would do." Which was a lie; he'd probably get a couple of uniforms to go find a ladder first, but still.

And so it was that the head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force ended up with small tennishoes making muddy prints on the shoulders of his suit jacket as Conan poked at the stonework with a borrowed probe. "Anything?" growled the man; behind them, the squad members were suspiciously silent (most of them wanted to live to reach retirement, after all, something that snickering aloud would tend to prevent.)

"Yeah, just...in...here!" Conan struggled with the probe, levering it against the stonework (and hoping that both would hold) in order to drag, by way of friction and fiddling, a tightly-rolled slip of silvered paper free of the stone. With a final yank he pulled it free, overbalancing slightly. He shouted, wobbling on Nakamori's shoulders; it was a good thing that Conan was able to regain his balance in the end, because none of the (still deathly silent) Task Force seemed willing or able to move forward from their spots to help.

As Conan unrolled the paper - having apparently forgotten that he was still standing on Nakamori's shoulders - several of the Task Force members shuffled around in place nervously. Nakamori was all but putting up puffs of steam along with his pipesmoke as Conan, entirely forgetting to act his age, stared intently at the paper. The silence was eventually broken by a quiet snicker, though later, despite a thorough and methodical grilling of all officers who had been at the scene, no one could remember quite which of their colleagues had so traitorously laughed.

In the treeline not far from the mausoleum, a head of tousled brown hair ducked further into the shadows. The giggles its owner indulged in were not ventriloquistically cast for the Task Force's benefit this time, but instead entirely personal.

Kudo.... you're truly something else, Kaitou Kid thought to himself, peeking out once more to watch the tiny detective balancing on his colleague's shoulders, adjusting his weight and footing in slight, instinctive increments with the natural absentmindedness of an athlete.

An athlete, however, who seemed to be growing heavier with every passing second. "You about finished?" growled his sole support from below; the snicker from behind had _not_ escaped Nakamori's notice, he had muddy shoeprints all over his shoulders and he _wanted to know what the goddamn note said._ He shifted impatiently, and Conan put a heel onto his collarbone.

That was the absolute of enough. Large hands abruptly gripped the faux gradeschooler, hauling him down unceremoniously. "Hey!" Nakamori would've gotten the note, too, if Conan hadn't hung onto it like a leech; instead, he got a glare from the Inspector as he steadied himself on the ground beside the mausoleum. "Okay, okay--" The boy cleared his throat.

_"His name was on a brass plate, and the gilt emblem of his creed hung above his street,"_ he read; _"The third gem is bound by no banks or gates. Never sold, bought or traded, but winnable - only carefully. She is a rare creature indeed, but even if you take her cleanly, her 'twin' will strike you down, by rod or by force. She is mother of none, yet bears a pearl smaller than that black star of hundreds."_

_"She will be late."_

There was a long pause. The piece of silver paper fluttered in the breeze as Nakamori took it from Conan, squinting at the careful kana. "Now what the hell," the Inspector said slowly.

"Brass plates. There're brass plates around here somewhere," answered the boy, frowning, hands tucked in his pockets. "On the gates--? No. On the park maintanence buildings, but... no; those're mostly black." He kicked irritably at a pebble, chewing his lip. Above him, Nakamori was scanning the park, or at least what he could see of it due to the restless crowd that still milled about at a distance.

"Plates, plaques, signs," he muttered; he'd tucked his hands into his pockets in unconcious mimicry of the boy beside him. "Gnnnrgh. Plates on doors, posts, notices, elevators." Movement from the crowd distracted him; irritably, the man waved at several of his squad. "Yamamoto! Towa! Move the line back-- we need to be able to see. And get those kids off that-- wait." There were three small figures on top of an iron park bench, literally bouncing up and down in an effort to see past the taller adults and teenagers that blanketed the nearby areas; something brass-shiny glinted behind them as they jumped and attempted to climb each other.

A plaque.

Nakamori broke for the bench before he'd even thought to explain it to Conan; the boy followed at a dead run, and the Task Force tried (and failed) to keep a perimeter around the pair as they went.

Conan skidded to a halt before Nakamori did; the grown man kept on till he came right up against the bench, from which point his considerably height - and his intensely focused stare - was more than enough to make even the most intrepid vantage-challenged child rethink his or her choices in makeshift elevation.

Well, Ayumi was something other than intrepid, that was for sure.

"Inspector! Did you find Kid? Did you catch him? Where's -- Oh, hi, Conan-kun! What's -- Inspectoooor, don't push me!" Despite her complaints, however, she did step aside, scooting down the bench toward Genta (Mitsuhiko frowned briefly) to let Nakamori see the plaque mounted on the back of the park bench.

Mr. & Mrs. Allentown.  
For our piano man.

Nakamori stood up straight again, frowning at the plaque. "Well that doesn't make any--" He stopped, attention drawn by a sharp tug on his pant leg.

Haibara Ai stood at his side, one arm extended, finger pointed toward a bench on the other side of the nicely manicured seating area. "Not this one. Over there."

How does she know? Nakamori looked from the serious child at his feet, up, across the gravel and cement, past flowers, to the bench, then scanned across, looking for something, anything, that would be Kid's intended clue. But two high school students sat on the bench, blocking his view of the plaque that was surely attached to it. He was about to approach them, intending to move them as he'd moved Ayumi, but a hand on his knee stopped him. It was Haibara again. This time, she pointed back, behind and to Nakamori's right.

"Don't forget him."

Conan stood a small distance behind Nakamori and his attention was fixed entirely on the bench Haibara had indicated. Concerned, Nakamori examined the students on the bench again - nothing seemed peculiar about the pair of girls, one of which wore a navy blue uniform and whom he could only see a little bit of, since she was facing away from him. If anything, he would simply comment that they looked rather similar. No, he corrected himself, peering closer, they looked nearly identical - the way they held themselves, their haircolor. Then the one in the pale blue uniform noticed Nakamori watching them and tapped her friend on the shoulder. Both girls turned to look at the inspector and the Task Force team behind him.

Nakamori Ginzo stared. "AOKO?"

Conan, behind him, gulped. "...Ran-neechan?"

"What? Oh, hi, Tou-chan."  
"Conan-kun? Were you looking for me?"

The two voices were almost simultaneous, and almost eerily alike; if one was a little brasher and the other a touch softer, it wouldn't take much to turn them around like weathercocks and point them each in the opposite directions, tonewise. Both Nakamori and Conan goggled for a moment before the Inspecor cleared his throat.

"Aoko. _What_ are you doing here?"

She looked at him a little peculiarly. "Watching you work and cheering you on, of course. You know I want to be there when you catch that arrogant rat."

Beside her, Mouri Ran tilted her head, bemused. "You don't like the Kid?"

"LIKE him?!?" It was, thought Conan in something between shock and dismayed amusement, like watching somebody arguing with a funhouse mirror. You had Aoko, telling her version of events--

"--and he makes Tou-chan look like an idiot, and half the time he comes home so tired he falls asleep with his coat still on. And who does he think he is, showing up after eight years and stealing--"

--and Ran listening with that maybe-I-should-karate-this-guy attentive expression on her face...

"--get hold of him I'll show him where he can stick night after night of my dad wearing himself out over a stupid--"

"Aoko. Aoko," said the Inspector wearily, and then with more force: "AOKO!"

"--with a lead pipe-- what?" Both faces turned at the same time to regard Nakamori quizzically.

"STOP it." Her father harrumphed, shoving his hands back into his pocket as Conan bit back a snort. "You're embarrassing me."

"Oh. Um. Sorry... Ran-chan, is this your Conan-kun?" Both pairs of eyes fixed on Conan in turn, and he fought a very un-Shinichi-like desire to hide behind Nakamori.

"Yes, it is," Ran answered, perfect comportment despite the situation. Well, maybe it was because of the situation, Conan amended. She was, after all, getting very used to seeing him around these kinds of places.

"Conan-kun, have you seen Sonoko anywhere? We were supposed to meet--" Ran checked her watch. "--a while ago, but she's late..."

"It's probably the crowd," Aoko reassured her new friend, waving a hand dismissively. "Kuroba-kun is super late too, but I'm not worried because--"

Past the area of benches where the group stood, a narrow, barred sidewalk kept pedestrians from testing their luck against three lanes of traffic. From the far side of that divide, from the sidewalk in front of a storefront with a large clock whose hands were just edging toward two o'clock, an almost uncreditably loud call interrupted Aoko mid-sentence:

"NAKAMORI-SAN!"

Aoko jumped from her seat and spun around; her father beside her looked up sharply, both of them - seemingly by instinct - pinning their attention on the high school boy in black gakuran uniform who stood with both hands cupped around his mouth as he continued to shout.

"SORRY I'M LATE! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"

"Ahhh, that idiot," Aoko grumbled, putting both hands on her hips. "He was supposed to meet me here at noon for the Kid..." She paused, suddenly noticing the dead silence behind her. "...heist?"

"Aoko, please don't move."

"Tou...san?" Aoko asked in confusion, beginning to rotate in place. Sudden hands - Ran's, Conan's, her father's, and even a random Task Force member's - held her rigidly in place. Beginning to panic, Aoko queried them all, voice rising in apprehension. "Um, everyone? Let go of me ple~ease?"

"We will in a moment, Nakamori-san," Conan said brusquely, releasing his hold on her calves and backing up to get a better vantage point. Well.

On the back of Aoko's blousey school uniform, perched happily between her shoulderblades, a featherlight dove sat, waiting for movement from any of the gathered humans. Looking intelligently from one to the other of them, the dove fixed her gaze on the children who had pushed through the perimeter set up by Nakamori's officers and cooed happily, a warm trilling noise deep in her throat.

Aoko froze, chills inching slowly up her back. "Daaaaad...is there...a bird...on my back?"

"A very small one," Nakamori confirmed, eyeing the bird - more specifically, the bird's burden - warily. Held delicately in the bird's beak was a small loop of thin pink ribbon, about as big around as a woman's bracelet. And at the bottom-most point of that loop, fastened with silver filigree, was the biggest black pearl, short of the Suzuki Black Star, that any of them had ever seen.

Conan's attention, meanwhile, was fixed on not only the pearl, but also the small roll of paper clipped, messenger-pigeon style, to the dove's leg.

Ran, standing in front of Aoko and holding on to her new friend's hands with both of her own, chanced a peek over Aoko's slightly shorter shoulder. When she saw the bird she squeaked and hid from it, using Aoko as a shield.

"Mouri-san," Aoko complained. Ran shook her head fervently.

"Don't move! Don't move!"

The whole tableau stood, frozen stock-still, for several moments. The hush began to spread to the crowd, passed by word of mouth from the front rows back to those who couldn't see for themselves.

And eventually, someone had to break it.

"Come here!" Conan made a grab for Ayumi's shoulder as she walked past him, but missed, and the little girl came to a stop right behind Aoko, both hands stretched upward, palms open. "Come sit here!"

Ran and Aoko held their collective breath. The dove burbled softly, a long chuckling note that sounded remarkably like the murmur of the stream they'd been beside earlier; then it riffled its wings in a flurry of white and hopped almost primly onto the little girl's hands. "Oooooo," said the bird with avian smugness.

"OOOOHH," said Genta and Mitsuhiko; Ayumi said nothing, but stood stock-still with a grin of absolute delight on her face.

The Inspector and Conan both approached, hands outstretched; the bird's cooing turned to an irate squawk as it mantled its wings, and the little girl looked at them reproachfully. "STOPPIT. You're scaring it." Truthfully, it didn't seem so much frightened as quite content to remain where it was; it settled down again, allowing Conan to stroke it's breastfeathers with a fingertip... but turning its head quite pointedly when he attempted to take the pearl.

Ran hung back, but Aoko made an attempt as well; the dove accepted her careful headscratch as its just due, but once again turned away before she could slip a finger into the loop of ribbon. "Kaito-kun!" she snapped out impatiently. "You know doves-- Kaito?" Aoko looked back towards the road.

"Over here~" A tap on Aoko's opposite shoulder turned her around abruptly. Kaito stood beside her, bouncing a little where he stood, cheerful as anything. "Doves?"

"This one!" Ayumi said, holding the bird up toward Kaito. The dove bobbed in her hands, but held her perch easily enough, preening her feathers. The pearl, its ribbon still held at the back of her beak, slid silently across her feathers, briefly pressing them down like a palm across thick comforters as it went.

Kaito leaned down to peer at the dove, who didn't seem to notice him - at least, until he edged closer, his head coming within eighteen inches of her position on Ayumi's upreached palms. Then in a flutter of strongly flapping white feathers, she launched herself at his face, beating wings against his temples, shrieking in alarm. In Ayumi's palms, instinctively drawn back to her chest as the bird flew away, lay the pearl and the note, neither one of them harmed.

Conan watched Kaito intensely as the magician batted small airborne down feathers away from his face. Spitting one out and pulling a face, he glanced briefly up to the tree where the escaped dove sat, huffy and smug, looking down on the whole assembly, then back down to Aoko, the crestfallen Ayumi, and the rather furious Nakamori. Kaito shifted awkwardly, blushing slightly.

"Um?"

"Ah le le le, at least we have the note and the pearl!" Conan chimed in, overcutting Nakamori's growing rumble of displeasure, as he lifted both items carefully from Ayumi's grasp.

"We do, Conan-kun," Ran agreed, looking with concern from the dove in the tree to Kaito. "But I thought Nakamori-san said that you were good with birds, Kuroba-kun?"

Kaito just pointed at the dove. "Did that look like she liked me?"

"She?" Ran pursed her lips in thought, and Conan, on the other side of Kaito from her, did the same.

"So convenient that the note fell off of her leg right then," Ai murmured as she crossed the circle, between the three of them, headed from her prior perch on the bench towards the water fountain behind the main bulk of the Task Force. Only Conan paid her any mind, and that much was to beam innocently at her. Ai rolled her eyes and continued on.

The pearl was handed off to one of the Task Force members, who held it carefully with cotton gloves and a gently firm hand. Meanwhile, Nakamori unrolled the note to reveal its message, accompanied this time not by a quoted passage but instead by Kid's trademark caricature. It had a big heart next to it, and four words of text.

_Name and identification, miss._

The officer read the message out loud; "Miss?" snorted Nakamori, glancing around at the members of the appropriate gender. One corner of the man's mouth quirked up ever so slightly, and he crossed his arms with exaggerated impatience. "Well, ladies? What're you waiting for? Let's see 'em."

His daughter was the first to catch on; she snorted (the sound was remarkably similar to her father's) and pulled out her wallet. "Nakamori Aoko, student," she said crisply, tugging her ID out and brandishing it between two fingers. "And you've met Mouri-san and Ayumi-chan and-- Ai, isn't it?" She raised an eyebrow. "Ladies?" she echoed her father.

The other three looked at one another; Ran reached into her own bag, and Ayumi (after looking blank for a second) produced her Shonen Tantei badge. Ai frowned briefly, slipping her hand into her pocket and extracting a small ivory-colored wallet.

_Hup hup hyup!_ On the third beat of this unconventional count, the little pink capsule in Mouri Ran's purse, nestled by chance directly on top of her wallet, cracked open and released a familiar pink gas with the speed and pressure that came from tight containment. Nakamori, long used to the tactic, got a cloth in front of his mouth quickly enough to prevent most of the gas's effects. Aoko was similarly prepared.

Ayumi was not; neither were Genta and Mitsuhiko. Ran, however, froze as the hissing pink clouds billowed up, eyes huge, shocked into immobility--

"IT'S HIM! HE DID IT AGAIN, LIKE WITH THE PEARL! _GET HIM!"_ roared Nakamori through the mist; all around them the crowd screamed in excitement and panic, and with a thunder of combat boots, the Kaitou Kid Task Force charged directly towards Mouri Ran in a direct attempt to Dogpile On The Bandit.

Conan (who had also clapped a hand over nose and mouth in instinctive reaction) let out a muffled shout and tried to move in; fortunately for his health, a hand came out of the mist and shoved him backwards. By the time he had regained his balance, it was far too late to intervene. Far too late for the Task Force, actually...

Not for nothing had Mouri Ran placed within the topmost ranks of her competition levels, achieving a respectable _dan_ and a name for herself within the karate community. She trained regularly; she had for years, and on more than one occasion it had come in very handy during her father's investigations. Now, with a large crowd of uniformed bodies quite literally coming at her from all sides, instinct and training took over and she laid into them with enough skill to gladden any martial arts movie fan's heart.

The first few went down, gasping but not unconscious; their padded suits protected them well enough to prevent that. The second wave of attackers (who were wondering why the hell things were going so pear-shaped this time) attempted to lock onto the young woman's arms and legs in anchor-fashion, dragging her off-balence; she retaliated by keeping herself moving fast enough that this was not a possibility, or at least not yet-- as their bruised jaws and stomaches could attest. By the time _they_ were flat on the grass, the third wave was moving in and it was looking like sheer mass would win the day, despite Ran's skill.

Conan, bouncing desperately in sheer rage and dismay, was shouting at the top of his lungs: "STOP, STOP, STOP! That's not him! STOP--"

No good; swearing, he flicked his watch open and armed it.

_Now that's not good,_ Kaito frowned, noting Conan's readiness. Of course, the whole situation wasn't intended either - the Kid had really, somehow, failed to account for the Task Force's hair-trigger response habits. Not that watching Ran wasn't impressive - but the poor girl was going to get seriously hurt in the next few seconds, and it would be their fault. So Kaito took two steps back, bent to grasp a downed officer's nightstick, and ran forward. One long stride, foot planted firmly on the seat of the nearby park bench that had started all of this. A second stride, on the center railing of that same bench. And a third, in which his feet didn't touch anything at all.

Kaito leaped into the air with his trademark agility, landing lightly - but not as lightly as the Kid might - on the shoulders of a Task Force member who was preparing himself to jump into the fray. A light rap on his cap made sure his attention was held; then a strong leap off his shoulders knocked the officer flat. Power coiled in Kaito's thighs for a backflip that landed him neatly just inside Ran's kicking radius; he launched himself into the air again, flipping over Ran's head and landing on one foot on another officer's shoulder. A little pressure from Kaito's heel on his collarbone - gently, of course - made the man flinch for just enough time to foil his attack. In similar fashion, Kaito began hopping on, jumping over, and in some cases simply stepping from one shoulder to the next congruent shoulder, in a wild pattern that zigzagged him back and forth over the center of the dogpile, where Ran - aided by the delays and distractions he was providing - steadily worked to fell the third wave of Task Force members.

* * *

_...son of a bitch. It's __**him**__._

The epithet, even mentally expressed, carried no overtones of either anger or triumph; instead there was only a kind of shocked recognition, like coming suddenly upon a familiar face in a jet-black room. 'Face', of course, was entirely inappropriate; Kid had to be wearing a disguise-- no wonder 'Kaito' (hah!) had hung back from the crowd. His moves were totally unmistakable-- not just the acrobatics but the casual, flippant disregard of both gravity and common sense. From his perch on the bench beside the sleeping forms of the Shonen Tantei Conan watched in silence as the wildhaired teenager danced across the mass of bodies, managing to avoid causing actual harm while simultaneously disarming, distracting and in general destroying all coherency in the Task Force's attack.

And Ran was kicking some pretty good ass too, actually. At least he thought so; it was kind of hard to tell past the wild tangle of leaping, falling bodies, but she looked like she might even be having fun.

At last there was nothing more than a small knot of upright squadmembers left; the rest had either gotten their jumpsuited selves kicked or punched in uncomfortable places or had had their heads tapdanced on by the disguised Kid (who had just ducked an exhausted swing and then leapfrogged up feet-first onto the unfortunate officer's shoulders.) Conan's eyes narrowed as he steadied his arm, fixing the sights of his watch on his target.

**"YOU!"**

The word was a shriek of rage-- and it hadn't come from Nakamori. Or at least, not the _right_ Nakamori. All movement froze.

Conan had been peripherally aware of her; she'd dodged behind the bench and had been watching the whole messy debacle, eyes enormous. There had been a lot going on behind those eyes, shock and questions and-- But now the bits and pieces had lined up into a shape of sorts; realization was written large across her face, and like some maurading valkyrie gone Asian, the Inspector's daughter struggled to push her way past the fallen, groaning bodies, absolutely incandescent with fury.

"You're not Kaito, you're _HIM__._ **WHAT'VE YOU DONE WITH KAITO-KUN?!?"**

Unflappable, Kid danced from one officer's shoulders to another, then actually bounced off of Ran's outstretched leg, which dipped her attack into a lower plane as she swung it around....right into the jaw of the officer on whose back Kaito now perched to address Aoko with a laughing tone. "Tucked him into a closet somewhere!" He leapt up, heels tucked close under himself to clear an officer's determined grab. "Whoops! No, Aoko, what do you think?"

Launching a bellow that rivaled her father's best, Nakamori Aoko tried to reach the thief with hands that promised a very ugly, very final finalé should she actually make contact.

The odds of that chance coming to pass were varied, depending on whom you would have asked. Nakamori Ginzo was too busy trying to grab her and keep her clear from the brawl to think about whether she would have actually been able to succeed or not. Mouri Ran was, frankly, _way_ too busy to care. Haibara Ai, had she seen the attempt, would have surely wagered on the element of chaos inherent in a Task Force dogpile to dissuade Aoko's success.

And Conan? He watched Aoko as she added herself to the fray, now dividing his attention between three targets as he tried, unsuccessfully, to keep a bead on Kid with his watch.

Slowly, eventually, through the force of exhaustion, the fight finally broke up. And as it did, Task Force members slinking away from Ran and Kaito, trying to avoid their attention as they dragged themselves, or their friends, out of range, an informal halo of open ground spread around the pair. Ran, breathing heavily, stood with one shoulder to Kaito's; they weren't quite back to back, but faced the group of wary Task Force members with an equal measure of caution. Without taking her eyes off of her opponents or breaking her fighting stance, Ran called out to the elder Nakamori with an angry, sharp voice.

"Call off your men, Officer Nakamori! I'm not the Kaitou Kid!"

Beside her, Kaito waited for the decision with light feet, seemingly hovering in place as he hopped from the ball of one foot to the other, maintaining a fidgety, impatiently constant motion that was very like Kuroba Kaito, but not much at all like the Kid.

_...not at ALL like the Kid, actually,_ thought Conan, watching. Doubt flicked its fins and swam through his mind, disturbing the shocked certainty that had filled it so neatly a moment before. _He acts like Mitsuhiko on a sugar high. Kid-- when he's still, he's __still__._ Not to mention the thief's usual habit of heading for the high ground, of which there was plenty available: trees, fences, playground equipment, light-poles. For him to take a stand in a ring of police officers, fallen or not, was out of character.

Unless he was missing something...

Both Nakamoris were staring at the two combatants like cats in front of a particularly interesting mouse-hole. "--Kaito?" Her eyes were still full of wrath, but uncertainty made her frown. "I _know_ you're not the Kid," she said, jerking her chin at Ran, "but... fine. FINE. Prove to me--" (and this time she glared at Ran's fellow battler) "--that you're Kaito-kun."

"Two Wednesdays ago, your skirt flipped up when I was chasing you around the classroom - well, you were supposed to be chasing me - anyway, they were blue with polkadots." He smiled, crossing his arms across his chest - but not _quite_ so overconfident that he didn't send a glance in the Inspector's direction, wary of his reaction to this somewhat controversial proof.

Aoko flushed and crossed her arms; beside her, her father sighed and developed a pained look on his harried face. "If you're Kaito, what's the first magic trick you ever did for me?" she demanded, jaw set mulishly.

Kaito frowned. _Nice place to drag this out,_ he sighed to himself. "In front of the clock tower. I gave you a rose." His tone was flat; though he'd love to imbue the recollection with attitude and warmth, when facing down Aoko...with that look on her face, a look meant only for _him_...and the tired knowledge that she would never (hopefully) realize how easily her lines of questioning allowed him to decieve her...

Well, he just couldn't muster up the energy.

The look changed, though, from stubborn rage into chagrin... and then into guilt. "Oh. Um. Tou-san--"

The Inspector, though, was eyeing Ran. "You said she's not the Kid. How do you know?" he demanded of his daughter, eyes never leaving the young woman's defiant face.

Aoko sighed and rolled her eyes. "Be_cause,_ Tou-san, we stopped by the ladies' room on the way here, and I really don't think the Kid's good enough with disguises to fake THAT." In the center of the scene, Ran made a muffled squawk, and this time Aoko's look of guilt had two targets. "Sorry, Mouri-kun," she said apologetically; and then, a little quieter, "...sorry, Kaito-kun. That was really stupid of me."

Kaito just shrugged and smiled at her, passing the whole incident off silently. There really wasn't anything to say.

_Someday she'll kick your head in,_ Kid chuckled in the back of Kaito's head.

Not today, Kaito mused back at him. Today, she still thinks she can trust me.

_But she __can,_ Kid responded, sounding genuinely puzzled. _It's __me__ she'll have problems with._

Kaito dismissed the phantom, letting the thief recede further into the back of his mind. Clearing his throat, he raised one hand tentatively, until it caught Inspector Nakamori's attention.

"_What?_" the man barked.

"With respect, Sir," Kaito offered, smiling guilelessly, "I think we've all just played right into Kid's hands. He's certainly gone by now, or in the crowd, which I guess is about the same difference." He looked past the Task Force to the gathered crowd, all of whom had (shockingly) proved smart enough to _stay the hell away_ from Ran's range, and were now hovering indecisively a decent distance away from the group of teens, Task Force members, and the Inspector. Some were beginning to disperse, catching the drift from the Task Force's behavior that there had been some sort of false alarm. At Kaito's words, members of the Task Force looked despondently from him and Ran, to the milling throng, and back again.

One of the squadmembers, Nakamori's second-in-command (what was his name again?) stepped forward, looking a little sheepish past the heel-shaped bruise that now decorated one cheek. "I have to concur, sir; if 1412 was going to show, he would have already." As if the words were a trigger on a gun, the man instinctively looked up at the sky, the trees, any place that could begin raining internationally-recognized Phantom Thieves...

However, Heaven (or Hell, depending on your viewpoint) did not oblige; the officer relaxed slightly, as did a number of his subordinates. Nakamori grunted unhappily and waved at his men to stand down. "S'pose you're right. Goddammit, can't that lunatic _**ever**_ act like a normal criminal?" He stepped forward to where Ran and Kaito still stood (though not too close, just in case; Ran still had that look on her face.) "Are you uninjured, Mouri-san?" The young woman nodded, her posture dropping from defensive back to normal, and certain squadmembers lost a little more of their tension as well.

From his perch on the bench, Conan snapped his watch shut and looked down at the sleeping Shonen Tantei; Genta let out a sluggish snore and snuggled close to Mitsuhiko's shoulder. He'd be drooling on the other boy's sleeve next-- "Ahh, Nakamori-keibu? Could somebody take my friends home?" He pointed at the sleeping kids, and several of the squadmembers moved in at the Inspector's terse orders, followed by Ai. She gave Conan a narrow-eyed look as she passed, but followed along docilely enough.

All around, the crowd was breaking up into talkative groups and excited couples. A few cameras flashed; there was laughter and a few disappointed catcalls, but for the most part the show was over.

...except that Conan was watching Kuroba Kaito with narrowed, considering eyes.

Expression brightening, Kaito walked (though, as his normal walk was more elastic than nearly anyone else's, it would be equally fair to say he _bounced_) closer to Conan and crouched down in front of the bench, coming to just under eye-level with the boy.

_You can't be serious,_ Kid grumbled, eyeing Conan's very intelligent gaze with apprehension. _Nobody's that stupid to think that __you'd__ think he's just a--_

"Kid!" Kaito grinned up at his new conversational partner. "Aren't you going home with your friends?"

_Mmmmno, I don't think so._ "No," said the boy calmly; "They'll get taken to Agasa-sensei's house and when they wake up they'll be cranky. _And_ loud. I'd rather stay here--" He glanced sideways; Ran was talking to Aoko, and in a flurry of agitated lateness Sonoko had just rushed up; from the sound of things, ice cream and explanations were very possibly in the offing. "--and go with Ran-neechan. Wouldn't you?" The wary, smiling stare was bright behind the boy's glasses. "I heard Nakamori-keibu's daughter call you Kaito-kun; I'm Edogawa Conan. You were pretty good, trying to save Ran-neechan; where'd you learn to do that?"

"Here and there," Kaito laughed, standing with a small stretch. "Aoko taught me, mostly, always chasing me around with her mop. But I think I'll be going. You and Ran-neechan have fun, okay?" He turned, scratching at his unruly hair, and called across to get Aoko's attention. "You ready to go?"

_.....mop?_

Aoko was looking a little torn; she'd obviously been invited along, but she waved at her new companions and turned back to Kaito and her father, who had that pre-paperwork look of gloom that he always did just after a Kid encounter. "Yeah, coming. But you owe me an ice cream, Kaito-kun." Smoothing her hair back, she looked at the boy on the bench. "Oh, you're that Edogawa kid, aren't you? Tou-san told me about you, and Mouri-kun said you'd be in the middle of all this." She gave Kaito an affectionate look, still tinged with a little guilt from earlier. "Found somebody your own age to play with, Kaito-kun?"

Kid glanced from Aoko to Conan and back again.

Kaito laughed. "Hahah, very funny, Aoko! Very funny."

Conan merely grinned, all intelligence and isn't-he-cute. But his eyes had a little flash of irony somewhere back behind the smile. "Is she your girlfriend, Kaito-kun?" he asked brightly, hopping down from the bench.

Kaito twitched, half his smile and one whole shoulder falling as though his puppet strings had been cut. Before the expression of dismay took over his whole face, he rallied his grin and smiled blankly at Conan. "Don't worry, Aoko," he said, keeping his plastic smile fixed on the kid in front of him, while the Kid in the back of his head snickered in amusement at the whole act, "Conan-kun's too young to know that was a rude question to ask someone he's just met."

Ran, however, was not too young, and had just walked forward in time to catch the whole exchange. "CONAN-kun! You apologize right now!" she scolded him; behind her, Sonoko put her hands on her hips and tsked in that annoying way of hers. "I'm sorry; for somebody so bright, he can be a real pest sometimes," the young woman said in exasperation.

_Thanks ever so much, Ran._ The faux gradeschooler hung his head in equally-false contrition. "Sorry," he muttered. Then he looked up at Ran and Sonoko. "Why's it rude, Ran-neechan? I mean, if he gave her a rose..."

"Better quit while you're ahead, shrimp," advised Sonoko over Ran's shoulder. And then she blinked. "Wait, he gave you a _rose?_ Really?" The look that the zaibatsu-born young woman turned towards Kaito held a lot more interest than it had a moment before; there was nothing Sonoko loved better than the smell of romance.

As Aoko bristled and huffed beside him, Kaito had to think for a moment. He wasn't about to dismiss or minimize the significance of the rose - especially since he couldn't easily do so, considering that roses were exponentially harder to conceal than carnations, whose ragged, thin petals nevertheless stood up to abuse and the touch of skin oils much better than a rose's satin-smooth, easy-to-wilt petals did.

But to get into this here? At a _heist?_ With a girl he didn't even - oh, wait. There was his out. Grinning, Kaito turned to face Sonoko squarely, taking her hand and bowing to kiss it. "A good magician can leave much of his tricks up to the will of the magic itself," he purred, before reaching into his cuff and tugging out the stem he found there.

_Not a rose, not a rose, not a rose,_ Kaito intoned silently. Kid, feeling benevolent, complied.

Sonoko fluttered girlishly as Kaito presented the carnation to her, a white one that had been dyed a deep sunset orange that faded into yellow at the very root of its petals. "Kuroba Kaito, Miss...?"

"S-Suzuki," Sonoko managed. "But Sonoko-chan to _you._"

"LET'S GO, KAITO." With a firm grip on his elbow, Aoko bodily towed Kaito away from Sonoko and out of the park, heading toward the sidewalk that Kaito had entered from. "Bye, Mouri-kun! I'll call you soon!"

"Bye, Nakamori-san," Ran waved back, a little distracted, before wheeling on Conan. "Look what you started!"

He allowed a little whine to creep into his voice as she very firmly latched onto one hand, marching him towards the park exit. "I didn't _mean_ to, Ran-neechan. I just wanted to know."

"No excuses," she said crossly, her cheeks still flushed. "Men! Boys. Whatever. I swear, you can't trust them to act their age no matter how old they are! Now behave yourself, okay? Nakamori-keibu'll want to talk to you tomorrow sometime, but please do _not_ find any dead bodies, phantom thieves, missing jewels or murderers on the run until we get home, hm?"

"I'll do my best," said Conan meekly.

_No promises._

Following the remainder of the crowd, they left the park. Behind them, Sonoko trailed along happily, sniffing her carnation with a delighted smile on her face. If she loved the scent of romance, she loved it even better when it was tailored to fit her personal preferences.

* * *

Next chapter in one week: "Chat, prank, lifeline". No elm trees were hurt in the writing of this story. Also, as one of us lives in Mountain Time and the other in Eastern, we declare it close enough to Friday to be workable and **poof!** the chapter is posted. XD


	3. Prank, chat, lifeline

**Chapter Three**

**"Prank, chat, lifeline"**  
by **ysabet** and **rednightengale**  
_theme music:  
first half:_ Meet Me At My Window by Jack's Mannequin. Loop-one is recommended. :)  
_second half:_ What Happens Tomorrow by Duran Duran. Loop one is recommended for this as well.

* * *

Conan's homework had been completed since about two hours after school let out on Friday, and one of those hours had been taken up by the trip home. Saturday night, while Ran worked over her own (considerably more difficult) homework and Mouri dozed in front of the television, Conan's time was his own. Normally he tried to get a bit of work done - researching the latest findings from newspapers, broadcast station sites, some university networks, as well as more than a few FTP-based archives of digitized microfiche readers, which he was slowly working his way through. But the day had been so full of work already - and so much stress, watching (and worrying about) the fight in the park - he felt he deserved some play time. So he headed to Welcome Holmes. As the home page loaded, however, Conan frowned. He'd been meaning to send an email to Heiji for a while. Conan shifted over to his email window, opened a new message, and began typing. His keystroke scrambler encoded the signals of everything that he wrote, but the message showed up clearly in the browser window.

_Heiji -_

_Just bitching tonight. Today was a disaster - Kid had his total way with us and I had to watch Ran get dogpiled on by the whole stupid TF. And then she went and made friends with Nakamori's kid, and her (Aoko's) friend took a shine to me, which was probably Kid, but by that point .... eh. Wasn't worth it today. Small stuff. I'll get him on a bigger case._

_That wasn't even what I wanted to tell you about. Just this troll on WH. There's just been these...immature, for the lack of a better word, posts showing up. He's going all over the place, hitting a bunch of different threads. Keeps making really basic observations, simplistic, feels like he's belaboring a kindergartener's point. It's not just me who're annoyed w him(/her), but he hasn't gotten banned yet (though really, should be.) His screen name keeps changing subtly too - so maybe he is getting banned and keeps on rejoining, but then why would he be allowed to join? - right now it's 1nb!u. One way or another, he's minor enough (and not actually breaking TOS), so people mostly ignore him, but I just can't. Don't know why. But for some reason, he's pissing me off, especially since over the last couple days, he's been sending these private messages/emails. About ready to tell him "just fucking google it already", really._

_Thing is.... it seems like the guy's driving at something, and he's not as stupid as he seems, I swear it, he seems more contrived than that; every time he seems just about to tip over the edge into absolutely unsalvageable uselessness, he'll come up with some really profound observation or conclusion that clearly requires that he's done a deep reading of the texts to _make_ that conclusion. And the real kicker is he does all this while sympathizing with moriarty. Which just _confuses_ me -- this is a _Holmes_ board._

_Ehhhh. He's just a troll but he keeps sticking in my head for some reason, I can't put my finger on it though. Use my login and poke around on WH when you get a chance, see what you think too._

_-sh1_

_Eh. Good enough._ Conan sent the email, and his browser took him back to his inbox. A pair of new emails sat at the top of his inbox.

_welcomeholmes group - Welcome Holmes ML - 1 new message in 1 topic_

_welcomeholmes group - Welcome Holmes PM - 1 new inbox message_

Conan opened the top one first. It was nothing important - another kid who learned about Holmes from American public television. Sometimes Conan really wanted to strangle - or at least kick a soccer ball at - whoever came up with Wishbone.

The second one was from "1nb!u", and considerably more interesting.

_Here's a joke for you._

_What did Moriarty say to Holmes at the clocktower?_

_Give up?_

_"My dear man, stop loop-in' around the tower in a helicopter like that, you're too hard to aim at!"_

There was, as usual, no signature. However - for the first time - the little green bubble next to "1nb!u"'s screen name was lit - indicating he was online in the Yahoo chat.

He debated deleting the message into oblivion. He considered replying with something scathing and unchildlike-- after all, online he could be himself, so long as he made sure there were enough levels of protection between keyboard and destination. And _then_ he stared at the email, at the words 'clocktower' and 'helicopter' and began, very quietly, to swear beneath his breath in language that would have made Nakamori Ginzo take notes for future reference.

Apparently Kudo Shinichi wasn't the only person online enjoying trading one mask for another tonight.

He _could_ just ignore it, couldn't he? Oh sure he could, and then he'd be all set to change back into his old self, announce the Black Organization's existance to the world, and fly around the moon in a circle with all the rest of the winged pigs. Riiiiiiight. With a mixture of dread and curiosity, Conan clicked his way into a chatwindow with 1nb!u.

_evning,_ 1nb!u wrote.

_Hello_, Dductshn answered warily, frowning at the window.

_quack quack? what have u deduc(k)ed?_

_I've been thinking about clocktowers and helicopters_, said Dductshn, wondering if it was possible to somehow electrocute 1nb!u by the power of his mind. Probably not, or everybody would've been doing it.

_i've bn thnkn bout copters n cloth,_ 1nb!u replied. _but tht dsn' tell u much unlss u kno how 2 stop th hands._

Behind Conan's face, Kudo Shinichi did a truly magnificent headdesk. _Yeah? Stop the clock and get the diamonds, right?_ Sarcasm didn't cross through chatwindows unless you made it happen; and he needed to keep things polite until he was certain, absolutely certain that this was who he thought it was. _Save the cheerleader and save the world?_ He hoped the other had access to American tv downloads.

_funny u mention tht,_ 1nb!u sent, fingers clicking quickly across the keys in shorthand that nobody else knew he knew how to write. In the dark room, the glare of the old CRT monitor flashed off his monocle and reflected faintly on the classroom blackboard in front of the desk he sat at. Smiling, he continued quickly, then hit send, preempting the flashing pencil icon that meant Dductshn had already been typing. _ddn' pick u 4 a comix buff_

_You'd be surprised. What about you? What're you a fan of?_ Conan tapped back, irritated. The other was fast. Quietly he clicked onto a preset link, opening up a window and adding in information that would ultimately (if things went right) tell him 1nb!u's computer's IP address, or at the very least what server he was on. It was a start.

_oh u're funny,_ 1nb!u replied, _but its lss funny whn i thnk u actully thnk im tht stupid._

The IP-seek utility already had an answer for Conan: 1nb!u was accessing the web from a concealed IP within the main university network, which included its wireless network. A wireless network that spanned a good third of the city. As if that wasn't bad enough, an additional message was included under the "Comments" section:

_Dn't try tht again, sk._

Well. It had gotten him what he wanted-- confirmation of just who he was talking to. Not that there was much doubt by then, but still.

_Stupid, no. Sort of surprised you're such a Moriarty fan, tho, we don't get a lot of those. Takes one to know one, I guess. And you've been asking some, heh, really elementary questions in WH. Figured you'd know the competition better than that._ Glancing at the IP tracer window, he smiled a little grimly and added a comment of his own; Kid could've left instead of answering back, so he supposed it was only polite to acknowledge that.

_-shrug- Fine, 1412._

Meanwhile, in the main window, 1nb!u had replied.

_thnk u misundrstood. i __got__ my compettion, rght here._

Kid sat back from his keys, smiling at the screen, despite how childish it all was. This was _fun_ - and he didn't really have much to fear from Conan, anyway. They weren't on a heist. Things were different, then. Now.... Kid added another line of text, tapping the send button with flourish.

_n 2 ansr ur q, n ur implid q, im not a moriarty fan, tht was bait (whch u bit). im a lupin fan. & a night baron fan._

Conan snorted; he couldn't help it. 'Competition', well-- that was (almost) flattering. _Was_ flattering, actually. And of course he'd bitten the bait; what else was he supposed to do, ignore it? He leaned over his laptop, chin on hand, a very unchildlike smirk curving his mouth. _Glad you've got taste, then_, was all he said; and _If Holmes'd fought Lupin instead of Moriarty, I wonder if we'd be having this conversation?_ He hit the send key with a little more emphasis than was necessary, and winced at the sound that it made.

_no,_ Kid sent, grinned, and waited just that half beat more to make Conan think that it was all he was going to say, before adding:

_if L hd fought H, u wldn't wnt 2 tlk about it bc ur a sore lsr_

_Wrong_, typed Conan simply. _I'm a Lupin fan too._ And he grinned.

Kid sat back from the keys, staring at the screen. _Is that...._

No. There was no way that Conan - Shinichi - had meant it like that. But suddenly, it was hard to find the playful feeling he'd had just a few moments before. He shook his head, shaking it off, and lifted his hands to the keys again. But they hovered, still, and then fell back to his lap. He tried again, and again found himself hesitating, completely unable to decide what to say.

_Your problem,_ Kuroba helpfully pointed out, with a mental smirk, _Is that you have no experience dealing with people on an individual basis. An audience is easy. A friend is hard._

Friend? Kid all but glared at his own reflection in the glow of the CRT screen. "Edogawa is not my friend," he insisted to the empty classroom.

_Kudo is,_ Kuroba said gently.

And Kid sat staring at the screen.

* * *

It was halfway through the next week and almost at the beginning of recess when Conan got the first text. He'd set his cellphone on vibrate (Sensei disapproved of phones in class, and while she was realistic enough to know that the kids were going to sneak them in, anything playing the latest anime theme-song would get confiscated immediately) and felt it go off in his backpocket just as he sent a soccer-ball Mitsuhiko's way. He'd been attempting to teach the freckled boy a few of the tricks towards aim and direction, not the fancy ones but the kind that worked on developing coordination; and Mitsuhiko had been eating them up.

Waving the phone at his friends, he stepped back into the shade of a playground tree, flipping it open without much worry. _Ran, maybe... Heiji? Why's Heiji texting me in the middle of the day?_ A little puzzled, he hit the center button.

From: Heiji  
[06 2597 3428]  
13:06:10  
_Call me._

_Okay. Got to be a case, then, he wouldn't call me during school if it wasn't._ With an internal flicker of excitement _(thank god, anything's better than this)_ he clicked the appropriate buttons and heard the line cut through. Reception was decent out in the school yard, and with a small portion of his attention on the Shonen Tantei, Conan waited for an answer.

The line clicked as it connected. "Kudo? Whassup?" Heiji sounded amiable but confused, and a rustle in the background preceded another question. "It's th' middle of the day! What're you doin' outta school?"

......?? Conan scowled at the receiver. "Heiji? Didn't you just text me?" he said, hand cupped over the phone. Off in the distance, Mitsuhiko had just put the soccer ball through the middle of a girl's jump-rope game.

"Why would I'a texted you when we're both in the middle'v class? Look, I gotta go, but if you got somethin' to say give me a call later, and we'll talk then, kay? Seeya."

Click.

Conan stared at the open phone's screen for several minutes, still scowling, though this time in perplexity; in fact, it wasn't until the soccer ball smacked him in the ankles that he closed it and put it away.

That was Clue Number One.

Just under a week later, a pair of texts rattled into Conan's phone in quick succession.

From: Hakuba Saguru  
[+001 010 75 2233 274466]  
15:43:56

_Seeking your input on the most recent encounter with KID. _

From: Nakamori-keibu  
[03 6846 6946]  
15:44:01

_1412 is an annoying bastard, isn't he!?!_

Conan stared at his phone. The texts were identified by phone number and caller ID, but he didn't even _have_ either of those numbers in his address book to start with. Besides - the Inspector, _texting_ him?

That was Clue Number Two.

As has been noted in the past by any number of parties both criminal and non, Conan Was Not Stupid. He also Was Not Buying This. Looking like an idiot in front of Heiji'd been annoying, but there was no way he was contacting either Hakuba or Nakamori. Somebody was very successfully yanking his chain.

_Gee, I wonder who __that__ could be?_ Conan growled at the tiny screen, flicking it with a fingernail. _Right. Let's look at the texts first. 'Call me.' 'Seeking your input on the most recent encounter with KID.' '1412 is an annoying bastard, isn't he!?!' Not much to work with there. So, numbers...The first and third texts were from in-country; the second one was from outside Japan, presumably the UK._ He spent a few moments verifying country and precinct codes as best as was possible with the limited resources he had; they checked out.

_Wonderful. So unless Heiji's developed spastic amnesia, Hakuba's losing it entirely, and Nakamori's smoking his station's evidence locker contents, I need more than what I've got to get anywhere._

_Hmmm._

On a whim, Conan pulled up the text from Heiji and - instead of calling him back - extracted the phone number and saved it as a second contact. He did the same with the other two texts, then compared the results in his phone's address book.

_Hakuba Saguru__  
[+001 010 15 2733 274786]_

_Hakuba Saguru - false__  
[+001 010 75 2233 274466]_

_Heiji__  
[06 2963 4261]_

_Heiji - false__  
[06 2597 3428]_

And, further down,

_Nakamori-keibu - false__  
[03 6846 6946]_

He had no previously saved number to compare Nakamori's information against, but the example of "Heiji"'s and "Hakuba"'s numbers was proof enough. Somehow, the sender had fooled Conan's caller ID - but fooled was the operative word. The texts hadn't been sent from the real numbers. Which meant there really WAS something he was missing.

Recess (the texts had come at recess again; somebody (and 'Nakamori' was right, he really was a bastard) knew enough about Conan's schedule to at least place them at the point in which he'd have the least trouble answering them) was almost over. He tucked the phone back into a pocket and, hours later when he'd finished his homework, pulled it back out. A thought had occurred to him, one touched off by an advertisement viewed on the back of a truck halfway home from school. It'd been simple enough-- the business name spelled out in Romaji, matching up with the numbers on a standard telephone dial or keypad; advertisements had used that trick since the development of the telephone. And now, staring at his own keypad, he wondered at his denseness.

There were alternate combinations, of course; but when you bypassed the location prefix and considered Kid's fondness for Romaji...

Heiji, for instance; he'd have 2963 4261; that worked out to 'bkwr dhat', 'backward hat'. Conan snorted. Nakamori came out to 'ntgonwin' and Hakuba 'rl bad fashion' (Conan barely caught his phone before it hit the carpet, smothering an entirely undignified snicker.) Okay, well, he couldn't disagree with that last one; he just wished he could share the joke with somebody.

As if to answer that silent wish, his phone buzzed in his hand.

From: Ran  
[03 4677 7253]  
18:09:26

_Hope you've figured it out by now. You know where to find me._

Conan thought for a moment and then smiled wryly; oddly enough, he did. He stared at the number from Ran, worked out the translation ('impssble') and tipped an imaginary hat towards the phone in salute before slipping off to the doubtful privacy of the room he still shared with Mouri, laptop beneath one arm.

* * *

_Fancy meeting you here_ typed Dductshn, crosslegged on his futon.

_evn i can hear how not surprsed u r,_ 1nb!u replied. He was comfortable this evening - more so than felt safe - but his location didn't allow for much skulking or hiding.

_Yeah, well, can't say you're predictable- you'd take it as an insult anyway. But reliable, suppose so._ Shinichi smiled a little, just the faintest quirk of his lips; but his face was oddly relaxed. Heiji would have poked him with a finger, asking _What's with you, Kudo, you on vacation or what?_ In a way he was, he supposed; on vacation from being Conan.

_predictbly unpredictbl. f im so reliable, whens the next heist?_ He sent it - then wished he hadn't. That was work; this was....not. He sat back from the keys, hoping Conan - Kudo - wouldn't take it there.

On the other end of their rather peculiar line of communication, Shinichi scowled briefly; but before irritation could take over, he typed out rapidly:

_About half an hour before you get caught. Or not. I'm a detective, not a prophet._ He chuckled, hitting send. It occurred to him briefly that, if Sherlock Holmes had been up against Arsené Lupin, the inhabitant of 32-B Baker Street would have retired at a much earlier age possibly out of sheer frustration. Or taken to drink.

_then lets talk about prophecy,_ Kid typed, following an impulse. A hand on his shoulder made him look behind himself. "What're you doing, Kaito?"

"Nothing much, Aoko," he replied lightly, typing a quick _brb_ into the chat window and flicking over to his browser window before the girl could really focus on the text of his chat box. "Talking to a - heh, a friend - and poking at my email. Still haven't heard back from Nagisawa-sensei about the project for fourth period."

"_Yet?_" Aoko whined. "Sheesh, at this rate he'll tell us about it the day before it's due."

"Sit _down,_ Nakamori-san," rapped the instructor at the front of the cram school classroom. Other students began filing back into the classroom, returning from their break and slotting into their desks in an orderly fashion. Kaito took this moment to kick his heels down from the back of the chair in front of him, returning to a more-or-less upright position as the cram school instructor dimmed the classroom lights and woke up the classroom projector. Clicking over to the appropriate slide of her presentation, she continued with her lecture, covering material at a remarkably fast rate; Kaito and other students clicked away at their keyboards, ostensibly taking notes, though Kaito would have put money that not a one of the laptops in the classroom lacked a silenced chat window just like his.

Turning his attention back to his own chat, Kid tapped out a brisk _back sry_, then continued the conversation where it had been left off. _so about prophecy._

From his side of the screen Shinichi eyed the words there a little warily. Saying he 'wasn't a prophet' wasn't entirely accurate; the business of a detective wasn't just to solve what _had_ happened, sometimes it was to prevent what was _going_ to happen. But tonight, he wasn't open for business, so to speak; this was time off.

Which was why he typed back: _Going to read my future in the tea leaves? Or are crystal balls more your angle?_ And cocked one eyebrow, amused, as he waited for the answer.

There were a lot of replies Kid could send to that one. In the end, he settled for something of the middle road: _palm rding 2 up close n prsnal? i might shoot u f u let me tht close_

The other eyebrow went up. "Who'd shoot who?" muttered Conan; but it was Shinichi who bit back a laugh and answered. _At least I've got ten extra years on my lifeline._ Sort of, anyway, if the Black Organization didn't bury him or Ai couldn't find a cure. It was, frankly, very weird to type something, anything about his shrunken state that openly; to joke about it, even. He might say something like that to Heiji or maybe to Agasa, though not to Ai (her sense of humor still needed some work.) But to anyone else, no; it was oddly freeing.

'Odd' being the operative word here.

_So what would you find if you read my palm?_

Kid smiled and began to type.

_hm. short life line. starts 2 "early" - ends abruptly._

_long head line. goes straight thru ur fate line n keeps goin. heart line's huge but u knew tht i hope_

_thumb's all bulked up - logic, hre on the middle. n will, here on the thumb pad. see how it's too big fr your hand? big will. i have tht 1 2._

_big line on the prcussn of yr hand too - the outside side. base of yr pinky is mercury - after that's mars - after that's luna. head & changeable & intuition; war, determined, anger; luna - moon - chngeable appearnce, cnstnt nature._

Kid pulled his hands back from the keys, looking at what he'd typed; without thought, his right thumb rubbed across the base of his ring finger on the other hand, the point that palmistry names the "mount of Apollo." After a moment, he returned his hands to the keys.

_tht'll b 3 esy pymnts of 19.99 plz_

Shinichi **stared**. Well; that definitely came under the heading of 'odd'. He found himself staring at his right hand for a long, bemused moment before he caught himself. _Put it on my tab,_ he typed back, intrigued. _I don't know much about palms, just fingerprints. Are you sure you're not reading your own?_ This was getting weirder by the minute.

In the living room, the TV clicked off; he could hear Ran and her father talking, Mouri's sleepy mumble irritated and querulous. He didn't have more than a few minutes left to talk, and it was surprising how much regret accompanied that realization.

_m' sure,_ Kid typed back, as the classroom lights flickered back on, the instructor directed all the students to put away their laptops, and Aoko poked him insistently in the side in search of his attention, _f it were my palm thered be more crazy._

But he hesitated a moment before snapping his laptop lid shut. Another stolen second, the instructor calling out Kaito's name sharply, left one more line for Shinichi's benefit:

_gtg. ttys._

_Good night._ Shinichi saw the login blink out before he could hit send, but on an impulse did so anyway. He put the laptop away slowly, methodically, and when Mouri stumbled in he was, to all appearances, asleep and had been so for some time.

Which didn't explain why he lay there for nearly an hour, staring in the fitful light of his alarm-clock at the lines on his palm until his eyes at last closed.

* * *

Static from the squadcar fuzzed in Conan's ears where he sat, legs dangling, sideways in the front passenger's seat. The wails of firetrucks told that they were on their way, but from the heavy billows and roils of smoke and the sick, rotten-egg thickness of the air, they were already too late.

It had started out right-- well, right as a heist could go from a police perspective, anyway. The huge bayside convention center that Beika City shared with several smaller neighboring towns had been hosting the sort of thing that made any good detective's hair stand on end (at least, any good detective who had seen 1412 in action): an international gem show/market, full of displays and booths and things that made security guards consider alternative lines of work. There'd been the private auctions and there'd been the public displays. And then there'd been the invitation-only presentations, connoisseurs boasting their prizes for other connoisseurs to view.

Kid must have considered it as his own personal _**Disneyland**_.

Well. Considered, past tense.

Kid pulled the flaps on his glider, scooping air out of his wings to begin a controlled, sharp dive. He spiraled down, following the updraft that had carried him to his high vantage point toward the ground again. The heat of the smoke and fumes rising from the convention center slowed his descent, allowing him time to study the situation on the ground. A cloth held across his mouth made it easier for him to breathe. Evacuation of the gem show crowd was going well - though the convention center would be damaged by the gas leak and subsequent fires, the heavy police presence on site had been able to quickly step in and control the crowd before panic could set in.

The attendance of the show had actually been _decreased_ by his heist announcement; security wasn't about to have any of this "general public" nonsense near the gems, and several less dedicated browsers and collectors decided they'd rather skip the hype than get themselves tangled up in Kid's tomfoolery. But Kid still felt responsible, in an oblique way, for the hardship of the people, guests and gem sellers alike, who trudged out of the building below him, and had decided that - until the Task Force chose to misprioritize their time in such a way that they resumed chasing him while there was still a fire going - he wanted to remain on site and make sure that everything - and everyone - was okay.

"_Okay?_" Kid muttered to himself, banking the glider toward the northwest extension of the convention center. "'Bout as vague as I can get there, isn't i--"

The words died on his lips as a burst of gas and smoke exploded from the ventilation ducts and skylights of the northwest wing, about halfway down its length. Even as the flare of light died, Kid was plummeting out of the sky on a tangent that would land him in the center of the wing's roof. At the far end, which was actually suspended over the water by a balance system of wired counterweights, a sudden light had flickered into existence - an emergency flashlight, being held - and waved - by someone still inside the building.

* * *

Conan'd seen the glider-- it was hard to miss, backed by black smoke and highlighted by the emergency lights that'd been directed on the blaze from trucks below. So had Nakamori; and the Inspector had gone all the way from pure creative vulgarity straight over into basic obscenities in his swearing as Kid dove like an albino hawk towards the sudden burst of flame. "WHAT THE (physiologically-impossible-under-any-circumstances) IS THAT BASTARD _DOING?!?"_ screamed the officer as the glider's frame banked at a steep arc.

"Landing," answered Conan grimly, now perched on the hood of the squadcar; Agasa stood beside him, face pale. "Didn't you see? There's somebody up there."

The weak flicker of light sparked again, dim but unmistakable as a match in a coalmine; and Nakamori snatched his radio up from beside the boy's feet. "NAKAMORI HERE. COUNT OFF!" he roared at his men.

_"886 here, Tabuto--"  
"931, Yamamoto, I've got 317 with me, Kawahara--"  
"427 here, Shirojima--"_

The names counted off, slowed down, slid into silence; Nakamori made a second call, made a third...

Four men were missing and unaccounted for. He stared at the flames and gouts of smoke as if sheer willpower could produce his men for a long moment before turning back to Agasa and Conan. "Stay here," he growled before hurrying off towards one of the firetrucks, speaking rapidly into his radio.

* * *

The heat was intense. No, that didn't even begin to describe it. The heat was suffocating, and it cloyed to his body like coarse wool pressed across his nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe, making the breaths he did take scrape and burn his throat and lungs. The disgusting smell of rotten eggs, which at this temperature and proximity was more of a taste than a scent, cloyed to his palate, gagging him. The smoke and debris in the air brought tears to his eyes, and sweat quickly slicked his whole body, glueing the suit to him, clamming up his fingers inside his gloves, sticking his hair to his face.

Kid landed ungracefully, swatted to the rooftop by a gust of roiling, heated air behind him which flattened his glider against his back as it drove him down. He absorbed the impact as best he could, but was still driven to one knee; the jolt knocked his monocle from the sweat-slicked bridge of his nose, and he caught it, saving it from shattering on the ground by a narrow margin. The glider was a liability, still catching air and pulling against his back; Kid collapsed it, binding his cape tight against his back, over the glider frame, in a roughly backpack shape. Then, tucking the monocle into one of his many pockets and tying a large silk scarf across his nose and mouth as protection from the fumes, Kid took off running, a fleet white sprinter chasing flames down the length of the convention center's roof.

Nearly to the end of the building's wing, Kid pulled up abruptly, hopping to a stop and studying the roof below his feet intently. A solid kick to the ceiling lent some information; running back several paces, a similar impact produced a markedly different sort of thud. Kid returned to the first point, digging in his suit jacket's inner pockets for flashpaper and tools. The low-blast plastic explosive that he'd brought along to pop the locks on the gems' display cases came in handy now as he pressed it to the fastenings of the ventilation system's exhaust pipe. Flashpaper ignited it. The muted explosion rang loudly against the hollow ductwork; Kid yanked the vent cover off and slithered into the vent without a moment's hesitation. Once inside, he began to navigate by feel, temperature, and instinct.

* * *

_Be predictable this once, Kid; monitor the police frequency like a nice intelligent thief, you've done it before right in front of me..._ Conan fumbled briefly with the radio. It had been Agasa who had procured it from who-knows-where, but it had been Conan who'd remembered several instances of mimicked voices and misdirected squadmembers.

There, he had it; that was Nakamori, snapping out orders in a voice that was oddly clipped, oddly controlled. He didn't sound like himself without the profanity, somehow. _Right._ He tapped the mic to clear it. "Kid? Are you there? Are you listening?"

A very loud clang rattled over the air, followed by a muffled curse and a series of lesser clangs. "I wonder if I should acknowledge that I can hear you, Tantei-kun. You did, after all, just make me drop my screwdriver down an eight foot vertical chute."

_Aack._ There was a sudden thunderous silence as Nakamori and his men all shut up at once. _Remember, you're __seven__. Be Conan, not Shinichi._ "Sorry, Kid-san," said Conan contritely in his best awesomely-bright-seven-year-old voice, hoping like hell Kid'd get the idea. "What're you doing? We thought you were leaving. Is anybody else up there with you?"

There was a pause. When Kid spoke again, it was with a more aloof - or maybe just distracted, or concentrating - voice. "Tantei-kun, perhaps you'd better let me speak with one of the grown ups. Is the Inspector there?"

"Nakamori here," growled the Inspector almost civilly; you could very nearly hear him throttling down the instincts that told him to go after his quarry. "Just-- supposing I give you the benefit of the doubt here--" (and he audibly gritted his teeth) "--what. Are. You. Doing?"

"At the moment, getting a lot of dust and soot all over my second-best suit. I think the sanitation inspector would have something to say about this ductwork," Kid commented blithely, seeming not to hear the way that the entire Task Force froze, and Nakamori began growling, halfway through his statement. "However," Kid added, "In a few minutes I will be rescuing several of your men from the suspended wing of this rather distressed building. That is, of course..." He paused, letting the open line pop and crackle through static, obviously waiting for Nakamori to provide the conclusion to his statement.

And Conan, very quietly began tapping on the mike again: _Tap-tap-tap. (pause.) Tap. (pause.) Tap-tap-tap-tap._ He repeated the sequence once as he spoke. "How're you going to get them down, Kid-san?"

_And did you understand? C'mon, dammit._ He clicked over to channel 314, listened for a second, and then clicked back to the regular Squad channel.

Nakamori, still growly but less so, had yet to answer Kid's implicit statement; Kid spoke again, filling the radio silence. "Well, Conan-kun, I'll help them down all on my own, but that'll be a lot harder if they are trying to catch me while I help them. Nakamori-san, might you be able to do something about that?"

The Inspector was silent for a moment. "My men's safety is paramount," he said at last; there was no defeat in his voice, though-- merely a shifting of priorities. The fire and explosions had become the enemy, danger and death had become the threat and not the escape of a wanted criminal. He was not, as had been mentioned before, a stupid man, and now he took a deep breath. "What do you need?"

_Tap-tap-tap. (pause.) Tap. (pause.) Tap-tap-tap-tap._ Conan bit his lip, flicking back to the private channel once again, where he hesitated, hoping.

"All I'll need is your promise that your men won't try to unmask me, and a steady anchor on the dock to the north of the building, capable of holding, ah le le le, about a thousand kilos of tension? Just to be on the safe side." His cocky smile was audible.

On Conan's radio alone, a crackle preceded Kid yet again, this time speaking sotto voce to an audience that was decidedly not seven years old.

"You might want to make your codes more clear, Tantei-_san,_ for a bit there I was trying to make sense out of what _'sth'_ might mean."

"Pot? Kettle? Black?" muttered Conan, shoulders slumping. "If I'd meant to use Morse Code I would've done an SOS first. So-- what's the situation?" In the background Agasa had clicked on one of his own devices; the detective caught the last of Nakamori's voice as he announced through his teeth that No-one Was To Unmask The Kid, That Was An Order Goddammit, and his assurance that a firetruck would be parked on the dock as requested.

"Under control," Kid laughed, his voice echoing as he lowered himself head-first down a vertical shaft of ductwork. The cavity was narrow, no more than two feet wide on each side; his shoulders slid smoothly down the shaft, lightly pressed to the metal on both sides. Single fibers of his cape snagged on the rivetwork, causing little hesitations and tugs to his clothing as he went. A small flashlight held in one hand both provided light and served as a belay, allowing him to smoothly kill his momentum as he reached the bottom of the shaft. Toes resting against the metal to keep himself from swaying on his tether, Kid shifted his flashlight and grip on the rope, picked up his dropped screwdriver, and began to unfasten the grate below his head while he continued the conversation with his most diminutive detective rival.

"To be somewhat less coy, Tantei-san, I'm making my way over to the men now. Several rooms bubbled together in a trapped-air situation, as best as I can tell. Probably not able to move much away from the window that they knocked out for breathing's sake, though the draft is also probably drawing the fire under the doors they've surely closed on it. The structural integrity of the section I've just left is disintigrating, as well, and there's no guarantee that any of our dedicated Task Force members are anywhere near as svelte as I am; so retreat through the ductwork will be impossible." Kid paused for a dramatic sigh, then punched the center of the grate beneath him sharply with the butt of his flashlight. Knocked loose, it shot to the floor of the room below him in a shower of sparks and dust; behind his handkerchief mask, Kid smiled happily as the ringing impact sent feedback over the radio line and was answered with a series of confused shouts from below.

"I'm afraid I'm about to plummet to my doom, Tantei-san. Be good to my wife for me."

Seven-year-olds, at least ones with Conan's altered physiology, can actually sweat the equivalent of bullets when the right moment presents itself. This was one of them. "WHAT?" Static buzzed over the radio, interspersed with heavy clattering and what sounded like distant voices. "Don't be an asshole," he snapped, fighting down acid worry in the pit of his stomach. "Are you trying to tell me that after avoiding police, helicopters and Nakamori all this time you can't manage to escape from one little--" The line fuzzed, broke, jitted back into clarity. "Kid!"

Agasa tapped his shoulder, brow furrowed with worry; Conan keyed the mike and left it open as he spoke. "They've got the firetruck in place," the scientist said. "The ladder's extended in case he needs a higher brace than the truck itself can provide. Will that work?"

"Thank you, that will be fine," Kid answered cheerily. The final 'e' was obscured by a sudden flurry of static, as insidiously loud as spiderweb is clingy. "I may not be able to continue chatting with you fine gentlemen," Kid continued, this time on the standard Task Force frequency, piped out of Agasa's radio as Conan's shifted to quiet open air; "Thank you for your company this evening!"

And the line - both lines - went silent.

* * *

Conan-- Shinichi, whoever-- didn't remember vaulting to the top of the squadcar; he didn't recall Agasa passing over the binoculars or the sound of Nakamori's wordless, frustrated groan. Heavy black smoke suddenly gusted white in steam as, somewhere, the convention center's sprinkler-system pumped water onto fire; that was good, it was still working. Maybe it'd give the trapped men and their rescuer a slight edge.

No-one ever got hurt at a Kaitou Kid heist. _Ever._

From his viewpoint, the rooftop was almost totally obscured by the steam; there was nothing he could do but wait.

* * *

Inside the building, Kid tucked his radio back into his jacket and wiped sweat off his brow, carefully replacing his top hat firmly on his head. A deep breath didn't do much to steady his nerves, but it did at least steady his body. He hung, completely motionless, in the cramped ductwork shaft for a long moment, breathing smoothly and calmly. With his chin tucked to his chest, the confused officers in the ballroom below couldn't see anything through the opened grate except the top of Kid's hat, and he was more than content to leave it that way. His monocle was still tucked into his breast pocket, but without shadows to play off of it and around it, it was nothing more than a glass lens, no protection at all. He was more safe with his handkerchief mask, which snugly obscured everything from his cheekbones down to his collar. It displayed the shape of his face rather more clearly than he'd like, but he couldn't take the chance that it would fall loose, either because of the debris in the air or for the protection of his identity. Snug was better than nothing at all, and very soon he'd be moving too much and too quickly to worry about the mask.

Kid took another breath, slowing his racing heart. This was about to get very scary, at least for himself. For the officers below him - who had begun yelling up at him, asking what was wrong - it was probably already scary. The thought was little comfort.

_Think about how you'll tell Kudo about this next time you see him online,_ Kaito murmured gently to Kid. Had they had two separate bodies, Kaito would have comforted Kid with a hand on his shoulder, or perhaps a jaunty adjustment of his top hat's brim. As it was, alone in the ductwork, Kid relaxed somewhat, smiling to himself.

_Showtime,_ Kaito laughed, crowing the word for both their benefits within Kid's head. Kid's small smile cracked open into the manic grin he was best known for, straining the cloth across his mouth, and he let go of his cable with both hands.

* * *

The ballroom's ceiling was only about fifteen feet up. Nevertheless, by the time he'd dropped half that height, shooting out of the ductwork like a grey phantom, an explosion of dust and soot ballooning around him, Kid had tucked in his legs and arms and completed a full somersault. Ten feet off the ground, the grey ball of thief suddenly stretched out his legs and arms, cape flying loose behind him, and one foot from the ground, he seemed to slow and almost hover, so that when he did touch down, it was on the tips of his toes, lightly as a party balloon coming to rest. His knees absorbed the slight impact as he hit the ground, and a little puff of grey dust came up from his cuffs. He was quite the sight - all in grey, save for the purple handkerchief across his face, the soot-stained bright red tie beneath that, and his cape - the inside of which had, somehow, made it through the tunnel-like ductwork completely unmarked. It hung around him, billowing out from his body as though infused with helium. Perhaps the heat of the air or fumes in the room made it lift? Kid's eyes - blue-purple, indigo really, and sparklingly bright as gems - shone out of his sooty face, fierce with excitement, and even through the double-layered handkerchief mask, his huge toothy grin was clearly evident.

The officers backed away from him, first one step and then another, their hopes of rescue beginning to twitter and flit about like uncertain hens. Was Kid really going to help them? He looked almost like - well, some kind of dirty angel, almost. One or two glanced behind them: the two full walls of plate glass windows, one to Kid's right (their left) and one directly across the room from their five-man cluster, were coated with bay spume and soot on the outside, slick gas and fume residue on the inside. Searchlights and floodlights from police boats, bobbing in the bay as close as was safe to the building, reflected against all that dirt and grime, illuminating the windows like glowing flatscreens rather than transparent objects. The bay was uneasy, waters choppy, and the boats' floodlights bobbed with the water's motion. Slices of movement, a black patch of water here and there, could still be seen through the shifting glare, but for most purposes, the windows were inscrutable.

At about that point, a creak from the ballroom's double-wide doorway, ten feet directly behind Kid, gave a split second's warning before both flimsy doors blew inward in an explosion of heat, flame, and smoke. Kid was perfectly framed before the blast, backlit in a way that no special effects team could hope to replicate, and his cape whipped forward around him, shielding his body as he instinctively crouched, ducking his face to protect it from the superheated air rushing in the door. The officers hit the floor, covering faces, ears, and necks as best as they could. A wrenching shriek, followed by a finite, crystalline snap, sounded from the far side of the room.

Still pressed to the floor, Kid chuckled wryly. "That's done a good bit of my work for me. Delightful. Gentlemen, if you would, please, let's head over to that far corner?" Kid lifted his head and one arm, pointing to the corner of the room where the two plate glass windows met. A huge crack, which drank in the light from the fire and floodlights like it was electrified, ran diagonally across the end wall's window; the side window showed only slight damage around its frame at the corner.

As one, the Task Force officers began to crawl toward the indicated corner. Kid kept pace with them, despite his sore muscles and aching lungs. The air in the ballroom, even as high as its ceilings were, was now so saturated with things that just _shouldn't_ enter human lungs that breathing was painful. Kid had no doubt that the Task Force members were suffering too...though, come to think of it, they hadn't been crawling through ductwork laced with soot, dirt, and who knows what else. _Well, you didn't really have a choice,_ Kaito opined optimistically.

"Not now, please," Kid muttered.

When they reached the glass-walled corner, Kid scampered to inspect the crack in the glass. Satisfied with what he found, he backed off and pointed at the two burlier officers in the group. "Please smash that window, sirs. I think the tables will be helpful."

"There's nothin' but water out there, Kid," one of them protested. "The boats can't get close enough t'reach us."

Kid's inscrutable smile did nothing but become more firm. "Please smash that window regardless. We really don't have a lot of time."

"You're the boss, Boss," one of them said, rising to his feet and grasping one edge of a large round dinner table. Another laughed, slightly hysterical.

"I can't believe you just called the Kid our Boss!" Grinning amiably, that one - the thinnest, of medium height - stood to help the other two officers.

While they worked, Kid rustled through his clothing and pulled out a small circular glass cutter. He quickly employed it at a height just above shoulder level, slicing an opening into the side window wall right at the corner, directly next to the narrow steel corner brace that connected the two glass walls at a right angle. Once he'd punched out the circle of glass, putting some shoulder into it, Kid dropped to the ground again, ducking under the majority of the smog, and addressed the fourth officer.

"Please shatter the remainder of the glass between the edges of my little hole and the steel brace." He handed over his steel-clad flashlight with a nod. As the officer rose to his task, the other three officers finally broke through their window. The resulting shatter was so loud that even Kid wasn't able to overcome his instinct to flinch away from its source. Tiny shards of rounded "shattersafe" glass scattered everywhere, peppering the officers' and Kid's clothing and hair. As the table they'd used as a battering ram splashed into the bay, the officers and Kid breathed deeply and hungrily of the air that was now open to them - salty, sour, and laden with smoke - but despite all these things, still so much clearer than the gaseous smog they'd been trapped in up to that point.

As hungry for fresh oxygen as the five men, the fire at the door roared brighter and stronger, quickly reaching the ceiling and making the aluminum grates set into the wall for ventilation shriek as they expanded from the heat and scraped against their sockets.

"Gentlemen! We have approximately one minute, perhaps thirty seconds." With that rather distressing statement, Kid stepped to the gaping hole in the glass wall. He passed a light, but tightly-wound steel cable through the cut hole in the side glass wall, around the steel corner support, and then back on itself; a climbing-gauge cairbeaner attached to the end clicked over the wire itself, forming a self-tightening noose firmly affixed to the corner support of the building.

With a handful of silk scarves in his gloved right hand, Kid unflinchingly grasped that same support and leaned his weight out the window and around the support. With his right foot braced on the floor inside the ballroom, his left hanging out above the bay, and his right providing the pivot point by which he could rotate out to this angle, Kid aimed his card gun with his left hand at the fire truck parked on the edge of the bay. Sighting along its top cross, Kid seemed the perfect poised image of focus, despite his grey and black stained clothing, the shards of glass glittering in his wild hair and the brim of his hat, the purple handkerchief across his mouth stained black where the perspiration and steam of his breath had glued soot to the fabric, and the thick rivulets of blood streaming down the windowframe from where his hand clutched the metal edge, still set with sharp jutting points of window glass.

"Please inform Nakamori-san that his team is to secure this projectile at all costs," Kid instructed his Task Force members, projecting his voice to be heard over the roar of fire, bay, siren, and boats, yet somehow still sounding calm despite the situation. And then he shot.

* * *

It was a tiny thing that Conan saw, almost faint enough to be nothing more than lens-distortion artifact (the binoculars weren't exactly state-of-the-art)-- a flicker of light, like a single pixel on a computer screen. It trailed more light, just the faintest flash that vanished in the second that it was seen, heading towards the firetruck on the northern dock.

They'd-- well. 'Appropriated' was a good word for what they'd done with the squadcar (and the detective tried not to think about Nakamori's reaction when he found out, but at least it'd been driven by the professor and not by one Edogawa Conan, seven years old and too short to work both pedals and wheel at the same time.) And now he was back on the roof, only a few feet from where the projectile smacked into the firetruck's door.

It was a playing-card: the Eight Of Clubs, thicker than usual and trailing a thin, taut line behind it. The card quivered where it had stuck two centimeters deep into the metal, and its tether hummed a shrill, tense note, a harp-string played upon by smoke-filled air.

Nakamori had beaten them there; after staring at the card, he cautiously picked it out of the metal and allowed the line to drop slack. One of his men ran up, gasping a little in the heavy air. "SIR! Sir, we just heard from--"

"--Kawahara, I know." Distracted, the Inspector held up his radio, never taking his eyes off the card in his hands. "I heard." He handed it over to the suited-up fireman beside him, reluctance in every movement. "Secure this, will you? Tight as you can, fairly high." The officer squinted along the line at the distant flames, redder than before and accompanied by renewed clouds of blackness; and Conan followed his gaze with the binoculars.

_Holy shit. There he is._

* * *

The interior of Kid's cape, still mostly white, flashed in and out of sight as it flapped in the wind; now folded and dark, now open and white; now twisted and grey. White - black - white - grey - black - grey - white - black - red. Then it disappeared back into the building.

* * *

Kid climbed back into the ballroom briskly, ignoring the pain in his left thigh; walking without favoring the leg, he trotted behind the officers and herded them toward the gaping window. "Come on now, let's go!"

"Go _where?_" asked the shortest one.

"Out the window, of course! You're going to get your first lesson in Phantom Thieving tonight, and that lesson is, don't rely on the ground to get you places! There's plenty of other things to hold you. Now, Nakamori-san should have that line secured, so please pull out your gun, your nightstick, anything hard and large enough to grab with two hands, and let's go! Remember to push off of the window!"

To their credit, they didn't resist a _lot._ But there was fire at their backs, smoke on their tongues, and the encouragement of a very earnest pair of glittering indigo eyes to spur them on. One by one, they edged their way out onto the zipline, suspending themselves by whatever items they could manage. One of the men had neither nightstick nor gun, so Kid handed him his flashlight and shoved him on his way. The four of them proceeded forward - at a slow pace, as the angle of the zipline wasn't enough to overcome their vertical weight and friction, and necessitated that the officers swing themselves forward, like a playground's sliding-monkeybars contraption, to gain forward motion.

The angle that they had to start out at - reaching around the entirety of the window's corner frame to reach the wire, then pushing off of the side window panel, which was nearly parallel to the zipline for the first ten feet and, for that distance, hampered their movement extremely - was anything but ideal, but because of the way that the windows had cracked, there was no other choice. Had Kid taken the time to break the preferable side window, they would all still be standing in the heat and smog right this second, as the ceiling finally succumbed to the fire's appetite and collapsed downward in whole, revealing the metal struts and ductwork laced with orange tongues of hungry flame that ate up the insulation, curled the wires, and melted the lighting fixtures. The decorative ceiling panels, charred and disintegrating, blanketed the ballroom's fine wooden dancing floor and carpeted table areas with ash and live embers, and the sick choking fumes of burning varnish and lacquer bloomed up within the room like hazardous flowers.

In the midst of this deteriorating scene, Kid shielded his eyes and face against the waves of heat in the air and waited for the last of the officers to reach shore. One fell off the wire near the edge of the bay, his strength exhausted; another two made it all the way to the shore. The fourth, having difficulty due to his heavy weight which increased the friction on the zipline tenfold and made sliding momentum nearly impossible, still labored to pass the midpoint of the line.

Too close to the water's surface to risk launching his glider out the window, Kid stood at the window, waiting for the last officer to finish his crossing and be rescued. With his card gun attached to the zipline, Kid couldn't lift himself to the rooftop in order to take advantage of the huge thermals rising off the doomed convention center extension. He had a set of glass suctions in his kit, but there was little to no chance that they'd be able to adhere to glass so thoroughly filthy as was the remaining ballroom's window. And everything else of his kit had been used up in getting to this room, and in rescuing the officers. Even his flashlight, with which he could have signaled for a helicopter ladder, had been sacrificed to get the fourth officer onto the zipline.

In his pocket, Kid's monocle lay hot and heavy against his chest, and his brow dripped with sweat, as the building fell to pieces around him. The ballroom was progressively collapsing, moving from the doorway toward the far wall where Kid stood waiting. He had no idea how much time was left before the ceiling above him - or the corner support anchoring the zipline - was going to go. And he couldn't really wait for the card gun to be cleared; however much time he had left, it was less than the time it would take for the officer to reach safety. If the zipline went now, Kid wasn't too worried about that last officer; he was more than half the distance to the shore, and the rescue boats could certainly throw him a line, if not directly reach him and tow him onboard.

That just left Kid himself.

_Sorry, Kudo,_ Kid sighed to himself, as the ballroom ceiling gave a final shriek, shuddered, and collapsed, seemingly in slow motion, above his head. The flames came rushing down upon his head, pushing a whirling rush of superheated, ember-flecked air before them, as Kid popped open his glider and closed his eyes.

* * *

And _this_ was what Conan saw:

_A gout of flame like the roar of a dragon, hungry and red-toothed; claws spread wide and grasping around the edges of the building, and beyond it in the direction of the northwest portion of the bay... something white. So small at this distance, even with the binoculars; but it flew like an arrow, like a hawk bearing the breath of the dragon beneath its wings. And when at last it lost momentum, it was still moving fast enough that as it touched the water it __skipped__--_

_--once--_

_--twice--_

_--three times--_

_--before striking with a flat, deafening splash for the fourth time against deep black water._

Small sneakers thudded over the pavement, sliding to a stop at the water's edge even as Nakamori's larger footfalls halted behind him. "Where is he? Where is h-- _**there**__."_ The Inspector snatched Conan's binoculars out of his hands; the boy didn't even bother to complain, just craned his neck.

He could just see something white-- "The glider's floating," Conan heard himself murmur. "We need a cruiser." Or a fishing-boat, or a goddam row-boat, anything at all. That hadn't been an easy landing.

It hadn't been a landing at all, not really; it had been a crash.

Two minutes later a police harbor cruiser was against the shore, lights flashing; Nakamori snapped out orders to his men (Conan caught _ambulance_ and _picked men_ and _no goddamn Press or I'll_ before the Inspector turned abruptly around, one foot over the railings and one still on the shore...

"You!" he barked, pointing a finger.

...to stare at Conan. "Erk?" replied the young detective; behind him, Agasa froze.

The Inspector waved at the craft. "In. Now. Both of you."

_Uhh... what?_

There was no time. They were bumping across multiple wakes and on their way to the distant scrap of white before Agasa had the presence of mind to ask. "Err, Nakamori-keibu? Not that we aren't... that is, not that this isn't..." He gave up. "WHY did you want us along? We're hardly here in any official capacity."

"That's why," growled the man, not looking away from their target; they were nearly there. He glanced for a bare second over one shoulder, and his eyes were tired and bleak. "You heard me earlier; I said that the safety of my men was the most important thing here, and that bastard got 'em safe home." He shrugged. "You're both along as insurance. If things go wrong, I want witnesses."

Agasa blinked. "Ahh," he said, blanching slightly. "You want... a civilian presence?"

_No, the son of a bitch wants an __**excuse**__. If Kid's healthy enough to escape on his own, then Nakamori can always blame it on 'civilian presence', error due to having to keep us safe or some other stupid reason._ For a moment, Conan's vision was washed with a red that didn't owe itself to fire or exhaustion. But--

_Then again, he'd get away, wouldn't he? And I know and Nakamori knows that for once, this time, he deserves it._

The engines cut out as the officer steering their craft dropped them to a low idle; a few meters beyond, something vaguely white was draped half across a tangle of debris. There was, just barely audible, a groan; Nakamori set his jaw, already reaching for a long hooked gaff.

* * *

There wasn't enough light to really make out more than the obvious injuries, but (and Conan fought back something that could and would become hysteria if he let it) you didn't need a lot of light to see bloodstains on white, did you? The Inspector and the professor were being careful, but they had to be causing their charge a great deal of pain. _Left thigh, lacerations; right arm and palm, bruises and lacerations; face and throat--_

"We need to remove this," muttered Nakamori; the fabric covering the thief's face and throat was burned, especially in the lower folds; it had saved him from far worse injuries, but the skin beneath was undoubtedly scorched. The Inspector reached up-- paused--

--and turned away to eye Conan, like an echo of what he'd done so recently on the shore. "You do it." There was a strange note in his voice; something very like regret. "Here." He held out the surgical scissors he'd been using. "Cut as little as you can. And don't talk to me while you're at it, will you?"

Conan swallowed once, and then crawled up into the narrow space beside Professor Agasa.

The burns on the face were minor to moderate, probably produced by the superheated air rather than fire itself; carefully Conan clipped away bits of cloth, using a dampened piece of gauze from the boat's first-aid kit to free the fabric from the fragile skin. As he did so, two eyes _(two, not one and a monocle, two!)_ opened blearily and focused on his. A hand came up; Agasa caught it before it could fasten on Conan's wrist. "Keep still," said the detective quietly. "We're doing what we can." He swallowed hard once again, glanced over his shoulder, and added very quietly: "No handcuffs yet."

Kid regarded him steadily past the pain; comprehension and panic flickered for a moment before his eyes hazed over once more, closing. The boy glanced at Agasa, who laid the thief's hand carefully back down; and the two set back to work.

* * *

_As always, thank you for reading! Please let us know what you think, and look forward to next week's chapter: "Bed, absence, bycicle".  
-Ysabet and Nightengale_


	4. Bed, absence, bicycle

Chapter Four

_"bed, absence, bicycle"_  
by **rednightengale** and **ysabet**  
_theme music:_ What Happens Tomorrow, Duran Duran  
_insert song:_ The Tempest, Pendulum

* * *

Kid woke in a hospital bed. He could tell what it was even before his eyes were open; when he did get them open, with difficulty, the glare of white ceilings and white light and white _everything_ was strong enough that he squeezed them shut again. He instinctively reached to rub the grit from his eyelashes, but as soon as he crooked his index finger to do so, the pain made him flinch and relax every muscle again, holding his whole body perfectly still until he could figure out what hurt, and why.

And more importantly, until he knew exactly how much trouble he was in.

"No one knows who you are, John Doe." The voice was light, young, and directly to his left. Conan, probably sitting in a visitor's chair. Kid turned his face toward the sound of Conan's voice - then, slow thoughts belatedly catching up with his situation, turned his face away quickly. The fast motion yanked on his bandaged throat and he winced in pain.

"Stay still. You have been asleep exactly eleven hours and twenty seven minutes, about half of the time that the hospital staff estimated you would need to regain consciousness. Dr. Agasa and myself are the only persons who know where you are. Inspector Nakamori sent us to admit you to a hospital for your burns. Your throat will probably scar. Your face will probably not." Conan's voice was cool and detatched - mostly. Underneath the professionalism, a thread of unsteady tension, like a stretched and strummed rubber band, threatened to snap at every full stop.

Perhaps because of this, Conan left little silence between his words, threading sentences together without leaving space for Kid to respond. That was just fine with Kid; he wanted as much information as possible, as quickly as possible. The odds that he had made it through this situation with any of himself intact - and he didn't mean his body or his skin - were vanishingly thin, but he couldn't help but cling to the hope that somehow, by some thread of chance, he might have gotten very, very lucky.

"You are officially admitted here as John Doe. You are listed as a protected witness in last night's crisis, and are under a police order of confidentiality that forbids the hospital from releasing any information at all about you to anyone, and also forbids any staff from running identifying bloodwork, DNA sampling, or fingerprinting tests, unless Inspector Nakamori approves that release. Inspector Nakamori has instructed Dr. Agasa and myself to judge when, and what, information should be released, if at all."

Conan's voice paused, hesitating, as though what more he had to say was hard for him to voice. When Kid attempted to speak, licking his lips and coughing to try to clear his throat, Conan coughed as well, then said without inflection:

"Inspector Nakamori did not see your face."

_But I have._

Kid could hear the implication in Conan's statement as clearly as if he'd spoken it himself. Conan - Shinichi - had seen the Kaitou Kid's face.

And had met that face before. At the park, where Kid had thought he'd be perfectly safe to be perfectly himself, hiding behind his _lack_ of disguise.

A soft curse made its way from between clenched teeth.

"I feel similarly," Conan's voice answered again, but this time the inflection was transparent, not seeking to hide the true identity of its speaker. An offering, maybe? "I would give nearly anything not to have seen you." The breath of silence that followed this was complicated; and it was almost as an afterthought that the young detective added: "Of course, I suppose we're on more of an equal footing now; you've seen my real face too."

There was a water-pitcher on the bedside table; small footsteps soundless on the floor, Conan slipped from his chair and carefully poured, inserting a straw and holding out the institutionally-plain plastic glass. "Can you drink this? You need to hydrate yourself as much as possible," he said in his light child's voice, just as if everything else that had been said had been normal, without consequence.

_You've been injured. You're in the hands of your enemies. I know who you are. You know who I am._ Just everyday conversation, nothing to worry about. And Conan's hand, holding the plastic glass, looked steady as a rock... if you discounted the faint, almost invisible tremor of the water contained within. Funny how the little things gave people away.

A hand that shook more than the delicate meniscus of water lifted, fingertips touching the straw and helping to guide it to his mouth. Kid lifted his head off the pillow a small distance, neck straining to hold up the weight, throat working while he swallowed the cool water. Conan's hands, wrapped around the glass, were brushing against the heel of Kid's hand as he held the straw still; when he'd drunk enough, and sank back to the pillow, Kid didn't even seem to have noticed - or more importantly, cared - that their skin had touched.

_Slow movements. He's a wounded tiger, not a tame rabbit. Unless you want him bolting out the nearest window the first time your back's turned, you're going to have to give him reason to believe he's safe._

IS he safe? Nakamori promised not to stop by. But--

All of this had passed through Conan's mind in the time it took for him to draw back, put the glass back down and refill it. "The officer who drove the boat has been sworn to secrecy as well," he said quietly. "Turns out his cousin's one of the men you rescued, so I don't think you have any problems there. So..." He hesitated, slipping back up onto the chair, hands gripping the wooden arms as he studied the silent thief. "I guess the question now is what to do with you. Or, more to the point... what do _you_ want done?"

Kid frowned - subtly, because of the bandages holding the skin of his face mostly immobile.

_I want my monocle.__need__ to hide._

I want to undo this.

I want a computer screen between us.

I want shadows.

I want to stand up, to not be flat on my back and too weak to move.

I want you to stop looking at me like that.

I

Of all the conflicting urges flying through Kid, that last one - the need to hide, run away, and in doing so be _safe_ - was overwhelming, a screeching klaxon growing in volume with every rational, calm, reasonable statement that Shinichi made. Fighting to keep the rising panic from his eyes (_monocle,_ please, where is my monocle, _please!_), Kid carefully formed quiet words, relying more on Shinichi's lipreading skill than on pushing enough air to make clear syllables.

"I want to go home."

Conan merely nodded; he'd expected as much. There was a memory in the back of his mind, one that he usually didn't let out of its box: the first night after his change, when he'd huddled on his futon on Mouri Kogoro's floor and bitten his lip almost bloody, keeping silent while terror and loss beat wings inside his head until it was too much to bear. He'd never known if he'd just fallen asleep or blacked out in despair that night; what he remembered (when he allowed himself to, which wasn't often) was the way that fear could become a _presence_ behind your eyes, a pressure that pushed everything else out of the way and tried to claw itself free.

"Is there someone I can contact?"

(He remembered... waking up. Knowing that the world'd flipflopped and that he couldn't go back, couldn't undo what'd happened or wrap his former safety around himself like a blanket of _Kudo Shinichi_-ness. And he remembered clinging to things like talismans: his housekeys, the clothes he'd been wearing (he hadn't even let them be washed; the green jacket still had bloodstains on it from his injured head), the plastic Tropical World rides-pass bracelet. Oh yeah; he remembered.)

Kid froze. Contacting someone...would require giving their identifying information. It would lay them as bare as he himself was. It would rip open yet another seam of his carefully enclosed world; let light come pouring into the studio of his fleeting nighttime missions, searing the film both exposed and not, wrecking past memories and ruining the chance to make future ones. It would be like a flood through a printing press, washing away what it didn't rust.

"_No,_" he rasped. "I can walk. Let me sleep. Then I'll leave."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Don't be an idiot," he said calmly. "I'm not asking you to break confidence with anybody; right now you're about as anonymous as you're going to get-- I just don't trust it to last forever." His gaze flickered across the figure on the bed before he turned it away, resting instead on a heavy-duty plastic garment bag in the closet, opaque and as unrevealing as the room's official records were. "Can you dial a cellphone?"

If he could... if there was someone (and there had to be; not even the Kaitou Kid worked in a vacuum, did he?), then... "Here." The cellphone that Conan placed on the bedside table beside the glass was plain, the cheap kind you could purchase with preprogrammed minutes: anonymity again. "No trackers, no GPS, no tricks. Make the arrangements, tell me when you need my back turned." There was something in his pocket; Conan fingered it, thinking about talismans, and his already quiet voice dropped even lower.

"I'm not going to pretend that this is anything like a normal situation; 'normal' has been suspended until further notice." He sighed, tugging off his glasses with his free hand and rubbing at his eyes, still not looking at the other person in the room. "Nakamori has been given-- 'discretion', I think was the term; so far as the rest of the authorities know, his men were saved by a good samaritan who prefers to remain unknown. Now, are you going to help yourself _stay_ that way, or do I need to begin playing guessing-games?"

It wasn't a threat; Conan hadn't even tried to find anything out about the young man from the park. But he could have, and they both knew it. He drew out the small item from his pocket, unwrapped the layers of tissue from around it and-- slowly, unthreateningly-- held it out. "One more thing. This fell out of your pocket in the boat."

The speed at which Kid's hand snatched the monocle - cracked, but carefully cleaned, bright and smooth of ash and debris in the unforgiving light of the hospital room, green clover charm slightly singed but still dangling cheerily from its featherweight chain - was almost so fast as to render his hand unseeable. Pain lanced across his face, and he closed his eyes against it; the scorched flesh of the back of his hand was _not_ happy with him. But something in his heart could _BREATHE_ now.

Even though he knew it would do no good - even though he knew it would be more a liability than an aid - he ached to clip it to the bridge of his nose, settling it into place where it _belonged._ Being without the monocle was like being without half of his own face. It _hurt,_ much as though the area exposed had been ripped free of his bones and left to scab over. Gruesome, distracting, heartwrenching pain. And with the little sliver of glass and ego in his palm, Kid just couldn't resist the need, the drive, to replace it. Instead he compromised, clutching the monocle in his fist and laying that hand, knuckles pressing his cheekbone and temple, over his right eye. The charm and its chain laid across his cheek, links catching on the bandages there.

"Thank you." Kid formed the words silently, just mouthing them, and all it took was his single, uncovered eye to convey the happy, relieved, _watch-out-you-just-gave-me-a-weapon_ smirk that then suffused his face. He picked up the cell phone.

Conan blinked; swallowed hard and recovered, though not without effort. "Uh. Fine. --Just please have the courtesy to not attempt climbing out the window," he added dryly, slipping out of his chair and moving towards the door. "You've been given the minimum dosage of painkillers for your injuries, but if you lose consciousness and land on your ass the nurses are going to want to bandage it for you." With that very ungradeschooler-like comment, he opened the door, and paused before going out.

"...and you're welcome. Keio Gijuku Hospital, room 307. I'll knock first; five minutes."

_Click._

* * *

Outside, in the hallway of a very private wing in a very private hospital, a passing nurse raised both eyebrows as she walked past a door marked 'Quarantine - Do Not Enter'. There was a boy standing beside it, and as she went her way she wondered why he seemed to be quietly, methodically banging his head against the wall.

* * *

The car ride home was silent. Jii-chan -- Jintarou, really; "Jii-chan" was a relic from Kaito's childhood (or Kaitou's, if you wanted to look at it that way) that never really retired. Much like the man himself, who drove the car silently, gently avoiding every possible obstacle that might jostle his passenger. Kid sat in the back seat, clutching the monocle to his face with a tightly-fisted hand. A handkerchief and bandages had been wrapped around his fist, monocle and all, to staunch the blood that flowed from the dozen splits that had ripped open, like the snapped skin of overripe tomatoes, across his knuckles and the back of his hand.

Kid knew that Jintarou needed to be told what had happened. He was not only the Kaitou Kid's assistant, but his friend, guardian, and something of a parental figure to him; he had to be worried. Not twenty-four hours ago, Kaito had left his care perfectly intact. Now Kid returned, handed into Jintarou's care by _Edogawa Conan_.

And yet he could not open his mouth. With his monocle in hand, he could summon enough strength to sit up and remain conscious, but barely. His body fought him for every minute, seeming to know what Conan - Shinichi - had told him upon his waking, that he had been expected to stay out for another eleven hours at least.

_Can't sleep, Nakamori'll get me,_ Kid thought morbidly. Throat dry, lips parched, eyes stinging, skin seared, ears ringing from the tension that clenched his teeth together until they squeaked, Kid sat shaking in the back seat of Jintarou's small, nondescript car, desperately thinking of nothing but the dark, black safety of Kaito's bedroom at home. When he reached it, when they got there, he could collapse. While he slept, Jintarou and his mother would poultice his burns with the same medicines and aids that had protected and healed his father, and then himself, in his work. They would bathe him, care for him, keep him safe.

They would coaxe Kaito back from wherever he had fled, bring him back so that Kid could run from the daylight and the danger.

He just had to make it home.

* * *

Kudo Shinichi was, most definitely, in need of some good advice and a dose of perspective. And so he'd found a nice, private place to have a consultation with the best authority on his current situation.

The setting was okay: the fifth-floor observation deck of the Beika City Public Library, a bit of open rooftop with broad railings, comfortable benches and decorative plantings here and there. Usually kids weren't allowed up to the roof, but Conan had charmed the library staff into letting 'that bright little boy, you know, he works with the police!' go pretty much wherever he felt like. So a day after the disaster found him five stories up, ensconced in his favorite corner where he and his consultant could have a little privacy.

It was just a pity that his consultant happened to be himself.

_I mean, who else am I going to talk to about this, anyway? Heiji? He'd go batshit. Professor Agasa? He twitches if I even __mention__ the Kid at this point. Ai? Nooooot likely. My parents? Tousan'd want to interview him for the Night Baron books, and Kasan'd squeal like a fangirl. God. No, not them._ Chin on hand, Shinichi considered the depressing fact that he had just named off the entire list of people who still knew him by name, and yet he still had five fingers left to count on. If you didn't count the Kid, that is.

_Right. First question, Kudo. WHY did you let that nutjob go? No, never mind 'let', you damn well aided and abetted the escape of a known criminal, wounded or not. Why? If we went into legalities, you could say as seven-year-old Conan that since Nakamori'd not pressed charges or identified him, you were... no. Not even Mouri'd let that one fly. So no excuses. Why'd you do it?_

Because he didn't have to risk his life, his freedom or the success of whatever insane private mission he's on by helping those men, but he did. Because all he bargained for was no attempts at apprehension. Because if that's insanity, it's preferable to the kind of sanity that'd leave four new names on a police memorial wall.

Because.

Restlessly he kicked one foot out, propping his sneaker on a potted palm's container. Other than a couple of students in the opposite corner and one elderly gentleman with a newspaper, the rooftop was deserted this morning. Ran was downstairs digging up research material for a school project; he had plenty of time to think.

Assuming he _could_ think. Current events pointed to 'no' in that regard.

Savagely he kicked the palm's pot; the thud resounded across the rooftop, making the students' heads pop up like prairie-dogs' (the elderly gentleman remained hidden behind his newspaper; perhaps he was deaf.) Shinichi-- Conan-- hastily picked up one of the children's books he'd brought with him and flipped it open, pretending to read.

_So, next question. What, what, WHAT THE HELL are you going to do about knowing who he is? You __**met**__ him. You know his __**name.**__ If you had even half a brain you'd be spilling your guts to some uniform right goddamn now, but that's not going to happen, is it? Nakamori doesn't want to know, and you've got enough problems in that area as it is. Face it, nobody in their right mind would've invited a child into a police-boat like he did, Agasa or not. I don't think he's thought things out; he was working on gut-instinct, not actual fact or even conjecture. But he's __going__ to think about it, and he's going to put two and two together and come up with Something's Wrong With Edogawa Conan. Might as well prepare yourself for that, Kudo; it was going to happen sooner or later, you just thought it'd be Takagi or Sato or maybe Megure-keibu._

The book drooped in his hands, brightly-colored illustrations lying open and unseen as Shinichi stared past them and out across Beika's skyline. _"Kuroba Kaito, miss,"_ the young man in the park had said, handing Sonoko a carnation all the colors of the sun. He'd been, what? Ran's age or so and an obvious friend of Nakamori Aoko (a classmate? a childhood friend? maybe a relative? He'd looked peculiarly familiar, too. Weird, how he'd seemed so different from Kid, though) So, 17 or close, skilled in prestidigitation and extremely light on his feet with acrobatic skills that had been, if Shinichi'd heard correctly, honed by frequent assault via mop.

...maybe he'd gotten that last one wrong. Whatever.

Shinichi sighed, massaging the place between his eyes where all the frustration seemed to gather. _Alright, Kudo. You know who he is; if you tried, you could almost certainly find out where he's gone, or at least possibilities in that area. Do you want to? You don't, or rather you don't want to __have__ to. Putting aside the 'why' for the moment, just what IS your next move?_

Try as he might, there wasn't an answer for that one.

* * *

It was seven days until Kid saw Shinichi again. The part of him that would have made light of the situation - joking that he was acting like a wistful girlfriend or worse, a stalker - was still missing and silent. Kaito was either in trouble, or leaving Kid no excuse but to deal with his _own_ troubles. But Kid didn't feel a tug of crisis or need from Kaito's direction, so for all odds, he was probably just exercising some tough love toward his counterpart. And in a sad way, Kid could admit that Kaito was right - Kid was in a right complicated mess this time, like none he or his father had ever managed. Well. Except for getting killed.

Kid shook that thought off briskly. The fact was, running away from this tangle - and from the decision of _what,_ exactly, he was going to do about Nakamori and Edogawa - would only prolong the inevitable, and might actually make things worse for him at the next heist. Because of _course_ there was going to be a "next heist." That was the one constant that even this dangerous convalescence couldn't change - the Kaitou Kid was anything but down for the count.

Regardless, certain issues still needed to be addressed, and the safest way he could think of - applying "safest" as a _very_ relative term - was that which he'd been working on for the last five days, since he'd recovered enough to be propped up in bed, laptop in hand. And finally, it had paid off. Kid had too much faith in Shinichi's irrepressible curiosity to doubt that he would have, eventually, had success; but it was a fortunate thing that it had only taken seven days for Shinichi to take one very straightforwardly obvious action.

_1nb!u says: konbanwa, ddctshn._

* * *

Conan... had had a bad day. Rain plus a forgotten umbrella had equalled sogginess for the first part of the equation; sogginess divided by sniping from three preadolescents (had he been such a know-it-all at that age? He'd probably been worse, actually) had equalled overpowering irritability. And when you factored in general crankiness, worry and an abiding paranoia that Nakamori was going to show up, scoop him up, lock him in an interrogation room and wring him dry-- well. You got something that was the sum total of black depression with only a small remainder of sardonic humor to lighten it.

Perhaps he needed to stop playing Sudoku so much. It was, he suspected, beginning to rot his brain.

The chatwindow had been an impulse, brought on by at last giving into curiosity and, very tenatively, looking up a certain name. The response? That hadn't exactly been a surprise, but the rush of relief that'd accompanied seeing it had been.

_Konbanwa yourself. Up and around, I see,_ Dductshn typed, hunching a little over his laptop and edging his homework up just enough to block the screen.

Kid shifted a little in his cocoon of blankets and pillows, carefully lifting a glassful of sweet juice from its bedside stand. The twisty straw that was threaded into its lid was tall enough that Kid didn't have to bend much at all, especially not his neck, to take a sip. Paramount were the priorities of keeping himself hydrated and making sure there were enough nutrients and electrolytes (and stuff; he'd zoned out through most of Jintarou's explanation) in his body to help him heal quickly. Meanwhile, the constant aches from his injuries kept him awake and focused, working his way through one problem at a time as he analyzed the tricky challenge of safely - and confidently - returning to work once he was well. A busy Kid was a happy Kid, or at least a content one, and so he didn't have to fake his sauciness as he answered Shinichi.

_ur either underestmting the # pillows on my bed, r overestmting how far i reached 2 grab my laptop._

On the other side of the looking glass (so to speak), Shinichi snorted, though softly enough as not to attract either Mouri or Ran's attention. Little Conan had had 'the Talk' from Ran-neechan a day previously (no, not _that_ 'Talk'. He wasn't sure that he could survive hearing about the birds and the bees from Ran without having his head explode) regarding internet safety, stalkers and Being Careful Who You Talked To Because You Just Never Knew. He'd solemnly promised to call her if he ran across any problems with weird strangers accosting him in chatwindows; and then he'd very carefully reset the safety parameters back to unblocked.

Staring at the screen, Shinichi felt his eyebrows rising. Oh well... _I take it you're healing well? Apparently the old adage of 'no rest for the wicked' doesn't hold true, hm?_

Kid laughed, grinning at the messenger window overlaid across several tabbed displays of two or three internet browsers. Each was organized by theme, or relevance to each other; congruent tabs played off of each other, while tabs in separate windows of the same browser represented or informed about tangential thoughts and considerations related to the main tabs. Each individual browser contained the research for one 'project.' _funny! tryin a lil too hard thre, tho. & actually im -not- gettin much rest u think. workin frm home 2day ;)_

_**Nnngh**__._ Shinichi's brain stuttered slightly as the tiny winking emotocon seemed to briefly develop a familiar, toothy grin. 'Working'. Well, it wasn't like he'd expected the thief to turn up his toes and accept an early retirement just because of a little brush with death. This was acceptable, this was predictable, this was-- going to be trouble. Surprise, surprise.

_Feeling a little sorry for your keepers here,_ he typed back as lightly as possible. _Must be like trying to take care of a flying squirrel who just did a barrel-roll through your campfire. Sounds like getting your tail scorched didn't set you back much, did it?_ ...Typing in _'Good'_ at the end of that sentence would probably be a bad idea, wouldn't it? It was a certain relief (God knew why) to see Kid like this, not a bandaged figure in a white hospital bed. It was also, Shinichi assured himself, the appropriate response that anyone would have towards an opponent who played on the same level as one's self-- a little like watching Heiji figure the ins and outs of a case while he worked it through as well, though with added larceny.

Kid smirked, making a mental bookmark of his place (_45 000 000 yen in average gain per transaction_) and then tabbing over to the chat window, typing his response before the gentle alert chime had finished sounding. _my 'keeprs' signed up 4 ths. thyre pros. also f i have a tail wht kind f tail is it? shironeko-chan?_ A quick image search produced a small .gif file that Kid promptly hotlinked into the conversation.

_[link]__ im more cheerful thn ths._

The small cat-gif was just... no. Didn't work. Too innocent. On the other hand-- Calling up a certain link, Ddctshn typed: _More like this, actually: _The link led to a very old picture of a kitsune in human disguise, furry feet and snout peeking from clothing. _ And you know the tradition; kitsune always give themselves away. Their whiskers show up, or a paw or a tail, no matter how good their disguises are. Can't handle their alcohol, either._

_smhow i doubt u could drink me undr the table, kitsune r no, chibitantei._ Kaito frowned at the screen, vaguely irritated. His good humor was too robust to let the irritation stick very strongly, but still, Shinichi's words rankled.

"I do _not_ let my whiskers show," he pouted to his empty room.

"Very good, sir," nodded Jintarou, traveling the hallway outside Kaito's bedroom door just in time to overhear the muttered comment. He continued past the doorway too quickly for Kid to be sure if he'd seen or imagined the smirk on his elderly assistant's face, but he frowned more deeply regardless, his tone petulant.

"_Or_ my paws."

Shinichi, on his end of things, was also slightly irritated; he dragged the cursor across the screen in curling loops and zigzags before bringing it back to the chatwindow and briefly considering adding a few emotocons of his own. It wasn't _his_ fault that he was more than a decade away from being legally able to drink, rather than less than half... Oh hell, whatever. _Moot point at best,_ he typed, feeling as if points were even so far. unless things change for me someday. If they ever do, you're on. Which had to be the craziest thing he'd ever considered doing, when you got right down to it; next he'd be challenging the damn thief to a kareoke match, voice-changer versus voice-mimic.

"Conan-kun? Who's that you're talking to?"

_AAGH._

Ran had walked up; he'd vaguely registered her movements behind him, but she'd been seeing to her own homework and he'd let the familiarity of it become white noise, background to his own concerns. Now he quickly narrowed the chatwindow and typed in a fast sentence:

_My favorite's the Red-Headed League. Have you read all of Holmes' stories yet? I want to get better at English so I can read them that way, but we don't start studying that in school for a few years._ Hitting the enter key hurriedly, he turned to look at the young woman and frowned. "Ran-neechan, you're not supposed to read over people's shoulders. It's rude."

_Sorry, Ran. The last thing I need right now is to have to explain this, because I think... well, it'd be that head-explosion thing all over again. Only it might be yours that exploded, not just mine; you DID warn me against talking to strange people in chatrooms._

However, she merely made a face. "You're right, it is rude. You're just so intent, that's all." Her eyes rested on the window (which showed the Welcome Holmes forum listing) and she smiled, the little amused quirk that he'd always secretly liked so much. "That Holmes club again? Well, have fun, and tell your friend hi for me, hm?"

And he swallowed a sigh of both relief and guilt as she walked away, back to her own screen and keyboard. "...okay, Ran-neechan."

On the other end of the connection, Kaito fiddled with a set of small juggling balls that Kid had set aside, frowning in confusion at Shinichi's nonsequitur.

Kid blinked at him.

Kaito blinked back.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

The room, lushly furnished, absorbed the sound of Kid's shout. The thief frowned, his laptop forgotten for a moment. "It's been a week! Your mother's worried!"

Kaito snickered, scratching lightly at the peeling skin at their hairline, where the lightest of their burns were healing, as he rolled one of the juggling balls over the back of their other hand. "I wasn't the one in the hospital this time, you know."

"You should have been there with me. Don't _do_ that again!" Kid squished the ball in his palm and crossed his arms, mindful of the still-tender backs of his hands.

Kaito uncrossed them, laying palms flat on the bedspread to resist the urge to make fists that would strain his knuckles. "Do what? Leave?"

"Yes!" Kid missed the ball, arms tired already, his grip too loose. Frustrated, he grabbed it up, then handed it off to Kaito for him to deal with. The magician got two balls into the air easily, watching them arc as he answered his counterpart testily.

"No. I leave plenty of other times and you don't mind. I all but send you out the freaking door with a kiss and _"Honey, do well at work tonight!"_ right before every heist. Why's this one different?"

Kid set aside the juggling balls and picked up a pair of 100-yen coins, immediately beginning to shuffle them across his knuckles. The process was slow and careful, hampered by the tenderness of his hands and the numb stiffness of both skin and joints. "...You should have been around this time."

Kaito tsked (but allowed Kid to keep shuffling the coins) while dismissing and countering the thief's protest. "There wasn't a single moment that you needed me to cover for you. There wasn't any disguise involved this time! Even before everything went pear-shaped, you were in the _ductwork._ **I** do not go into ductwork on a regular basis. So it wouldn't have done a damn thing if it was me, not you, getting caught _in_ that ductwork. You didn't need my cover this time!"

Kid humphed, answering in a delicately offended tone. "You're being ridiculous and I'm injured. Leave me alone."

Kaito flicked their forehead. Kid swatted that hand away with their other one, and thanked the Lady that his mother or Jii-chan weren't watching through the open door. They would understand, of course, but they'd also still laugh.

Distracted, Kid didn't think to block the second flick, either. Brow stinging, he glared into the empty center of the bedroom, brows pulled low over an expression that, while eloquent, was rather wasted on its audience.

_"You're ignoring your company,"_ Kaito murmured only for Kid's hearing, directing their attention to the chat window where Conan's last message had been followed by another one as well, sent in the delay while Kid and Kaito talked to themself.

"Oh, _that_ phrase doesn't sound problematic," Kaito laughed, before retreating and leaving Kid to his more-or-less private conversation.

* * *

_Hello? Still there?_ Shinichi hit Enter again with a slightly aggravated sigh. _Ran says hi. Don't worry, she thought you were another Holmes fan._ God, WHY am I telling him 'don't worry'? he asked himself, or the ceiling, or Anyone who might be listening. This was getting too damn complicated; it was enough to make a detective long for a nice, safe, dead body or two to settle the nerves.

_sry,_ Kid typed quickly, _had a intrruption ovr here 2. i dealt w him._ Then he paused, rereading Shinichi's last message. After a moment of consideration, he added another line:

_dont think mouri-san wld appreciate me saying hi bck, so ill refrain._

The reply was short and dry enough to carry through screen and distance: _Kind of you._

Shinichi sat back, contemplating the thief's last comment with a scowl of concentration. 'Him'? Likely one of Kid's so-called 'professional caretakers'. Just how many people were in on _his_ secret, anyway? General profiling of the Kid's M.O. suggested that he had at least one accomplice, more likely several, though it was considered a given that his heist plans, notes, et cetera sprang from a single demented and extremely wily mind.

_So, working from home. Writing your memoirs? That'll be interesting reading,_ he typed out. What did internationally-acclaimed criminals do on their days off, anyway?

Kid's answer was prompt.

_memoirs happn when ur done w ur lifeswork._

im nowhere near done.

Was it Shinichi's imagination, or did that phrasing sound... sad?

* * *

The next few days chased the tail-end of summer into autumn, the season turning so rapidly that you'd expect to see skid-marks on the changing leaves. The weather took on that peculiar scent that comes with cool damp air when the things it flows around still expect to be hot and dry; and on an afternoon when you could actually taste the first breath of Fall when you drew in your own, Conan found himself quite a long ways from home, staring from a distance at a certain street-sign.

He hadn't planned on being there, not at all. But... the Shonen Tantei were occupied with one thing or another for once, Ai was deeply involved in some new line of chemical pursuit, Ran and Sonoko were having a Girl's Night In at the latter's home (and hadn't _that_ been a narrow escape?) and there'd been this new bookstore he'd wanted to see, not all that long of a train-ride away and nothing Mouri'd care about what with the all-night majhong... The adults in Conan's admittedly narrow world hadn't put two and two together; he had, however, and now he had that rarest of things: an evening to himself.

There were times that he sympathized _in extreme_ with the blond child in that American movie-- what was it called? 'Home Alone'?

The new bookstore'd been decent but not all that Conan'd hoped for; his train back didn't come for another hour or more. And-- when he'd looked up Nakamori's address, he'd noticed how close to the station it was. As was that of a certain neighbor of his, if you checked the right school records.

But really... this hadn't been planned out. It had just happened: time and opportunity and a solar-powered skateboard, all of these leading to an impasse, one short block away from the address of--

_I could do this. I could go right up to the house, just like he came to Mouri's stairs. Hell, I could knock on the damned DOOR if I felt like it. 'Hello, can the Kaitou Kid come out and play Cops and Robbers?' I don't think so._ He couldn't quite see the house in question from where he sat; but if he got up from his bench and walked just a short ways down the street, just a few hundred feet... It was a little like being some sort of predatory creature: a shark, swimming in circles, closer and closer until-- until, until, until.

_No._

Not happening. Not fair, not by the rules, not happening.

Looking away, looking anywhere but down that particular street, Conan tucked his skateboard beneath his arm and stood. Maybe if he hurried he'd be able to switch out his ticket and catch an early train back.

* * *

A handful of days after speaking with Shinichi online, Kid had regained enough strength to walk around a little bit. Never satisfied except when he was pushing his personal limits to their breaking point, he escaped his mother's watch, ran a quick pass around Jintarou's blind spot, and was out the door with a bicycle and warm jacket before either of them could stop him. His health, not the weather, demanded the extra layers of warmth, but as he biked, a leisurely pace in a roundabout route that took him along only all the flattest streets, the cool breeze on his face still felt good. Tendrils of chill air snaked their way down into his turtleneck, brushing against his bandaged throat, and he frowned even though the sensation was a nice one. He still hadn't found a way to explain things to Aoko, and in all probability he wouldn't be able to throw together a convincing enough story before she had poked holes all the way through it anyway. He tapped the volume higher on his music player, smoothing out the sounds of city traffic around him into one continuous buzz muffled by heavy bass and an artificially distorted voice.

_Saw you the other day  
Looking so undermined  
Acting like it wouldn't happen  
Making sense of anything that you could find_

It couldn't have lasted forever, Kid told himself, biking through streets and past intersections he couldn't recognize, face uplifted to find his landmarks by the heights and shapes of the buildings that stood high above him. He wished for a different perspective; wished he were hanging from his glider, hundreds if not thousands of feet above the limits of fear that tethered most of the rest of the race to the ground.

Sometimes, Kid didn't really feel like he was human, if being human meant fearing the sky.

_Because it's just about to happen  
And you'll be there  
You must have known the storm was coming  
When clouds appeared_

Kid feared the ground. He had always feared the _exact_ situation that he now found himself in: grounded, pinions clipped. His body wouldn't be able to handle the strain of gliding yet, even if he had the strength to actually try it. The thinner air at altitude might be enough to disorient him, considering how easily he was able to wear himself out during this past week. And even if he kept his senses, he didn't yet trust his hands. Sure, he could steer a bike, but steering the glider - and doing his work while hanging in it - was entirely different. On top of all of that, there was now as much risk to Kaito the civilian as there was to Kid the criminal. Exposed as they both were, each endangered the other.

So why - facing what just might be the end of the Kid, the end of his wings, and the prematurely forced end of his life's work - did he feel so calm?

* * *

The sky was downshifting from an orange-edged blue into grey twilight when the skateboard's power at last ran out; Conan'd been pushing it too hard, and he thought the power-cell might be loose in its casing. Letting the almost-silent growl of the motor die away, he scooped it up under one arm and trudged the rest of the way to the station on foot, thinking hard.

Had he just screwed up royally, or just the opposite?

_In the big picture of things, Kid's a very minor menace. He doesn't kill or hurt or do anything other than theft and property damage, so long as you don't count Nakamori's blood pressure medication bills. I don't go after thieves as a rule; he's just... such a __challenge__. Addictive. As insane as he is, there's always a logic and a method behind everything, as opposed to your average or even intelligent murderer. Murderers just want to get away with their crimes, success over anything else._

The unfamiliar station was crowded with people on their way home from work, school, shopping; Conan changed out his ticket with little trouble beyond the usual weird look _(What's a kid that young doing on his own?)_ and found a seat minutes later on the hoped-for early train. Barely aware of the other passengers, he continued his inner diatribe.

_So... I didn't follow this through. Why not? Same reason as I came up with at the library the other day; fine, I can deal with that. Shouldn't have come in the first place._ Restlessly he turned, propping his small form up and resting his crossed arms on the windowledge behind him. _He knows who __**I**__ am too, after all; he could betray me in a heartbeat, one little email to the right people and-- So. Guess I did the right thing, or at least something I can live with._

Funny, you'd expect the bad guys to feel the guilt, not the good guys. We're supposed to have the strength of ten because our hearts are pure and all that crap. So much for fantasy.

The rest of the ride back was quiet; and if Conan still regretted the impulse that had sent him out in the first place, for some reason it didn't sting as much as it might have before.

* * *

_Thank you for reading! P__lease let us know what you think of this chapter. Next week the story continues with "Guun-Guun, doves, coffee." Look forward to it!_


	5. GuunGuun, doves, coffee

_**Chapter Five**__**: "Guun-guun, doves, coffee"  
**__by __**ysabet**__ and __**rednightengale**__.  
Ornithophobics should take care when reading this chapter._

Another week passed. Kid spent most of the time that was his at home, practicing sleight of hand while doing online research, but most of the week's total time was spent by Kaito. For one night, he curled up with his mother on the couch to watch a movie marathon. They both had to be careful because of his healing burns, and he kept his fingers moving slowly the entire evening, flicking coins back and forth, laboriously shuffling cards, while the movies lulled them both.

Recovery time for second degree burns, the experts told him, was about three weeks, mostly of rest and a high calorie diet to facilitate healing. For burns on the hands, that time was increased, and added the necessity of physical therapy in order to maintain mobility and dexterity. With the latter half of those instructions, at least, Kaito and Kid had had no problem whatsoever - _nothing_ would deter them from healing their hands in the most thorough way possible, even though the burns they'd suffered there were a degree less severe than those on their throat. Nor did they quibble the calorie count - the household had run through about three gallons of ice cream in the two weeks since Kid had come home, and the grocery list already had a new flavor requested in thin black ink, with a bandaged Kid doodle next to it.

But rest? Rest was proving difficult to accomplish. Neither of the two was the retiring type, but they couldn't argue that the bicycle trick had been poorly advised. It had laid them out for the next full day, and also resulted in locks - with cute drawings of a small, frustrated Kid - being installed on every doorway as a reminder. The windows were left unlatched, free for Kid to open and lean out of - but no further.

Restlessly, Kid turned back to his task at hand - a paper letter, written in an unsteady hand on cute stationery featuring pictures of meatbuns with rabbit ears and small talking animals. In bright pastels, the stationery happily announced, "_Now is guun-guun time! Make happy and be peaceful with nature._"

With a dissatisfied sigh, Kid folded the letter closed and sealed it with a matching sticker. He really hadn't had any good idea what to say, but the act of writing the letter had been therapeutic - even if his handwriting was driving him up the wall. He hadn't even TRIED to render the Kid doodle.

Slowly, Kid made his way out of his bedroom, pausing to slip on house scuffs and a thick robe over his scoop-neck sweater and thick pyjama pants. Scratching his hair out of his eyes, he padded carefully down the hallway, to the main staircase. Going down one level, across a long interior balcony extension, then up two more levels, brought him out of an angled rooftop doorway into a small conservatory and birdhouse. Within the glass walls of a typical greenhouse, plants and doves co-mingled with the occasional city pigeon smart enough to figure out that the Kuroba grounds provided a much more lush environment than did the Beika city streets.

Kid greeted them all, gently petting wings and napes of most, scritching under the feathers into the itchy down layer for those of the birds who preferred that touch. All around him, they cooed warmly, a tiny army of featherlight companions with tiny rumbling hearts and endless possibilities open to them. "Keeta? Keeta, c'mere, girl," he murmured. A rosy bird with barring on her wings fluttered over to him, and he fixed the letter, a bulky thing, to her ankle. It dangled by a string beneath her perch as she sat on a rail in front of him, patiently holding out her leg for him to secure the knots to her messenger bracelet.

"This one's big, Keeta. Think you can do it?" She cooed at him, cocking her head to the side. Kid smiled, stroking her forehead with one light fingertip. "Okay, but I'm going to send Moona with you too, okay?" Keeta made a lower sound, _prrrrt,_ displeased, and Kid and Kaito chuckled together.

Kaito ruffled Keeta's tailfeathers gently, then lovingly smoothed them all back into place. "You can con the old ladies in the park with Moona along with you, you know. The old one-two act doesn't work without the two."

Keeta considered this, then with a trill took off for the open panel in the structure's ceiling. With a startled flutter, a plump white dove sitting nearby took off, wings beating quickly to catch up with her partner.

"Fly safe," Kid murmured, turning to sit down on a bench near the entrance to the greenhouse. He laid down on it, stretching out lengthwise. His short height was easily fitted to the length of the bench, even more so when he curled up a little, favoring his left hip as he arranged himself carefully, only the lightest of pressures allowed to rest on his throat bandages. Within a few moments, Kid had a bevy of lightweight companions blanketing him. Some of them, the older ones, mantled their wings to warm him the most. The rest curled up next to each other, taking and giving heat in turn, and the whole gathering, thief and birds alike, drifted off to sleep in a matter of moments.

* * *

The kanji test had been, to put it mildly, less than challenging; and while his classmates still labored over their own papers, Conan sat trapped in his seat and wished for something, _anything_ to get him out of there.

_Maybe there's a corpse hidden in the air-ducts? No, Mitsuhiko checked that a few months ago when we had that smell, the one that turned out to be somebody's forgotten tunafish onigiri. So-- fire-drill? Did that two weeks ago. REAL fire? Don't be an ass, Kudo._ He considered his watch. _I could shoot myself and pass out; that'd earn me a trip to the nurse's office at best, an ambulance ride at worst, so-- no. Ran'd be upset, and I'd just get to spend a day or two home with Mouri; not worth it._

He snuck a sideways glance to his right. Ai was finished as well, of course, and seemed to be working something out in her head; Conan wondered if she realized that, when she was really concentrating, her lips moved. It was a humanizing habit, sort of endearing in a faintly horrifying way (there were few endearing traits about Ai, after all) and so far neither he nor the Professor had mentioned it except to each other.

The classroom was nearly silent save for the scratch of pencils on paper; outside the closed windows a faint cooing from the everpresent pigeons that inhabited the building's ledges filtered through, along with a tiny persistent tapping. The latter made the boy flick his glance sideways-- and then stare...

...at the two doves who were perched like spectators on the sill, both pecking away for all they were worth. Even from where he sat he could see the scrap of paper fluttering from one pink ankle.

_He __wouldn't__. He-- oh, what the hell. Of COURSE he would. He's probably bored out of his mind too._

With an inner sigh (half of relief, half of exasperation), Conan raised his hand. "Sensei? I'm done. Can I be excused, please? I need to go to the bathroom."

The sensei, who had always thought fondly of Conan - _that bright Edogawa child is always so easy to keep in line_ - smiled indulgently and waved Conan along. "Go ahead."

* * *

The hard part wasn't getting outside; the hard part was luring the doves over to him while staying out of view from not just his own but _all_ of the classes so easily visible through the school's windows. Eventually, though, two doves perched on the branch of a bush; that selfsame bush concealed (or so he hoped) one Edogawa Conan, hidden in the flowerbed outside the administrative offices.

"C'mon, bird," he whispered, just barely above a breath; the rose-colored dove made a soft, muttering noise while its white companion preened beside it. At last, though, the bird edged towards Conan's careful fingers and allowed him to tug the folded paper free.

_WHAT__ in the--_ In befuddlement and dismay he stared at the bright, cheerful sticker; tugging it free, he flicked the letter open and winced at the capering woodland creatures that decorated the obnoxious thing. _Good God. Even Ayumi'd say these were over the top._ It took some suppression of his gag reflex to get past 'Guun-guun' and its friends, but focusing on the words he read:

_Hope this finds you well. I am recovering, if maddeningly slowly. There is scant entertainment to be had when so strictly restricted as I have become. Part of this is my own doing - my keepers, dedicated souls they are, endeavor to prevent another moonlighting (no pun intended) session as I made roughly a week ago. My bicycle, among other things, has been confiscated._

_I am reduced to napping, spoiling the birds rotten, and sleight of hand. I've been working on a new French drop variation, though it might not actually be new; I could dedicate more time to my study of magic and the magic community if I dedicated less time to being the figurehead _of_ that community. Irony, I suppose. But now you know my secret! Shhhh._

_The lovely ladies who have delivered my missive to you are Keeta and Moona. Your guess who's who. If you use their names, they will return your response, should you have one, with the utmost of promptness; they get extra treats for an adorable landing, so be sure to give the girls a ribbon for their necks or somesuch. (Actually, do not, it might end up strangling them.) Moona's a bit chubby, but it just means there's more of her to love. She tends to have an itchy neck frequently; help her out, would you?_

_That's all from me for now. This time next week I'll have a long lustrous braid for you to clamber up. Reach my tower, apprehend the fugitive, and carry me away in shackles! ...Because at least then I'll be able to see something other than this blasted house._

_3  
k.k._

Weirdly enough, it was the mental image of the Kid on a bicycle _(cape streaming, one hand holding his hat on; the bike'd be white, of course, and probably have fuzzy dice hanging on it somewhere)_ was what broke through Conan's shock and made him have to clamp one hand over his mouth for silence. He'd--

--gotten a letter. Not a heist-note, not a taunt or a riddle or a challenge; a remarkably chatty letter from... a friend to a friend?

Weird thought. Very nearly as weird as the letter itself.

Without thinking too hard about it, he slowly raised his hand again to the doves. "Keeta?" he whispered. "Moona?" The two sidled towards his hand again instantly, and Conan slid gentle fingers into the feathers of the white one's neck; she leaned hard against his touch, and the rose-colored one meeped in annoyance at being ignored. "Shhhhh, you'll get your turn." He reached for her as well, and she butted her soft pinkish skull against his palm in obvious dove-speak for _Scritches NOW._

Two or three minutes of heavy-duty dove-scritching and equally heavy-duty thinking had Conan rooting through his pockets for a pencil while his feathered guests investigated his school scuffs. A forgotten grocery list produced a writing-surface, and propping that on his knee he wrote:

_Glad to hear that you're healing. I'm not surprised that you're feeling stifled, I know the sensation all too well-- I'm a horrible patient, always have been._

He hesitated for a second, chewing on the end of his pencil. Should he--? Why not? If the Kid trusted him enough to write something like this, then... well. At least he could make the offer.

_I realize that you're unable to travel at the moment, but... should any of your keepers be in my old neighborhood (not the current one, you know where I mean) then they're welcome to borrow any books you might want from my old home's library. It's pretty sizable; and I can guarantee that all the Night Baron books are there, as well as the complete works of both Doyle and LeBlanc. Help yourself; nobody goes there anymore but me, and I'll keep my distance. And so will everyone else._

_I like the doves; friendly little things. How on earth did they find me, anyway? No, never mind, you won't tell me and I'm half afraid to find out. Afraid I don't have any treats handy for them, but I'll keep that in mind for next time. In the meantime, WHY did you use that stationary? If I didn't think you were deranged __before__ this..._

Two sets of bird-feet walked their way up Conan's legs, coming to a stop on each knee; he paused in writing to administer gentle scratches again, and the doves watched him with glinting, perfectly round eyes set like jewels into their feathered heads. "You've got a total lunatic for a master, you know that?" the boy murmured. "Absolutely, clinically insane by any definition of the word." He bit back a laugh. "Takes one to know one, though, I suppose." The doves cooed back as if they understood.

Maybe they did.

_Just a thought: you might want to contact Nakamori in some fashion and explain that you're still around to make his life miserable. I'm certain he'd appreciate it (for a given value of 'appreciate'.) I'm expecting that he'll be in touch with me sometime in the near future as it is._

How did you end something like this, anyway? It wasn't like he wrote to thieves every day-- other than the times on the internet, and they... didn't exactly count.... _Whatever._ With a flourish of the thick gradeschooler's pencil, he wrote:

_Get well soon.  
KS_

The rosy-colored dove accepted the note back with good grace; with a final careful fingertip-scratch, Conan stood and sent the two winging back up into the blue sky above. He watched them go, brushing off his pants absentmindedly before hurrying back into the building and towards class and the boring routine he'd been able to escape for such a short while.

* * *

That evening, a dove tapped on Conan's bedroom window. He followed it around the house, down to the street. In the same place where Kid, wearing Shinichi's face, had once covered himself in doves and disappeared, the plump white dove from earlier that day - Moona - sat waiting patiently on the curb for Conan to pop out the doorway at the bottom of the detective agency. She cooed when he arrived, extending one wing to counterbalance herself as she stuck the opposite foot out, allowing Conan to extract the new letter from its messenger tube. It was folded and rolled tightly; Conan had flipped it open, unsealing the sticker - a toothbrush? - and was unfolding it in search of its message before he'd even thought to thank Moona.

It brought him up a little short that Kid _owned_ more than one kind of ridiculous stationery, almost more than the actual fact of tonight's stationery: shaped like a pair of upended human teeth with red-veined roots for legs and big shiny smiles of their own. On the back, which was Aquafresh-striped, Kid had used the entire page for his letter, and some rows of characters angled down or up to fit into the strangely shaped space.

_Funny that you mention Nakamori. As you have no doubt conjectured, I am acquainted with him - and his eldest - in more than one capacity. I have yet to return from accompanying my mother on her "sudden trip abroad" - and when I do, I pray to Benten that I'm not so scarred as to tip my hand. Being caught would put a severe crimp in my plans, but I believe it would also break a heart. And that's rather against my m.o._

_My assistants - who fancy themselves my keepers - are quite industrious creatures. And they have a fine eye for treasures. As if offering me the run of the library was not enough - my dear associates returned to my side with, among other treasures, a delightful facsimilie of the unpublished manuscript of __The Last Love of Arsène Lupin__! I must be feeling reverent today, because my fluttering heart could barely permit me hold the pages in my hands, stiff and coarse in movement as they are now. Truly, nothing I have done might deserve a gift of this caliber! But my dear man, I can force myself to wait no longer; away to the pages in utter palpitations I shall go, even before the ink dries on these final words of praise for you and your prodigious foresight!_

_Which is very quickly, considering it's a ballpoint pen. I've never understood the desire to sound like an utter winesop - and by that I mean the rag with which you wipe up spilled liquor - just because you happen to be handwriting your words. I thought I'd try it to find the allure in it, but have to confess it's lost on me. Girls especially seem to like that sort of fluffery, though. That's one thing that tends to prevent me from reading as much British canon as I would like to; just too many winesop women. And men, to be honest. I can't believe that the entire era was actually composed of winesop folk; nothing would have been accomplished. I suppose that the hundreds of novels which cram the dollar romance bins today, were somewhat less possessed of hardy competition, then._

_I do sometimes wish for a different era. I occasionally see myself as my critics must, a quaint divertissement, an indiscernable one-man circus. I imagine that in decades or centuries past, I might have had somewhat more sway over public policy than your average newly released movie. At the same time, it all would have gotten so incredibly dull after the first hundred heists or so. There are only so many ways to pick an analog lock or avoid an ankle trip wire strung with cowbells. --Yes, I have done the latter._

_I hope you don't mind the frills of handwriting and such; there are particular items which long instinct demands I include in this letter, and only by distracting that instinct with other colorful things can I resist drawing them in._

_3  
kk._

"Wonder how dull he would've thought it was with the homeowners laying in wait with rifles?" Conan murmured, visions of Victorian gentlemen kitted up for fox-hunting and hiding in the hedges. The era had been rather emphatically lacking in gun-control laws and pretty heavy on the if-I-own-it-I-can-defend-it mindset (or, to quote something he'd seen on the internet, 'Screw the rules, I have money!'). Kid's monocle on a plaque-- or his top-hat, for that matter-- would've been considered entirely acceptable in some 19th-century trophy rooms.

The flowery language in the second paragraph had (heh) made his teeth hurt. _Thank God he stopped. Much more and even the stationary'd develop cavities._ Chuckling, the boy held up a scrap of almond-cookie that he'd stashed in one pocket earlier; Moona seemed to find this entirely acceptable too, showering crumbs down Conan's shirt as she nibbled. He found a curb nearby and sat down, half-hidden by a mailbox, to stare at the letter and think.

So Kid was worried about Nakamori's daughter's reaction to his identity; it didn't take a brain-surgeon to figure out whose 'broken heart' he meant. The attitude between the two had almost been that of siblings (or possibly twelve-year-olds with crushes on each other) so no big surprise there, Shinichi supposed; and he smiled wryly, thinking of Ran. If he ever _did_ return to normal, the big question wouldn't be whether or not the Black Organization would murder him-- it'd be whether there'd exist any pieces of Kudo Shinichi left to eradicate after Ran lit into him. Conan had no illusions about that; not all the fast talking on the planet would save him from becoming _Pâté a Tantei_ if she was angry enough.

Something to think about. Or not, if he could avoid it.

The peculiar stationary crinkled as he ran it between his fingers, smoothing out the tight creases once before folding it carefully and fishing out his own choice for reply; good thing he'd grabbed it on the way home from school. 'It' was a menu, blank on one side and advertising various coffees and teas to be found at a small café between the Mouris' and school, a little place on a sidestreet. During his full-sized days he'd ducked in on occasion, and every now and then he found an excuse to drop by ("We're out of coffee and Ojisan asked me to pick him up a Dark Roast with double sugar...") The closing time had '-1hr' written beside it, along with 'when you're up to it'.

Why not, after all? Meeting the Kid for coffee wasn't any crazier than anything else in this mess. He chuckled again, beginning to write.

_I can understand your worries about the scars,_ Conan wrote, _but if it's any help, the doctors believed that neither your hands nor your face would show much later damage so long as proper healing was allowed... in other words, don't push it. As for your throat, I don't know; I suppose some scarring there was inevitable. And broken hearts aren't anything I'd want on my hands either-- they're a lot harder to heal than burned skin. Or so I've heard._

_Please, for the love of God, can the flowery language! You can probably hear me groaning from here. You may wish you lived back in Holmesian times, but not me. I -like- my modern comforts. Give me a hot shower, modern dentistry (and are you trying to kill me via stationary?) and a lack of smallpox epidemics any day. And where would you be without your glider? Steampunk Kid?_

_Enjoy the library; and when you're finished with your Lupin book keep me in mind, will you? I haven't read that one._

_KS_

Moona had vanished into the skyline before Conan headed back up the stairs; Ran met him at the top. "There you are-- dinner's almost ready." She gave him a quizzical look, her pretty face tilted just a bit to one side and the apartment's lights giving her a faint halo in the twilight. "What's so funny, Conan-kun? I heard you laughing a minute ago."

Thinking about broken hearts and painful, inevitable explanations, he sobered. "Nothing, Ran-neechan," said Conan; "Just... something I read." He gave her a half-smile and followed her into the apartment.

* * *

_I'm nearly ready anyway. I can do the rest of the research tonight, note tomorrow. That'd be better, more practical anyway, I might as well. The heists are the priority._

"If so, then it's not the wisest plan we've ever had, rushing the _security systems_ research of a complicated heist."

"It'll be fine! I've been sitting around too long anyway. I need to get moving. I need to get out of the house."

_To a coffee shop, perhaps?_

"No! --I mean, I have a coffee maker right here in the house. Several of them."

"That's a great idea, Kid! I'll just ring him now and invite him over--"

_You will want to stop typing __**right now.**_

"Oooh, testy."

"Shut up. Just shut up, you smarmy circus magician. --I'll go. Alright? I'll go."

_Good thing, because you've got about five minutes before we'll be late._

"Oh, _screw you_."

* * *

He really wasn't sure what he was expecting.

_It's a coffee shop. They serve coffee._

It wasn't like he was here on a date or anything.

_What's more amusing? The idea of you on a date, or the idea of you on a date with--_

_--Look, it's not a date, we both know it isn't._

He was just here to see Edogawa.

_Liar!_

...He was just here to see Kudo.

_Bzzzzt! Try again._

...He was here to see _Shinichi._

Kid - wearing a black turtleneck, dark jeans, and sunglasses, hair a (clean but) thoroughly tousled mess - opened the coffee shop door.

* * *

It'd been weeks since the menu-invitation, weeks where letters had alternated with chatroom conversations and where Conan's-- Shinichi's-- familiarity with trained doves had expanded to the point where he now carried snacks in his pockets most of the time. Ran had, slightly puzzled, wondered at her charge's new fondness for unsalted sunflower-seeds but had shrugged them off as just one of those things that kids ate; at least they were healthier than chewing-gum.

And now he'd moved on to coffee as a, a what? A Kid-treat? Kicking at the booth's opposite seat with legs that were shy quite a few centimeters of reaching the ground, Shinichi's eyebrows went up at the mental image of luring a birdlike Kid-dove over with a proffered cup of java. Actually, he'd rather be the one drinking it; he'd had A Day, and at this point he felt he deserved a little caffeine.

The door-chimes jingled, and he glanced up... and away, preferring not to startle _this_ particular breed of bird. Kid, altogether unfamiliar in dark colors and with both eyes masked for once.

It had to be him, though; the expression, wary and at the same time intent, with that slight twist of a smile-- if that expression was a mask, then, Shinichi thought behind his own, it damn well didn't look like it.

"K-- Conan-kun." Hiding the slip behind his smile, Kid stepped smoothly over to Shinichi's table and paused momentarily, nominally waiting for permission before taking a seat in the chair opposite. "Afternoon." He ducked his head slightly, almost a shy motion, but tugged the sunglasses off as he did so. When he looked back up, the color of his eyes was bright in the sunlight coming in from the window - a blue so rich it was almost purple. In the way that eyes shift as emotions run through them, Kid's did now, quick and constant as the surface of spangled water.

Shinichi blinked. He was looking at Kid's face, not as Kid-as-Kuroba, but as Kid-as-- _Kid._ "Uh," he said cleverly. "Afternoon. Coffee?"

_I think my brain-cells just fused. At least it's me and not Nakamori, __he'd__ have to go off and take a cold shower... after he got finished killing his next-door-neighbor, that is._ The eye-color; that was odd. It almost matched his own some days, and when Kid had impersonated Shinichi he'd always thought... well, contacts. But now he didn't think so.

The waiter came by then (this was an old-fashioned place) for their orders: two cups, one with three sugars and the other with two creams. An observer would've been struck by the way the younger of the two at the table allowed his voice to slip back into more childish diction, despite the fact of what he was ordering. Perhaps the boy wasn't the magician of the two, but his face and voice changed as easily as his companion's expression before he turned back, shifting from Conan-kun to Kudo Shinichi again.

Everyone to their own magic...

Kid found himself fascinated by the changes. He hadn't had a chance to see the process in person yet, not from start to finish; but there was Shinichi, lifting his hand for the waiter and turning away from Kid as the man approached; there was Conan, innocent and more sugary than the coffee he ordered; and here was Shinichi again, regarding Kid with resolve, if also evidence that he had little clue of how to proceed. Kid couldn't help but smile, a soft sound accompanying it on his lips, in response.

"Me either. I can tell you honestly that I didn't think further than walking in this door."

A look of unmistakable relief flickered across the boy's face. "Yeah, well, neither of us've got much experience in talking without, ahh, filters." He shrugged, then paused as the waiter returned with their coffee. When he'd departed again, Shinichi continued. "Disguises, all that fun stuff." He glanced across at Kid's hands, innocent of gloves; the pink new skin was visibly peeling but looked healthy enough. "How're your burns coming along?"

Kid frowned. "Tender." Pensively, he rubbed the back of his hand, tracing tendons and grooves in the skin with the ball of his thumb. The pink skin reddened under the pressure, too new to have enough oil to ease the touch. The simple friction of his thumb against his newly healed skin made it sting, and Kid winced away, pulling his hands apart with a sharp frown that creased his whole face.

"My hands..." The worry and fear in his voice came through clearly; Kid was too preoccupied with _being_ fearful to worry about concealing it. And, in this situation -- maskless, hatless, without even his monocle on his face (it rested in his jeans pocket, a talisman against danger) -- worrying about showing a little emotion on his face would kind of be missing the point.

Shinichi watched him: the nervous movements of fingers, the flash and change of expression... and looked away, giving privacy without requiring that it be asked for. "There's this stuff the Professor makes," he offered tentatively; "It speeds up cell-growth. I think Ai brought the formula with her, but it's been pretty useful. I can send some along with a dove if you want..." His voice trailed off; belatedly and with an awful knotting of his stomach, a certain fact occurred to Shinichi: that while Kid might be aware of his double identity, it wasn't at all certain that he was possessed of the facts about how he-- _or_ Ai, for that matter-- got that way.

So he cast around for a change of subject; and found one, a thought he'd considered before. "...Kid? There's something I've been meaning to tell you, but in all the craziness of, well, everything, I just--" Shinichi hesitated. _"Thank you,"_ he said quietly. "Nobody said that to you, so I'm doing it now. For those four men, for all of it; I think Nakamori'd say it if he was here, along with a lot of profanity; but anyway," and the detective glanced up for a second, a flash of intense blue. "Thank you. Kind of late, but better late than never, hm?"

Kid blinked. He'd never had problems seeing Shinichi within Conan before, but just then - that single moment - there _was_ no Conan in those eyes, not in their shape or their saying. Shinichi simply was there, and Kid was stabbed with a sudden memory from over a year previous, one that he was certain Conan - Shinichi - shared too.

"Thank you, too. For helping me. And - well. I do think I'd like some of that ointment. I can't afford these burns, not really."

He paused, hands curling around his coffee mug. "I was thinking about...the clocktower. Would you have believed this?" Kid gestured, a small circle with one hand that encompassed their table, the last two months, and the both of them. "That we'd be here?" Another pause, and Kid laughed warmly. "That's a dumb question, of course you wouldn't've. Neither would've I. But..._how_ much wouldn't you have? I think I could have dreamed it, maybe."

_The clocktower._ That was very nearly a physical memory; Shinichi could almost feel the lurch of the helicopter, feel how his borrowed gun had bucked in his hand. They'd both come out of that one with equal honors, really. "Dreamed it? Maybe; in the beginning I expected to end up talking to you through jail bars at some point," answered Shinichi ruefully, leaning his chin on one palm. "And I was looking forward to it. Hadn't a clue you could run rings around the police like that... Funny thing, though," he added with the edge of a grin. "I really _did_ want to talk to you; I wanted to figure out why you were so damned determined to keep the tower from being demolished. That... was the purpose, wasn't it?" He hiked one eyebrow up, glancing at the other as the grin quirked into a challenge. "You didn't want the diamonds, you wanted the tower itself."

_'Why?'_ was inherent in the last sentence; but Shinichi didn't ask it, or at least not aloud. He was enjoying himself.

Kid nodded, so slightly that it was barely even there, the tiniest concession. His grin spoke volumes, even as he hid it behind his coffee mug. "Very good, Tantei," he murmured, and had opened his mouth to say something further when the waiter arrived to check on them. He was young, maybe five or six years older than Kid, and had an honest face. When he was a few steps away from the table, he visibly shifted out of autopilot, his smile sliding off his face as he actually _saw_ the scene in front of him: a quiet conversation between two equals, both visibly relaxed and calm as a millpond. There was some banter going on - he could see the smirky challenge in each of their expressions - and there was clearly a long history between the two.

Only problem was, one of them was seven years old.

"I - um - I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"

Shinichi and Kid turned to look at the befuddled waiter, both of them moving like warm and well-fed cats. The rest of the coffee house clicked back into place in stages; Kid finished the puzzle more quickly than Shinichi did, sitting up straighter and keeping his alarm from his face. Beside him, Shinichi seemed frozen, clearly unable to decide whether turning on "Conan" would be more or less incriminating than the current moment. Kid made the decision for him, smoothly melting his own frozen features with an ingratiating smile.

"No, thank you, but I think we'd both love another cupful. Three sugars again, Tantei-_san_?"

'San,' not 'kun.' _Take the hint, Shinichi. Don't run._

The dare was implicit, a verbal gauntlet; and who was he to refuse something like that? Shinichi allowed his posture to remain relaxed, glancing up at the waiter in confirmation. "Please," he said with an easy smile, as if there was nothing unusual going on there in the least. Internally, he quaked; _If this guy's Black Org, I'm screwed._ But the waiter simply blinked in even worse confusion, opened his mouth as if to say something... and nodded.

As the mystified waiter's steps receded, Shinichi mock-sighed and looked at Kid from beneath lowered brows; it would've been stern coming from his former face, but unfortunately on his seven-year-old countenance it was merely amusing. "You," he informed the other, "are a pain in the ass, you know that? There're people out there who do not need to know that it's possible for anybody to be like--" He indicated his childish state with a thumb. "Lots of them, with guns. And no fashion-sense." _And that's probably the first and only joke I've ever made out loud about those bastards, come to think of it._ He tugged off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes where the headaches liked to settle.

Kid had as much of a detective in himself as Shinichi had a thrillseeker's daring. The scent of a big story was thick in the air between them, but Kid knew the other wouldn't give up the details if he was pushed. A different approach was needed, one that at least carried the text of subtlety, even if they both did know its subtext was still just as nosy.

Over his coffee mug's rim, Kid's smile was only half-visible. The delighted amusement in his eyes, however, was more than enough to accompany his light tones. "Earlier, I was about to tell you that the clocktower had been a personal motivation, a moment of selfishness. Most of the time, I'm grateful that possessing good aim seems to be inclusive of dressing sharply - I have it, while yourself and our mutual darkly-clad irritants do not."

Shinichi snorted, raising his own cup to his lips. "I hit exactly what I was aiming f-- Wait." The coffee actually sloshed, and he set the cup down undrunk. _"'Mutual'?_" The word was voiced in a slightly higher register, driving once more home the fact that no matter the brain behind the vocal cords, they hadn't yet broken. "You have-- Oh." Palms flat on the table to either side of his drink, Shinichi closed his eyes briefly. "Please tell me you aren't being stalked by people in black trenchcoats. Please." The question could've been meant lightly; it sounded almost facetious, if you ignored the way the boy's face had paled.

Kid's grin didn't falter, just took on a disbelieving quirk. "Of course I'm not being stalked by people in black trenchcoats!" He took a sip of his coffee, calmly waiting with eyes half-closed until Shinichi had done the same. "It would really be a waste of their resources to stalk me when it's so much easier to simply lay in wait for me at my heists."

The heat of the liquid sliding down his throat was soothing, allowing the detective to center himself and drag his mind back out of the fogs of paranoia. _Breathe, Kudo, breathe. More information doesn't mean the situation's changed, it just means you have better tools to deal with it. And just because it __sounds__ the same doesn't mean it __is__ the same. Don't assume._ "Right," he said lightly, sitting back and cradling his cup in both small hands. "So much more efficient that way. Mine are more the infiltrate-the-highest-levels-of-office type-- you know, police, government, technology; that sort."

Shinichi took another drink, savoring the taste as it brought the world back into focus; it really was excellent coffee. "They're very good at cleanup, too," he added quietly. "Data systems, buildings, papertrails... people..." He shrugged. "Good with experimental pharmaceuticals too."

That last tasted bitter even to say; all the decent coffee in the world couldn't soothe it, and he took a second to compose his expression before glancing back up.

Kid raised an eyebrow at that, mouth pressed into a thin line. "Ah." That was all he offered in response to Shinichi's implicit explanation. _So that's the 'how' of it all,_ he mused to himself, turning to wave the waiter down. _Not that knowing changes a damn thing._

The waiter stepped crisply up to the table, looking between both thief and detective in equal balance. "Can I get you two--" He paused only for a fraction of a second, then continued with a self-conscious smile, looking at Conan like he was trying to simultaneously address him and talk down to him. "--you two gentlemen another cup?"

"Thank you, but no, I'd like the check," Kid said, with a politely shallow nod. "Briskly, if you will?"

"Of course, sir," the waiter responded, smiling again before departing to ring up their bill.

Kid turned back to Shinichi, unable for a moment to see the man within the boy. It was just Conan's scared-and-trying-not-to-show-it face, big eyes, honest mouth, staring back at him.

"If we're to continue this conversation, we'll need to switch locale," Kid pointed out. "Really, we should have two topics ago. I have several ideas, but am amenable to any of them." With a twist of a smirk, humor in his eyes to ease the moment's weight, he teased, "Your place or mine?"

A little bit of Conan's hunted look faded from his face -- only a little bit -- as he ignored the joke altogether. "Neither. The library." Kid nodded, understanding implicitly. Conan - Shinichi - frowned slightly, then added in a lower tone: "And get your face covered between here and there. You look too much like a dead man to take chances."

The check was attended to easily enough (though Shinichi wordlessly and with a touch of defiance covered the tip) and the two left the café, Kid slipping his shades on as they stepped out into the evening. While they had talked the sun had dipped below the skyline, though it had nearly an hour left of light before it reached the horizon. Shinichi noticed his companion's swift visual time-check and shrugged slightly. "I'm not expected back for a while," he said, breaking the silence as they walked. "Ran thinks I'm at Agasa's, and I'll head over there afterwards." He wasn't quite sure of the exact time, but it wasn't all that late yet.

He'd left his watch at home, of course.

By mutual, if unspoken agreement, they took a route towards the Kudo residence and its library that avoided the main streets (and the streets proper fairly often, too, by use of various alleyways.) It took a little longer to get there this way, but their trek for the most part meandered along the backs of restaurants and shops; listeners would be far more conspicuous there than on Beika's more public sidewalks.

"So," drawled Kid, bringing the conversation back to its most recent cliffhanger, "am I to assume that I'm missing, presumed dead? Or should that be the other way around, considering that the authorities haven't recovered a body?" He rather nonchalantly buffed his nails on a shirtcuff. "I'll have to keep that in mind for my grand reappearance." The thief chuckled, a stray ray of sunlight reflecting white from one lens of his sunglasses in a perfect circle of obscurity as he ducked his head. "Or perhaps you were you referring to my current state of health...?"

"Myself, actually," Shinichi answered with a wry tone, "Though 'dead, presumed missing,' sounds more like the both of us now that I think about it. No, I simply meant that..." How to phrase this safely? "After the case involving the Romanoffs, and the eggs...that night...you didn't need contact lenses, or much else, I think. At a glance, someone might suppose that you're the _wrong_ 'missing, presumed dead' person."

And if the wrong person saw Kid (especially in _this_ neighborhood, so close to both the Mouris' and the Kudo residence), that would make things go pear-shaped in a very horrible way. "You do look a lot like me, you know; or I used to look like you, whatever." Shinichi craned his head slightly to look at the face above him; it was a bit like walking with Heiji, what with the usual problem of talking more or less to the other's beltline. "That could cause you more trouble than you'd believe." The boy's voice dropped very low as he automatically glanced up and around at their surroundings. "Other people, too; if they believed that I was still alive and capable of breaking their cover, then-- my family, my friends, anyone I'd had frequent contact, they'd all suffer 'tragic accidents' or simply vanish. And if they believed I was hiding out as _you_... It's a good thing that your, ahh, 'civilian' life is well-documented."

"Rather self-centered of you, Conan," Kid laughed, his light tone mismatched with the very pointed glance he sent toward the bushes and fences around them. He made sure Shinichi saw it, a reminder that merely whispering was far from enough protection in their current location. "As if that's the only reason I might need documentation of the life I live! I assure you, I have pedigree papers and the whole lot. My 'civilian life,' as you call it, is quite real."

"And," Kid sighed after a moment, "So is my schoolwork! I'm going to have a _mountain_ of missed work to make up...and classroom chore shifts...and club minutes to read up on. Being _sick_ sucks." His tone shifted through this speech, until by the end of it he sounded just like Kuroba Kaito had when Conan encountered him in the park. But Kid's eyes hadn't changed. Shinichi didn't know how to explain it, but looking at Kid wasn't the same as looking at Kuroba-kun. Rather similar to the way that Shinichi could hold up 'Conan's' mannerisms as a mask - as if he were an entirely separate person.

It was an interesting thought, and one that had occurred a time or two before: two people, one body. The division seemed to be more marked internally in Kid/Kuroba's case, while in Conan/Shinichi's it was more external and contrived. It wasn't, thought Shinichi, that Conan didn't have a life of his own-- he did; but it was a life under ownership and control, sort of a full-personality mask. Kid, though... and Kuroba...

Shinichi didn't quite get it, whatever was going on there. And that made him _twitch._ Asking, though, was out of the question, so as they walked he chose a different line of conversation.

"Being 'officially away' sucks too; I don't know how I'm going to catch up if-- when I get back to normal. Night classes, remedial testing I guess." Shinichi kicked at a soda can that had spilled out onto the alley pavement from a dumpster; they were leaving the business section now and were only a block or so away from the Kudo house. "And as for me being self-centered, what else can I be? Besides," he added with irony, "it's in-character; little kids are the most self-centered things alive."

"The great Edogawa Conan? The star of his class, the brilliant child savant, the shotglass detective? In _remedial testing?_" Kid put a hand to his heart, feigning faintness. "Surely second grade won't be _that_ bad."

They rounded the alley's corner, and Shinichi fixed a dour eye on Kid. _"Crayons._ Lining up _holding hands._ Kids still learning _bladder-control,"_ he said succinctly. "And nobody'll believe you're capable of doing so much as wiping your own nose without assistance, and everybody's taller than you, and if you look at some kid crosseyed on the playground he either wants to beat you up or burst into tears, and... my brain just hurts thinking about it." He groaned. "And oh my GOD I'd forgotten what kinds of piranhas cute little girls can be, they're the worst. If you piss them off, they cry at you or get their friends mad and then they pack together like wolves, and they tell your friends, and then it's game over." His mock diatribe, no more serious than Kid's drama, had an underlying thread of desperation to it. "Honestly? I don't think I liked kids much before I got stuck back in gradeschool." Shinichi sighed, but there was a small curve to his lips. "Bunch've little savages, and now I'm one of the tribe again."

Hands in his pockets, Kid paced beside Shinichi and listened to the diminuitive young man vent what sounded like a much-belabored pet topic. "...Do they notice?" Kid asked, after a silent moment. "That you dislike them so much?"

The detective snorted. "Oh, I like them a lot better now than I did," he said wryly. "I really do. Nothing like walking in their shoes to give you a little perspective, even if the shoes're gradeschool-scuffs and the view's barely a meter off the ground. And most of them are decent enough; Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta, they're-- I guess I've adopted them, or they've adopted me." He laughed softly. "Ayumi-kun... you should've heard her after you landed on her balcony that time; you've got a burgeoning little groupie there. Mitsuhiko, though, he just wants to try out your glider." Shinichi was silent for a long moment as they neared the Kudo residence gate, and he ran one finger along the stone and metal wall that enclosed the yard. "They're good kids, all of them."

"Landed...where?" Kid searched his memory. Seven year old little girls, plus balcony, plus being in full costume (rather than in blacks for recon work)...

"Oh! That one." He smiled, amused, and raised a disbelieving eyebrow for Shinichi's benefit. "...You know, we ran into her again, later. Taught her a few juggling tricks in the park, but she didn't seem terribly interested. It was supposed to be a little inside joke on myself, for letting her see me twice, but I suppose the joke's foiled since the second time didn't seem to have made an impression."

Shinichi paused outside his old home's gate, blenching internally at the thought of Ayumi in training to Kid; _it didn't happen,_ he told himself firmly-- and then blinked.

'We'? _'We ran into her again later'...??_ He allowed the odd wording to slide for the moment. "So that's where she learned those; I wondered. Keep walking; there's an entrance around back we can use."

* * *

_As always, thank you for reading! Keep your dials tuned to this station...goodies and treats for our loving listeners will come winging down the pipeline sooner than later, but always unpredictably. Comments, questions, critiques, adorations, flames, and challenges are all welcomed, but if you're particularly interesting, you might be "rewarded" by the attentions of one of our dashing gentlemen. -- rednightengale and Ysabet  
_


	6. Lemonade, The Shadow, complicated

_Well. THIS one should get some interesting comments... XD Just remember: as soon as you're __sure__ we're going to do one thing, we'll be doing our best to do something else. **beams** That said, all flames shall be used to roast marshmallows, Thanksgiving turkeys and Black Org members. Enjoy!-- __The Management__  
_  
_**Chapter Six**__**: "lemonade, The Shadow, complicated"  
By red****nightengale **__**and **__**ysabet**_

The Kudo family house was quite large by Beika City standards; three stories plus a basement and a rooftop deck in the back, and a largish yard that had seen better days; now a well-hidden gate opened smoothly up from the furthest corner and allowed the two into a low-ceilinged passage, brick and mortar.

"My Tousan said he always wanted a place with secret tunnels," explained Shinichi, levering the heavy faux-stone gate shut with practiced ease despite his size, "and when he had the house built he made sure he got them. There're a couple of hidden panels too; goes with having a mystery-writer in the family, I guess."

The power bills had been taken care of, so a flick of a finger brought the cellar lights on before they climbed the steps up to the main house. Shinichi sighed, shoulders drooping as he tugged his glasses off and tossed them onto a table. "Make yourself at ...home. Well, sort of now, I guess." He shrugged off his jacket, waving at a nearby door (the cellar stairs had come up into the house's main kitchen.) "Library's through there; I'm going to grab a snack and something non-caffeinated-- you okay with lemonade? I mostly keep frozen stuff here, since I don't make it over all that often anymore."

There were several conflicting forces currently holding sway over the Kaitou Kid at that moment, and two of them read as follows:

Having just been invited into his rival's private retreat - previous library offers notwithstanding - the logical thing for a master thief and magician to do would be to subdue Conan, then make a full circuit of the house, including trap doors, hidden rooms, passways and resources, including the (inevitable) storehouse of resources once employed by the famous high school detective before his accident. The likelihood of gems was low; the Kudos would have cleaned the mansion out to minimize the effects of any inevitable robberies or break-ins. But the information that could be gleaned couldn't be pricetagged.

On the other hand, having just been invited into an intellectual equal's private retreat, having gained both Shinichi's confidence and access to several of his secrets, the logical thing for a master thief and revenge-seeking vigilante to do would be to gamble on good faith, employing emotional leverage if possible to secure that from Shinichi, and pool their resources regarding the men in black and their varied missions, as well as the information that the Kid possessed regarding various disappearances that may or may not have been able to be explained by logical, non-conspiracy-theorist-friendly methods; and the information that Shinichi might possess regarding the proliferation - or smothering - of talk on various levels, both industry and consumer, about noteworthy, unique, or otherwise unusual gems, jewels, or the purported contents of high-profile locked safes.

_"Or you could just kiss him."_

_**Shut up,**_ Kid hissed at Kaito, furiously snarling at the mental image of the magician's smirky, insouciant glare. _For Benten's sake, __**I'm**__ supposed to be the one who doesn't know when to shut up. What is your __problem__?_

_"You are stuck on him. You went out to __coffee__ with him."_

Kid set his mouth in a tight line, unable to deny either point. Tersely, he ground out: _Your point? My fuse is at about two centimeters right now._

_"You went out to __coffee__ with a __detective__ who knows about __ME__. And you're stupid enough to trust that he's not going to abuse that knowledge as soon as some 'greater good' demands it."_

_You've seen Shinichi in action as much as I have. He's not that sort of detective._

_"Because you know him SO well, Kaitou-__sama__,"_ Kaito snarled at him, voice fairly dripping with disdain.

Kid did a double take. _Kaito, what's..._ He extended the mental equivalent of a hand on the other's shoulder, but the magician shrugged it away. _What's wrong?_

_"He knows about me. He knows about me, Nakamori is eventually going to know about me, and as soon as I go back to __school,__**she**__ is going to know too, and she will not talk to me __again__. And meanwhile, __you__ are making __friends__ with the __detective__."_

Kid stood still in the hall, an utterly dumbfounded expression soaking his features through and through as the figures added up in his head. Faintly, he could hear Shinichi asking him something from the other room, but Kid's back was turned and Shinichi wasn't yelling yet, and this was more important.

Kid had always been the beloved one. They both knew it. But Kaito had always had his beloved one. One heart as compared to Kid's masses: and the scales came out about even. Now, because of Kid, Kaito stood to lose all that he'd had, and Kid had gained what Kaito scrabbled so hard to keep: One, solitary, true friend.

"I am so sorry, my friend," Kid whispered, hanging his head. The hands at his sides formed loose fists, Kaito's anger and determination mixed with Kid's sinking groundlessness as he realized what he was doing to his partner.

Behind him, Shinichi's voice was getting louder.

"--wrong? Kid, did you hear me? Is there something wrong?"

Bag of crab-chips in one hand and a frozen can of lemonade concentrate in the other, Shinichi stared warily at the dark figure paused between kitchen and library. The thief had taken a few steps, slowed, stopped... and swayed, very briefly, in place. _What the hell's wrong with him? He seemed okay. Did he overdo it or something?_ "Kid? Kid, listen to me, if you're feeling sick go sit down for God's sake." The chips and juice went onto the counter and Shinichi started forward, one hand outstretched.

It may have been instinct that stopped him a meter away or so, allowing the hand to drop to his side. "Kid?" he asked uncertainly, hating how his voice rose childishly high. "Can you even hear me? Hello?"

Without turning, Kid raised one hand to shoulder height, waving Shinichi's concern off -- well, trying to reassure him, really. But it was hard to do that with Kaito's back turned to him, and the embarrassment of his own blindness looming large in all his senses. "I can hear you, Tantei." He found a chair shakily, sitting down and hiding his face between his knees, arms folded around his head to complete the shield. "I will be alright in a moment."

"Yeeeeaah, I can see that." _Not._ Water hissed and gurgled in the kitchen faucets for a moment as Shinichi allowed it to run clear before filling a glass; his stepstool scraped against the tiles as he hastily climbed down and headed into the library. "Here, drink this." The face above the dark turtleneck was hidden for the moment, but the thief's movements were shaky, lacking his usual grace. Passing over the glass, the young detective sat down as well on a couch a few feet away.

_He was fine 'til we got inside; does he think this is some kind of a what, a __trap__? Hell if I know why it's not, but it's NOT, it's... I've... missed this: just talking to a friend. Agasa's a mentor, almost an uncle to me; the kids are great, but not-- and I don't see Heiji all that often, sometimes not for months even though we email and... Ran can't be, not anymore. I wish, God, so much... What did I do?_ All of this passed in a flash of apprehension through Shinichi's mind, as brief as the other's moment of unsteadiness. "Kid?" he asked again, and this time the worry was all too evident in his voice. "You want to tell me what's wrong here?"

Kid's voice was tired, his shoulders slumped, as he raised his head to look at Shinichi from under more dark shadows than his unruly cloud of hair should rightfully have cast. "It's not just heists where my Number One Rule applies, Shinichi, but I seem to be breaking it all the time these days. I merely...realized yet another of my transgressions, and it took me aback."

"'No-one gets hurt'," quoted Shinichi slowly; this once, he didn't drop his gaze but stared back, blue into blue. "Who're you hurting right now?" An expression of perplexed concentration that did not belong on a face as young as his appeared to be darkened the detective's own eyes. After a moment, though, those eyes widened. "Not me, not anyone else.... _yourself?"_

The library-- the entire house-- was silent.

Shinichi swallowed hard, pushing himself from the couch and turning half away. "Look," he said at last. "I'm not pretending that this is in any way not weird or breaking the rules or... but if you--" He had to pause for a second, collect himself and bring his own thoughts under control.

_He does think this is a trap; or that it'll be a trap. Or that I'll use what I've learned against him. Or... No. Being able to step outside the game of Cops and Robbers for a little while, being able to breathe; that's important or at least to me it is. I __**need**__ this. And I think maybe he does too._

"If you think I'm going to betray you, think again." Shinichi's voice was sharper than he'd intended, but it was hard to smooth it down. "I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, remember? So we're outside the usual heistnote-pursuit regime, so what? I'm making this up as I go along too, but--" He dragged one hand through his hair, trying to put something very elusive into words; it was tortuously difficult, but he tried. "Look, will this help? What I learned outside the heist doesn't have a _goddamned thing_ to do with what happens during one, okay? Who you are right now, that's right now; who you'll be then, that's different... and they don't have a thing to do with each other."

Shinichi's fists clenched. "...anymore than who I used to be has anything to do with who I'll be when I go home to Ran tonight," he finished a little bleakly. "Now, do you want the damned lemonade or not?" Stomping back into the kitchen, he snatched the thawing can of concentrate up and dragged the stepstool back into place.

Kid watched him go. Shinichi's defiance was aimed at Kid's sudden mood, their overall situation, and Shinichi's curse, as it were; but Kid could see that he didn't extend that defiant frustration toward the simple inevitabilities of his new life. The stepstool, for example -- Shinichi simply used the tool as needed, without angsting that it _was_ necessary.

Kaito watched too, anger and the outside edges of a good cry warring for territory on his face in Kid's mind's eye.

_"If I'm the stepstool, I'm going to get dirt on me, and it doesn't mean that you think I'm an ugly stepstool. It just means that sometimes, I have to be a stepstool."_

A lump in Kid's throat prevented him from answering, mentally or out loud. Instead he extended a line of comfort, a positive leyline of sorts, and felt strong relief when Kaito accepted it, letting them again be linked. He tried for a long moment to come up with anything to say, but in the end simply had to abstain, unable to find big enough words. Kaito understood.

Focusing back on the room, Kid coughed to clear his throat, bringing his attention back to Shinichi as he navigated the kitchen, producing glasses and a pitcher.

"I would love some lemonade, Shinichi. May I help?"

The boy shot him a sideways look, a sharp one-- not sharp as in angry or disbelieving, but sharp in the way that a surgeon might use when examining a patient. What he saw was apparently enough to allow the look to lose some of its edge if not its point; but all he said was, "Sure. Top shelf over the sink; I think there's a couple of large bowls up there. Grab one, will you?" That accomplished, the crab chips went into the bowl; and drinks and snacks were carted into the library proper.

Round in shape and more than two stories tall if you included the domed skylight that cupped the roof like half of a glass egg, it was easily the most impressive room in the house. Rolling ladders were affixed to tracks built above the shelves, and the shelves themselves were no less than three meters tall. The comfortable island of couches and chairs that the two had occupied actually filled an annex to the library, sort of a side-room with broad windows (now heavily curtained against the owners' absence); a second entrance led directly to the front of house and the library itself was furnished with scattered chairs and tables, including one truly imposing desk.

"Tousan actually doesn't do much writing there; he's got a small office upstairs where he does most've the work." Waving one hand at the massive walnut thing, Shinichi sat his glass down on an end-table and with a less-than-dignified hitch and shove managed to take what was obviously a favorite seat; the chair's leather cushion and arms showed a lot of wear. Small, dusty-socked feet (he'd ignored the house-scuffs) went onto a small table that showed many smudged heel-prints already, and the detective almost seemed to deflate as he sank back into the overstuffed chair.

"Home," he muttered, eyes lidding nearly closed; unnoticed lines of stress that didn't belong where they were grew less incised, and Shinichi let his head drop against the leather. "This place is almost the only one left where I really relax anymore. I haven't lived here in nearly a year-- God, Conan'll be celebrating his eighth birthday in the spring-- but it's still what I think of when I say 'home'. Kind of stupid, I suppose."

"Why?" Kid settled into the chair beside Shinichi's, of similar make but much lighter wear. "What's one year against seventeen or so? This _is_ your home...you're just in exile at the moment." A wry smile quirked his face out of symmetry, and he performed his next line with all the overdone drama of a hackneyed Shakespearian. "An exiled prince? Banished, cursed to roam the lost shores of Elementary until your Dear Watson comes to spirit you away, back to the Baker Street of your heart." For a moment, Kid held his final pose, one hand clenched over his heart, the other outreached toward the bookshelves' third tier, currently standing in for Elementary (or perhaps Dear Watson; the blocking needed work), face uplifted and eyes squeezed shut in ascendant hope. Then - as though entirely separate from the rest of his pose - his head alone moved, chin tucked down, gaze narrowing as it slid smoothly to Shinichi, and the singularly Kidlike sparkle of mischief laughed silently along with his audience.

Two childlike eyebrows rose, very slowly, to be lost in a hairline that needed combing. Without cracking so much as a smile, the boy solemnly brought both hands together in a slow clap of applause. "Braaaa_vo,"_ he announced, straightfaced; and then lost it completely, laughing into one hand, a little boy's laughter with all the cadence and shape of an adult's. "You," he said, hand still covering half his face, "are SUCH a lunatic. Totally certifiable. Pass me the chips, will you?"

The tension of earlier moments had been rather thoroughly broken, swept up and thrown into the trash; high time, too.

They talked for a little while-- nothing consequential, just books and authors and _have you ever read_ or _there's this series_... Twenty minutes later found them on the upper level, Shinichi perched halfway up a ladder while his guest sat perfectly at his ease on the balcony railing. "--got a lot of his original inspiration from cheap American 1930's pulp novels like these," finished the detective; he'd located his father's stash of facsimile editions of _The Shadow._ "Some people'll read anything."

"Ex_cuuuuuuse_ me!" Kid caroled, snatching the book from Shinichi's small hand and flipping through it with relish. "_Some_ people appreciate the original Poker Faces! Give me _Black Mask_ serials any day."

Shinichi pulled a reproduction of _Shadow Magazine_ from 1936 and waved it at the thief. "He had a nose the size of a cannon. And he spent half the time either hypnotizing, shooting or laughing people into nervous breakdowns!" Hooking one arm around the ladder, he brandished the cover (which, true to form, showed a freakish black-clad figure with gleaming eyes and equally shiny guns, blazing away) and rolled his own eyes. "You and Tousan--! He got hold of some translated episodes of the radio play when I was really small; they used to scare the crap out of me. Some people'll _write_ anything..."

Kid cackled, folding his legs into the rungs of the railing so he could lean back and relax. Well, "relax," for values of the word where suspending your back and bottom over empty air by way of levering your legs against the railings resulted in an image that just begged to be captioned: _invisible lounge chair_. Kid waved a hand dismissively, snatching away the _Shadow_ volume as well, poring through it with happy eyes. "You just don't like these Some people, do you? Careful, prejudice starts in the home!"

"When 'some people' happens to be Tousan in both cases," said Shinichi as he rolled his eyes, "prejudice can go take a flying f--aack!" Leaning forward, one foot had slipped; he regained his balance easily enough and hooked an ankle around a step unconcernedly, eyeing Kid's own perch. "How do you DO that, anyway?" he asked, not considering his own rather uncommon save to be anything other than common. "Velcro? Grappling hooks? Magnets?"

"Magic," Kid responded easily, the word rolling from his lips like the name of a lover. He smiled at Shinichi's footing, then turned his expression back on the boy himself. "You alright there?" His smirk seemed to hint more than he'd say.

"What? Oh yeah, fine." Shinichi blinked, and then allowed a matching smirk to rise. "Magic. Figures..." He pulled out another facsimile of the magazine and considered the cover. This one dated from 1939 and portrayed the Mysterious Avenger under the focus of a flashlight beam, guns-- once again-- blazing. "Let's see; hat, formal suit, cape, face half-covered... no, can't see why you'd be interested. At least you don't use regular guns." Shinichi made a face, thumbing through the pages. "If I had a hundred yen for every corpse with a bullet-hole in it that I've seen, I'd be _hiring_ some genius chemist to work up a cure instead of depending on, ahh, other parties. Not that I'd expect you to shoot people; not your style," the detective added absentmindedly. He flipped to the back, reading the ads.

"It's just so boring," Kid sighed, leaning back into empty air as though onto the flat surface of a cushioned bed, making a pillow of his hands beneath his head. Casually, he rolled his head to the side, turning his gaze from the vaulted ceiling of the library to his companion. "Guns, no matter what kind of them, only do one thing, and they're pretty predictable in how they do it too. Some of them are faster or quieter or shoot farther than others, but they all just use explosions to shoot hunks of metal. They don't deceive, or baffle, or play coy, or entertain, or bemuse, or frustrate, or dance, or flip, or tiptoe, or click their heels, or flourish, or offer flowers, or anything interesting. They just kill, and that's damn boring."

"Not if you're on the receiving end of the bullet," pointed out Shinichi rather dryly. "If you are, things get very exciting-- briefly." He turned a page, not quite ignoring Kid's utterly improbable pose but determined to say nothing more regarding theoretical grappling hooks in the thief's pants. "That's one of the reasons I enjoy your heists," he muttered, more or less thinking out loud. "Nobody gets killed." He closed the facsimile, hitching sideways to slide the issue back onto the shelves... and blinked.

_Did I just say that I 'enjoyed' his heists? I did. That may come back to haunt me._ After all, look at the sorts of things that had been devised in the past to keep Nakamori and that blond detective (what was his name again?) entertained.

_Oh, right._ "Hakuba," he said thoughtfully.

"Hnn?" Kid raised an eyebrow. "Oh, him. He's a bit of a prat, you know. No sense of humor whatsoever."

Meanwhile, a little voice in the back of Kid's head smiled ironically. _"You have a new fan?"_

"He's always been a fan," Kid answered fondly, letting Shinichi misappropriate which "he" was referenced, even as Kaito, flipping cards back and forth in Kid's mind's eye, laughed. There was still a hint of pain in the magician's expression, but also true enjoyment of Kid's happiness in Shinichi's company --- a realignment of values between the pair, returning to what was _right_ for them.

"Hm," grunted Shinichi thoughtfully, a glint of amusement in his eye as he remembered the blond teenager's expression in the helicopter over Sunset Mansion when Kid literally fell out of his reach, like a kestrel avoiding a larger hawk's talons. It hadn't exactly brightened _his_ day at the time either, though finding Mouri tied up in his underwear in a gas-station bathroom later on had cheered him up quite a lot.

(There was something niggling at the back of Shinichi's mind-- something he should be doing. Something about... never mind; he'd remember it later.) "There's fans, and then there's _fans,"_ he answered, mind veering uneasily back to a subject that they'd managed to avoid since arriving at the Kudo home. "There's the kind like your shrieking fangirls, there's ones like--" The detective stopped short before saying, actually _saying_ 'myself and Hakuba'; he was not going to lump himself in with obsessed types like the half-Briton. "--like half Nakamori's squad," he finished lamely, and winced at Kid's ceiling-directed smirk. "And then there's the kind that, according to what you said earlier, likes to express their applause with gunshot." One sock-clad foot tucked up beneath him, Shinichi raised his own eyebrow. "Hm?"

"Where does that put yourself, then?" Kid asked, rolling onto his side to face Shinichi, bracing himself with one elbow propped against the air. "What about my fans who know where to find me, who can keep up with me, who actually stand half a chance of touching my cape as I jump just out of your reach?" He studied Shinichi as he posed the question, their gazes on a level, his voice soft, familiar, and comfortable, despite the challenge of his words. With his brows drawn down - focus, concentration, critical attention - yet his mouth quirked softly - quiet amusement and pleasure, and the suggestion of faint wistfulness - and a crinkle at the corners of his eyes that could as easily be sadness as humor - Kid's expression was a nuanced puzzle to read.

Full stop; Shinichi sat quite still, giving the question the same sort of concentration that he'd apply to a clue, a motive, a consequence, an accusation. It deserved as much, and it needed answering. "I don't know that there's a word," he said slowly. "'Adversaries' should be correct, given the situation, but I don't think it applies at this point. 'Friends' shouldn't work, but applies too well. So if a language doesn't have the correct term, does it actually need one?" He hiked one shoulder in a shrug, oddly at ease with both Kid's question and his own response.

It would have been a simple thing to simply toss the question off or to answer back with a joke or a comfortable lie. But, swinging one leg and kicking the ladder-rung below him, Shinichi gave back a self-deprecating little smile, one that said: _Who knows? Not this tantei, not this time. And who cares?_

Kid's smile sliced open into a broad, toothy grin. "Well then!" He rolled back onto his back, stretching his arms out above his head, fingers laced; several joints crackled. "We'll just have to make our own word for it!" He grinned, touching the fingers of one hand to the point where his hat brim should have been, and inclined his head as he angled his hand -- tipping his hat. Razor cards appeared in both his hands, first the free hand, then the hat hand; with a wink to allay Shinichi's sudden wariness at the sight of the weapons, Kid simply folded his hands back toward his wrists, flicking the cards first in, then out. Their edges followed the path that the cutting edge of a butterfly knife might as it was unfolded, and as they crossed the empty air directly above Kid's wrists, high-pitched twangs, and the silvered reflection of light off of severed fishline, played Kid's hand.

With a laugh, the thief pushed off of the library balcony railing with his toes even as he began to fall, throwing his legs over his head in a perfect, knife-like flip, his posture precise and artistic through the entire motion. In his close-fitting street clothing, without the bulk of the cape and layers of the suit to obscure his size and build, it was much easier to follow the movements and twists of his athletic frame as he moved, arms out for balance and toes pointed, heels held together, spine straight. He landed on the arm of the chair which matched Shinichi's favorite with a light puff of dust, heels together in the second standard ballet position, his knees bent to take the impact. Predictably, his gaze was fixed not on his footing but his audience. He came to rest, holding the pose for a moment, then hopped lightly off the chair to the floor, and laughed up at Shinichi. Shockingly, a little bit of embarrassment was clearly threaded through his laughter, underlined by the way one hand fidgeted briefly with the hair above his ear, smoothing it down.

"Heh, sorry! It was worth doing a flip over. And I'd been wanting to try that since we climbed up there."

There was a protracted silence, followed by a strangled sound that might have been a cough—or a laugh. Hands gripping either side of the ladder and knuckles showing white, the Detective of the East followed the flight of the thin support lines down with his eyes as they curled and floated. "Nylon fishing-twine; thank God," he said into the pause, face perfectly deadpan. "Thought my parents'd forgotten to pay the gravity bill this month." With great dignity Shinichi climbed down the ladder and descended towards the ground level in a more prosaic fashion, during which he did his best to restart his heart. _--goddamn thief scaring the living SHIT out've me— _

It had, admittedly, been rather cool to watch, especially from his vantage point on the ladder; first off, you didn't generally get the chance to see Kid perform in regular light. Moonlight, the beams of mounted police high-intensity spotlights, the fitful flash of red and blue from far below: none of them allowed a truly clear glimpse. Of course, that was part of the act, wasn't it? Display, display, but keep the mystery alive.

As he descended the last few steps, Shinichi eyed the chair that Kid had chosen as his own personal landing pad. "Don't try that with the other one," he said calmly; "It's got a wobbly leg. Last thing you need is a broken ankle to add to the rest of your on-the-job injuries, ne?"

"I'd noticed you like that one best," Kid answered with a smirk, perching on the arm of the unfavored recliner. "So it was a safe guess that it would be the less stable of the two. Especially since its right arm's padding got pulled free and slides around now." He waited the beat for Shinichi to look, reflexively, at the chair arm in question, then back at him, and continued his explanation just quickly enough to cut off the detective's chance for response. "--I simply noticed that it slid, and you had to grip it more tightly than the other, when you were hoisting yourself into the chair earlier." He left unsaid the smarmy followup: _You're not the only detective among us._

Shinichi merely quirked one eyebrow up in salute; his mental comment of _Smartass_ went equally unsaid. "So," he remarked, herding all the appropriate cats back into their figurative corral once more, "about those fans of yours, the ones with the guns..."

Kid frowned. "Heavy thought needs food to sustain it, tantei. It's getting late...and I don't think you'll want to eat after I've said my piece. Let's order in and get comfortable...and then I'll tell you why the Kaitou Kid came back after eight years."

Shinichi grimaced. "Can't. Having a delivery brought to a house that's supposedly shut up while the owners are out've the country? Not a good idea. But I have a contingency plan," he added. "Frozen pizza work for you?"

"...I should have thought of that," Kid muttered, amused and irked at himself in equal measure, as he followed Shinichi out to the kitchen.

* * *

Some time later (approximately two large ham-and-pinapple-with-extra-cheese pizzas' worth)... "--and Agasa not only blew out his back wall, he set his pants on fire and Kaasan ended up putting him out with the garden hose. Think I was about nine or ten." Shinichi waved a half-eaten slice in punctuation. "I've known him since I was small-- smaller than this." He grimaced and took another bite.

"You're not so small," Kid chuckled, reaching around Shinichi's hands, dwarfed by his pizza slice, to grab another slice for himself. "But still small enough to have a bedtime."

Shinichi gave him a dirty look, opened his mouth to answer... and his jaw dropped. "TIME! Oh shit! Agasa's, I'm supposed to be at Agasa's, aagh--" He fumbled in one pocket, gave that up and looked around wildly. "Phone, phone, where's my phone?"

The phone was located with Conan's discarded glasses, and Shinichi spent a few agitated moments soothing the voice on the other end of the line. After a bit he sat the cell down with a sigh, glancing back at the thief. "Good thing the Professor's used to me getting lost in my books," he said morosely. "He was getting worried; ten more minutes and he'd be showing up through the _other_ secret tunnel. As it is, I need to be back at Ran's sooner or later." There was regret in the words, and as he sat back down the detective sighed. "Now. Back to what we were talking about...?"

Kid frowned. "Thought that was going to be enough of a distraction," he muttered. Gallows humor aside, Kid pushed aside his plate, wiped his hands carefully clean, and ran one hand through his hair with a very shallow sigh. "The story I have is somewhat more straightforward than yours, I'm sure. People get murdered every day, more frequently than that when the _'fans'_ in question are involved. Eight years ago, before I knew anything about the Kaitou Kid other than what the newspaper told me, he was murdered."

Shinichi nodded; he'd expected something of the sort, and from what he'd read on great magicians of the past-- but he couldn't say it. Not _Was he your father?_ He had at least some tact. "Go on."

"They wanted what they thought he'd found - which was, more or less, in one form or another, power. I could even tell you it was _ultimate_ power, and not really be exaggerating." He paused for a breath. He'd never had to do this before - never had to tell the story to anyone who didn't know it. The only ones who needed to know were the two who'd taught it to him, his mother and Jintarou. These events - these things - had never been spoken outside of the Kuroba family. And now Kid was telling _Kudo Shinichi_ about the Pandora.

The vertigo which belatedly swept across his vision was, honestly, not unexpected; but the irony of the _Kaitou Kid_ getting vertigo -- and here, on ground level for crying out loud -- was significant nonetheless. Hand across his closed eyes, Kid continued, tone subdued and tense. "That power was - is - hidden. They thought that the original Kaitou Kid had discovered its hiding place. He hadn't, so neither did they.

"That was then. Eight years later, I found the monocle. The Kid's assistants took me to his old room...you would call it a lair, I guess." He shrugged, lifting his head and gaze to again hold Shinichi's.

This next part was hard to put into words - it needed no explanation within the understanding between himself and Kuroba, but they had still struggled to define it simply to have done so. Now Kid was thankful for those past efforts to pin down the tricky moments when Kuroba Kaito had first watched the lights come up on the Kaitou Kid's white suit, hung lovingly in storage under glass; and the tension-breaking moment that twanged through them both - they suddenly knew that there was (had always been?) a both - when he (they) held the monocle for the first time. Though it was still inadequate, the phrase that best suited the necessary explanation was now at his fingertips, and if it necessitated he leave out all the nuance, at least he didn't need to grasp for words in front of Shinichi.

"The first moment behind the monocle... that was when I became."

The phrasing was interesting, to say the least. "'Became,'" Shinichi murmured beneath his breath; it made a certain sense. Potential, splitting off from the original and becoming real. "For you, it's not just putting on a costume and a personality, is it?" _Like twins sharing the same body._ He'd wondered, though he hadn't quite put the thought into words even in his own mind; and really? The concept wasn't any stranger than the rest of the entire business. Kuroba Kaito had seemed to be a different person--

--for a very good reason. He _was._

Kid smiled sharply. "It's a _uniform_, Tantei-san, please remember that," he corrected his companion crisply, moving on with the conversation without waiting for a reply. "I am searching for the thing that my father never found, the item of power. If the enthusiastic gentlemen who frequent my heists were to acquire it, the power granted them would put this country, if not this world, in a bit of a bind, extortion-wise." His pleasant smile was clearly very brittle, and he didn't even try to hide it. The consequences he listed now were plastic in comparison to the freshly dredged sludge that bound his heart. His father's smile seemed to strike bells in his mind's ear, long, hollow, heavy tones that thrummed without stop. Sometimes he wished he _could_ muffle them, wrap them all in flannel and hear the true silence of an empty mind when he slept. But he knew that was selfish, and the impulses - idle as they were, for who knew how to muffle a memory? - died swiftly.

"Quite honestly, the bullets don't bother me so much, in that context."

"...I'd guess they wouldn't, would they?" Shinichi had sat through the explanation without moving, chin pillowed on one palm, head tilted a little to the side; his unchildlike gaze had not moved from Kid's face the entire time. "Your father..." He could say the words now. "You must have been, what? Eight, nine?" Cheapening the thought with phrases like _you must miss him_ and _that must've been hard_ was out of the question. "At least you have a chance to do something about it... and they haven't shot you yet."

Kid reached for his drink, sipping it with reserve. Over its rim, he commented, "That's not precisely true, Tantei-san. I'm afraid they're quite decent shots, on the average."

"I… see." The hospital attendants of weeks past had remarked on several masses of subcutaneous scar-tissue, primarily blunt-force damage of the kind that police officers in active duty incurred from deflected gunshots; and an appalled Shinichi had wondered about them. There'd been one in particular, well-healed but centered directly over the left side of the sternum, heart-high; that **had** to have hurt, no matter what had blunted it.

Bullet-proof vests could only do so much for a target's torso, and they did _nothing_ against head-shots.

It wasn't so much that memory as the mental image of a white suit showing the characteristic charring of a close-in bullethole vivid amid red spatters that made Shinichi freeze in place; and it worsened, thought by thought. There was such a thing as knowing crime-scene procedure too thoroughly, and the images that followed _(tape-mark around the body, numbered tags beside bullet-casings, flash of a camera laying every detail out mercilessly clear, shrill ziiip! of a plastic bag closing)_ made his fingernails bite into the arm of his chair.

Worn fabric ripped softly, spilling out upholstery stuffing.

Kid frowned, lowering his cup as Shinichi's agitation increased. "Tantei...?"

_(White glider crumpled and broken, tagged and bagged in an evidence locker; monocle shattered and blackened; reports comparing entrance and exit wounds read aloud in a cold, clinical voice in a cold, clinical room with cold metal drawers)_ Shinichi swallowed hard. "Sometimes I have too good of an imagination," he said thickly, and drained his own glass. "Fair enough. You've told me about your worst audience; so I'll tell you about mine." He sat back, ignoring the damaged chair-arms; they weren't important.

"Mine... I was in the wrong place and the wrong time, and I saw something I shouldn't have." The detective laughed a little, just a small choke of sound; "That's always the way the movies portray these things starting out, right? Only... that experimental pharmaceutical I mentioned earlier? It was supposed to dispose of bodies, not revert them to an earlier state. It was," he shrugged slightly, gripping his glass, "excruciating. Never mind. The point is, I woke up like I am and had to improvise."

Shinichi sighed; the part of him called 'Edogawa Conan' was not separate or anything that could hold up on its own; but more and more, 'Conan' seemed to be the reality and 'Shinichi' the illusion. Who woke up every morning? Conan. Who solved the cases? Conan. Who held Ran's hand when they walked? ....goddamn Edogawa Conan, that was who. 'Kudo Shinichi' was a ghost now, not even as real as a cemetery marker or a photo in a family shrine. 'Kudo Shinichi' was a lie.

And he _**hated**_ that.

"We both have rather fatal cover lives, then," Kid mused quietly, setting his cup aside and tucking his feet beneath him in his chair. "And the fact that yours is constructed where mine is natural doesn't affect how thoroughly dead we can make our companions if we let slip, or if they uncover, our real names. Too bad that we have such vibrantly bullheaded ladies following us around to make the concealment that much more difficult, mm?"

A little more settled now (why was it easier to talk about his own problems?), Shinichi rolled his eyes. "'Fatal'? Do you have any idea what Ran's going to do to me when she finds out?" he asked. "Not that it matters all that much. In the meantime, I've already witnessed the Black Organization—don't laugh, I didn't name them—in action several times, cleaning up. Bombs, guns, fire… they like fire; makes everything nice and tidy." Sarcasm sharpened his voice for a second, raising the pitch into a childishly high range. "So they can't know I'm still alive; if they find out for certain, I'm dead and so's everyone who knows me. 'Fatal' on a personal level I can handle; that, though, I can't."

Across the room, Edogawa Conan's glasses glinted in the overhead lights; Shinichi looked away. "'Conan' saves me by existing," he said quietly. "But someday Ran's going to find out that he's as much of a lie as 'Kudo Shinichi, off somewhere on a deep-cover case' is, and then the shit's going to hit the fan. Which is fine, so long as… there's still a fan for it to hit…" He trailed off with a snort of laughter. "Okay, that came out wrong. But you know what I mean, don't you? You're in the same boat, in a way."

"No," Kid countered. "She knows that you wouldn't deceive her if you had the choice. And, someday, she'll know you did it to protect her, whether or not she will agree that she needed protecting. But she..." He frowned, struggling to say Aoko's name out loud. Several long moments later, it still would not come, and Kid continued onward with a wave of his hand to indicate the unspoken woman. "I have no such justification. And, unlike yours, both of my lives are not, mmm..." His smile was fragile. "_'On her side.'_"

There wasn't much to say to that, really, but Shinichi tried anyway. "Maybe she'll still understand, if the situation ever comes up; don't underestimate her. 'Vibrantly bullheaded' tends to go along with 'intelligent' most've the time, doesn't it?" Restlessly he slid down from his seat and wondered over to the side-table, picking up Conan's glasses; and he held them up for a moment. Blue eyes met blue, and for once the mask of glass was on Conan's face only. "The end doesn't always justify the means, but sometimes it mitigates it," the detective said, a half-smile attempting to find a way out somewhere. "If it didn't, there'd be no excuse for childbirth or horrible decade-long anime series, hm?"

"I still don't think those are very justified," Kid laughed, true humor relaxing the tight lines around his eyes and mouth. "There has _got_ to be a more logical way to get that job done, a way with considerably less screaming and epithets, one would hope - and filler arcs ought to be classified as instruments of torture in most cases."

Shinichi shuddered. "That's one mystery I prefer not to learn about first-hand, thanks very much. And as for the other..." He groaned. "ALL three've the kids love Pokémon. And so does my class. And the other classes in my grade, without exception. I was watching it ten years ago, and now I end up watching it again every damn time I go over to Ayumi's or-- and you can just stop smirking right now. The theme song gets _stuck in my head."_ Glare.

Kid grinned, a warm expression that reached all the way into his eyes. "At least you've got it easier than Satoshi; in your case, there's only one of me to catch," he teased, intending the comment to be snarky. But his contentment with the situation, and the peace that had settled warmly around their little enclave of two as the topic had shifted back into safer, less bladed territory, meant that his voice came out on an absolute _purr._ Keeping his own surprise (and maybe a little embarrassment) at what he sounded like off his face, Kid hoped Shinichi didn't ascribe it to anything other than Kid's normal playfulness, while Kaito in the back of his head chuckled lightly.

_Shush, you,_ Kid aimed in his partner's direction. _He's seven._

_"No he's not,"_ Kaito countered, but that was as far as he pressed the issue.

Shinichi chuckled; the easy tone was a far cry from the brittle one of a few moments earlier and, with a twinge of surprise, he realized just how welcome it was: very, actually. He opened his mouth to reply-- and surprised himself with a yawn. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "The thing about being kid-shaped again is that your body doesn't always obey your mind; the damn drug didn't just shrink me, it literally regressed me. That means I wear out like a kid too, and I need sleep like one as well. It's annoying, but..." He shrugged.

"You'd better get home," Kid conceded, setting aside his cup, unfolding his legs: the little tells of body language that wrap up a conversation even when the conversation itself lingers. "I'll follow you home, if you'd like the extra insurance." Truthfully, Kid planned to follow Shinichi home whether or not the detective wanted a tail or not; but he could at least offer the option of being transparent about it.

The other picked up both cups, carrying them back into the kitchen for a quick rinse and leaving Kid to follow with the mostly-depleted bowl. "I need to stop in at Agasa's for a sec," Shinichi answered absently, kicking the stepstool into place again. "I've-- well, been avoiding him just a little." Over the splash of water he shot Kid a sideways glance, one eyebrow up. "You do realize that he didn't exactly have the option of keeping his eyes closed a few weeks back, right? Don't worry, he's not one to let anything out; if there's one thing the Professor can do, it's keep his mouth shut... I should know. But you do need to be aware that he's not going to be suffering sudden amnesia any time soon." The clean glasses were set onto the counter with a twin _clack!_

_It's all so __complicated._ Kid turned away from the counter sharply, the set of his shoulders locked into rigidity. "I wouldn't have expected him to, Tantei-san. If you've got that to deal with, I will be on my way." His heel clicked sharply on the kitchen tiles as he exited the room.

"Whoah, wait! Dammit, WAIT." The chips bowl clattered onto the counter, spun, and made its own exit with a fairly spectacular crash of broken crockery. "Ow! Goddammit--" Reaching in a less-than-graceful grab for the falling dish had resulted in a hand that got at least part of it back; still swearing, Shinichi yanked the chunk of knifelike ceramic out of the back of his hand and attempted to stem the bleeding with his palm. No good; the cut was deep, and he skidded slightly on broken bits of bowl as he hissed in pain. "Son of a bitch-- no, not you! WILL you wait up?"

Kid had stopped just past the doorway when he heard the clatter; he turned and returned one step as Shinichi cursed, and stood watching the petite detective slip, clatter, and otherwise make a klutz of himself in the middle of the kitchen. When most of the motion had come to a rest, one piece of pottery still rocking slightly where it had fallen, and blood dripping slowly from between Shinichi's small fingers, Kid sighed and knelt down. "Come here." He held out his hands to receive Shinichi's own, his expression caught somewhere between irritated, frustrated, and resigned.

Catching hold with his undamaged hand, the small figure swore again. "Shit. Blood all over the place-- sorry." He'd smeared the other's hand as he pulled himself up, his left palm slippery and wet. The cut on his right hand still welled up in a steady stream, and savagely the faux gradeschooler kicked another piece of crockery out of the way. "Look, I did NOT mean I was about to have a huge heart-to-heart talk with Agasa tonight. This late? All I'd planned on doing was ducking in, letting him know I was okay--" (he held up his bleeding hand, far more annoyed than hurt) "--and heading home before Ran calls out the dogs or something. It's waited this long, it can wait a little longer." Blood splashed, red droplets on tile. "Dammit, what'd I do, chop an artery or something?" It looked worse than it was, but the wound was obviously going to need more than a band-aid, and Shinichi tightened his small hand into a fist, trying to stem the flow.

"Don't," Kid said sharply, then his tone gentled as he took Shinichi's hands in one of his own, reaching into his pockets and the waistband of his pants for supplies. Within seconds he had a small medical kit arranged on the tiles and his knees; he tugged the cap off a small flat flask of antiseptic with his teeth, then poured the liquid across both Shinichi's hands and his own, where his thumb held down the detective's fingertips as a reminder not to flinch. That done, Kid set aside the antiseptic and pressed a gauze square to the wound, using the pad of his larger thumb to apply pressure while he opened and unrolled a small spool of adhesive bandage. A few more seconds and Shinichi's hand was fully bandaged, wrapped, and dried; Kid turned both Shinichi's hands over carefully in his own, checking for smaller scrapes and cuts. One on the opposite thumb received a quick application of liquid adhesive to close its minor cut; another spot was daubed with antiseptic cream and a tiny butterfly bandage.

Less than a minute later, Kid sat back from his work, giving Shinichi his hands back for examination. In the silence, Kid began to pack up his implements rather than looking up to meet the other's observation.

_So fucking complicated,_ he cursed silently.

"...thank you," said the detective quietly. It had been strange-- more than strange-- seeing the smallness of his hand in contrast to Kid's. When Ran touched him he more or less blocked it out, or at least as much as he could (internally Shinichi looked anywhere, _anywhere_ but at the memory of the hot spring resort) to keep from dying a thousand deaths of embarrassment; and other than Mouri's little love-taps on the head and Heiji's occasional boosts or lifts during investigations... he didn't really get touched much. The kids just didn't count, though he'd been jumped on and clambered over by all three any number of times.

Ai, of course, never touched anybody very much. She had a problem with that sort of thing, he thought.

Kid's touch had been clinical, rapid and certain with practice doubtlessly gained from having to bandage his own hurts. Hands were the detective's tools and the magician's livelihood; for a thief, they had to be incredibly precious. No wonder Kid had been so careful.

"Kid?" Shinichi watched the other's own hands as they worked, hiding away the stash of supplies as if they'd never been there. "He's not going to tell anyone; I'd stake my life on how well Agasa keeps secrets."

"Shinichi," Kid interjected, warning.

"After all," Shinichi continued carefully, "I have, haven't I? He's... As much as he gets involved with the kids and I, the Professor mostly lives life in a kind of-- I guess you'd say at a distance. He enjoys knowing about things; but he doesn't let them out, not unless you ask. And I've already asked him not to let anything slip, back at the hospital." The boy flexed his hand, testing the pull and give of the bandages; they fit perfectly. "He'll lock everything inside; that's what he does."

_"Shinichi,"_ Kid interrupted finally, his tone sharp. "None of that is my concern. If he were a risk I would have discovered that already. You are welcome to continue being obtuse for as long as you like, but I _really_ want no part of it." _Especially not here, not tonight._

Why didn't Shinichi realize? They had spent the last few hours as friends, insulated, even when they talked about their problems, their "fans," they did it in individual terms, relating their experiences from the time before the convention center. That wasn't threatening - far from it, it was weirdly soothing, if simultaneously nerve-wracking, to be able to confide in Shinichi the things that Kid had never been able to speak aloud before, the things that simply came packaged with the job and the uniform, inescapable things. It was nice to speak as friends would. And within this house, a neutral ground obscurely founded in a clocktower rivalry, Kid had let himself be lulled into thinking that they could be simply friends, without consequence or context.

But by mentioning Agasa, focusing on him, Shinichi was breaking that safety. Kid had to either deny the topic, or turn back to the guarded, private, wary creature that, until this past month, he had always been without respite. The international criminal, 1412, Kaitou Kid... when right now, all he wanted to be was just "Kid."

These frustrations swimming through his head, Kid braced one hand on his knee and prepared to rise, a frown deeply creasing his features.

_"Please."_

That was all; maybe it was the tone, maybe the desperation coming through like water seeping past the seal of a dam. Shinichi'd taken a seat on the step-stool during the bandaging session, and now he crouched there, one leg drawn up out of Kid's way and half blocking his face. "I'm... Kid. This has been--" The boy groped for words, at last dropping his forehead onto his knee. "I am so goddamn tired," he whispered, half-muffled, "of being Conan. Please, just-- don't."

Kid froze again, studying the slump of Shinichi's small shoulders, the grip of his hands across his knee. He pressed his lips together, fighting his immediate impulse, until the impulse itself swelled like a doppler roar.

Before it could recede and fade again, Kid moved, sliding one knee forward on the tile (dark blood smearing on the knee of his black jeans) to balance his abrupt lurch forward. He wrapped both arms around Shinichi - _Conan_ - and pulled the man (boy) tight against his shoulder, Kid's own face hidden behind Shinichi's shoulder. He said nothing, neither strengthening or loosening his tight hold on the other, just remaining still and immovable. The impulse that had carried him forward wasn't substantial enough to lend him any other inspiration, so Kid just stayed where he was, listening to the only movement between the two of them, their staggered heartbeats.

And Shinichi?

...hadn't a clue, this once, what to do; so he stayed where _he_ was as well, perfectly still in the thief's hold. His plea of a moment before had been completely impromptu and completely real; the other's swift response had shocked and shaken him, but oddly enough there was no impulse to pull away or even move. He was aware, in a way that very few adult human beings ever are once they obtain mature growth, of the vast difference in size between his child's body and Kid's; it should have been alarming.

It wasn't. The embrace wasn't painful, frightening or encroaching. It was merely strange.

"Totally pathetic, aren't I?" he muttered into the thief's shoulder.

"Only if I am," Kid murmured back, eyes pressed shut. Shinichi's hair tickled his cheek and mouth as he shifted, moving his weight off one kneecap, but he only tightened his hold around the boy in his arms. Kid wasn't even sure if it was safe to stay like that, but rather than make that decision, he just stayed put, stealing comfort moment by moment in the strange simultaneous embrace of friend and foe.

This was so going to weird him out sooner or later, Shinichi was sure of it. As Conan, he'd been hugged by Ran, even by Sonoko... _as Conan._ Never as Shinichi, never as himself, ever; the closest had been when his parents had been in Japan, and that hadn't been exactly comforting, had it? Normal teenagers, especially male almost-adult normal teenagers weren't supposed to need comfort.

_I don't care. We already agreed, this isn't anything like a normal situation, so I can deal with being weirded out later on._ "...takes one to know one?"

Kid sat back on his heels, holding Shinchi at arm's length with a hand on each shoulder. "Trust a detective to get it all wrong," he said, mock-scolding his audience. "Wouldn't you rather say that clearly you can't be pathetic, then, if being so would mean that I myself would be as well? Clearly, that's impossible - the Kaitou Kid? Pathetic?" Kid laughed, mischief sparking to life in his eyes, though it had never really been far from them to start. "You are at no risk of pathos, my good tantei, if it's upon my bathos that you depend."

That startled a shaky laugh out of the detective. "Yeah, well..." He straightened up, feeling a little lightheaded. "We're both Big Goddamn Heros. Practically action-figures, complete with secret hideouts and identities and all the rest of it." He studied the thief's expression, feeling his own face mirroring the grin there. Stress-relief, surely; it rose like a bubble from deep inside, unsettling but welcome.

Kid's smile puckered into a rather fetching (and convincing) pout. "I _am_ an action figure, Shinichi. I'm hurt! You're not keeping up with the Taiwanese collectables greymarket?"

"Oh God, please tell me you're kidding."

Kid's expression went stern as he adopted a very cliche, but very impenetrable, You Can Trust Me, Just Sign Here sort of demeanor. "Shinichi, really, I understand being jealous, especially as the production of the figurines required no investment or approval on my part save for arranging the diversion of a small portion of the toys' profits to my own accounts, and as a result are netting me a fairly handsome retainer simply for the sake of being a recognizable news figure. Still, you should work on that quality of pettiness in yourself; surely, the unauthorised greymarket manufacturers will eventually begin turning out Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi action figures too; you just have to have faith that the market will hold." A troublesome gleam lit in the thief's eye, twisting his smile into a smirk. "After all, the Kaitou Kid action figures are currently lacking a villain to go up against, and goodness knows you're more photogenic than Nakamori-keibu..."

The bubble had apparently reached head-level, as Shinichi felt his eyes bug out in outrage. His reply was more of a sputter than words, and it broke up into laughter that-- well, if there was an edge of hysteria there, it was a small one and easily ignored. "You-- are--" (deep breath, gasp) _"--such_ a lunatic." He wiped at his eyes, shifting back on the stool. A bit of pottery rattled against the wood of one leg, and he glanced around ruefully. "Help me clean this mess up, will you? I'll sweep if you'll hold the dustpan."

"I hope the broom is a short one," Kid grinned, pushing his sleeves up in preparation of the work. "And thank you for the compliment; you're _ever_ so sweet to me." Eyelashes batting, Kid ducked out of the range of any swipes Shinichi might want to take at him while he was still at reachable level, then settled down to follow Shinichi's instructions.

The remaining droplets of blood were wiped up, the debris disposed of and the broom ("Why would I want a short broom when a regular one has greater reach?") and dustpan put away. As the step-stool was shoved into a corner by a sock-clad foot, Shinichi sighed and flexed his bandaged hand. "I need to head to Agasa's and at least let him know I cut myself," he said with regret. "Ran'll think he did the bandaging, so--" He hesitated, thinking, and a grin that could only be described as sly made its way out. "Those _Shadow_ magazines... want to see the originals? Tousan's got them in climate-controlled storage downstairs." The offer was real, but the words said more than one thing:

_Neutral ground? For both of us?_ It was simultaneously an apology and an offer of armistice. "This evening's been--" Shinichi blinked. "--a lot of things. But... you'd be welcome. And it's not like anybody's going to look for us here."

Kid smiled, one hand on the doorframe. "Shinichi, you've made the mistake of inviting this cat in to your hearth once. I believe you can surmise how difficult it would be to retrain me...we cats don't like to be obedient."

The detective rolled his eyes. "Woof, woof. Okay, understood; I'll leave the timing up to you. Now, want to see Tousan's _other_ secret tunnel? It's a quick way to the Professor's, but you can take the side-exit before I open the last door if you want." He smirked; he couldn't help it. "I'll save the Bat-Cave for later, though."

The bubble was still there, and it had a name: elation. _Neutral ground._

Kid smiled. "Tempting, but I prefer the altitude of my exits be at least above ground level, if not sea level." He nodded, stepping away from the kitchen doorway, toward the hallway that ran through the library's atrium and past its huge windows. "Good evening, then, Shinichi."

Shinichi hesitated, and then nodded, refusing to give in to the temptation to mother-hen the thief. If _anybody_ didn't need it... "I won't ask if you can find your way out; I know better. Good night, Kid." Ducking his head slightly, he smiled-- not Conan's cute, boyish smile, but Shinichi's, wry and not quite as confident as it had been a year earlier-- and turned away, heading towards Professor Agasa's home and a very brief explanation.

Kid waited till Shinichi's back was turned, then slipped a quick mask on and made his swift way down the hallway to the atrium's windows. Popping one open with the easy touch of fingers long accustomed to blind work, Kid slipped out the window, closed it behind him carefully with a careful grip on the leading of the panes, and secured it there with a tiny wire nail driven into the frame. It would seem locked shut to anyone but himself; now, he had a ready entrance, an open door, into a place where maybe, as Shinichi had implied, something new could take place.

* * *

_Hope everybody enjoyed the show! See y'all next week with Chapter Seven: "dottle, gas, Wild Things". XD_


	7. Dottle, gas, wild things

_**Chapter Seven**__**: "dottle, gas, wild things"**_

Professor Agasa had been dismayed enough over Shinichi's bandaged hand that questions regarding other issues had been set aside; he'd supplied Shinichi with a container of regenerative ointment, admonishing him to put it to good use. Which, the young detective thought rather guiltily as he'd agreed to do so, was certainly going to happen as soon as he was able to send some along to Kid-- maybe with one of his doves? Or something.

The walk back had been quiet, or as quiet as a city's streets ever got. Ran had chewed him out slightly for being late, but once again his bandages had let him off the hook. _God, I'm going to owe a lot to karma when I get back to normal._

And now he lay on his futon with Mouri snoring a few feet away... and he couldn't sleep. Couldn't read or anything (Ran'd see the light through the crack under the door), couldn't turn on his laptop (for all his noise, Mouri was a fairly light sleeper), couldn't do anything but lie there and stare at the ceiling. Maybe he could count sheep? But the sheep kept turning into hang-gliders, and the fence they were soaring over looked a lot like the second-floor railing in the Kudo library; Shinichi muffled his groan in his pillow, which was much too thin and could do with replacing.

There were a lot of things he probably needed to think about, but right now all he could do was wonder if APTX 4869 could possibly have brain-damaging properties that had somehow slipped Agasa and Ai's research. There was nothing sane about making friends with a known felon, and when the heists started back up, what the hell were they going to do then? Because there was no way in hell that he-- Conan-he, Shinichi-he, whatever-- was going to go easy on Kid; he _couldn't._ And somehow he didn't think Kid'd want that, anyway; wasn't there some saying about how a man was known by the quality of his enemies? Not a good word, 'enemies'; it didn't really fit.

So much to consider... and then there was the case of the dottle in the night.

Weird word, 'dottle', the chunk of half-burned tobacco knocked out from a pipe prior to reloading; weirder still, finding three of them at the foot of the Mouri residence's stairs, one still smouldering faintly. Shinichi'd smelled them before he'd seen them, and he knew that scent: the Momoyama blend that Nakamori favored. The brand was common enough, but the Inspector's particular blend had a larger share of latikia than most and it was, well... 'penetrating' was appropriate; so was 'burning styrofoam'.

So what had brought Nakamori Ginzo to Mouri Kogoro's doorstep only to have him pause, smoke for a good long while, and never go in before moving along? _A three-pipe problem,_ thought Shinichi sarcastically. _Not. He was casing the place out, maybe waiting for me? The question's not 'why' but 'why hasn't he interrogated the crap out've me already?' It's not like I haven't been expecting him to._

He turned over restlessly, wadding up the too-thin pillow and wondering what on earth he could in all conscience say. 'I didn't see anything'? Of course he'd seen everything and the Inspector had to know that. 'I'm not going to tell you'? So much for his cred with the cops. 'I don't know what you're talking about'? Not. Likely. And _then_ Nakamori'd start in with the other questions: _Who are you? Why are you masquerading as a child? How did you get that way? Who are you trying to protect? What, exactly, do you think you're trying to accomplish?_

And he'd sit mute. And Ran'd pitch a fit, and then they'd try to contact Conan's 'parents' and it'd all just go to Hell in a handbasket. This time the groan was not as muffled; Mouri shifted on the bed, snarling something about Mahjong into _his_ pillow as Shinichi bit his lip.

_Most guys my age, my real age-- they don't have worries like this. They're just freaking out over the next chem test and doing their best to get laid._

The pillow was worse than useless; picking it up in one hand, he allowed it to dangle above him like a narrow white marshmallow before dropping it squarely over his face. The cottony, too-soft mass was obscurely comforting, and he allowed it to remain there while he tried to think.

The-- hug? hold? embrace? --whatever-it'd-been earlier, that had startled Shinichi. No, it had shocked him, as much from his own reaction as anything: black depression dispelled (or at least lightened) by a rush of relief so strong it'd almost been tangible. Why? What was it that he'd wanted/needed so very badly that being unexpectedly seized like that would make him feel _(admit it, Kudo, man up and admit it)_ so much **better?** Not just touch; that was there too, yeah, but...

Beneath the pillow Shinichi's eyelids tightened as he went over the handful of moments in his mind: the broken bowl, Kid's careful fingers on his own, the warning about Agasa, Kid's reaction, his own involuntary response. Kid's reply.

_Contact. Connection. It's not just the fact that I asked and he answered back, it's the connection implied. I reached out, he reached back. And he didn't have to, any more than I was required to ask._ Beneath the pillow Shinichi's eyes flipped open wide. _It's the simplest, first impulse we have as infants, reaching for and receiving-- it's what we need to survive._

_It's what I needed. Me, Shinichi, not Conan. And I got it._

He was still mulling this over when his eyes at last lidded closed of their own volition and he slept.

* * *

Kuroba Kaito grinned. "You ready for this, aibou?"

_Always,_ Kaitou Kid responded. In Kaito's head, the statement accompanied the fiddling motions of Kid perfecting his uniform. His hands shaped and straightened the knot of his tie; the smooth heels of his white patent loafers clicked softly together, his posture militarily perfect and poised. He settled the monocle into place - usually, it was the first piece to be put on, but today the last - and turned to face Kaito.

In his mind's eye, the magician examined the thief. Not a thread was out of place - though the same could not be said for his unruly hair, just as wild as Kaito's own. "You look perfect."

_Good,_ Kid smiled, walking forward to bring himself to a level with Kaito. The thief faced outward; the magician looked inward, toward the depths of their shared mind's eye. Kid laid one white-gloved hand on Kaito's shoulder briefly, looking forward; Kaito, too, looked straight ahead of himself, but the pair didn't need to look _at_ each other to know each other. Kid squeezed Kaito's shoulder; then the magician stepped forward and the thief did too. The distance of two paces spread between their shoulderblades, each retreating from the other. And the wire snapped, its ends recoiling in elastic unpredictability as Kid brought his leading foot down hard on the floor of their mind, coiling his legs beneath himself, and dove.

* * *

From the outside, it seemed that Kaitou Kid simply appeared in midair. In truth, he did, but not without an origin point. Kuroba Kaito's black, form-fitting garments - turtleneck, pants, shoes, stocking cap - fluttered harmlessly to the rooftop where the magician had stood. Already twenty feet below that point, the Kaitou Kid reveled in his free-fall, arms spread wide, bright cape snapping taut in the roaring wind. He laughed like a madman set loose, because in fact he was; he laughed like a child on its birthday, because he might as well have been.

Exactly seventy-eight days after the convention center disaster (because, as anyone could easily surmise, seventy-eight worked out to three 1412's), Kaitou Kid dove unflinchingly off the north side of Beika's third-highest skyscraper, heading straight for the glass atrium ceiling of one of the biggest jewel houses in the city. As the floodlights of the Task Force belatedly caught up with him, following his descent for its last few seconds before his inevitable impact, he cackled with laughter in pure, unadulterated delight. The news cameras followed him, a streamlined white dart wearing a top hat, as he neared the atrium's skylights. Closer - far too close to use the glider - closer - closer -

And then, as the cameramen, Task Force, and world onlookers winced in fear of the impact, an explosion of confetti completely obscured the Kid from sight. Large paper discs in all sorts of bright carnival colors bloomed up in a gusting, blizzard-like swirl that seemed to rise out of the very glass beneath Kid, and the helicopters' cameras frantically zoomed out from their tight focus on the thief, trying to encompass the size of the cloud. The confetti fell quickly, too heavy to stay airborne even in such a gust of wind as Kid had produced, and littered the glass and tile of the building's roof.

Through the gaps of skylight still visible past the settled confetti, the gleam of light reflected from a well-cut gemstone reflected against the cameras' lenses, further obscuring the room below. A few moments later, as the breeze from the copters' rotors swept confetti free of the rooftop, the window was cleared. On the gallery floor of the atrium, a white silhouette framed by the searchlights of the copters against the rest of the dimly lit display room, Kaitou Kid leaned back, tipping his hat brim back so he could peer up into the lights and noise of the Task Force and news media three stories above him. A sapphire the size of a goose egg looked perfectly at home nestled in his hands.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," Kid shouted, grinning for the cameras he couldn't see past the helicopters' searchlights, "Please accept my apologies that tonight's heist has not been as theatrically exquisite--" (a pause and a wink, irony in his expression that he trusted the cameras to catch) "--as you may have hoped! After so long a time away, I must make up for lost time."

From the extent of the room around him came the slam and crash of doors being quickly opened, security gates being rolled up. Shouts and the beams of gun-mounted flashlights filled the room, adding visual and aural static. Unflustered, Kid glanced to his right and left, grinned up at the camera, and saluted. "Good evening, then."

And with another burst of confetti, this time accompanied by his trademark pink smoke, Kid disappeared.

"BLEEP!ing BLEEP-BLEEP!er!" roared Nakamori, shoving his way through the doorway (or at least that's how his regrettably clear comments were aired on the news shortly afterwards.) "Half of you head to the roof! GET THAT BLEEP!ER BEFORE HE BLEEP!ING GETS AWAY!!"

Of the recordings that were later collected for police archives from the security cameras, one in particular was notable to those few researchers years later who had access to them. It showed a small figure that darted through the crowd of bodies, indistinguishable in the staccato light/dark of the room except for an upraised arm and the flash of a watchband. The diminutive shape vanished back into the stampede of bodies, also heading into the hall (although not to the roof, apparently, if later video was to be believed) and all that was left behind was a scatter of squadmembers, a great deal of chaos, and Nakamori Ginzo...

...who, staring at the open roof, bared his teeth in what could only be an enormous grin for no more than a second. _**"Knew**_ you'd be back," he said happily into the relative silence; just that and only that before the rising wails of sirens cut him off, and he thundered out of the room with his men behind him.

In the stillness of the gallery atrium, a discarded police flashlight rolled to a slow stop. Its beam scythed across the tiles in a yellow crescent, coming to rest on an unremarkable patch of floor tile...

...but at the very extent of its light, where the sharp lines of illumination faded into a vague incandescent glow, it revealed to the empty room the toes of a brightly polished pair of white patent loafers, just peeking out from beneath the edge of a heavy cloak.

Kaitou Kid, wrapped snugly in a thick black cape (top hat held beneath the cloak in one arm, sapphire bundled into protective cloths and tucked within the hat), shifted his toes back under the edge of the fabric, hiding their white shine, and resisted the urge to grin like a Cheshire. "Missed you too, keibu," he murmured. Then, swiftly, he headed toward the eastern exit of the gallery, which led into a smaller exhibit hall. About half the height of the large gallery, the exhibit hall's ceilings were only about twelve feet high; its southern corner was equipped with a fire staircase.

"What kept you?"

The cheerful voice (accompanied by a _thwip!_ of something tiny and sharp flying through the air and snagging in the thick material of the cloak) came from the left. The exhibit hall was extremely dark, but there was just enough light to show an equally Cheshire Cattish grin and the faint shine of lens.

"An indulgence of sentimentality," Kid responded, ducking to the right and drawing his card gun. He kept a bead on the reflection off of Shinichi's glasses, sliding the gun's barrel deck as he did to bring a specific card to shooting position. He cocked the gun and nearly missed the _thwip_ of a second dart being fired -- the detective had hidden the sound of his own fire within the clack of Kid's weapon. With a proud smile, Kid dropped low to avoid the dart, aiming at Conan on a level - which meant that if the boy ducked, the card would actually miss, as opposed to a card shot from the higher angle of a standing adult. That sort of shot, if ducked from, would simply end up hitting the target's back or shoulders, and on a body as young as Conan's, that kind of impact - even with a blunted card - might do significant damage. And Kid wasn't here to take trophy shots.

He fired. The flare of flint sparks lit his face in a split second of werelight, shadows thrown in all directions, and then the room was dark again, save for a split second's worth of shiny, blunted metal - the edges of his card - flashing in the night.

There was a thud, a crunch and the sound of swearing; if the comments following the crunch had been recorded for public consumption, they would have included a great many bleeps. Conan had just managed to land on his glasses. "Do you know," he said in distinctly aggrieved tones, "what Agasa's going to say when I tell him I broke my glasses again?" There were scrambling noises and the thin crackle and whine of a miniscule motor starting up. Blue sparks danced at ground level, threads of lightning grounding themselves excitedly as the detective rose to a crouch.

"Oooh, fancy," Kid cooed from somewhere to Conan's left. Abruptly he was visible - very visible - as he shed the heavy, confining black cloak and leaped, rising high into the air. The whirr of a high tension cable revealed the trick - a grappling attachment for the card gun. A clack and doubled thud announced his arrival on the ceiling; flipping upside down, with his feet braced against the plaster ceiling into which his hook was lodged, Kid comfortably hung nine feet above Conan's head and launched a small rain of smoke capsules toward his target. From the midst of them, a large silk cloth, dimly visible in the low light of the room, exploded into view. It spread flat, catching air like a sail, carried down toward Conan by fishing weights tied in its corners. It was big enough to hamper, if not completely cover, Conan, but more importantly, it obscured Kid from the detective's view for a few precious seconds.

The silk fell true enough, but Conan's kick was already moving and projectile met foot with a peculiar combination of a hard crack! and a rattle; suddenly there were bits of light rising through the smoke and beyond the silk, heading high and fast to strike anything in their path--

Ice, chunks of it everywhere, small and cold and light but certainly enough to sting and bounce off even a moving body; a plastic pitcher clattered and spun back down to the floor. There was water, too, though no more than a spray; had Kid been on the floor he would have found himself dancing on a slippery surface that would have slowed movement to a more manageable level. As it was, the ice was no more than a distraction.

Of course, that worked from both directions... "Catch!" said Conan, as one small arm flailed from beneath the silk in an overhand loft, and the shadows were suddenly illuminated by a tiny burst of brilliance: a strobe, small and short-lived, but extremely bright.

Kid muffled a shout as the light flared. As it died, he weighed his options: shroud himself in his cloak and hope the soon-to-arrive dart missed, or blindly shoot a second grappling hook and keep moving until his vision came back. He opted to stay put, popping the glider open and angling it so that it shielded his body entirely. "For Benten's sake! You really are just an imitator, chibi-tantei!"

The expletive he received from beneath the thrashing black silk had, despite what he had just said, a certain originality to it. Conan's head popped out as the fading light skittered across the ice-littered floor. "Critic, imitator, make up your mind, will you?" The cross-hairs lined up; blue eyes that for once lacked their usual mask of glass narrowed as the detective gauged his shot-- and took it.

_Thwiiiiip! PING!-_thuk!

He'd missed... almost. In the uncertain, failing light it was impossible to see where the dart that had just ricocheted off Kid's glider-strut had actually landed; and Conan held his breath for one still moment, staring upwards.

"I know what I'll call you," Kid's voice came, deliberate and irritated. The glider collapsed and the thief rotated in place, playing out grappling wire so he could hang upright, one arm flexed tight to hold his weight. A silvery line of light - the dart, reflecting light from below - twinkled between two of his gloved fingers; with disdain Kid dropped it to the floor along with a quantity of small pink pellets. "A crap shot."

The pellets hit, exploding as they did. The sour-sweet scent of sleeping gas identified the plumes of pink smoke that quickly filled the room. Adding overkill to thoroughness, Kid dropped another handful of pellets, then tossed another toward the other side of the room, where they bounced off walls and floor, exploding wherever they hit. The room was completely filled with a dense bank of heavy pink smoke as Kid began moving back toward the atrium gallery by way of the ceiling and his grappling ropes.

Not that Conan saw any of this... As the pink fog stole consciousness away and blanketed his brain with a numbing darkness much heavier than the black silk, the last thing that filtered through his mind was: _Dammit, I have GOT to work on my aim..._

* * *

On the roof, inside one of the funny faucet-shaped ventilation ducts that belched white steam from the boilers, Kaitou Kid curled up as small and tight as he could manage, tucking his feet well out of visible range. He was shaking all over, muscles spasming from the effort he exerted to force them to keep moving when they wanted to shut down. The Kid uniform was stashed safely in a different location on the roof, an RFID tag tucked in with it to let Jintarou find it quickly. A similar tag, set to a very, very private identification, was tucked into his own pocket. And pressed tight against his heart, wrapped to his body with elastic bandages, the cold, heavy weight of the evening's heist sapphire was a distant comfort.

As his eyes finally shuddered shut, teeth chattering with the futile effort to fight the effects of Shinichi's sleeping dart, the last thing that filtered through his mind was: _Benten damn it. 'Crap shot' my ass...this one's a draw, tantei._

* * *

Two days later, after sending a certain chatroom message (to be delivered upon login; the internet had been silent), Shinichi sat in his particular corner of the Beika City Public Library's observation deck once again, back braced against stuccoed brick, feet propped up once more on the rim of a planter; waiting.

_Face it, Kudo, he might not show. But what else was I supposed to do--?_

He'd awakened to Nakamori and his men pounding like stampeding water-buffalo across the serengeti... or at least that's what it had felt like to his aching head. Every other time he'd gotten a lungful of Kid's damned pink gas it had been minor, but this time, oh no. Not this time. He'd breathed in enough of the sophoric that his ears rang and his vision kept slipping sideways when he'd attempted to sit up; and if that hadn't been annoying enough, there'd been the nausea and the unfortunate results of downing a glass of water that a well-meaning Squadmember had found for him...

_--I couldn't just... go easy on him. That's not how it works. Come to think of it, he didn't exactly go easy on me, did he?_

Nakamori-keibu'd come down on him like the Wrath Of God, apparently forgetting-- or not believing-- that he was talking to a child. He'd chewed Conan out as thoroughly as one of his own Taskforce members for going off on his own; he'd managed to keep the epithets to a minimum, but beyond that hadn't held back much. Which, when you thought about it, was simultaneously intriguing and worrying as all hell.

_...wonder if I hit him?_

And oh, Ran had been angry. No, scratch that, she had been livid; what little hide Nakamori hadn't scoured off had been neatly fileted as soon as he was brought home; Agasa (who'd actually been waiting back in a squadcar during the entire heist) had also gotten served, and the only reason Conan had been allowed out of the Mouris' at all had been Ran's schoolwork.

She'd even marched him up to the library checkout desks and gotten the clerks there to agree not to allow him past the doors. How humiliating.

_...wonder if he's still pissed off?_

Conan-- Shinichi-- sighed, tilting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. Not the greatest night for him, no; except-- Except that, somewhere down in the pit of his stomach there was lurking a little spark of satisfaction and _(admit it, Kudo)_ glee. Kid might have gotten away with the goods, but at least he'd had to work for it.

_Heh._

"Did you come here by yourself, little boy?" Shinichi's attention was pulled from his reverie by the light tones of a pretty young woman standing beside him. Her long dark hair was pulled into a bun at her nape; her black pencil skirt looked professional enough, but her pale blouse's neckline bared both the back of her neck, much like an apprentice geisha's might, as well as...other...oh dear. He was Not Looking. Not Looking At All. He beamed up at her, his charm turned on 110%, hoping his slight blush could be attributed to childish ruddiness in the fresh air of the observation deck.

"Ran-neechan is doing work downstairs," Conan answered brightly, "So I'm being quiet and not distracting her."

"Oh, alright!" The lady looked pleased at that. She crouched down to be level with him, which had the thankful side effect of removing her, ahm, assets, from Shinichi's direct line of sight, and patted him on the shoulder lightly with a vapid, eyes-closed smile. "You're such a good little _bozu_, nobody would ever guess what kind of trouble you get into at night!"

_....what?_ Shinichi could actually feel his ears practically catch fire; with the very specific kind of guilt that teenage males are prone towards in the presence of attractive females, he backpedaled frantically in memory. Wait, what'd Ran TELL the librarians? I didn't-- I don't-- I haven't even hit PUBERTY again yet, dammit-- "...gahh?" She really was quite pretty, artistically made up and long-lashed, with eyes of a particularly striking hazel. "I, uh, I'm... just reading," he said lamely, holding up the book he'd been using as a prop; "See?"

"_Where The Wild Things Are,_" she read with amusement lilting her voice. There was just enough room on the bench beside Conan for the pretty lady to squeeze in beside him, and she did so, thin-fingered hands reaching back to smooth the seat of her skirt as she delicately took her seat. Looking over his shoulder, her near arm and the side of her - Conan gulped - ahm, self, just barely brushed his shoulder as she idly turned a page. In the book's characteristic soft colors and deeply detailed linework, Max surveyed the sea from the coast of the Wild Things' lands. "And are you an adventurer like Max, out at midnight on a wild rumpus of daring and danger? Does Ran-neechan keep your supper warm for you until you return?"

Not this last time she hadn't; it'd been a hastily-reheated cheeseburger and Mouri's leftover fries. And not that he'd felt like eating them much, either. Ran'd shown a few signs of remorse after little Conan's all-too-visible nausea had expressed itself again, but-- well. "When I behave, she does," he answered with what he hoped was just the right hint of regretful sincerity as he tried to edge a little away. The woman, however, leaned an arm against the wall, scooting closer; and the boy blinked at the faint, fragrant wave of her perfume. It held notes of magnolia and apricot, light and delicate and as lethal as a jackhammer to the cranium.

_...help?_

He cast around wildly for something to say. "And um, uhh-- Max is a dork. Running around in a wolf suit, like he... was really a..." She _really_ smelled good. Conan swallowed hard, and behind the mask of his body Shinichi curled up into a ball and whimpered.

"And he really wasn't a wolf at all, was he?" The lady's smile was soft and fond, her fingertips drumming lightly on Conan's shoulder. If all her advances so far hadn't been enough to tip the scales, this certainly was now: she was _waaaaay_ too close for justification. "He was just a little _white sheep_ in wolf's clothing. Just in dis~guise, mm?"

_**DING!**_

"You. Are a TOTAL bastard. Do you want to get arrested for pedophilia?" muttered _Shinichi_ sotto voce, the penny dropping at last. He kicked the nylon-clad leg beside his rather viciously behind the cover of the planter's trailing fronds. A good deal of the force behind the kick came from a heavy dose of self-annoyance; he really should've known, but that goddamn perfume had been like a brick to the, errr, brain. Definitely the brain. Nowhere else.

So he kicked 'her' again, hard, just for good measure.

"Ah! Ow! Ah le le le, Conan-kun, no need to be violent!" Kid winced away from his diminuitive rival, rubbing his now tender shin with a pretty mou of frustration on his lusciously-painted face. "Really, if anything, you should be mad at _yourself_ for forcing me to such lengths! I gave you an easy tell even before you brought up the book." Crossing one ankle demurely over the other, hands folded appropriately in his own lap, and now with a sociable distance between the two of them on the bench (Conan skittering away from Kid once he caught on had helped open up some space), Kid smiled delightedly at his small companion, eyes closed in a beatific 'Isn't he so cute' sort of expression.

Now that Shinichi knew it was a disguise, he could appraise the woman in front of him with a different sort of attention. Kid's hair - a careful wig - was as perfectly coiffed as his makeup was expertly painted; his pearl earrings and necklace pleasantly matched the off-cream of his blouse -- though, Shinichi mused, that meant that Kid's ears were pierced? Something to keep in mind. Kid's nylons hadn't ripped from the kicks he had delivered, but he still had time to fix that. And the heels Kid wore - black strappy stilettos with a sharply pointed toe and a tiny silver buckle on the outside edge - just screamed "brand name." Shinichi looked to Kid's necklace and earrings again, wondering if he could determine whether they were fake from this distance -- and ran up against the real puzzler of the whole costume, which was Kid's, ahm - oh, _hell_.

"Will you read your book to me, Conan-kun?" Acting completely oblivious to Shinichi's increasingly bad mood, Kid smarmed through his smile, confident in the fact that, now that Shinichi knew who he was and had shaken off the perfume's, ah, _spell_, he was limited in his responses to only those that wouldn't draw onlooker attention.

Kid grinned even more sunnily. He freaking _loved_ this game.

Shinichi considered another kick. It'd be childish, of course... but then again, why resist when for once (twice, in his case) you could get away with being childish? He drew back his foot slightly, aimed at just above the very nice shoes-- and paused, laughter bubbling up inside of him.

There was a better way to handle this.

"Sure, Neechan!" Practically glowing with cavity-inducing rays of saccharine cuteness, Conan very deliberately _leeeeaaaned_ against the pretty young woman and her assets, thus bridging the gap between them. Comfortably settled in, head pillowed (and grinning internally), he began to 'read' aloud.

_"'The night Kid wore his white suit and made mischief of one kind and another..."_ he began, _"...the Police Inspector called him GODDAMN KID YOU BASTARD, WHO WEARS WHITE TO PULL A ROBBERY ANYWAY? and Kid said "I'LL STEAL YOUR JEWELS SEE IF I DON'T, BWAHAHAHAH", and Kid was sent to bed without stealing anything.'"_ His childish voice was pitched conversationally low; you'd need a shotgun-microphone to actually catch the words unless, of course, you were the one being read to.

Conan shifted, deliberately snuggling closer. This was, he thought to himself, the weirdest game of Chicken he'd ever played in his **life.** _"'That very night in Kid's secret lair a heist-plan grew and grew and grew until Beika City was ass-deep in traps and trained attack-doves were perched on the walls all around...'"_ Rolling his eyes up deliberately to the face above him, the 'little boy' smirked. "How do you like the story so far, Neechan?" he asked innocently.

"Very fascinating!" Kid smiled down at him, careful to keep his amusement silent and off his face. This game was was so much more fun when Shinichi actually thought he was gaining ground. In truth, the Kaitou Kid was completely bombproof when it came to physical intimacy. _Snuggle all you want, tantei, the only reaction you'll get out of me is a smile._ The same couldn't be said, though, of Shinichi's reaction to being coddled...Kid knew that one quite well already, and planned to make ideal use of the knowledge.

Petting Conan's hair in the most patronizing, cloying way he knew how, Kid reached over the boy's shoulder and turned the page for him, the (warm) swell of his disguise pressing gently against Conan's shoulder and ear as he did so. It gave to pressure as convincingly as if it were real, and Kid would bet that Conan might even be able to hear Kid's heartbeat resonating through the, ah, tissue.

_Of course, they'd __better__ be as good as real, I paid enough for the blasted lovely things._

Conan fought back a desire to squirm; he was not going to flinch, he was NOT going to flinch, he was not going to-- Subduing an internal growl at the hair-stroking, he read on. _"'And a police precinct waited with a private cell for Kid, and he flew on past it through nights and nights and almost for over a year to Beika City, where the wild detectives are.'"_ He snuck another look; 'Neechan' was beaming down at him, and if 'she' pressed any closer she was going to lose a button on that blouse; Conan could see it straining.

He cleared his throat. _"'When he came to the place where the wild detectives are--'_Kid, you're about to pop right out, do something about it,_'they yelled their terrible insults and waved their terrible handcuffs and smoked their terrible pipes and, uh-- Till Kid yelled "MINE!" and swiped the fricking gems anyway with the magic trick of dosing them with damned pink sleeping gas that makes detectives barf all over their damned SHOES.....'"_ That button was really about to go, anytime now. "Want me to finish it, Neechan?Or do you prefer getting escorted out've the library for indecent exposure?" Another sugar-sweet smile up at 'Neechan's' face, anywhere but at that button.

"Oh, would you look at that." Kid had the decency - or indecency, depending on how you looked at it - to sound surprised. "Hold on a moment," he murmured, reaching with both hands to rearrange his blouse so the button in question wouldn't strain. To do this, he worked right around Conan's head, tugging the fabric of his blouse into position. This had the side effect of, ahm, _fluffing_ his assets within their bra cups (the lace of which was a distinctly tactile pattern pressing through the fabric of his blouse). The soft whisper of fabric, the brushing touch of skin (Kid's wrists) against skin (Conan's ears and cheeks), the liquid pressure of Conan's pillows shifting position - it was all a very sensory process, one which Kid undertook with, to all exterior appearances, completely dry and matter-of-fact practicality.

On Conan's end of the experience, however...

The thing with the chemical cocktail that had given him his current stature was this: what the brain had experienced was still there, even if the vehicle which contained that brain was, ahhh, incapable of... well. A seven-year-old body was just that, no way around it. And just then, the teenager living inside the gradeschooler's head was wishing for a mental cold shower, a rainfall, anything... and counting his blessings about the aforementioned seven-year-old body, etc., etc. Because Kudo Shinichi, brilliant as he was, was also a teenager coming up on adulthood and a healthy one at that.

_Icewater... snow... scrubbing the toilet..._ He went down the mental catalogue that most teenage boys keep ready for times of need. _...freezing rain... wet boxers... Megure-keibu dancing naked, AAGH..._ That last one had pretty much done the trick; not that he'd _reacted,_ precisely, but at least now Shinichi didn't feel as if his Conan-self was about to short out something crucial.

Damn. Kid was going to pay for this somehow, though. He'd figure a way.

With steady hands, Conan turned another page and read on: _"'And so Kid led the wild detectives on a chase until at last one day they all ganged up on him and beat him to death with his own hang-glider. And then his carcass was stuffed and mounted and put on display in the Beika City Home For Indigent Crimefighters for all to see. THE END.'"_ He sat up straight with a certain amount of childish dignity and put the book to one side, beaming up at 'Neechan.' "Did you like the story? I thought the ending was _**perfect,**__"_ he said cheerfully, propping his head on his linked hands.

_I feel like a moose,_ Kid pouted.

_"Imagine how the meece feel,"_ Kaito laughed.

_It's meese with an __S__,_ Kid corrected him snippily.

To Shinichi, Kid gave an enthusiastic grin, bracing his hands on his knees and leaning forward in shared 'excitement.' "I think it ended too quickly! I would have liked to hear more about the chase. And also the stuffing process. I don't know how to stuff a person, do you?"

The unintended mental image that flitted through Kid's mind in response to that phrase very nearly startled an external reaction out of him, but he kept himself - and his features - under control just barely. _Where did THAT come from? Since when do I turn "stuffing" into a sexual innuendo? Ugh. My perfume is probably getting to __me__._

"No, but I'm sure Nakamori'd be just _thrilled_ to experiment," answered Shinichi in a low voice, allowing Cute Widdle Conan to slide to one side. The very few other rooftop patrons had by now vacated, either driven off by the pair's saccharine performance or simply by the weather, which looked like it was about to shape itself into a drizzle; they had the place to themselves, and Shinichi opened his mouth to say something completely and totally scathing--

--just as Kid's traitorous button began to slip free yet again. Automatically the detective's hand came up and he pointed, drew breath to speak, sputtered... and began to snicker instead, free hand slapping over his mouth in an attempt to muffle what had been building the whole time.

"Hmm? Oh." Kid reached down again, tucking deft fingertips into the neckline of his blouse. A quick tug and tuck on each side, and then he sat up straight again -- and suddenly, there was a whole lot less asset staring Shinichi in the face, and the button wasn't forced to fight for its leverage. Kid beamed innocently at Shinichi, beginning to snicker himself. "It's all in the lift, really."

"You," managed Shinichi through his snickers, "are-- a-- SADIST. How the hell--?" An experimental finger very nearly poked at one of 'Neechan's' most prominent bits, but pulled back at the last second. "Never mind, don't want to know." Glasses off, Shinichi wiped at his eyes, still trying to get his breathing under control. "Where do you buy things like that? And don't tell me the Hong Kong Black Market, I won't believe it this time." He scrabbled his free hand through his hair, feeling better than he had in days.

Kid looked affronted. "_Buy?_ My dear tantei, I assure you, I have had no implants. These are all natural."

"Of course they are. And they fold for easy storage when you're in your suit, I'm assuming." One eyebrow up, Shinichi gave the other his best Look. He was enjoying himself immensely, all the trauma of his earlier brooding completely forgotten.

"No, actually. They look quite impressive, it's true, but they bind down quite nicely. Would you like me to show you?" Kid's thin fingers went to the buttons of his blouse, beginning to ply the uppermost one free, as one eyebrow gracefully hiked toward his hairline.

_Urk._ "I'll pass," said Shinichi as dryly as possible. _Note To Self: Do Not Tempt Thief To Do Outrageous Things, Because He Will. And Then All That's Left Will Be Writing The Apology Note And Committing Hara-Kiri. End Of Note._ "Public place, bad idea, Ran'd walk through the door and catch you flashing me, you'd escape, I'd end up in therapy, all that." Another snicker escaped before he attempted to sober down a little, though it wasn't easy; that bubble again, rising up and forcing the laughter to the surface... "I take it there's no hard feelings about the other night--?" he asked.

"Hard feelings...?" Kid laughed, a sharp, unexpectedly loud sound, as he rebuttoned his blouse, brushing both (perfectly manicured) hands smoothly around the curves of his bust on the pretense of smoothing out the fabric. "Darling chibitantei, that was the most fun I've had in a _very_ long time! I only used the sleeping gas as an absolute last resort - had I my choice, we could have continued playing for quite some time longer." _Don't need to mention that it was your regrettably close aim that cut our play short, though, do I? Otherwise you might start thinking you can get somewhere with me and those darts, and I can't have that, no matter how fond I am of you, Shinichi._

"Good." Enormous relief; a weight falling away, a prickle of pain easing like a muscle unknotting somewhere in the region of his spine. "Because," and Shinichi cracked his knuckles where they were laced behind his head as an enormous grin spread across his face, "I," and he brought his hands over and up, cracking them a second time, "had a BLAST. Even if I did puke in Nakamori's squadcar." It hadn't been funny at the time, but afterwards...

Kid _beamed_. "Even better! It's like a birthday present. ...Next time, perhaps, I'll go a little lighter on the sleeping gas?" Something possibly akin to sheepishness - but not actually - crossed his pretty face. "I suppose thirty caplets was a bit overdoing it, even in a room that size."

The detective hitched a shoulder up, dismissing the matter. "No big deal, three darts, thirty caplets." He snorted. "And I _did_ catch you showing your paws... Did you know, the fog was thick enough that it kicked on the smoke detectors and set off the sprinkler system? Seriously; by the time the Squad found me the place was soaking wet. That silk thing you dropped actually kept the worst off, but Nakamori and the rest--" Both hands mimed running figures, then sliding figures, and then falling figures. "SPLAT!"

"I'm starting to realize why he hates me so much," Kid trilled happily, all but radiating sparkles and palpable glee. "But in seriousness, perhaps I should be less vindictive next time. It's only amusing now because you didn't catch pneumonia, and none of the Inspector's men broke any hips."

"Point. Though I think 'hate' doesn't really fit," said Shinichi thoughtfully, tucking one foot up beneath himself and steepling his fingers. He peered at Kid past them; the nature of Nakamori's attitude towards his quarry had been something he'd considered a time or two over the past few weeks. "You're more like his own personal Everest, if you blanketed the whole mountain with hallucinogenic fog and gave it a sense of humor. You're also," and Shinichi arched one eyebrow, "job security. Do you recall what his field of specialty was before you started showing up 'again'?"

Innocent blink, one hand held delicately up to his breast, which swelled as he drew an excessive gasp. "He _had_ a job before me?" Kid asked with falsetto surprise. A snicker as he deflated again, leaning back with one elbow propped up on the back of the bench, recrossing his legs less demurely, one knee over the other. "No, no, I'm not serious. But, your point? How is it job security to constantly fail at your task? One might worry about him _losing_ his job unless he shows signs of catching me."

"Not likely." A thin shoulder hitched in a shrug. "If you were a reporter and wanted to do an article about famous robberies, who would you want to interview? Or say you wanted to run a seminar on security technology, or write a book on media phenomena? Or criminal profiling, or-- I think you see what I mean. The big game hunters don't make the history books for their kills, they make them for what they stalked." Shinichi chuckled softly, thinking of what he'd seen the previous night. "Do you have any idea what his work calendar looks like? He's booked from here to next August to speak at the Nakan police academy, the new one at Fuchu, even at a conference for the LAPD in Los Angeles in March--" In mid-sentence, Shinichi froze, mouth open. "--ahh-- not that I'd have access to his personal database or anything. Exactly." He had the grace to look embarrassed.

Kid raised one eyebrow. "Not that I'd prefer to be called one of keibu's prospective _kills,_ or anything." (Kaito snickered in the back of his head. _"Meese!"_) Kid waved one hand, dismissing Shinichi's snooping and Kaito's laughter both. "It's good to know he'll be doing some traveling. I'll have to pay more attention to his calendar, make sure that I don't schedule anything inconveniently. It's so much better to hold these things the nights _before_ intercontinental full day flights, rather than the night after he's departed. But it would be even worse if I spaced them out somewhat so he had time to rest between the heist and his flight. Then, Benten forbid, he might actually get a good night's sleep!" Flutteringly, Kid held one hand to his perfectly-painted mouth, opening it in a very lusciously convincing O of surprise.

The act contrasted nicely with the rest of his posture, which gave a very thoroughly leonine impression of relaxation and confidence, despite the fact that, in his rather delicate and fiddly women's garments, Kid refrained from truly sprawling across his half of the bench. Still, he flexed one leg, tightly muscled calf stretching his nylons as it tightened and released again; then, pointing his (beautifully shod) toes, Kid rolled his ankle with a small crackle and dropped his innocent femme act for a few moments in favor of simply stretching out. "Mmm. You would not believe how much more sensitive I am, in comparison to most women, to the calf cramps and shin splints you get from high heels. Most people don't notice the beginnings of trauma and muscle strain, just the resulting pain, because they don't have to be as intricately aware of their bodies as I do. ...The ones who choose to be as aware as I am are usually labeled tantrics."

"Tantrics," pointed out the detective, "are generally depicted as either Buddhist holy men or sex-maddened cultists, depending on which movies you watch. Neither one exactly fits." He watched the thief stretch thoughtfully, following the line of calf and ankle as they flexed beneath the sheen of hose.. and then blinked, feeling his ears abruptly heat; for a second there, he'd been a teenager admiring a pretty woman's legs. The notion made his brain hurt; not that they weren't (Kid's) nice legs, and not that he didn't _like_ nice (Kid's) legs, but... He shot the thought dead in its tracks before it could do him any more injury, because--

They really were nice legs.

_**Nnnngh!**_

"......" Shinichi cast about a little desperately for an island of safety. "Nakamori, though-- back before your, ah, earlier incarnation, he did the usual beat-cop things and then went into Fraud and Organized Crime; during the eight years between, he did a lot of looking into some tricky areas... a little this, a little of that..." He shrugged, looking out across the library's lawn far below; a few droplets of rain flickered through the space beyond the railing, not even as much as an actual drizzle but more of a hint. "Would you believe that the man can actually write? Some of his reports make for interesting reading. Some of them," and Shinichi glanced sideways at Kid, "you might want to pay attention to. Especially the ones from eight years ago."

Kid's brows drew down, his gaze narrowing and focusing sharply on his diminutive conversant. "That sounds fascinating," he responded, his tone dry as bones. _Thank you for the tip, Shinichi. I __will__ be looking into this, and immediately._

Kid had opened his mouth to speak further when a rattle from the stairwell door alerted them both that they were no longer alone on the observation deck. The librarian who came out onto the deck clicked sharply as she walked first to the level's far side, circling around to visually check the entire area. When she came around the corner and into view of the pair on the bench, she stopped some distance away, professionalism warring with confusion on her face.

"Can I help you?" Kid asked sweetly, standing and brushing off his black pencil skirt.

The slim librarian self-consciously touched one hand to her own conservatively-cut blouse (cream) and fingered the edge of her skirt (black, knee-length pencil cut) with the other, one foot (low black pumps) braced half a step behind the other. Confusion seemed to be winning. She frowned, opened her mouth briefly, closed it again. Touched her pearl necklace, furrowed her brow beneath wispy brown bangs that had shaken free of the bun she wore at the nape of her neck, and shook off her confusion. Clearing her throat briefly, she smiled at Conan, the much less confusing target of the pair.

"Dear, we'll be closing this observation deck in preparation for the storm; they say it's going to rain pretty hard. Will you come with me downstairs to the reading area? We have soft couches and _Shonen Jump_ magazine."

Kid smiled at Shinichi, his role firmly in place as a mask across his features. He tucked a stray wisp of brown hair (which must have fallen free of his bun) behind his ear and addressed the librarian. "Thank you so much for coming up to let us know. I think we're the last two up here right now." Then, to Conan, with quite a more patronizing tone than the librarian had used, Kid offered one hand. "Let's go find Ran-neesan, Conan-kun, and let her know that we finished reading your book, okay?"

_You have __got__ to be kidding me. Pun intended._ "Okay," said Cute Little Conan-kun, docilely hooking his fingers in 'Neechan's' and rising to his feet, books under one arm. "Neechan, your button's coming undone again." He pointed. "Look, I can see your bra," he said with a note of innocent surprise.

The librarian, docile and modest soul that she was, meeped. Kid's eyes flew open wide, shock at Shinichi's daring overtaking his act for a split second. Then a forced blush rose to his well-made-up cheeks, and one hand fluttered up to cover his troublesome button (which, contrary to Conan's 'surprise,' was not actually slipping). "I'll have to fix it in the ladies' room," Kid answered without a stumble, continuing to lead Conan toward the stairs confidently. "Keigo-san, isn't it? Thank you for fetching us. Come on, Conan-kun."

Inside the stairwell leading down from the observation deck, Conan fought to keep a triumphant grin off his face. He'd caught that wide-eyed moment; and while he had no illusions (hah) about just who was the magician here, it was rather satisfying to be able to trick the trickster... even if it was only for a second.

Not that he was going to gloat about it. _Too_ much. Visibly, at least.

Glancing at the thief, he raised an eyebrow. "Are you actually planning on escorting me all the way to Ran?" he asked, low-voiced as he trotted beside Kid, two steps to the other's one; above them Keigo-san was just closing the door. A curl of rain-scented breeze whipped in just before it clicked, cooler than the stairwell's rather stuffy air.

Kid just smiled, his expression whimsical. _Wait and see!_

Shinichi sensed doom in that look. _Hmm. Maybe I should just gloat while I have the chance... no._ "Fine. Lead on." He squared his narrow shoulders, determined not to flinch. Why did so many of their meetings turn into some variety of a Staring Contest?

* * *

Ran was Not Impressed. Ran was so many flavors of Not Impressed that Kid was pretty sure he could _feel_ them like very angry fire ants on his skin.

_Oh, for all Luck's sake. Now I know why Tantei is so damn determined to keep this woman happy._

His mind flashed briefly back to the picnic heist in the park, and in the background, Kaito shuddered.

_"Benten preserve me if she and Aoko hit it off."_

_Benten hold us both,_ Kid laughed grimly.

Externally, though, his smile was warm and unwavering. "You must be Ran-san," Kid gushed at Ran, apparently oblivious to the steely glare currently staring 'her' down. In the background, Keigo-san (whose self-preservation circuits were clearly working better than Kid's ever managed to) skirted their little trio with plenty of space to spare, skittering away from her more brazen doppelganger in favor of the nice, safe, predictable Returns desk.

Ran eyed Kid up and down, taking in the whole outfit. The air conditioning in the library lobby was on rather strong, and it was somewhat nippy, especially as the outside air had cooled off in readiness for the storm. Ran noted this, too, and honestly wished she hadn't. _How much does a decent one cost, anyway? That's just indecent._ Self-consciously, Ran brought her arms up across her chest - which had the added bonus of adding to her displeased posture.

"_Mouri_ Ran," she clarified tersely.

"Ah! Mouri-san, so nice to meet you. Conan-kun and I were talking up on the observation deck, and he mentioned you warmly. Are you siblings?"

"We're very close," said Ran, smiling. Or showing her teeth, at any rate. "Aren't we, Conan-kun?" She reached out and hooked her own hand in Conan's, tugging him away quite firmly. "And now I'm going to take him home. Thanks so much for looking after him, um... I'm so sorry, I didn't get your name." The young woman's eyes narrowed slightly. "Surely you don't work here, do you? You don't look the librarian type--?" The implied 'whoever you are' floated in the air like a banner. Beside Ran with his fingertips beginning to whiten in her grip, Conan closed his eyes briefly.

Kid beamed at her unflinchingly. "I'm new, I'm in filing. Manee-san, but my friends call me Maneki-chan as a joke. Pleased to meet you." Kid bowed. Probably a slight bit lower than necessary, but the angle let him provide such a wide, smooth curve of, ahm, _skin,_ toward Conan's eye-level, that it was really hard to resist.

With a small smile, Kid straightened, nodded, and departed, heading toward the card catalog computer bank with purpose. A few moments later, when he turned back to see that Ran was still studying him with suspicion, he smiled, raised one hand, and waved in a beckoning up-and-down motion, then blithely went back to his work.

Watching 'Maneki-chan' walk away, Conan, with his eyes half crossed from the view he had just been given (fake or not, they'd been _very_ realistic) slowly looked up at Ran... who stared down at him with flushed cheeks and a distinctly accusatory expression, one that said _MEN ARE ALL ALIKE_ in heavy print, possibly with an underline and italics. Without another word she turned them both around and marched them out the door, not even bothering to put the umbrella up until they'd both gotten slightly wet from the rain that was now beginning to fall in earnest.

"--how many times have I warned you about talking to strangers?!? Especially ones like--"

Hunched shoulders. "Sorry, Ran-neechan."

"--NEVER just go off and trust somebody without thinking! I'm surprised at you! Conan, if I--"

Woebegone look. "I didn't mean to make you mad, Ran-neechan, really."

"--women like that, you just never know. You're smarter than that, Conan-kun. What do they teach you in--"

Contrite head-hanging. "Didn't mean to."

It lasted until just before the stairs. As they began to ascend, Ran's cross expression faded slightly and she looked down at her charge's crestfallen face. "I suppose she just seemed like a pretty woman to you," she said irritably. "You always seem to understand motives and personalities so well, I forget sometimes that you're just a kid and that you wouldn't recognize a, a--" She paused, and behind Conan's face Shinichi raised an eyebrow.

"A what, Ran-neechan?" He just **had** to hear it. _C'mon, Ran, say it, this's actually pretty entertaining..._

She flushed again. "A cheap little--"

The door at the top of the stairway opened. "Who's cheap? What?" asked Mouri, staring down at the two with bemusement in his eyes and stubble on his chin; the Great Sleeping Detective had apparently been sleeping. "Dinner?"

Ran sighed, rubbing at her eyes with one hand as she snapped the rain off her umbrella. _"Yes,_ Tousan, dinner." She trudged up the stairs; and Conan, feeling just a little ashamed of himself, trudged up behind her.

* * *

_Thanks for being here, ladies and gentlemen! And be sure to reserve your seats in advance for next week's chapter: "lunatic, question, pharmacist". Also, please feel free to let us know what you thought of the show, hm? Critiques and commentary are always welcome. Thank you all, and a very good night to you........ The Management_


	8. Lunatic, question, pharmacist

_And now, dear readers, we've come to the end. This is the final chapter of Three Thieves Book One! We hope you've enjoyed the ride so far - but please remember, there's much, __much__ more to come - at least two more books, as long as or longer than this one. Things will get wild, things will get sweet, things will get interesting...._

_But first, they've got to get personal.  
_  
**Chapter Eight: "lunatic, question, pharmacist"**  
by **rednightengale** and **ysabet**  
Theme music: Meet Me At My Window, by Jack's Mannequin

*

The email that pinged into 1nb!u's inbox was very terse.

_Will. Get. You. For. This._

Kid grinned like a lunatic. _mt me our window in 34 min. hv a q 4 u._

_"You're crazy, you know that? You're crazy."_ Kaito was pacing back and forth across the breadth of their shared mind's eye, treading holes in their theoretical floorboards. _"LU-NA-TIC. Ky-o-u-ki!"_

Kid whistled as he puttered around his lair, rearranging things and gathering up old mugs and glassware left over from late night planning and research sessions. "Kyouki. In English, _'lunacy,'_ noun; root _lunatic_, adjective. From the Old French _lunatique_, insane; and Latin _lunaticus_, 'moon-struck.' Meaning, 'affected with periodic insanity, dependent on the changes of the moon;' or literally, "moon-sick." First recorded usage of 'lunacy' dates from the thirteenth century, though the American president Teddy Roosevelt first came up with the catchphrase _'lunatic fringe'._" He paused. "Honestly, I can't think of a more accurate label for myself, in any language."

Kaito groaned. _"It is not my fault when this kicks you in the teeth, Thief."_

Kid smiled. "I won't blame you, Magician."

The ping of his chat window punctuated that promise.

* * *

Ran had sent him to bed. At times like this, Shinichi very nearly hoped that he _wouldn't_ return to his former self, because if and when he did his keepers would have a wealth of humiliating/incriminating/painful reminisces to inflict on him on command. Granted, he had a few of his own; not as many, though, and not nearly as embarrassing.

_At least I've got the room to myself._ Mouri was enthusiastically cheering on an All-Yoko-All-Night marathon in the living room and Ran was in the middle of a low-voiced phone conversation with Sonoko in her room; something to do with the weekend, he thought. And so Shinichi sat cross-legged on his futon once again, initiating a conversation with a wanted felon.

_Sorry Kaasan, Tousan; I've fallen into bad company. I can feel my morals corrupting like crazy, but I can still catch the murderers so it all kind of balances out, right? Right. Very logical._ Kid's mention of a 'question' earlier had been burning a metaphorical hole in his virtual pockets for several hours; he brought the laptop up, logged in and opened a chatwindow.

_Next time you pull a disguise like that I'm going to scream FIRE and start beating your wig with a library book_ was Dductshn's polite greeting. _I think Ran believes I'm a budding pervert._

Kid laughed, typing quickly. _shes just jealous u dont look her lke tht, & by "lke tht" i f course mean w jaw knees_

_Very funny. From my level it's kind of hard to see people's faces if they're female and well enough endowed. Their heads look so SMALL. Cannot wait til I either get back to normal or a growth spurt one or the other._

_bc then ull b able 2 apprciate my hrs f hard work w mkeup adhesiv & enough csmetics 2 nearly gve me acne_, 1nb!u typed, _whch wll someday gratify me w th rewrd of u trippn ovr ur fancy shoelces whn i show up 2 a smmr heist in a bikini_

This... did not result in mental images conducive to anything like sanity. Blocking them out hurriedly, Shinichi replied with: _It's probably already on 4chan._

Kid paused a moment, savoring a smug and toothy grin while both he and Shinichi absorbed those collective mental images, and added: _ill wait hre whle u go find tissue 4 ur nosebleed_

Quick subject-change time. _Lalala not listening lalala.........you said something about a question?_

Kid's expression sobered. _yeah,_ he typed, more slowly than his norm, _wanted to ask you about her, actually. i'm not going to pretend either of us still needs to be tripped up in niceties, so, bluntly: are you in love with her?_

Of all the things he'd expected to be asked, that hadn't been one of them; and now Shinichi stared at the keyboard of his laptop in silence, fingers still, and wondered what to say.

There was the kneejerk response, two of them actually: the embarrassed teenager's _She's just an annoying girl I've always known_ or the deeper, harder _I care about her, I have for longer than I knew._ And then there was the cold hard reality of _It doesn't matter, does it? Not while I'm like this._ The last was a cop-out and Shinichi knew it; but this once, this once, there wasn't only one truth.

So he answered the only way he could, and never even thought to ask why Kid had the right to ask the question. _I was, and I can't, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know what'll happen in the future, so I'm not holding onto that-- or her-- as a lifeline; I can't and I won't, it's not fair to either of us. Best answer: Am I in love with her? I -have- been. Am. Beyond that? There aren't enough clues in the world to tell me what'll happen now or next or in a year. Simple question, complicated answer. Don't expect an easy yes/no to something like that._

Pause.

_What about Nakamori's daughter? Same question back to you... with a given value of 'you' in this case. Fair question._

Shinichi sat back, feeling oddly shaky; not even Heiji'd gotten an answer like that from him, just an annoyed scowl and something that in the shorthand of teenaged boys said not-gonna-elaborate and left it at that. He'd... yes. In total honesty, he did care about Ran. He knew that, had known it, had acted on it, had hoped for the future, had wanted-- Facts were facts, truths were truths.

But 'still'?

He had. Did. Loved Ran. Wanted to; it was comfortable/uncomfortable, a safe shape for his feelings to wear. That didn't mean that the shape was right or real or possible or the only one they'd ever wrap themselves in... and where the hell had that come from, anyway?

* * *

On the other end of the internet connection, Kid frowned. That hadn't been the response he'd been expecting at all, and not a pleasant one, at that. It was altogether too _messy_, complicated and unclear. What happened to 'only one truth'? He'd had his response - and the angle of the conversation - all planned out already, though he hadn't gone as far as to type it out in readiness. Now he had to re-evaluate the conversation. He had expected Aoko to come up - planned on it, actually, and intended to use discussion of her as leverage to get Shinichi to do what he'd wanted.

_This was supposed to be a way to clear away our obstacles,_ Kid fumed, _not a way to raise more!_

It all worked out neatly in his head. This was to be expected - everything _always_ worked out nicely in Kid's head. It was one of the perks of being a savant just off the side of sanity. The problem right now was, Shinichi wasn't following the game plan. He was _supposed_ to have answered 'yes' - or some obfuscation of 'yes' that could be rather briskly boiled down to its component confessions - at which point Kid would have presented him with a very simple challenge: to tell Ran. Whether that was 'only' that he loved her, or the whole nine yards of secrets, Kid would have left up to Shinichi; but he would have formed this challenge with the promise of a "matching donation," as it were: that Kaito would inform Aoko of just as much as Shinichi informed Ran. A tit-for-tat in coming clean.

The purpose? When the dust settled, Kid had envisioned, the two of them would be free of the regrets, half truths, and evasions that currently bound them. They would be free - with their ladies' support, ideally, but if not they could still soldier on - to take on in earnest the task that stood like a massive white elephant before them, or more appropriately, an albatross laced round both their necks. The Black Organization needed to go down. No ifs, ands, buts, or compromises about it. Kaitou Kid played for keeps no matter what scale the game, and the little problem of "against overwhelming odds" didn't even come into concern. With their core secrets revealed to each other, and further secondary and tertiary secrets being swapped on a near-daily basis now, to Kid's mind, an actual alliance between Beika's best detective and Beika's best thief/infiltrator/aggressor was the only conclusion possible.

But it wasn't possible with Ran and Aoko in the way. They needed to be cleared to the sides, to either be supports or be cut loose. Rather than fearing and regretting his feelings for her, Shinichi ought to be able to draw strength and inspiration from his devotion to Ran, and by doing so become a more formidable - and less hindered - opponent, both to the Kid himself and to the shadow network that opposed them. With Kaito's concern for keeping the Kid secret from Aoko cleared away, Kid himself would more brazenly be able to draw the Black Organization's fire, and in doing so, discover more crucial information about them that might, ultimately, lead to the revelation of its weaknesses.

All that stood in the way of all of this was Shinichi's missing 'yes.'

As he brooded at his computer screen, Kid became slowly aware of a mental static off to the side of his head, a toe tapping sharply and with irritation on the 'floor' of the mental space he shared with Kuroba Kaito. As soon as he turned his attention to his partner, the other's frustrated irritation came into sharp and sudden focus.

"And when were you going to ask me about this?" Kaito asked testily.

Kid frowned. "It's necessary! You know that the burn scars are going to raise suspicion as soon as the weather warms up and we start wearing our gakuran open at the collar. And you _do_ care about her, and you know she does back! Your situation isn't even as testy as Shinichi's is."

"It's still _my_ situation," Kaito responded, quiet but firm.

"She deserves to know as much as Mouri-san deserves to know about Shinichi."

Kaito shook his head, running both hands through his hair in frustration. "It's not yours to decide. And Mouri-san would be finding out that the man she loves is still okay and nearby her, however much he's lied to her in the process of staying near. Aoko? Would discover that the man who's always been near to her and whom she cares about has been lying to her for years, for his own personal gain, with actual detriment to herself and her father."

"Detriment?" Kid scoffed. "Shinichi was explaining--"

"_Aoko_ is not an economic or political genius like Kudo-san seems to be," Kaito interrupted. "And what she _feels_ about the situation, not what logic tells her, is often her only truth."

Kid sighed, dismissing that concern with a wave of his hand. "Well, this is all a moot point anyway. Shinichi's being stupid about the whole situation, and I'm just going to have to figure out a different workaround to get this off the ground."

Kaito's eyes narrowed. "_Kid,_ don't get so deep into your big project ideas that you lose sight of the real world."

"They killed our father," Kid snapped, temper flaring. "How can you dismiss that as a 'big project'?"

"Because you're not thinking about Tousan," Kaito countered. "You're thinking about Edogawa-kun."

"_Shinichi,_" Kid corrected him testily.

Kaito smiled. "I'm sorry. _Kudo-san._" He laid heavy emphasis on the honorific - and by implication, on Kid's lack of honorific.

Kid frowned, hearing the implication and unsure how to respond. Kaito faded into the background of their mind, leaving Kid alone again, faced by the blinking cursor of his chat window.

Kid checked the clock. No more than two minutes had gone by while Kaito and he had their prolonged internal argument; on the other end of the screen, Shinichi was probably not worried about the lag, at least, not much.

_Honesty for honesty, then,_ Kid resolved, squaring his shoulders.

Hell, this was complicated.

* * *

The text of Kid's response appeared on Shinichi's screen slowly. The thief was clearly sacrificing his normally quick typing speed for deliberation and, Shinichi could only guess, careful thought.

_Kaito cares for her deeply, and she for him. He holds her at arm's length for fear of hurting her when she discovers me, as she someday inevitably will._

_My interests lie elsewhere._

The detective read the response, blinked, and read it again. _And I thought __my__ life was complicated... Well yeah, it IS, but in a different flavor._ Frowning, he began to type his reply, small fingers moving quietly across the keys.

_So, 'we're totally screwed' pretty much sums it up at the moment, doesn't it? Ran deserves the chance to decide whether or not she wants to wait for me, even if she doesn't really know the truth as to why I'm 'gone'. It's the main reason I haven't told her, you know-- it'd trap her, she'd feel obligated to wait and hope and I'd never know how much was obligation and how much was real. Sooner or later she's going to figure it out, she's not an idiot. Matter of fact, I know at least three people who I can honestly say have probably caught on but haven't said anything about it yet. Heh... Schroedinger and I share a mailing address. Schroedinger's P.O. box._

Shinichi hit the return key, wincing at his own pun even as he considered Kid's last comments. 'Elsewhere'... That was intriguing.

_but isn't it unfair to not let her know how long she'll be waiting if she chooses that?_ Confused, Kid frowned at his screen, momentarily forgetting that Shinichi couldn't see. _you can wait a short time easily and keep waiting lots of short times in a row if you think that it's going to end soon. if she knew that it would be a long time, she would decide differently?_

_besides if she wants to wait that's her business. it's not your job to insult her by thinking she doesn't know how to separate what she really wants from everything else._

On the other side of the screen, Shinichi shifted uncomfortably; that was hitting a little too close to home regarding a few thoughts he had at his most depressed moments. _Point. I'm not denying any of that-- it's not fair no matter how I try to justify it. And_ (he paused mid-sentence, biting his lip and remembering what Ai had murmured to him on the way home from school the day before the heist) _I may have an opportunity to resolve it and come clean sooner than I thought. We haven't talked about her, but I think you know about Haibara Ai, don't you? Know about her as in the similarities between her and I._

Kid's eyebrows went exploring somewhere near his hairline.

_pharmacist?_ He didn't feel comfortable typing more - not even on an anonymous handle on an anonymous chat program. But he knew that would be enough for Shinichi to understand.

_You could say that. Her former employers were reluctant to release her from their employ; she had to apply some rather extreme strategies to get free, since their, ah, closure package wasn't to her taste._ Shinichi smiled grimly to himself, remembering Ai's precise young voice tersely reciting the chemical name for the apotoxin one Autumn afternoon. They'd been walking home from school; she'd taken a certain delight in terrifying him, and considering the situation that she'd lived in he supposed he could understand that. Ai was rather severely maladjusted socially and emotionally; her entire life's focus had been on her work and her sister, and she'd been betrayed by the one and lost the other to death, so this was hardly a surprise. As much as her clinical detachment irritated Shinichi, he-- what? Admired her? Understood her? Liked her? A little of all of those, but not a lot of any; the answer was as complicated as the person it referred to.

Anyway, back to the chatwindow-- _She has something in mind, a possibility that needs exploring. And lab rats are only good for so much before you need to start on clinical trials. Since we don't really want a rehash of Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde, I guess you can see where this is going. Even Haibara has no conviction of any effects lasting beyond a few hours or possibly as much as a day, but--_

Shinichi paused, staring at what he'd just typed. There it was on the screen, big as life and twice as real: his future as a guinea pig.

_If it works, I'll talk to Ran. I can't say how much I'll tell her, not yet, but -I will talk to her.- Because you're right. Damn you, Kid. Why can't you ask the easy questions?_ He scrabbled one hand through his hair, falling from his crosslegged seat back onto the futon and rolling over to lay flat on his face, facing resolutely away from the laptop and the choice he had just made.

_I'm often told that I'm an insufferable bastard, in more or less flowery terms,_ Kid responded wryly. _and for what it's worth, i'm glad she'll get a bit more ground to stand on. she deserves it._

_so does n's eldest, but as i've been reminded, that one's not actually my territory. i can help him best by staying away from her; i can help yours best by kicking your ass. so, consider yourself kicked for her sake, and i suppose your own._

_besides. if you can concentrate better and if you have her love, you'll be even stronger. and i do love a good fight._

No need to tell Shinichi everything that he was planning, not quite yet. The man was going to have a big enough challenge simply surviving the "pharmacist's" trials. And past that, well, Kid figured he could do a little work with doves, the odd magic trick, to help his...well, his friend. At this point, that word really did apply best, though it wasn't the _only_ word that applied best - there were several, most of them contradicting each other.

The full moon would arrive in only two days; at that time, along with checking his stolen goose-egg sapphire in its full light for hints of Pandora, Kid intended to hold himself up for examination, too. It was ironic, but Kid felt more like _he_ was the Pandora of myth, run straight over, around, and through by the incautious charge of a hundred loosed emotions charging free of the puzzlebox in his hands. His incurable need to poke, prod, and otherwise _mess_ with things had doomed him to solve the puzzlebox that was Shinichi Kudo from the moment he'd first met him. When Kid discovered, after a year of leaving the Shinichi puzzle half-finished on his mental shelf, that his toy had been hiding within Edogawa Conan the whole time, the thief's need to solve both puzzles became a demanding itch at the back of his brain, a trinket game he played with whenever more serious matters weren't actively demanding his attention.

One puzzle naturally leads to another, especially in Shinichi's situation. As Kid discovered through the process of investigating the bipartite detective, his situation was very much akin to the mythic Gordian knot, or perhaps something squirmy with tentacles. And so now Kid found himself in his current situation, surrounded by half-finished puzzles, all of them interlinked. Making progress on one of them might have the counter-effect of backpedaling the next; or two might get deadlocked together, dependent on a third to be scooted aside so that progress could resume. It was a delicate game, one which Kid had played with impunity up to this point, mainly because - as at the crux of his argument with Kaito - the puzzles he played with didn't represent _his_ problems. Shinichi's woman, Kaito's woman. What might happen if he prodded Conan's kiddie companions with some new magic tricks? Or how far could he taunt Nakamori through non-heist means before he finally caved to Aoko's begging for a new purse? He wasn't personally tangled up in any of the puzzles, until now.

Now, Kid had - somehow - acquired a friend. A real, honest-to-god friend, cold pizza dinners and late night chats and playing ridiculous games of Chicken and "movie nights in," except with them it was aged Western novels and hot coffee, and for holy Benten's sake, _instant messaging_.

The Kaitou Kid -- this Kaitou Kid, that is -- had never had a friend. His father had, once; there was a vague memory, somewhere in the back of Kid's and Kaito's collective memories, that their father, the original Kaitou Kid, had been best friends with a mystery writer. But for this one, friendship was a new and overwhelming experience, so different from the anonymous adoration of a hundred thousand screaming fans.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it was getting to his head more potently than the fainting, fluttering masses ever had.

_Complicated, it's all so complicated,_ he mused. Kid sat back from the keys with a tired satisfaction, hands hanging loose at his sides as he leaned back to balance his chair on its back legs. He would wait until the results of Shinichi's conversation with Mouri-san were clear. Then...

Then, Kid would have some hard thinking of his own to do, as well. To the rest of the world, the public faces of Edogawa Conan, grade school detective; Kuroba Kaito, high school magician; and Kaitou Kid, international felon, hadn't changed much in the last year: they all had their roles to play, and played them well. But the private paradigms of the Kaitou Kid's world had revolved completely in the last two months, as had Shinichi's - if in comparably less drastic ways than the detective had yet realized. If Kid was going to force Shinichi to hold his life up to the light, searching for singular truth, then Kid owed the detective the same gesture in fairness.

Even though he was certain he wouldn't like what he found.

* * *

Shinichi lay on his side with his head pillowed on his arms, watching as Kid's text scrolled across the screen, just a little too far away to type but close enough to read. Thoughts ran around in his head, chasing each other like dogs and squirrels... like cops and robbers... like detectives and phantom thieves. It was, he considered with a twinge of tired satisfaction, just another facet of how weird his life had become when the best advice seemed to come from someone who'd begun as an opponent and who'd managed to metamorphasize into a friend. It was a tribute to both their natures that neither had changed so much in their selves as in their regard.

So: first Ai's experiment, and then (assuming he survived it) he and Ran would have a Talk, the one he'd been simultaneously dreading and anticipating for so long. And then?

_We'll see. For once I'm not dreading the future; for once it doesn't look all that bad, no matter what happens. And I couldn't've said that a few months ago, couldn't've even believed it._

_Pretty damn good magic trick you've worked there, Kid._ He half-smiled, twisting around on the futon to type.

_A fair fight, huh? Oh, you just -wait.- It'll be all that and then some. Hey-- coffee again Wednesday? Think Ran'll've forgiven me by then._

_thn ill just have 2 get u in trouble again,_ Kid laughed. _do u prefer a D or DD cup?_

_

* * *

_

_[end three thieves book one.]  
_

_  
...__**yes**__, we're already working on the sequel. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned. The first chapter of book two will post next Friday, promise.  
_

_best,_

_-Ysabet & Conan, Nightengale & Kid, & two very impatient brunettes_


	9. Experiment, tresspassers, pink

**Three Thieves**

_**Book Two, Chapter One**__**: "experiment, trespassers, pink"**_

_In which Kid and Shinichi both try out new roles, tell each other new things, and discover one new pasta dish that's never been tried before! Kind of._

* * *

"Left arm. Make a fist, please." A needle gleamed like a silver stiletto, thin and bright. "Two more vials, Professor."

"Blink once; one more time. Now, stare straight ahead at the mark." Pupils contracted and dilated at the flash of a penlight.

"Reflexes are good... hm; you've grown two centimeters. Normal for your apparent age, I suppose. When did we take these last measurements--? Ah, never mind, here it is. Right arm this time, please." Figures were jotted down in a notebook, _Height: 124cm. Weight: 18.73kgm. Blood pressure..."_ Haibara Ai paused, a faint frown on her angular face. "You're slightly hypertensive; not a surprise for an adult, but rather abnormal for a seven-year-old male. Not that anything about this is normal, of course."

"No, really?" said Kudo Shinichi, peeling back the velcro on the BP cuff. His tone was dry enough to spontaneously ignite all on its own. "How much more do you need? I'm running out of things for you to measure." Across the small exam room (little more than a glorified storage area to one side of Agasa's lab, pressed into use by Ai and kept carefully locked) Professor Agasa carefully measured out Shinichi's blood into twelve different tubes, each one labeled in his surprisingly neat script.

Ai's tone was clinical, remote. "Just general samples. If we're going to move ahead with the experiment we have to establish a current baseline; and I wouldn't complain," she added with the flick of a gaze before gathering up a few items from the exam room sink. "It's your health we're considering, isn't it? You should be flattered. Moving right along... Fill this, please."

Shinichi looked at the two-liter bottle that Ai held in her hand. "...you have got to be kidding me."

"What?" Irritated, she frowned at him, then down at the plastic container. "Oh. Not this, _this."_ A more reasonably-sized beaker sat on the counter between them, indicated by a wave from a small plastic glove. _"This_ is going into the trash." She moved past him , oblivious to Shinichi's sigh of relief and the Professor's convulsive snort of laughter.

When Haibara Ai had quietly informed her fellow unfortunate of the results of her current line of inquiry, his initial reaction had been along the lines of _Jesus Christ, Not Again._ How many times had it been, the agonizing journey there and back, from Conan to Shinichi, from a forced childhood to an artificial adulthood? Three so far, and each time he'd been dragged back, like a rubber-band snapping into shape after being plucked over and over again. _Oh God no. It hurts and it never lasts._ To be fair, Ai'd done it once herself, so she knew. But to see the cool enthusiasm in her eyes and hear how she'd said that he'd need a week away this time, mostly preparation and recovery--

It was a funny thing; but Ayumi was the only one whom she ever really relaxed with, as little as that was. Perhaps she missed her sister, finding her likeness in child's open smile. You never knew with Haibara Ai.

Coming out of the bathroom, Shinichi passed over the small beaker to the Professor and flopped down onto a chair in the larger lab area. He glanced up at the large man questioningly as Ai typed away at the main computer console, thin fingers flying across the keyboard. "You said I'll.... wait, I'll need a _week_ for this? Why? What's so different about this time? Before--"

Agasa labeled the flask and placed it neatly in the small under-the-counter fridge used strictly (thank God) for labratory samples. He cleared his throat. "'Before', Shinichi, never worked. If we're right, this won't be permanent either; but it will be safer, and you'll return with less lingering ill effects." He shrugged one large shoulder, running a hand through his grey curls. "We never allowed for the damage the accelerated growth did to your cells each time you reverted in the past. Remember?" He regarded the boy through his round lenses, moustache bristling a little in agitation. "Remember how much pain you were in afterwards?"

As if he'd forget; each time, his return to what now stood for 'normalcy' had been followed by days and nights of a strange, wracking ache-- pervasive, not centered in any one particular place but riddling every limb and particularly bad along the hipjoints and the longer bones. It made sense when you considered that these were the places that grew the most during the natural rise from pre- to post-adolescence; he might have backslid into what his body considered to be 'safe', but his cells remembered the forced growth and its agony, and it had been worst when he'd attempted to sleep. Agasa had provided painkillers; Ai had given him nutrient pills and suggested that he drink a lot of water and try not to die, as his corpse would have a number of anomalies that might lead to suspicion were an autopsy done.

"We'll be monitoring and controlling the change this time; you'll be on heavy IV drip, and hopefully providing large amounts of 'building blocks' for your cells will mitigate the problems we had before." That was the transformed scientist herself, talking as she typed; from where Shinichi sat he could see the screen's reflected lights on her pale, small-child face. "If it works well enough, we'll take the line of inquiry further. Who knows? I might volunteer to be the next test subject myself." She flashed him a cool little sideways smile, reserve breaking briefly; Ai was always happiest (or what passed for happy with her) while pursuing a fruitful experiment to its conclusion.

She turned back to her keyboard. "Of course," she said thoughtfully, "there are risks. There are always risks. Your heart might not be able to take the strain; you might have problems with blood clots in your lungs, pulmonary thrombosis; there's the chance of a stroke or an embolism. We won't know until we take the step." Characteristically, she did not ask if he was _willing_ to make the attempt; she simply assumed that he was.

_Shows how well Ai knows me... or how predictable I am, I guess._ Because he would, of course.

"We'll have to set something up so Ran doesn't have a coronary herself," Shinichi muttered, accepting his fate along with a glass of orange juice and a couple of cookies to bring his blood-sugar back up. (Ai threw a disapproving look at Agasa, who cringed slightly; the man was totally whipped.) "Maybe my 'parents' could pick me up for a week? Take me to Hokkaido or something." The Professor nodded absently, scribbling something down on a pad to show to Ai, and Shinichi propped his feet up on the Professor's coffeetable with a sigh.

_Guinea-pig time again, just like I told Kid last week._ He stared out the huge windows across the room, sipping his juice. Outside, it was dark; night had come quickly this evening, and from where he sat he could just make out the outlines of the Kudo estate's upper floors next door. Which made him wonder how a certain visitor to that estate was doing tonight, and what, and--

* * *

Across the way, nestled into an armchair in the Kudo library, Kaitou Kid turned the pages of his latest find, nicked from the library's dusty upper shelves. Written by an author he'd never heard of before, it nevertheless provided a fascinating read, tracking the adaptation of Campbell's Hero's Journey through various applications in popular media. _Will have to keep an eye on this Iris Gordon,_ Kid mused, setting the book aside momentarily. He had helped himself to coffee from the Kudo kitchen, and had to admit that it was at least as good a brew as any commercial coffeehouse could offer. The warmth of it soothed him and relaxed his muscles, a welcome respite from the constant tension that was an unavoidable byproduct of having something to be wary of. Though he trusted Shinichi further than he was comfortable admitting, security breaches happened to the best of them, and no reassurances to the contrary would make him truly convinced that the disused mansion was a secure location.

Kid stood from his chair with a soft groan, walking a circle around the room to stretch out and refresh his muscles. He'd been studying for hours, now - since directly after school, when Kuroba and he had skived off of walking home with Aoko and came straight (by the most roundabout way possible) to the mansion. As he'd anticipated, Kudo the elder had stocked his shelves with all sorts of research material, how-to guides, opinionated treatises, questionably legal advice, and more.

_No better bookshelf than a writer's,_ Kid thought to himself as he returned to his seat, hopping into place with his toes tucked under to keep them warm. Putting aside the Gordon book, which was really just pleasure reading he had grabbed from the shelf on a whim, Kid turned his attention back to the more pertinent resources, the reasons why he'd come to the mansion tonight at all.

_Oh, Tantei-kun, you will be __ever__ so irritated with me, won't you? Using your father's library for heist work._ Kid snickered to himself, a child too proud of his scheming to keep quiet. In the privacy of the library, there was no need for his Poker Face. _We are going to have so much fu---_

A clatter from somewhere in the house interrupted him, and he looked up warily, putting his current work aside with deliberate silence. _...now what is __that?__ Wasn't from the front door...wasn't from the kitchen._

It was from the cellar; not the 'private' entrance, but from the more visible one, the door that led out into a steep little stairwell, half-hidden by the untrimmed grass of the Kudo's yard. Someone (two someones, from the sound of it) was jimmying the door open. Their voices filtered through, hissing whispers that weren't nearly as quiet as they obviously thought they were.

"--shutUP, man!" The door scraped in with a jarring sound. A pry-bar of some sort clattered to the ground, its clang muffled by the thud of a heavy foot.

"Fuck off, there's nobody around here, this place's been empty for almost a year. Grab that an' c'mon, there'll be shit we can sell." Shuffling feet, moving towards the stairs...

"Why're the lights on, Rico?"

"Timer. Keeps people like us out, like we don' pay attention to the mail an' paper stopping? An' rich pricks deserve to be ripped off, anyway."

_Is __that__ it,_ Kid grumbled to himself, setting his book down and silently stealing his way across the library to the hallway, then down its length to the stairs that headed upwards. The lamp wasn't on to light them, so they provided a modicum of cover in which Kid could prepare his retaliation. The potential irony of the situation registered to him, but only vaguely; to use the same word to describe his profession and these two's clumsy idle amusements....

Well. It was a grossly inaccurate association, and that was putting it politely. Limited by the small, emergency-disguise kit that he had on him, Kid worked quickly to prepare himself for a role altogether more imposing than the easy-going high school student he appeared to be.

They came into view, two heads cautiously poking up into the dimly-lit kitchen as the door to the cellar proper creaked open. The older of the two, a dirty blond sort with stubble and the kind of edgy, twitchy grimace that generally belonged to a member of Japan's Junior Crack-Smoker's Union, took a long look through the narrow opening before shoving the door wide. "Come ON, I said. You are such a friggin' whiner, Hoji."

Hoji (younger, a little less strung out looking but obviously not one of Nature's brightest bulbs) proved this to be true by hanging back. "Swear to God, Rico, you get me busted, my old man's gonna kill my ass. He said--"

"Shut. Up." The bolder Rico moved out into the kitchen, eyeing the appliances. "Hey, Krupps coffeemaker. Nice."

"Yeah..." Hoji followed, eyes widening as he took in the Kudo house's furnishings... before slowing to a dead halt. "Rico? Why do I smell coffee, man? Like, _fresh_ coffee?"

_Because you're about to get your ass handed to you, you idiotic smudge of humanity._ Kid did not say this out loud. No, his Poker Face - and the eventual payoff of the scheme he was concocting - ensured his silence. Still, he allowed the sneering disgust that he felt to show on his face as he straightened his jacket (an old one with patches on the elbows, rather university-professor-chic), gave a final adjustment to his headpiece, and hit the trigger on his handheld remote.

On the second floor landing, a tiny but quality speaker projected a rattling, then the very characteristic clack of a gun being cocked. In response to these sounds, Kid cleared his throat and projected his voice, as though he spoke from the same room that the "gun" was located.

"Now, Mistress... that's somewhat...rash..." He coughed, raspy smoker's voice shredding itself on the sussurant syllables. "I'll just take a toddle...downstairs...see what all the ruckus is about," he continued, slowly bringing his voice back to himself as he began to shuffle down the last third of the staircase. Moving more quickly than his alias might have been capable, Kid arrived in the kitchen before the two intruders had much time to react. Stooped over, his skin mottled with hastily-painted liver spots that ran all the way up into his "balding" hairline, Kid clutched at one pocket, seeking its contents, as he pointed shakily at the two intruders with the other.

"Young sirs, you are trespassing."

The two thugs, frozen from the moment the 'gun' had been cocked, stood rooted in place. Hojo, visibly beginning to hyperventilate, swayed slightly as his body attempted to bolt without his feet actually moving. But Rico's eyes were darting nervously all over the available view, and they narrowed at the sight of the old man. "Not lookin' for any trouble," he murmured, trying to locate where the more important sound had come from. "Don' do anything, you hear me? Nobody wants to get hurt here." His companion shot him a disbelieving look, and Rico smirked as one hand slid towards his back pocket for whatever reassurance he had hidden there.

"In that case, you'll want to remove your hand from your weapon," Kid snapped, without breaking his vocal tenor. He discarded the slow weakness of it, and of his character in general, as very unfeigned anger fueled him like a flame beneath a kettle. Now he - as eighty-three-year-old Asahino-san, one of the lesser-used disguises the Kid kept on file - was pissed off. "I assure you, there is little you can withdraw from that pocket that will help you. Leave now."

"Rico, let's just _leave,"_ hissed Hoji, tugging at the other's arm; Rico jerked away from his fellow housebreaker, Adam's Apple bobbing in his throat as he deliberately spat on the kitchen floor. As he spoke, the more timid Hoji edged behind him and began to back down the cellar stairs.

"Fuck off, old man. Your old lady up there got a gun? I can't see her from here, she can't see me enough to aim." The blackjack slid out, now, twelve inches of folded leather and lead weights, ugly and flexible as a snake. "What're you gonna do 'bout me if I want to stay, maybe take a few souvenirs?" Without moving a step to either side, the thug reached out his free hand towards a set of kitchen knives in a nearby block. "Like mebbee these," he said, beginning to grin.

_"Ri_co--" implored Hoji from behind him, sweating.

It was doubtful that either of the thugs could have really seen Kid's next movement. The easy thing to watch, though, was the way that the blade-edged steel card vibrated where it had embedded itself two centimeters into the wooden block that held the kitchen knives. Rico's hand, a scant distance above that, was frozen in place.

Hand inside his jacket pocket again, misdirecting the thugs' glances from the bulge of his bulky card gun under his jacket, Kid let his expression fall into a very unequivocal frown. "It seems I have a blackjack too," he commented lightly, the rasp of his persona's rough voice making the arch comment seem strangely placed. "Do you have an ace of spades? Or a club? I have some of those, too."

Rico's mouth worked; he couldn't seem to find the words to answer, but stared from the embedded card to the old man and back; the card's thin edges glinted blue-silver in the dim lighting, sharp enough to bleed sparks. At last he said, very quietly, "Oh. Fuck. Uh--" and began to shuffle backwards towards the stairs. His bark, like that of so many other mongrels, was apparently much braver than his bite.

With the hand "fumbling" in his jacket pocket, Kid pressed his remote button again. From upstairs, the sound of a gun cocking clattered through the house - and Kid bet money on the fact that the kids were probably too scared to wonder why it needed cocked twice. In character, he called over his shoulder, projecting as "best" as he could - which was still rather feeble.

"Mistress, don't worry, they're leaving now...Oh, I don't think she's heard me. She'll be down any minute now."

That was all it took; what seemed like momentary inattention was enough for Rico, and he did his best turn and dive for cover. It was a pity that this meant that his leap took him down the cellar stairs; it was a _double_ pity that Hoji hadn't gone very far as yet. The thud that one body made colliding with the other was quite, quite satisfactory.

"And _stay out_," Kid grumbled, harummphing and muttering as he closed the cellar door, locked it, and then expertly jammed the lock. "Damn kids."

The scrambling, panicked flight of the two hoodlums across the cellar and out the door was obvious and noisy ("Toldja, _toldja_ we shoudn't--" "Shut the hell up, Hoji!") as was the slam of that same door shutting behind them, hard enough to rattle glasses in the kichen. The Jack of Clubs in the knife block seemed to grin.

Kid tugged the card free, frowning at the deep cut in the block. The card's progression had actually been stopped by hitting the flat of one of the knife blades; sliding it free from the block, he could see it had chipped where the less refined steel of the card had hit. "You owe me a new knife, you ignorant, inglamorous, brute force--" He bit off his words before the conventionally insulting terminology could come out, though what he'd already levied against the blockheaded intruders was pretty strong stuff, considering the stock that Kid held in performing the thieving profession with care, precision, and of course honor.

He sighed, running one hand through his hair - then thinking better of the absentminded motion. "Put the knife down, Kaitou," he muttered to himself. "_Then_ be exhaustively frustrated." The goons had truly ruined his mood for the evening, and it was extremely unlikely he'd get any more work done while brooding over their behavior. Sullenly, Kid packed up his things, closed down the mansion, and let himself out the secret back passageway, making sure to lock every door and window behind him as he went. He'd have to remind Shinichi to get the cellar lock replaced, and ideally to replace the door altogether with a new one, sturdier, with more locks on it.

Kid shuffled his way out of the mansion, still in disguise, and sighed up at the moon as he came out into the fresh night air. It was only slightly chill; autumn was coming, but slowly. The moon above him was breathtaking, as she always tended to be. Wistfully, he closed one eye and raised his hand, thumb extended, lining it up to rub her curves like he might trace the arc of another's face.

He firmly shook that thought away even as it formed. It was too lovely a night to be sullen, Kid resolved, and too lovely a moon above him to show her an unhappy face. Smiling broadly at her, following the sidewalk by habit rather than sight, Kid let her glow pull deep breaths from him in a steady give-and-take tide. By the time he'd left the block, his foul mood was slowly and steadily dissipating.

* * *

_Click. ... click... tapclick..._

The cursor winked like an eye as Shinichi's typing slowed. Choosing his words very carefully, he said: _What do you mean, 'amateurs'?_

He was, of course, supposed to be doing his homework; and he was, of course, long since finished with said homework. The Detective Of The East had, secretly, rather enjoyed working his way through their home reading list for the year; there were old favorites in there, and Ran's lingering annoyance over the whole library incident had been mollified by finding Conan sprawled across the couch, absorbed in _Penguin Shubotai,_ one of Saito Hiroshi's classics. He'd turned bright red; she'd sat down beside him, flipping through the pages and laughing over the Penguin Exploratory Team's antics. "Shinichi used to take these on the train when we were your age," she'd told him, her brown hair straggling in feather-soft strands down from where she'd tied it back; it softened the line of her jaw, lending a sudden look of Eri to her features. "He used to get mad when I'd steal them out of his backpack, but he let me read his copies anyway."

And speaking of stealing... The boy chewed the end of his pencil, typing again. _And -why- am I going to need a new cellar door lock?_

Kid held his apple in his mouth to free both hands for his response. Sprawled across his big queen-size bed at the Kuroba mansion - careless, yes, but by this point being concerned that Shinichi would trace his IP address seemed rather redundant - the thief lay surrounded by layers and layers of research material, striated stacks of books on top of papers on top of notebooks on top of open, face-down books on top of papers on top of magazines on top of more books, all of this surrounded by Pocky boxes and mochi packages. A movie, black and white, played quietly on the large television on the other end of the room; his laptop sat on an overturned tea tray, lifting it a safe distance from the soft, fluffy, computer-fan-smothering comforter. _well rly a whle nw cellar door. this 1's a bit flimsy, & the hinge pins 2 easy 2 lift_

The text that crawled into the chatwindow seemed to drag its feet in reluctance. _I'm only going to regret it if I ask why, aren't I? Nevr mind, I'll gt the Profssor to call sombody. Damn E ky is sticking, brb._ There was a brief pause. _There, better. Hate it when that happens. Oh- remember the talk we had last week about a certain pharmacist? Clinical trials? Looks like we're about ready to go._

_aw and i had such fun embellishments added to the story too_ Kid mock-pouted, unable to leave the opening completely uncommented. _but u do need a bttr security system or u'll be missing things in a bit. the trapdoors r compromised probably._

_about the pharmacist._ Kid frowned slightly at the screen, and Shinichi's words; this was where his real attention lay. _have a day yet? & where will edogawa go while u arrive?_

The answer came back quickly this time, a rush of data. Shinichi's typing was usually fairly consistent in speed, but not tonight. _We'll start the prep work Friday morning. Agasa's going to escort Conan to the train station in Shinjuku to meet his 'parents'- that ought to be far enough to make it feasible, and it'll be during school hours so Ran can't come along. She_

(On the other side of the screen, Shinichi hesitated, eyebrows creasing a thin line between them as he tried to put the sense of alarm he'd had earlier into words.)

_She doesn't seem suspicious so much as- I don't know, aware that something's up. Aware? Awake? Something. She knows it'll be a week, she saw the school permit form. Not stupid, not blind either._

Kid frowned, mulling the idea over. _but if ur going 2 tell her...the story is just 2 keep her frm freaking til sk can show up, y? y a whole week? u staying sk tht long?_

_Prep work and recovery,_ came the answer promptly. _Pharmacist-sama has this theory that my body's established a norm in its current state, not the original. Keeps reverting in self-defense. So she wants to 'convince' my system that it's growing naturally. Won't last more than a day at peak, but if it works without any problems then- Think she got the idea from studies on Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (Wiki it, good article.) Not pretty reading; hope I don't get stuck as an octogenarian by mistake._ Again, the rhythm of the text was rapid and precise.

_now that wld b hilarious,_ Kid replied, tabbing away from several spreadsheets which he had been filling with selected information from a database page hosted on a British university's system. _& i could call u benjamin button._ Not really expecting Shinichi to get the reference - it had been a quietly-received film, especially outside of America - Kid simply continued with the conversation. _couldnt she stop it, tho? once u got to what size u wanted, turn the med off? or get th rest of it out of u?_

_u sound determind tho,_ Kid added, smiling slightly. _like ur excited._

'Excited'? Elbow on the desk and chin in hand, Shinichi choked briefly. Given who he was talking to-- someone whose idea of a good time included fleeing through mid-air from the authorities on an unpowered aircraft-- he supposed that having your bones, muscles and nerves used as a scientist's private chemical playground sounded like a really good time. And yet, _yes_ he was excited; he'd be himself again, even if it was only for a few hours-- his hands would be the right size, he'd look at the world from the right angles and the right height, he'd, oh God, he'd be... _back._ Just for a little while.

_I am excited. It isn't just the kiddy school and the being treated like a child and the having to depend on everybody, it's not even the physical aspect. Hard to explain, it's like... this, being reverted ten years, is a violation of natural law. MY natural law. No matter how much or how little I can deal with it, it's wrong every second- not a role I'm playing and not a disguise, -wrong.- I don't hate it, I could be dead and the fact that I'm not is a miracle. But just for a little while I can be right again._

_So- yeah. Excited, terrified, all of that._ Shinichi hit the enter key with a heavy click and sat staring at his own text, only then realizing that sometime during the conversation he'd begun to breathe deeply, pulse speeding up to match his breath. His mouth quirked upwards at one corner, and Kid would have recognized the small, cocky grin there.

_thats more like it,_ Kid replied quickly, suspecting that his own smirk matched Shinichi's. _i say this requires a celebration. drinks? but ur pharmacist wouldn't like that. let's get dinner, then, or lunch. some sort of celebratory meal. and if u kick it, u can say that 4 ur last meal, u dined in the presence of the prince of thieves. royalty. how about it?_ He paused, frowning. Though he was honestly craving okonamiyaki, eating at an okonamiyaki-ya would inevitably lead to awkward questions and possibly discomfort; the menu was much too limiting, considering his own preferences. Instead, he ran down a mental list of alternatives, discarding fast food joints and stall-format eateries as a matter of course; too chaotic a setting for him to feel comfortable. Somewhere slower-paced, with a booth that could limit visibility and provide walls to their backs. _family restaurant maybe?_

Unseen by the 'Prince of Thieves', Shinichi rolled his eyes. _Lead on, Kid-dono._ His fingers tapdanced across the keys steadily, showing no sign of the unevenness from before. _Let me know when my palaquin'll be arriving, I'll be ready._

_u said they start wrming up the unshrink beam on friday, y? let's for thurs nite. youll know my signal._

* * *

The next few days saw the arrangements for The Experiment falling into place with almost alarming ease. Paperwork for school had been produced courtesy of Agasa (with the same signature on it that arrived in Mouri's mail each month on a check for Conan's upkeep), a week's worth of homework had been scheduled and packed up, the Shonen Tantei had demanded postcards from Hokkaido, Ai had been caught jotting down notes on what exactly he ate every day at lunch in her tiny, exact script, and a white dove or two was spotted hanging out with the schoolyard birds at Teitan Elementary, which nobody thought unusual...

Ran had, once the initial surprise had worn off, been rather quiet about the whole thing; it was just as Shinichi'd described it to Kid-- she didn't act as if she knew something so much as she acted as if she was aware that _there was something to know._ But all she did was smile at him, ruffle his hair and ask him to bring her back something special from his trip.

Irony, he'd thought to himself at the time, was quite the bitch, wasn't it?

But now it was Wednesday and he was walking home from school. The next day'd see him finishing up at school and then eating dinner with an internationally wanted criminal (though for all Shinichi knew, it might _look_ like he was dining with his mother, or worse. He just prayed that Kid didn't reprise the sexy librarian, or any variation thereof, or else he might just start throwing flatware.) The next morning, he'd go off to Agasa's to be injected with life-altering drugs.

_At least my life's not boring. Somewhat insane and filled with moments of terror, but not boring._

Speaking of which-- as a tall man in the jacket and tie joined Conan from where he'd been waiting beside the sidewalk, quite visible, the boy swallowed hard and put on his best Inquisitive Child Prodigy face. "Nakamori-keibu?" he asked with a good show of startlement.

Tall and grim-faced, the ever-present pipe clenched between his teeth, the man looked like the proverbial shoe-about-to-fall incarnate. "Keep walking," he grunted as he shortened his stride and Conan lengthened his.

For a little while, that's all they did: walk, neither one saying a word to the other. _Any minute now,_ thought Shinichi behind Conan's mask of puzzled glances, _any minute now. 'Who are you? Why are you a kid when you're not a kid? What--'_

"I don't want to know."

The tone was harsh, if fairly low. Shinichi blinked, and when he looked up at Nakamori there was no difference between his bewilderment and Edogawa Conan's. "Wh-what?"

"I don't want to know." The Inspector drew on his pipe, air hissing through the stem. "I don't want to know about you, and I don't want to have to ask. You understand me, boy?" He shot a dark look downwards; and the way he clenched his pipe in his teeth was angry. "Don't _make_ me ask; don't force me to look into-- anything I don't have to. Because you don't get to be where I am without being good at what you do. You remember that."

They walked on a little, the tall man and the small boy. Shinichi blinked several times, trying to process just what he'd heard. "Nakamori-keibu, I don't--" he began.

The man looked down at him again. "Shut up," he said flatly. "It's simple. You don't make me ask questions... about you or _anyone else..."_ (and for a flash of a second one hand mimed tipping a hat) "...and I won't have to go after the answers." Nakamori shrugged. "How much plainer do I have to be?" They stopped at a streetcorner, waiting for the light to change.

"That's... plain enough." Shinichi stared up at the man, wondering if it could possibly be that simple. "I understand."

"Good," said Nakamori flatly as the light turned and the crosswalk signal began to beep. "I've got enough headaches; I don't need any more." With that he stomped off down the sidewalk, long legs carrying him quickly away as the boy stared in silence.

...and that, apparently, was that.

Conan stood at the streetcorner, watching Nakamori's squared shoulders shrink (oh, irony) into the distance of the busy afternoon street, waiting for the punchline. There _had_ to be a trick about this. A trap, a hidden mic? _Oh, now you're just being ridiculous, Kudo,_ he grumbled to himself. But still, the unease remained. Nakamori had sounded completely sincere - deadly so, in fact - and yet it still seemed too convenient.

_Truth will out,_ he sighed. Only then did he look up to the street signs to get his bearings - and groan in frustration. They'd gone three blocks past his turn, and he didn't have the skateboard with him. Grumbling something inarticulate, Shinichi headed back the direction he'd come from, hands in his pockets and head bowed, brow lightly creased. This rather brooding pose was soon ruined by the abrupt addition of a white dove.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Shinichi muttered slowly, coming to a stop and standing up straight. As he moved, the light, fluffy weight of the dove perched on his head adjusted with his posture, maintaining its balance easily, and cooing happily as it did.

He glanced around, a flicker of eyes to either side. "Shoo," he hissed, raising a hand in hopes that the bird would either shy off or hop onto a finger. But the dove merely burbled at him, apparently delighted at the attention. A woman and her daughter passed by along the sidewalk, staring, and the child giggled and pointed. "Gaaahhh! SHOO. Fly home to your master! Go!" He flapped his hand desperately, but the dove simply climbed down his hair ("Ow!") onto a handy shoulder and murmured contentedly there.

The detective sighed. Life-altering drugs were looking pretty good at the moment.

* * *

Thursday evening, just a bit before dinnertime, Moona and Bracken - a rose grey dove with white panda spots around her eyes, with whom Shinichi had become acquainted over the last month or so - arrived at the boy detective's window at Agasa's house. Tapping on the glass to get his attention, they then sidled up beside each other, cooing and grooming each other's napes affectionately.

With a chuckle, Shinichi climbed onto the bed to reach the window, set higher in the wall than standard ones. Opening it enough for the doves to flutter in, and leaving it open so they could exit at will, Shinichi checked their ankles for messages. They carried one each, very brief.

Moona's read, _Italiano-sama Bistro._ He had to chuckle at the juxtaposition of the names.

Bracken's read, _blonde, tall, fuchsia purse._

Shinichi groaned. "Not again..."

Fuchsia was kind of a bright hot pink, wasn't it? And Kid would be certain to wear something that'd match. _Just once,_ thought Shinichi as he headed towards Agasa's front door, _just once I'd like to be there when Kid clothes-shops and tries things on. I mean, __how__?? The dresses and shoes, okay fine, but there're all those bras and... things. Does he actually wear--_ He shut off the thought hurriedly, wondering why the juxtaposition of _Kid_ and _things_ made his ears burn.

"Be back in a few hours, don't hold dinner for me," he called, slipping out the door. Agasa's affable grunt and Ai's terse _No caffeine!_ followed him onto the sidewalk, and he left the two to their preparations. He only hoped they'd remember to eat; when they got like this, it was almost impossible to direct their attention to anything but their work, two very dissimilar poster-children for the OCD community.

On the street, Moona and Bracken fluttered ahead of him, leading him toward the restaurant by way of a somewhat circuitous path. They flew from perch to perch, branch to post to wire, leaving enough pauses for Shinichi and his skateboard to keep up. After a while, as the residential neighborhood faded into a more commercial area, houses and apartment buildings interspersed with a collection of shops and storefronts, the doves broke away from Shinichi and headed up, flying away to an undoubtedly private shelter. Shinichi proceeded forward, scanning the storefronts for signs of the right fusion of Italian and Japanese tastes. He found it rather quickly - it would have been very hard for him to miss the massive Italian flag hanging out front - and proceeded inside, ducking through the second flag which had been, questionably, cut and split to form curtains across the front door.

_Okay, where is he?_ Shinichi scanned the front room of the restaurant once, then again, looking for bright blonde or pink colors, and coming up empty both times. With a frown, he looked again, this time wandering a little bit past the front desk to try to see into all the booths.

"Excuse me, little boy, can I help you?" The hostess sounded bemused - whether at the fact that Conan had arrived alone, or at his nosing around, he couldn't tell.

"I'm looking for nee-san," he answered, in his best Perky Little Bozu voice. "She's tall and blonde and she's wearing pink."

"Oh, you must be the one she told me about," the hostess smiled, crouching down to come to Shinichi's level. "She'd said you were a little younger than her, but I didn't think you'd be this young! Well, follow me."

Confused, Shinichi did, trailing the hostess through the main dining area into a smaller room in the back, where plush benches and high-backed booths surrounded every table, and little tabletop candles added to the artfully dimmed lighting. Leading Conan to the back corner table, the hostess stopped just short of the booth, extending one hand politely in invitation. From where he stood, Shinichi could only see the corner of Kid's skirt, which stopped just short of his knees, and was, indeed, fuchsia.

"Enjoy your date, little sir," the hostess cooed, and left.

_....DATE?_

As soon as the hostess had departed, the "girl" in the booth leaned out, twisting around to see Conan, and a big smile lit up her face, revealing her....braces.

Shinichi goggled at her, taking in the whole picture as he walked numbly over to his side of the booth and hopped in, propping the skateboard in its corner. Kid was indeed blonde tonight, and was indeed wearing a shade of fuchsia that matched his purse rather neatly; what Shinichi hadn't expected, though, was that Kid was...

"Hiiiii," Kid trilled, beaming guilelessly across the table at Shinichi. "I'm Tsukiyoshi-kun, but you can call me Akaru-chan!" Kid smoothed down his skirt, flattening the white and cream ruffles that accented every square inch of fabric. His pigtails, tied near his nape with glittery pink ties, swished across his shoulders as he spoke, his whole body animated with the energy of "Akaru-chan's" excitement. "Momma said you were really smart for your age, she said I should be polite and not think less of you cause you're short. How old are you? Ten? I'm twelve, but I'm reeeeally tall for my age. It's cause Momma's a gaijin, and I take after her. She says I'm gonna be an Amazon when I grow up."

Abject horror. It was like being savaged by a Hajuku Girl version of HelloKitty.

_BAD DREAM. THIS IS A BAD DREAM. Hello, brain? We can wake up now. Any time now. __**ANY. TIME. NOW. PLEASE.**__ .....I feel like a __complete__ pedophile._ Shinichi struggled to say something, anything; his sense of self-preservation curled up into a ball and hid, and the small voice that came out of his mouth was Edogawa Conan's, not a trace of anything else lingering in it anywhere.

"Um. I'm um. Seven. Teen. I mean Seven. I mean--" Shinichi closed his eyes carefully. "Kid?" he said quietly. "I'm going to strangle you with your own pigtails."

Kid closed his eyes, his expression beatific. "Oooh, kinky," he purred, sotto voce to match Shinichi's careful pitch.

The arrival of a rotund, obviously amused waiter and a set of menus spared Shinichi's abused cerebellum any further damage for the next few minutes; by the time they had ordered (green tea with honey for Akaru-chan and plain water for himself) he'd managed to gather a few of his wits back from where they'd fled to. "You," he said with disbelieving eyes taking in his 'date's' entire outfit, "are insane. You _absolutely_ deserve anything and everything Nakamori comes up with to do to you if he ever catches you." The hands opposite his own were primly folded; their nails were as pink as the rest of the outfit. "How long did this-- this-- How long did it take?"

"Oh, I dunno," Akaru-chan demurred, fidgeting with her very elaborate-looking neckpiece (it involved frills of fabric, lace, jewels, AND fur) and smiling coyly at her companion. "It took me just _forever_ to get my hair just perfect, but I already had the costume -" Pause, titter of very fake laughter - "Oh, silly me, _outfit_, picked out for such a _very_ long time. I've been wanting to get all dressed up for you for a while now, show you what a _lady_ I can be."

Leaning in, conspiratorially close, Akaru-chan hooked a finger at Conan, encouraging him to draw near. When he had, with deep suspicion writ over every inch of his face, Kid dropped the act and grinned at Shinichi, so pleased with himself that his smile could almost be called feral. "You wouldn't believe what a pain this outfit is, in the undergarments department," he laughed, keeping his voice low (his real voice, Shinichi noted, though whether this was a relief or not - considering its juxtaposition with the outfit - he wasn't yet certain), even through his humor, so that it wouldn't travel. "They just don't _make_ strawberry-printed stockings in sizes above a certain level!"

"Really?" responded Shinichi rather dryly. "I can think of a few special-interest websites I've seen online that I'm sure could help you out there." He stared at the Amazingly Pink Akaru-chan, thought for a second, and then reached across and flicked one finger at the 'girl's' nose, barely brushing it. "You had a piece of glitter stuck on you," he said confidingly in Conan's normal voice, scooting back onto his padded bench. "See?" He displayed the digit, a bit of fuchsia sparkle decorating the very tip.

_Detective got your __**nose**__, Kid._ With some alarm, Shinichi realized that he was having to fight back a very Conanish giggle; and he wondered if the thief's version of lunacy could possibly be contagious.

Kid grinned, recognizing the gesture, and rewarded Shinichi with a very exaggerated and girlish 'mouuu' of distress. "You'll make my eyes cross trying to follow you when you do that, Conan-kun~," Akaru-chan whined. Guilelessly, however, Kid was busy returning tit for tat: his hand darted across the tabletop as well, the bells and charms on his lacy, ribbon-bedecked wristlet jangling as his fingers snipped at Conan's nose. _Got you back,_ his smirk said, as he opened up his palm to reveal a tiny spray of silvery coral bells nestled among three brightly shining four-leaf clovers. These he presented to Conan, taking care to nestle them carefully into the detective's small palm.

_Coral bells for challenge. Clover for luck._

The next moment stretched for just a second longer than it should have, silence and stillness between the pair as the thief offered honesty with his gaze and gift, and the detective received both with somewhat startled quietness. Then, before Shinichi could actually respond, "Akaru-chan" was waving down the waiter noisily and impatiently, simply _desperate_ for a big order of breadsticks, right this moment, she was just starving, and actually, couldn't she have _two_ cups of garlic butter to dip them in? The distraction was a rather transparent ploy to close off Shinichi's chance to respond to Kid's gift, but - though the thief surely knew how easy to read it was - Kid acted oblivious.

The boy's hand tightened around the tiny charms as the 'girl' nattered away at their smiling, obviously-enchanted waiter. Part of him wondered what had just happened.

Because, really, _Kudo Shinichi_ didn't get things anymore. Or not much; even the watch, shoes, suspender, glasses and soccerball-belt were all things to allow _Conan_ to feasibly continue his existence, not Shinichi. He had a box that held the artifacts of his hidden life, kept beneath his bed in the Kudo house: the thinning stream of mail (mostly invitations and the occasional fan letter), his old wallet, a few postcards from his parents... not a lot else, because he lived, breathed, ate, slept and survived as Edogawa Conan.

The tiny charms glinted between his fingers. What was he-- where could he-- oh hell. He'd find a place for them; Shinichi knew the symbolism and understood the meaning, and as he slipped them quietly in his pocket something inside his chest caught, seemed to knot around itself and turn over in a way he didn't quite understand.

_Thank you._

When the breadsticks arrived, Akaru-chan offered one to Conan-kun, and through the disguise, it was Kaitou Kid's soft, nuanced smile that lit Akaru-chan's purple eyes (obviously vanity contacts, just the type of thing an overindulged girl like her would delight in). That was something about Kid that Shinichi hadn't noticed before, but in this costume, it was more evident. With every inch of his real face covered or obscured by Akaru-chan's theatrical makeup, and even its contours reshaped by the latex prosthetics which rounded his angular, very male face into a chubby-cheeked young girl's, the only scrap of "Kid" left remaining was to be found behind his purple contact lenses. With lush fake eyelashes laden with carefully-applied mascara and honest-to-god rhinestones glued to the outside tips, expertly layered eyeshadow that changed the apparent shape of his eyelids, adding more of a Westerner's fold - Kid didn't look _bad_ so much as sickeningly glitter-sugar-puff-sweet and utterly dismissable. But somehow, maybe only because Shinichi knew what to look for, Kid's eyes were still there behind the disguise, and the thief's insanely manic good humor was just as evident when conveyed only with his eyes, as it was when he was in full Kaitou Kid regalia, uncovered cheshire grin and all.

He was still absolutely brain-boggling to stare at, though, so Shinichi turned back to his menu, still trying to decide what to order. Had he read this page already?

On the other side of the table, Kid leaned back in his seat, primly folding delicate, long-nailed hands over one knee. In lieu of the elusive strawberry-printed stockings, he instead had plain white ones woven in a subtle lace pattern, and one fingertip idly traced the patterns in the knit. With his head on a pretty, coy tilt, he silently watched his detective companion, apparently without snide, snarky, witty, embarrassing, or otherwise difficult commentary for the given moment.

Turning another page of the menu, Shinichi watched Kid over the top edge a little quizzically. It was weird, the more he looked at him the more he saw him and the less he saw the disguise. It was still there, it just wasn't... valid? important? relevant? _What's the word I'm looking for?_

_Ah. 'Real.'_ Shinichi found himself smiling.

The waiter came back their way, beaming over his moustache; "Have the little sir and madame decided what they'd like for dinner this evening?" He leaned in confidingly. "Tonight's special is the Tortellini a la Zucca, with a side salad of fresh spinach and a wine vinaigrette. Ahh--" He blinked, his smile faltering just slightly. "...Would you like to see a children's menu, perhaps?" Shinichi gave him a Look. "No, then."

"I'm ready to order," said the boy firmly. "K-- Akaru-chan?"

"I'm ready," the girl fluttered, beaming up at the waiter with a gaze that somehow accomplished both 'demanding' and 'adorable' at the same time. "I'd like the linguini with spinach and chicken, please, and a small salad on the side. House dressing please~!" She turned her attention to Shinichi, expectant.

"I'll have the Orata al Cartoccio," said Shinichi, still smiling. "And also a small salad, with the vinaigrette. No spinach."

The waiter looked pleased. "The sea bass? Excellent choice, young sir. I'll be back with your salads in a moment." He bustled away.

"Th-th-th-th-WAIT~!"

An almost visible shudder went up the waiter's back as he froze mid-step, halfway across the room, one foot hovering a few inches off the carpet. He rotated, slowly, to face the corner table, as the rest of the startled diners went slowly back to their meals, and addressed the very wide-eyed insistent look of Akaru-chan.

"Excuse me, young miss?"

"H-h-h-h-he m-m-meant th-the sea chicken. The. Ah. Chicken. The chicken. With the salad."

The waiter's moustache seemed to droop in confusion. "Sea... chicken?" He looked at Shinichi. "Sir?"

"Uh-- right. The chicken's fine." As the man went on his way, Shinichi raised a very confused eyebrow at his... rather oddly nervous 'date'. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kid said brusquely, suddenly needing very much to busy himself with the contents of his purse, a little mirror and lipgloss. "N-nothing at all. The chicken's better here. That's all." His tone, however, was _far_ from steady.

"You don't like the fish? What's wrong with it?" Shinichi sipped his water, watching Kid suppress an involuntary shudder as Shinichi spoke. His body language had just undergone an abrupt change, and it was more than a little peculiar, it was as if the thief had stumbled during a walk across a flat floor or landed gracelessly wrong at the end of a leap. He frowned, tilting his head. "C'mon, what's the matter?"

"Nothing. Betsu ni." Kid wouldn't look up.

"Uhuh. And you usually freak out over dining choices?" That was a little harsh. Shinichi considered the facts, put two and two and chicken and fish together and came up with a possible answer. "...oh. Well, if it helps, I don't like spiders at all. Can't stand 'em."

Caught off-guard, Kid peeked up over the edge of his makeup mirror, his mouth still frozen in the mid-lipsticking O. "...Oh." He blinked, shoulders still hunched, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"All those little legs. And they _crawl."_ The boy shuddered, taking another sip. "And bite. And if you smash them you've got this horrible gooey, crunchy smear. I scream like a little girl-- ah, present company excepted." He glanced back at his dinner companion. "It's not that bad, is it?"

"W-what, spiders? No, they're, ah, they're fine." Kid clicked his lipgloss shut with a definitive snap, putting it away and withdrawing a concealer puff instead. He watched his reflection in his little mirror as he patted it across his cheeks and brow, covering the gloss of sweat that had appeared there in the last few minutes. "They, um, ah." He blinked at the mirror, then up at Shinichi, a very real blush brightening his cheeks to an amusingly pink shade that not even his concealer could completely hide. The color was visible in sharply defined crescents, only on the high parts of his cheeks just under his eyes, where the latex prosthetics didn't cover, and on - amusingly - the tip of his nose, which was flushed very pink indeed.

...which was, actually, really really cu-- _I did not just think that._ Only it was, but. Well. Anyway. Shinichi hurriedly took a longer drink, wondering something that could basically be summed up as What The Hell, Kudo? The silence at the table stretched between them until the boy allowed his shoulders to relax, shrugging slightly. "I won't mention f-- those things if you don't mention the ones with all the legs. Deal?"

_**"Deal,"**_ Kid immediately agreed, sotto voce, tone dire. "I, ahm, apologize." He cleared his throat, and then Akaru-chan's voice, mannerisms, and fluttery trill were back in full force. "The chicken here is _so_ good, Conan-kun, it's just so delicious and moist, I don't know what they do, but Tou-san says he's going to buy the cook and have him cook for us someday!" Conan would swear the glitter on "her" cheeks even trilled along with Akaru-chan, so saccharine were Kid's tones. _Sparkle-sparkle-desu_, perhaps?

"'Buy the cook'? Can you do that, Akaru-chan? What if they don't want to sell him?" Time to play along and give Kid a little competition in the acting department; Conan's voice was all innocent inquiry, free of subtext and full of curiosity. "I heard Ojii-san say that people were buying and selling politicians in Tokyo last week. I wonder if they're worth more than cooks, or if you have to pay extra to get a good one?" He swirled the icecubes in his glass around, watching Kid with earnest blue eyes. "He said the problem is, most of them don't stay bought. Maybe your Tou-san could rent the cook?"

_Wham! Kudo kicks, the ball gets past the goalie! Let's see how the other team responds._

"Politicians are more expensive than cooks, and you have to keep paying for upkeep on them or else they go running away again. Well, that's what Mamma says." Akaru-chan's eyes were intelligent and keen behind the mask of "her" fluttering affectations. "But politicians are like a gift set! If you buy one, you get points toward more of them. If you buy enough, you can get a whole other set for free!" She smiled in a patently serpentine way.

_Pass out to the left wing...bring it around behind the sweeper's guard..._

"Of course, police officers are kind of the same. They come in different sorts of sets, though. You have to buy the fancy ones, and then you get the basic ones for free. And I heard from Tou-san that you can't buy detectives at _all._ You have to win those."

_A long goal shot from the corner...will he make it?_

The waiter brought breadsticks, garlic-butter and salads at this point; he'd obviously been watching their conversation-faces, considering the rather fatuous smile that wreathed his face in moustache-- really, thought Shinichi in amusement as he arranged a napkin in his lap, that thing had a life of its own, it was as good as a barometer. If the man had been able to hear the conversation, his face would've displayed an entirely different emotion-- consternation, perhaps. 'Out of the mouths of babes' and all that... He crunched on a breadstick; across from him, 'Akaru-chan' was eating her salad in a very ladylike fashion.

_Second half._

"So," he said cheerfully, "if detectives are worth more than police officers, politicians and cooks, how do you win them? Is it like a video game where the better you get, the harder it is to win a boss fight? Or like playing sports at school, where everybody wants the same thing but only one team gets it? Or is it more like a race like you see on TV-- one big winner, but everybody who makes it through wins too, sort of?" He bit into a slice of tomato, fighting back a grin. After he'd swallowed, Shinichi continued blithely on. "Everybody wants to win, but not everybody gets the prize. Is the prize worth more because there's only one of it?" He cocked his head a little to the side. "Or is it like Pokemon-- gotta catch 'em all?"

_Ball in play, no red cards so far. Pitch's wide open._

"Oh, detectives are a dime a dozen." Kid paused. "Well, the analogy fails in its monetary myopicism. But you see my intent, don't you, Conan~kun~?" Akaru-chan's trill and flutter was back in her voice for a moment, though her body language - to avoid alarming any onlookers - had never lost its girlishness. "There's dozens of detectives out there, and just because you can't buy them, it doesn't mean that every one of them is _valuable_ or anything. They're mostly so very similar, there would be no point in a complete collection." She sighed, laden with the weight of this disappointing verdict, and turned her attention back to her salad. But with a glance up, peeking through her bangs coyly, she couldn't help but add:

"It's really a question of quantity versus quality. There's so many of them, and so _very_ few worthy targets for them to chase."

Shinichi snorted; he couldn't help himself. "But most thieves don't attempt anything more clever than a smash-and-grab or at the very most cooking the books-- embezzlement, insider trading, forgery... boring. Holmes'd turn up his nose at the majority of them." He raised an eyebrow, adopting a vaguely British tone that mixed oddly with his childish voice: "'My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence.' Can you place the quote?" He kept the volume down; the hostess was bustling about with a young couple that had just come in, but there was no use in taking chances.

"_The Red Headed League._" Kid smiled with a fondness for the quote lighting his eyes. "Such a lucky thing for you, then, that you are blessed by one of those very precious 'little problems' which 'help you to do so.'" The return quote was delivered not without self-important irony, and as Akaru-chan smoothed the hairs of one ponytail, Kaitou Kid snickered under his breath for his detective companion. "If the majority of thieves are so commonplace as the majority of detectives, then what are we left with? The exemplary members of each race must seek each other out like lodestones."

The other eyebrow went up as Shinichi considered this; somebody, possibly two somebodies, stood in some danger of getting a swelled head. "'Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward,'" he quoted back from _The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle,_ and then added: "There's another one to keep in mind, too: 'I play the game for the game's own sake.' And also, 'Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.'" Flattery went both ways, after all, especially among professionals, whatever else they were.

He picked up another bread stuck, reaching across to steal a bit of Akaru-chan's garlic butter before saying thoughtfully as Kid sat quite still, watching. "One more, the first one I ever memorized," he said, waving the bread stick; "'When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.'" Taking a deliberate bite, Shinichi looked away across the dimly-lit restaurant. That last one had always been a favorite of his, and while it worked well as something to keep in mind during murder investigations it was also a slightly painful personal key of the kind that opened doors a person didn't always want opened.

The hostess was coming their way again, followed by the restaurant's newest clients: mid-twenties, well-dressed in the sort of clothes you'd wear for a nice evening out, the young woman carrying a black satin clutch that had an odd weight to it. Shinichi blinked, calculated the very specific shape outlined by the bag's thin fabric and how it sagged, and came up with _small gun, snubnose? kydex snap-holstered, probably_ before automatically raising his eyes to the woman's face to memorize her features as a possible suspect... and froze. "'Possess our souls in patience and make as little noise as possible,'" he muttered as softly and urgently as possible, yanking his best Conan Face out of wherever it had slid to. "Sato-san? Takagi-san? Uh, hi?"

* * *

_As always, thank you for reading - leave your comments by the door on your way out, and have a safe and delightful rest of your day!_

_The Management_


	10. Little black dress, pasta, warm

Welcome, readers, to the tenth chapter of Three Thieves, the second chapter of book two, and **the last chapter before our winter break.** As advertised in our Table of Contents, we'll be taking a two-week holiday until the new year's. We hope that you have a lovely holiday season and we will do our best to do the same. Now, with no further ado...

_**Book Two, Chapter Two: "Little black dress, pasta, warm."**_  
_Warnings for **gore and pink sparkles.** Not consecutively._

Date & time: Thursday evening. Location: Italiano-sama Bistro, back room. Situation: Two disguises, two detectives, no ready cover story. Problems: Many.

_Oops. This could be awkward._

Two "children" looked up through comically widened eyes at the sudden appearance of a pair of adults at the edge of their table. Two very genuinely wide pairs of familiar adult eyes stared down at the inhabitants of the booth. Sato Miwako of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, quite obviously out on a date with her partner Takagi Wataru, was the first to speak. "...Conan-kun? What on earth are you doing here?"

"Just, ah, having dinner with, uhm," Shinichi started, stalling as he looked over to his dinner partner, none other than Kaitou Kid himself, and hoped his brain would catch up before the thief had time to--

"Oh, you must be the detectives that Conan-kun tells me about," Kid trilled, turning in his seat to face the pair and smile winningly up at them. "He told me how he gets to help you on your cases, that must be so amazing, Mama never lets me help her like that, and she doesn't have anything to do with dead bodies. That's what your work is, right? Dead bodies?" With a blink and a flutter of his heavily made-up eyelashes, one finger twirling the long ponytails of his wig, 'Akaru-chan' waited expectantly for salacious details from both detectives, ignoring - or seeming to ignore - the covert kick that 'Conan-kun' delivered to his stocking-clad knee under the table.

Sato took in the appearance, attitude, apparent age and overall _pinkness_ of 'Akaru-chan' and visibly backpedaled, attempting to fit her in somewhere among the Conan-shaped bits of information filed away in her head. It wasn't working. Behind her, Takagi seemed to be slightly dazed. "Dead... bodies, yes. Live ones too, um. Right. Miss--?"

"Tsukiyoshi Akaru," put in Conan, smiling up at both detectives (or at least showing his teeth.) "She's a, a, a-- family friend!" The smile took on fixed, slightly desperate qualities. "Our mothers know each other and tomorrow I'm, uh, heading out with my parents so we. We, uh. We..." Smile still in place, he cast around for a moment and then took off in a more promising direction: attack, rather than defense. "Sato-san, you look very nice; you two're out on a date, ne?"

While Takagi burbled his way into redfaced incoherency ("Tha-tha-that's, ah, ehm, well--"), Sato smiled, halfway between tenseness and amusement, and nodded. "Just like you two, I suppose! Are you having a good time?" Turnabout, apparently, did not work so much on her.

"Uh. Yes?" answered Conan cautiously before his brain quite caught up with the word 'date', which bludgeoned said brain, tied it up and locked it in a closet somewhere... much like Takagi's reaction, actually. He looked up at the blushing officer, and the two shared a moment of mutual male incoherency while Sato raised an eyebrow at 'Akaru-chan', still smiling.

"That's nice to hear. We'll leave you to your dinner, then. Have a good time with your parents, Conan-kun." Linking her arm in Takagi's, the young woman drew him along towards where the hostess waited beside a rather intimate table a few meters away. Takagi gave the 'children' slightly disbelieving looks as he passed, but Conan's cover story was apparently reasonable enough.

From beneath the table, a second kick headed ankle-wards. "So, about those two?" muttered Shinichi, his fixed smile still in place. "You remember how I said that there were a few people who probably know something's fi-- ah, not quite right about 'Conan'? Takagi's number one on the list." He took a long drink of his water, sitting back with a sigh.

"Well, we can't fault his accuracy." Kid smiled angelically, wrapping his perfectly-painted and glass-glossy lips around the tip of his straw and sucking. "But," and Akaru-chan's mannerisms played out in silent clashing contrast to Kid's quiet, confidential tones as he continued, "It doesn't take an extraordinary detective to know that you're substantially tweaked, chibitantei. Are we sure that Takagi-keiji deserves his badge?"

The waiter arrived with their respective chicken dishes just then, so the response was slightly delayed. Napkin tucked into place, Shinichi tested a bite of his ornately-arranged dinner and chewed appreciatively. "It's not his intelligence that I'm crediting, though he's a very bright officer; it's his ability to use his imagination and to have an open mind that's impressive. It's not like he's the only person who's ever thought that I was 'substantially tweaked', and look who's talking... he's just one of the few who didn't toss the observation off as just 'hey, weird kid' and leave it at that." He took another bite. "How's your dinner?"

"The quality of a meal is always defined by its company," Kid purred, delicately twisting small sections of linguini into little knots perfectly sized for the dainty mannerisms of a little girl trying to impress her date. "So in this case, the linguini is _delectable._"

There went his brain again, sort of a mental '.......' thing. Shinichi tried for a response; what would Holmes do in this situation?

_He'd come up with a suitable compliment in return and then he'd eat his chicken._ Which, come to think of it, gave him an appropriate response. "Likewise; 'I trust that age will not wither, nor custom stale my infinite variety,'" he quoted, thanking the _Adventure Of The Empty House_ for the save. "Though really, that ought to apply to you more than me." With a little grin he dug into the chicken in earnest.

'Date.' This was a celebratory dinner, wasn't it? Which explained why the word made his ears burn all over again, just the thought of it. With any luck that had gone unnoticed-- oh, who was he kidding? Of _course_ the thief would've caught the momentary blush, and that's all it was, just a bit of embarrassment. Perfectly natural.

Shinichi stole a glance across the table. For such a 'delicate girl', Akaru-chan was tucking in at a pretty good rate.

Kid found his shoulders and posture relaxing as silence substituted for conversation while they ate. The food really was quite good, if horribly inauthentic; then again, not everyone could say they'd dined in Turin and Bologna. A small smile curved the Kid's lips at that thought - that really had been a good memory, and a good heist. But it'd been a while since he'd taken any big international trips like the Italy trip had been. Recently, he'd been keeping much closer to home, as though something had encouraged his reluctant roots to grow.

He hid a glance across the table in his reach for the grated romano shaker. "Something," indeed.

The waiter came and went, bringing more breadsticks, fawning over the "little gentleman and lady," and Kid encouraged him, laying on all the charm that 'Akaru-chan' was worth. He caught Shinichi surreptitiously rolling his eyes at one particularly wheedling request for a free refill of her drink - which, to the waiter's credit, he declined - and hid a snicker of his own at seeing it. Chibitantei really was adorable when he was forgetting to act stupid and cute.

Unfortunately, it was too good to last. As they reached the halfway point of their meal, Kid brought his head up with sudden alertness, glancing past Shinichi's head toward the back of the restaurant. "I doubt that you have ever had legitimate concern over a lack of variety in your life, Tantei, but just for once I would wish that you had somewhat of a bit _more_ than you apparently do. Finish what you desire of your meal within the next minute or so; I believe we have that long until someone screams."

_...what?_ Caught in mid-bite, Shinichi stared. "Screams. Screams? Why?" The meal was tasty, the company was excellent, he'd been having a good time; why would anybody want to scream? --okay, change that: why did anybody _usually_ scream in his near vicinity?

_Well, __**shit.**_

Waiting for the other shoe to fall, Shinichi chewed and swallowed as quickly as possible. "Who's dead? And how do you know?" he asked with a sinking feeling, senses that had been lulled into relaxation shaking themselves awake and alert. Dammit, he'd been enjoying himself.

"I don't know who. I'm a thief, not a psychic." Kid's tone was dry and clipped, clearly as pissed off as Shinichi was that their little date was about to come to a screeching - literally - halt. "And it's the scent. Still faint. Think it's coming from the kitchen." He paused, the shadow of a frown flickering behind the mask of his Poker Face.

"Takagi-keiji and Sato-keiji are here," Kid murmured, even as he sat up straighter, posture guarded. "They're quite competent. You could let them take care of this."

Shinichi shook his head, a barely perceptible movement. "Can't. Wouldn't if I could; murders-- somebody's _dead,_ not just hurt or unhappy: somebody's son, daughter, brother, mother... father. You see?" He looked as if the words simultaneously hurt and angered him, and by the sharp regret in his eyes he knew what they almost certainly caused Kid as well. "The most vulnerable moment for a killer is directly after they kill, that's when they're least confident and most likely to be caught." He took one more bite of chicken onto his fork, stared at it, sighed and put it back down. "This is what I **do.** And murderers, uncaught ones, they kill again pretty often. If you saw one of the assassins you told me about aiming into the crowd, what would you do?" The detective shook his head. "Don't answer that; you'd try to stop it too. So--" He spread his hands, a very unchildlike expression making Shinichi's eyes darken with something much more bitter than personal annoyance.

He wasn't perfect, after all. There'd been cases in the past that he hadn't solved, and somewhere out there were killers that, if he'd been smarter or more observant or somebody that the authorities had been more willing to listen to, would now be behind bars. "This," Shinichi said very, very quietly, "is _my_ version of 'nobody gets hurt.' Only, for me, it's 'nobody gets away.'"

And that moment, of course, was when the scream came: a full-throated female shriek from through the divided kitchen doors. At their table, Sato and Takagi's heads whipped up simultaneously. And Edogawa Conan was already moving.

Kaitou Kid was also moving, though very few in the restaurant cared. In the guise of Akaru-chan, he flitted his way toward the exit, dismissably squawking and sobbing where appropriate, or whenever someone else got too close to him. Out the front door of the restaurant and away down the street, "Akaru-chan" made a very visible exit, though one that wasn't going to be important in anything except retrospect.

_Sorry, chibitantei, I can't help you out this time. I know you don't need my help anyway, but..._

_...but you should know that I would have offered it if I could._

Six blocks away from Italiano-sama Bistro, "Akaru-chan" disappeared, Kuroba Kaito took her place, and the pace of retreat speeded considerably. Breathing steadied, though thoughts ran quick, sharp rapping impacts chasing one another to a half dozen conclusions. The path to the Kuroba mansion was simple enough from here on; the teenage magician and his larceny-inclined companion had plenty of time to confer with each other on the way there.

* * *

Detectives Takagi and Sato crowded up to the kitchen door before most of the more voyeristically-inclined patrons in the restaurant had a chance to clog the entrance. While Sato boomed out orders for the patrons to disperse and clear the kitchen area, Takagi examined the kitchen from its doorway, establishing the scene in his mind and determining whether it was safe for himself and Sato to enter.

Item: one kitchen (large) with a shelved counter along one side of the huge room containing sinks, dishes, pots and pans, et cetera; a central island counter easily four meters long with water sources, chopping-blocks, mixing equipment and a terrifyingly huge ceiling-hung rack of assorted utensils; a third counter on the near wall with the ovens, burners, processors, steamers and so forth.

Item: one dead body, female, slumped part-way into an enormous pot. The woman's face was not visible, but what little hair could be seen beneath the white cloth hat was a deep chestnut; caucasian from the skin-tone, and reportedly the restaurant's top chef. Gruesomely, her smock had somehow snagged onto the handles of the enormous pot, keeping her body from sliding down to the floor and basically fixing her in a pose that made her seem to be embracing the huge container of cooking pasta.

It wasn't likely that anybody'd want to eat it, though, thought Takagi, considering the color of the boiled-over foam. That'd be the results of the cleaver buried deeply in the woman's skull, right through her chef's hat.

"'There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible,'" murmured a voice at Takagi's side; It sounded like a quote. With very little surprise he glanced down at the top of Edogawa Conan's head.

"Shakespeare?" he asked.

"Arthur Conan Doyle. _The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge,_" answered the boy. "Where's the other cook?" Takagi obligingly moved aside a step or two to allow the most unofficial civillian contact of the TMDP to view the shaken man, seated on a chair by the open back door. Heavyset and obviously upset, the balding cook had a palm-sized graze above his left temple. Over to one side by the sinks, a hysterical young woman was sobbing against a coworker's shoulder. Takagi indicated her with a hitch of one shoulder.

"She went into the store-room for some supplies, was gone maybe ten minutes, came back out to find the door wide open and Okino-san staggering through with his head bleeding. His wife was... in the pasta." Beyond them, Sata gave a sharp glance back, saw Conan and visibly sighed before going on with her efforts at controlling the scene of the crime. "From what Okino-san said, he was taking out the trash when he was struck and knocked to the ground."

"Really, Takagi-san? That's funny."

_And there it is, there we go._ Takagi Wataru had a few pet theories of his own about the diminutive detective, but none of them were all that relevant right now; what was relevant was that he had a new time to add to the chalkboard at work... what, maybe four minutes max from That Kid Sees The Corpse to That Kid Does The Voice Thing Again? No more than five, definitely. "You mean how the graze is on the front of his head and not the back?"

"No, I was wondering why his clothes are dry and clean if he got knocked down. It's been raining most've the day and it's muddy out there-- look, there's mud on his shoes."

Takagi gave Sato a Look; snapping her cellphone shut (there was a squadcar and an ambulance on the way by now, he knew), she left the hostess and the head waiter to handle the crowd. "Fancy seeing you back here, Conan-kun," she said dryly. "Well?"

He beamed up at her, glasses reflecting the overhead lighting. "Well what, Sato-san?" That earned him a good hard stare, but he gave it back wattage for wattage before glancing over one shoulder towards the rotund waiter, who was sweating bullets. "He looks upset."

"He should. He was having an aff..." The word 'affair' trailed off as Sato paused; Takagi nodded briefly. "Right. You talk to him, I'll take Okino-san."

"Ahh-- you have your spare cuffs on you, don't you?" Takagi eyed the victim's heavyset husband, who was looking more and more frightened every second. "He looks like a runner."

Sato patted her pocket. "Always," she murmured, and the two traded a little smile between them. Clearing her throat, she glanced down at the boy. "Want to come along, Conan-kun?"

He had been looking at the corpse, not her; and for a second his face held an anger and sadness that did not belong where it lived... but only for a second, no more. "Sure, Sato-san." He glanced behind himself once more, only this time not at the staff but at the crowd, searching the faces there for-- someone. Small shoulders slumped; Conan shrugged, and followed her towards the nervous man by the door.

* * *

Though it felt like it should have, the Kudo mansion front door did not screech as it opened on the darkened foyer and front hall. Only moonlight and starlight, and a bit of disparate reflected glare from streetlights, cast shadows in the hollow space. Shinichi proceeded into it with comparatively little caution. "Hello? Where are you?"

Silence and darkness.

Shinichi knelt slowly, tapping the side of his shoe to rev up its kicking mechanism, and proceeded further into the house with caution, slowly working his way to the library doors, which stood half-open. A silent nudge on one of them opened it wide, revealing the Kaitou Kid.

Well. Probably.

The man in the library - perching on the couch opposite Shinichi's favorite chair - was, by the light of a tiny book lamp, fully absorbed in scrubbing his face with a rag that even from the doorway Shinichi could tell was soaked in rubbing alcohol. His hair was a ruffled mess, the underlayers dark and black in the low light; the upper layers shining with a gloss that indicated heavy use of hair product. His clothing was nondescript, a salaryman's third-best (if that) suit, and didn't appear to fit him very well; but when Shinichi noticed the stack of curved heavy foam padding that had been leaned against the couch's leg, the whole puzzle clicked into place, accompanied by a jolt of surprisingly reassuring irritation.

"You _were_ there!" Shinichi accused the Kid, tapping his toe three times to turn off the kicker mechanism. In the sudden silence after it shut down, he crossed the room to stand beside Kid, arms crossed, frowning. "You didn't even give me a tell to clue me in, or anything."

"Last I checked, neither of us really welcomes distractions when we're on the job, chibitantei," Kid countered prissily, face obscured by a washcloth. When he brought it down, though, the playful twinkle in his eyes was as good as an exclamation:

_Good to see you too. Glad it went well._

_Likewise, and I'm glad you were there,_ said the answering grin. It sobered after a second, though. "Good thing they took Okino-san in, though; did you hear him raving about what he wanted to do to the waiter? Lye in his coffee." The detective shuddered, kicking off the now-dormant sneakers and hitching himself up into his favorite chair. "Probably would've done it, too; he wasn't too tightly wrapped." He sighed, hooking one toe onto the chair opposite; his socks were slightly grimy, one knee of his jeans seemed to be developing a hole, and if you discounted the voice and expression he looked the complete seven-year-old urchin.

Shinichi rubbed at his eyes, weary but satisfied. "Sorry we had to cut things short, though; oh yeah, and Sato-san said to say hi to 'Akaru-chan' when I saw her again." One dark blue eye emerged from between his fingers, tired but full of amusement. "I think she's fascinated. I mean, all that _pink."_

Kid positively _sparkled,_, his expression gleefully troublesome. "Tell her that she's welcome to borrow Akaru-chan's glitter powder puff, if she wanted to; she had such a pretty black dress, but it would have been so nice to add a little bit of shine along her curves to accentuate her, heh, assets."

"Yeah? You want Takagi's head to explode?" Shinichi made blowing-up motions with both hands, scooting around in the chair until he could rest his head against one arm. "Did you _see_ his face when she took that little jacket off? No grown man ought to blush like that." The 'pretty black dress' had indeed been complimented with a soft velvet jacket; it had been appropriate in the cooler restaurant, but the officer had removed it in the warmth of the kitchen... and the dress, backless for a long, long ways down, had been fastened across with three very thin matching velvet ribbons, complete with tiny bows and long, pullable tails. Even little Conan had gone a bit crosseyed at that.

_Lucky Takagi. Hope he's good with knots._

Kid chuckled, dropping the remnants of his latex and silicone facial prosthetics - which, too hastily applied, hadn't survived the subsequent removal, and wouldn't be any good for another use - on the low coffee table in front of their chairs. He kicked his heels up beside them, leaning back against the voluptuously plush cushions with an audible crackle from his spine. "Ooogh. If I make sure to be a good little kaitou and not make Takagi-keiji's head explode, will you be a good little tantei and acquire me a chiropractor who won't ask questions? Ugh." He rolled one shoulder, then the other, wincing, before cracking one blue eye open and fixing his companion with a pained, wry glance. "I hate playing slouching roles, but they're so _useful_..."

Shinichi winced at the pops and cracks; that had to hurt. An idea presented itself, was very nearly abandoned, then nudged its way back to the forefront. Glancing down at his damnably small hands, he hesitated... _A friend would offer, right? And I __used__ to do this for Kasaan._ "I, ah-- It's not like I've got the weight or strength to do much good, but I used to work on my Kasaan's neck when I was small the first time around," Shinichi offered more than a little hesitantly.

It was rather like offering to take a thorn from a lion's paw, if the lion was a certifiably insane thief with a large chunk of perfectly reasonable paranoia; if the lion refused the offer, well... it was understandable.

Kid, to his credit, seriously considered the offer. With a fair amount of wariness, he weighed how much good Shinichi could actually do (_any_ improvement would be worthwhile! moaned his knotted muscles) against how likely it was that he could make it through a prolonged, unguarded contact like that without snapping. And tempered that concern with serious consideration of how much care Shinichi might need after the fact, if Kid wasn't able to hold his fight-or-flight instincts in check.

In the end, he extended one hand, palm up, fingers loosely spread. It was not his most confident gesture, but he didn't withdraw it.

"See what you can do for this," he offered, as hesitant as Shinichi had been in volunteering. "Sometimes when I don't have anyone to help I'll massage my hand and my wrist, and it. Well, sometimes it helps smooth things out anyway, but it's kind of counterproductive to do it myself because it just knots up the other arm worse, so." He somewhat stumbled to a halt, studying his hand, then glancing briefly to Shinichi's face. "Anyway, it might... If you're willing to try, it might do a little good."

So the lion was offering his paw? Shinichi bit back a laugh, nodded carefully, and proceeded to move his chair closer to the couch. "My Kasan used to paint as a hobby," he said conversationally, "so I do actually know a little about this. Relax as much as possible, will you? I'm not going to bite your fingers off." His own hands looked stupidly small against Kid's long, thin ones; the thief had a remarkably strong, narrow-boned palm and wrist, tendons corded but not even slightly bulky. Had this been a crime scene, thought Shinichi as he gently stretched the thumb out and allowed it to pop, he'd place Kid's occupation in the area of the Fine Arts, possibly music or paint media. The calluses'd be wrong, of course; and a lack of pigment or ink-stains would also prove puzzling. The thumb popped, a tiny sound; and he went to work on the next digit.

One at a time, slowly and carefully; Kid's skin was dry and flexible, faint rougher patches here and there across the back from the burns he'd received. As the last finger popped, Shinichi glanced up at the other, who'd sat silent during his work. No protests so far, so he began to work on the muscles that began between the knuckles and slanted down to tangle in the wristbones. Deliberate focus, as sharp and intent as any investigation he'd ever done; his small fingertips dug deeply between tendon and joint. Shinichi hoped it was helping.

_This is way past weird and into surreal. But what the hell, why not? Fine, brain, I acknowledge that I'm giving a wanted criminal a hand massage. Move along, please, nothing to see here._

Nothing to see? That was fortunate. Kid had his eyes closed _tight._

He'd made the mistake of watching Shinichi's hands as they worked over his own, two tiny ones to his big one, and had been distantly amused by the image, until he looked up and saw the focus with which the detective was approaching the task, blue eyes inky in the shallow, faint lighting of the dark library, brow drawn down in an expression of concentration singular to the equally singular boy...

...turned _off_ the chill, professional distance between himself and the help that Shinichi was offering...

...and found himself settling quite cosily into the lap of Trouble with a capital T.

_He sees me._ The phrase rattled around in Kid's head like a loose marble. More than one loose marble, probably. _He sees me. Not Kaito--_

Internally, the magician nodded at the thief, noting the differentiation without insult, and Kid acknowledged him in return as his thoughts continued their slow ricochet.

_--not Kuroba, not Kaitou Kid, just...Kid._ That realization, while somewhat monumental, paled next to its attendant fact, which was:

_He sees someone that I didn't know I could be. Didn't know that I __was__._

Kid glanced up again, just in time to catch Shinichi's eye as the detective looked up as well, checking to make sure the thief's silence wasn't negative. Kid held the gaze, not because he particularly wanted to but because he couldn't let himself look away first, but when Shinichi glanced back down again - apparently not seeing much out of the ordinary beyond the _entire_ fucking situation, which, okay, Kid could grant him that one and all its cousins too - Kid looked away too, squeezing his eyes shut again. Other than that, his Poker Face - and absolutely nothing else - stood unshaken between himself and the detective.

There were tiny nicks here and there oround the outer edges of Kid's hand below the smallest finger; as Shinichi worked his way across, he wondered when the thief'd had to shield himself from broken glass. _More like 'how many times' has he had to do that, really._ There, last knuckle-joint done. Now, what came next? Right; he turned the other's hand over and began to work the strong pad of muscle at the base of the thumb with both of his.

_Hello, surreal; nice meeting you, see you later._ What came after that? Shinichi wondered about this briefly, but most of his mind was caught up in the task at-- well, at hand. It was so strange, actually touching another human being like this; Ran'd hold hands occasionally, Neechan looking out for her young charge, but this was... He shied away from what precisely it was and concentrated on his work and only on that, focused on the moment and the sensation of touch.

More scars, thin white traceries, always in straight lines... maybe from the cardgun's ammo? The thin fingers twitched slightly, tensed as Shinichi moved his touch up further to the pressure-points just beneath where each digit began. The center of the palm, then; he'd moved in a spiral from the base of the thumb through the hand's left side and across, and now steadied the thief's hand with one of his own while he massaged with the other.

It was oddly intense, welcome but disquieting; relaxing for Kid, he hoped, but for him... Shinichi shied away again, and then wondered just what he was stressing about. Other people did this for their friends, family, et cetera. Right? And to touch another human being-- so he was unaccustomed to it, had been for a long time, really. Even in his old life, how often had he done more than brush his fingers against Ran's?

And now he was-- _Okay,_ he told himself firmly even as he began working each finger from base to tip, _Not going there._

(_Why not?_ a very small voice asked from somewhere in the back of his head. It sounded oddly like Kid's. _You're so good with motivation and the reason behind actions, maybe you ought to pay attention to your own?_)

Last finger. Shoving the voice back and away, he finished massaging the oddly-callused tip and let go, allowing his own tired hands to rest on either side of the thief's. "There," Shinichi murmured. "I haven't done that in a long time; did it help?" He flexed his own; they tingled, wrists to nails.

Before he could really double-think the action, Kid flipped his hand over, wrapping it gently but encompassingly over both of Shinichi's hands. The grasp was imperfect; only half of Shinichi's fingers ended up covered by Kid's, and those unevenly taken from each hand. But the warmth of his palm, hot with blood flowing in clear and pain-free circulation, was insistent against Shinichi's skin.

"...Don't move away," Kid finally managed, after an uncomfortably long silence in which he searched for the words to explain. "It's just - it's warm."

'Warm.' That was the best word that Kid had for it, the tingling and comforting warm slide of someone's skin - more than that, someone's skin which...which _cared_ about him. Though rarely, Kuroba Kaito had felt that sensation before, when childish lack of inhibition allowed him to embrace Aoko closely; when his mother or his father used to touch his shoulders, or give him a rare embrace, with hands that bore their love in every crease and callus.

Kid's father, the first Kaitou Kid, had felt that touch as well, in his wife's caress. Kuroba's father had felt the loving embrace of his son.

But this Kaitou Kid, 1412 the younger, Kid (just Kid)... never had.

_Warm._

The word was a sentence on its own. And, curiously, Kid had said it as if he expected (as if he _knew_) that Shinichi would understand the meaning. The boy, almost dumfounded, remained in the same position he'd been in at the end of the massage, leaning forward towards the couch with his elbows and forearms resting on the couch's arm. _Warm._ Heat from the palm and fingers baked into his own, and it was shockingly, suddenly, the realest thing in the room-- as if the entire evening had been fuzzily comfortable but not quite clear...

...until then. _Warm. And it feels __good__._

Which, of course, made it the precise moment for Shinichi's cellphone to go off like a bomb.

Kid jumped. One moment, he lay sprawled exhaustedly on the couch, his hand gently gripping both of Shinichi's like lifelines; the next, as the cellphone's ringer twinkled out its cutesy melody, screechingly loud in the dark and silence of the library, Kid was abruptly three feet away, crouched on the back rail and arm of the couch like the edge of a rooftop. His guard and Poker Face had come back up so quickly that it gave _him_ whiplash, to say nothing of the impression it must have made on Shinichi; but Kid wasn't thinking about that at the moment, he was quite busy enough trying to get his heart back under control, calm his paranoia to a reasonable level, and somehow make the little voice in the back of his head, the one that nit-picked and criticised _everything_ he did because it wasn't good enough, to _shut the hell up,_ Benten and broken mirrors curse it thrice.

And, even as he fought to _consciously_ relax the panicked dilation of his pupils, he was most angry, unreasonably so, at his left hand, which had suddenly become very cold.

_.....calm down calm down just the phone calm down....._ Shinichi was having problems of his own, which at the moment seemed to include a remarkably strong if inexplicable urge to grab Kid's hand back and to throw his phone out the nearest window, open or not. Heart hammering in his ears, he hit the detestable thing with a fist (fortunately not very hard) where it resided in his pocket and then fished it out.

"Uh. Text from Agasa," he said to the thief perched on the back of his couch like a terrified raptor; "That's all. Just a text. Kid? Are you okay?" His voice shook; why was his voice shaking?

Kid slowly swiveled his hyperfocused gaze around to Shinichi, sweeping the room with a more than cursory glance, as though he really did expect the shadows to breed demons. "I'm fine," he murmured, the chill distance of Poker Face a thick wall of ice between himself and Shinichi. "I need to go." He heard himself, heard the vibrant shake in Shinichi's voice; had enough presence of mind to push himself into a small risk, a finger's-width hole melting through the ice to bridge the distance between their vulnerabilities.

"Thank you," he managed. "And good luck. I'll keep warm. Till you can fix my other hand."

It was one gesture, a tiny one, but all that he could manage at the moment.

As for Shinichi... it was a weird thing, but after all the Sherlock Holmes quotes of the evening, another one snuck up from nowhere into his head just then. It was anything but a Doyle quote, but it fit the moment all too well: _'He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.'_ Wondering vaguely what C.S. Lewis would have thought of the moment, Shinichi nodded quietly. "Thanks, and... I will. You too. I'll let you know how things're going-- should have my laptop, I guess." He glanced down at the cellphone still in his hands, not wanting to see how Kid left. "And thanks for the evening; it was really good."

Kid smiled, a flicker of his normal self peeking through the shuttered blinds. "You're welcome." A moment later, the rush of cloth and tap of shoes told Shinichi that Kid was moving, but he didn't look up. As a cold evening breeze rushed suddenly across his face - an open window - Kid's voice drifted back to him.

"Make sure you call me while your voice is cracking so I can mimic you." A laugh - a little forced, a little genuine - and the thief was gone.

_Warm._

* * *

_Good evening and happy holidays to you all! Next chapter will be posted in two weeks; please, be sure and let us know what you think about the storyline so far-- your comments really do have a huge impact on what happens next. So TALK! We'll listen. G'nite! -- The Management_


	11. Waiting, alcohol, red sweater

_**Book Two, Chapter Three**__**: "waiting, alcohol, red sweater"  
(Soundtrack: "Into The Fire", Thirteen Senses)**_  
_Warning: extreme waff ahead_

_Clinical Trial: a rigorously controlled test of a new drug or a new invasive medical device on human subjects._

There's not a lot that can be said about prepping for a medical procedure that doesn't sound alarming. There are the needles and the IV stands and the fat, glossy bags of chemicals that will soon be in your veins; there's the really alarming amount of charts and schedules; and there's the bed. The bed is what the patient pays the most attention to, because that's where they're going to be-- all the rest is somebody else's business.

As this was the very first clinically-controlled transformation (at least outside of the Black Organization's clutches) it was being approached with a good deal of caution and, on Haibara Ai's part at least, anticipation. One of Agasa's small bedrooms in the back corner of his manse had been equipped for Shinichi's stay; it was close enough to the labs to be safe but still private, and there was a window to cut down on any incipient claustrophobia.

And the bed was comfortable; Shinichi'd tested it. He'd brought a stack of books, too.

Day One started, from his perspective, by inserting far too many bits of sharpened steel into far too much of his anatomy. Various nutrients were force-fed via IV into his system plus some sort of elaborate preparatory drug regime, and he developed one hell of a headache due to an overly-enthusiastic drip. "So when will you start the antidote?" Shinichi asked Ai as she adjusted the flow; he rubbed his own temples with both thumbs, a fleeting ghost of the previous night's hand-massage flickering through his muscles.

"Tonight, around sunset," she responded matter-of-factly, tugging a feed-line straight. "You'll be informed, though I imagine you'd notice the effects fairly rapidly." With those encouraging words she left, leaving both he and the Professor behind.

"She _does_ mean well, you know, Shinichi." Agasa moved around the room, examining the placements of the three IVs in Shinichi's arms. "She's just..."

"I know, I know." Irritably he smoothed down the corner of a bit of tape; it had rolled up and kept snagging against his sleeve. Shinichi had not acceded to Ai's suggestion that he wear a hospital gown; an oversized yukata worked just fine for him, thank you very much-- less flappage. "She's just treating it like another experiment and treating _me_ like a Guinea Pig. You'd almost think she didn't care about the outcome." He glanced up at the Professor questioningly. "Doesn't she? Or is there something you'd like to tell me about? She _does_ believe this'll work, doesn't she?"

Agasa avoided his gaze. "Harrumph. She does. It's... I suppose you'd say it's the the 'long term effects' that she's worried about. You'll be fine, though, Shinichi," the elderly man hastened to add. "It has nothing to do with _this_ transformation, it--" There was a faint _beeeep!_ from beyond the room's open door, and Agasa stopped mid-sentence. "Mhmp; timer. Get some rest, Shinichi, and we'll talk later, hm?" He left the door open behind him.

".......great." What was that saying? 'Some days it's just not worth gnawing through the straps'...? Sunset. And it wasn't even lunchtime. Bored and cranky, Shinichi wriggled the pillows into a more comfortable shape and reached for the first of his books.

* * *

Three hours, two books, several drugs and one liquid lunch later ("No solids and no caffeine. Perhaps you know the meaning of the word 'enema'? Good."), feeling queasy and distinctly odd around the edges, Shinichi scratched at the edge of the tape on his arm and sought distraction in the wilds of the Internet. Early afternoon sunlight laid bars of faint warmth across the sheets; the sky outside his window was mostly blocked by the stand of large pines that divided Agasa's place from his family's, but between the branches Shinichi could see the hazy Autumn overcast, palest blue freckled by birds flying south.

Habit guided Shinichi to the chat site where he'd spent so much recent time. By this time, convenience had won out over paranoia, and '1nb!u' was listed in his Contacts, so it was a simple matter of clicking the thief's icon (uncustomised, still set to the default, gender-free grey silhouette icon) to take Shinichi to Kid's equally bare profile. Disappointingly, the little icon beside the thief's screenname was darkened - he wasn't online. Shinichi leaned back in his hospital bed, eyes closing, as he reminded himself that he shouldn't have been surprised. _He's got his own things to do,_ the detective reasoned. _And I didn't give him an exact timeline, either, so there's not much reason for him to be--_

His laptop interrupted him, a cheerfully artificial chiming sound that he hadn't heard before. Poking around on the chat website, he discovered a feature he'd not previously used, which now drew his attention with a tiny graphic of an envelope which was waving its corners at him.

_1 new private mail!_

Shinichi blinked. "Oh?" Clicking through, he was (almost) completely unsurprised by what he found.

_Detective,_

_I can with some confidence 'hope that this finds you well,' as if you're still well enough - and restless enough - to be checking my profile, you're probably still well enough to read this PM. (Conditional events are really so very satisfying to program, though tricky.) I don't know how old you might be now, as it's been a while, perhaps long enough to seem like years, since we've talked. Funny what a difference a day makes. Just wanted to assure you that I got home alright, and that thanks to my newfound dexterity, picking the tumbler at the delightfully organized desk of Minister Sawa's secretary was made very much easier. You may be grateful to know that my skills are still at a premium - both in quality and in demand._

_Don't worry, you haven't missed - or abetted - anything fun. I was only practicing; I wouldn't schedule a performance without properly advertising it, of course._

_I feel that I have much else to say, but I don't know what it is, or where to start. I can't lie to you and pretend my words are all in order, which is new. Normally I'm quite the adept liar._

_-1nb!u_

Shinichi groaned. "And I haven't aged at all yet, smartass," he informed the piece of mail. Ai had been taking his vital signs once per hour, and  
she'd informed him that lift-off was at 4:00 p.m., so to speak; not that she'd put it like that, of course. A bit earlier than planned.

She'd also shown a little more empathy than usual, sitting down and rather bluntly informing him of how, where and when the pain would start and what kind of course it'd follow; Shinichi had quite a few unpleasant hours waiting for him. Knowing this, there wasn't much for him to do but lie there and watch the steady drip of the IVs, so-- yay, distractions. Distractions were good.

Hitting the 'reply' key, he typed:

_1nb!u? You have no idea. Restless? More like bored to death. And just now you'd find me much as you left me, other than a few holes, bandaids and missing skin-samples. I'm told that this'll begin to change in a couple of hours and that it won't be pleasant, but all in the name of Science, right?_

_I cannot believe you actually-- no, no, nevermind, I do believe you picked Minister Sawa's secretary's desk lock. If you ever need a second career, I understand locksmithing's highly profitable. Find anything interesting? _

Shinichi shifted restlessly in the bed, adjusting the laptop as the cooling fans in its tray kicked on. A thought struck him, and after a second of considering he grinned.

_When you get this, contact me, will you? Might be feeling up to a game of cards if you're interested._

_Dductshn _

* * *

Kid needed a stiff drink.

Well. He looked from the glass in his hand, a honey-golden slip of liquid still sliding around beneath the ice cubes, to the table beside his nightstand, where the decanter of alcohol stood waiting, still half-full of the same syrup-colored liquor.

Revision: Kid needed _another_ stiff drink.

He had been at this for about an hour, and was wobbly by this point, but nowhere close enough to incoherency for his preferences, so another glassful of alcohol was carefully poured and savored. The decanter's glass cork slid back into place with a scraping hiss, and Kid turned his attention to the strong aromas lifting up from the glass in his hand. It was a good alcohol, a good year.

Kid sighed and downed as much of it as he could without choking. The liquor burned his throat and nose, made him cough. It was a fine alcohol, of a quality that deserved better than being shotgunned as a chaser to the even more potent intoxication of the previous night. But Kid - ensconced in the relative safety of the Kuroba mansion, bundled up in warm, dumpy clothing, with one of his favorite black and white Hollywood films playing on the large flatscreen at the far end of the bedroom that he and Kuroba Kaito shared, a full dinner of comfort food still filling his belly - Kid really, _really_ needed to be drunk.

He had closed and shut down his computer after setting up the private message and its timer. Undoubtedly, Shinichi would have seen and replied to it by now, but Kid's computer was itself on a timer, a lockdown of twelve hours during which time he wouldn't be able to boot it up at all, much less browse to the chat site to see Shinichi's response. Twelve hours was a little short for what he had to do in that interim, but it would have to suffice. Kid was used to accomplishing things on a short timeline, so this task would be no exception.

Kid frowned at his glass, then drained it by half; it burned going down and he coughed, one hand reflexively covering his heart as the alcohol spread through him.

Gods, he was so fucked.

No, that didn't even cover it by half. He was - he was -

Kid curled up around a pillow, turning the volume of his movie up by a couple notches and burying his face and ears in his arms.

He was completely out of his depth. And that scared him.

What was he even supposed to _call_ this relationship that they had, now? Camraderie? That implied they were on the same side of a fight, side by side. Only in the most sidewaysed manner could the Kaitou Kid and the chibitantei be said to be allies - officially, at least. If they were unofficial allies, then, that implied a cloak and dagger sort of subtext, a mission beneath the mission, which didn't work either: though they knew of each other's shared animosity toward the black-cloaked organizations which had ruined the lives they used to know, neither had been yet able to take a step toward actively aiding the other.

Were they friends? As Shinichi and Kid, perhaps, but not as Edogawa Conan or Kaitou Kid. And who, besides the pair of them, knew that they _existed_ as anything but their public faces? That thought in itself made the friendship between them even more strange, Kid feared. If the friendship could only exist inside the werelight of their secret peace, then was it only their secret peace that held the friendship together? Or was it the other way around?

Kaitou Kid needed nothing of Edogawa Conan's cooperation or help. In fact, Kid needed none of Shinichi's, either. That was one thing - possibly the only thing - that _was_ certain, that their business was their pleasure, and taking it easy on each other was not only discouraged, but it was flat-out less fun.

_Is that what this is?_ Kid wondered, chasing the smoke tails of uncatchable logic through the twisted paths of his mind. _Fun?_ It was one thing to solve a logic puzzle when one was sane and using the same logic that the puzzlebox itself used. It was entirely different to try to solve, with his own peculiar breed of insanity, the puzzlebox motivations of another man who was, just possibly, just as insane as the Kid himself, but in a different manner, a different strain of the unbalanced mental bug that drove the both of them to rooftop edges and windowledges.

"You're as much two of a kind as either of you might ever find," Kuroba Kaito offered softly, nudging the movie volume up just a bit more, thoroughly covering their voices from listeners.

Kid groaned. _I know!_ And that - that was his problem. Had the Kaitou Kid ever had someone with whom he could claim kinship, save the spectre of his dead father? Had he ever had _close_ contact with someone as peculiarly motivated as he himself was? Nakamori-keibu and Hakuba-san were professional rivals, men for whom he could perform. Their constant challenge to the Kaitou Kid goaded him to be ever better, ever more skilled, theatrical, and excellent; to make his appearances more grand and his escapes slicker and cleaner. But whether they would actually catch him? Kid hadn't been seriously concerned about that chance for quite some time. Maybe he was underestimating them. Maybe he was getting complacent. But despite those cautious concerns, he couldn't deny the facts: When it was only Nakamori-keibu and Hakuba-san chasing him, he didn't feel endangered.

Kid sat up again, reached across to the decanter, and filled his glass up to the lip. Hands steady despite himself, he replaced the jug and drained a third of his glass before curling up again across his pillows, blanket pulled halfway across his legs, glass propped carefully between his hands.

To be fair, he reminded himself, when the chibitantei was chasing him, he didn't precisely feel "endangered," either. But that was little comfort, really, because the better word - the more accurate description - was that he felt _alive_.

That would have been all well and good on its own, Kid brooded. If that was all that it was, he could have dealt with that, a fixation on one _particular_ of his entourage, rather than the entire gaggle of officers, detectives, news media, fangirls...

Kid downed the end of his glass, ice cubes cold against his lips as the alcohol sparked fire all through his throat and lungs. He had to pound himself on the chest that time, coughing and wincing. Kuroba wisely kept his mouth shut as he watched the thief cough, swallow, and settle back down.

But he had stopped thinking of Edogawa _as_ Edogawa a long time ago, had stopped seeing anything but Shinichi, and had also stopped thinking of Shinichi as a member of the Kaitou Kid's aggressive entourage at all. Shinichi just was...

_(his blue eyes flashing confident challenge or amusement; startled by glitter or cleavage; smirky as he fearlessly upped the ante to return Kid's challenge with interest; pained as he thought about loss.)_

"Oh, Benten _damn_ me thrice." Kid grabbed the decanter.

* * *

The clock beside Shinichi's bed said 6:37 now. And a different IV had replaced one of the earlier ones, the fluid inside a vivid scarlet. _APTX 4873_ was written on the plastic, the end result of a number of laboratory experiments (and, Shinichi assumed, a number of lab rats, of which he was the most recent and the most human.) Apparently the versions between 4869 and the current hadn't worked all that well.

Not that he cared; right now, he'd rather have nothing to do with any of them.

The hospital bed in Agasa's back room was adjustable, but nothing really helped much, no matter how he changed his position; bathed in sweat, Shinichi turned restlessly onto one side and kicked at the covers. He was so _hot_; burning with what felt like fever, scalding beneath the skin-- even his eyes felt hot. His joints felt inflamed and swollen; raising his left hand in front of his eyes, the boy ran the fingers of his right hand across knuckles and wrist--

(Kid's hand, long-fingered and strong, tendons tight with stress as he worked muscle and sinew beginning with the back)

--Shinichi blinked, and then blinked again; what had _that_ been all about? He shuddered as the pain crept across the digits, lighting tiny fires in the second joints. It was easy to picture them as tiny LEDs coming to life, red and white and shining through the skin. _Hallucinating,_ he thought hazily. _Ai said I would._ He hadn't heard back from the thief, not by email or by any other method. But he could almost hear the other's voice, laughing or careful by turns: _It doesn't take an extraordinary detective to know that you're substantially tweaked, chibitantei._

Shinichi'd tucked the tiny charms he'd been given into his wallet; it sat on the bedside table, clovers and coral bells hidden away safely.

He turned again, careful even in his pain not to pull the IVs loose; they dangled beside the bed like swollen, glutinous gargoyles, monitors beeping softly, keeping time as glucose and... other things... dripped into his system. Shinichi's eyes, filmy with heat, fixed on the red bag; it looked malevolent somehow. _But it's supposed to be my cure, isn't it? Not now but someday/soon/later, right? Soon. Please, let it be soon._

He slept. Woke again full of sharp, shooting pains, slept again as the hours ticked by. Midnight to two a.m., Ai had said: that'd be when the worst of it happened.

10:02 p.m. said the clock, the numbers as red as Apotoxin. Ai came in then-- or had she already been in the room? Shinichi was losing track. She took his pulse, small cool fingers like ice against his wrist. Calm eyes watched him from a face that had already seen more than its share of life and death (was that why she was so calm?) as she withdrew a blood sample from the temporary catheter lodged in his right inner elbow. Ai's hand rested gently on his brow for a second; she said something but Shinichi blinked stupidly at her, unable to understand the words. His heart beat in his ears, muffling everything, making her voice sound submerged and echoing. At that she shook her head and pulled a syringe from one pocket, injecting the contents into one of his IV lines before leaving the room.

He must have dozed again; what woke him later was pain, horrible and insistent and inevitable, and Shinichi became conscious with the sound of his own cry ringing in his ears. Agasa and Ai were both there, both talking; he could make nothing of it, all that existed was the wrenching agony that scraped like jagged, rusty metal across joint and muscle and nerve. Another syringe, and then there were hands holding him down and Agasa, speaking rapidly and soothingly... The words were impossible to understand over the roaring in his ears, but Shinichi tried to hold still.

If only he wasn't so hot, God, so _**hot--**_

His heartbeats sounded like glass breaking, every one; twisting, writhing, Shinichi reached past the heat, past the pain, past the agony and the flames that were eating him alive (_stop it stop it make it stop please STOP)_ and fell down into the dark.

....._(thumb and forefinger and middle finger, ring-finger and pinky, Kid's hands working his own aching one. Kid's hands were warm, on fire without burning; his were coldcoldcold toosmall tooweak, but they were all he had. Wrist and palm and arch, the lines had words written in them (didn't they?) and Kid read them off as he worked ten years out, gone in a flash of heat. Tiny scars, white lines where the glass had cut, only it wasn't glass was it no he had scars for every lie he'd told, coldcoldcold. Ran was supposed to (would) understand but she wasn't (Ran please) wasn't (please, where) wasn't and Kid was Kid was there  
was there  
(warm)  
and he  
wasn't  
so cold  
anymore.)_

Shinichi slept. Beside his bed, Haibara Ai and Professor Agasa watched as the last tremors subsided and his breathing evened out. With a strange gentleness, Ai straightened the crumpled yukata over his chest, smoothing the folds into place before stepping back. "Call me in an hour. You'll need to sleep as well." They'd been trading off monitoring the experiment, neither one willing to leave the figure on the bed alone for long.

The time was 2:47 a.m.

* * *

_Well._ Kid sleepily observed his glass decanter - now no more than a third full. _That should do it._ Attempting to sit up proved his theory: he was well and truly drunk. The alcoholic buzz tingled through every inch of his skin, oversensitive and numb at the same time. A paradox, not that he was unused to those.

He'd slept, drunk, slept, and drunk some more. Watched his movie, and understood none of it; dreamed, and understood too much. Now, completely inebriated, he lay in bed, tucked deep under the covers, and through the throbbing in his temples, tried not to think about the previous night.

The thing was, Shinchi was the sort of person to take complete, overwhelming control of any situation that he found himself in. So, presented with a seven-year-old's body, he had done more than to 'make the best of it;' the irritating little chibitantei had made his size an _asset,_ using his ability to go unnoticed and to be underestimated to camouflage his incisive critical mind. Presented with a lack of physical strength, he had used technology and creativity to make of himself just as much of a threat - perhaps more, really - than he had ever been as a teenager, if the stories Kid had overheard at the precinct and elsewhere were to be believed. The long and short of it (heh) was simply that Shinichi was a very commanding presence, at any size. Was that justification for the confusion he caused? Perhaps.

Kid rolled over, rubbing at his eyes with his fists, and tried not to grumble in frustration as the muscles in his right hand twinged and pulled, too tight, especially in contrast to the soft, healthy tension of his left. This was getting him nowhere. And now that the initial indulgent impulse to get smashed out of his mind had passed, Kid was left as he usually was after indulging in alcohol: in pain and not much else. Contrary to his hopes, his drunken state wasn't stopping his frustratingly frequent thoughts from nagging at him; it was just tangling them, making them even more frustrating to trace and deflect. And it was harder to focus on the central part, which mattered most: that Shinichi was going to tell Mouri-san. In his own body, in his right size and voice and hands, Shinichi would finally tell Mouri-san what he'd been hiding.

Which meant Kid and Kaito should think about Aoko, and what to tell her. She wouldn't take it well...probably. It had been so long, so secret for so much silence, that maybe they didn't even know for sure, Kid mused. Maybe Aoko would surprise them. They should tell Aoko just enough to make it an equal offer of vulnerability, a reciprocal gesture to Shinichi's. Even though they really didn't want to tell her, and Shinichi clearly did want to tell Mouri-san. Where concealing their true identities was second-nature to Kid and Kuroba, it was a burden to Shinichi, one that pained him every time he had to lie to Mouri-san's face. By pushing Shinichi into telling her, Kid had done the girl and Shinichi both a big favor.

Wait, why was this about Shinichi, again?

* * *

"What time is it?" Movement in his room, soft whisper of cloth being shifted.

"Half past four, more or less--" A brush of air against his skin; somebody was... there was a sheet over him; someone had straightened it, tucked it beneath his chin.

"You should have woken me. I can get by on less sleep than you, Professor." Footsteps; a twinge in one arm as pressure was applied, something hot and bright, tiny flash of pain--

Shinichi opened his eyes. Or tried to; they seemed to be glued shut with something unpleasant and gritty, much like whatever had taken up residence in his mouth. "Wh--" he began, and then coughed, choking on thin air as his esophagus contracted uncontrollably. Hands small and large caught him, steadied him, brought something that sloshed up to his lips. He drank greedily, not even bothering to try opening his eyes until the last of the liquid was gone. A wet cloth was wiped gently across his face, words murmured in a voice that he recognized: Agasa.

_Agasa? Ai. Agasa's house, and we were going to... I was going to... oh. __**Oh.**_ He opened his eyes.

Professor Agasa and Haibara Ai, each with faces smudged with the lack of sleep; they peered at him from either side of the bed, two of the most unlikely angels a sleeper could ever wake to see. "Welcome back, Shinichi," said Agasa, beaming.

"You're late," said Ai, but she was smiling.

* * *

Hours passed. Shinichi slept and woke, growing by gradual stages more comfortable. When he opened his eyes, waking as smoothly as he'd drifted off to sleep, and looked at the early morning sunlight streaming through the window and forming a corona around his hand - his big, broad, long-fingered, teenager's hand - he took it as a sign that he had rested long enough. He sat up - carefully - and stretched a little. A rustle on his lap made him look down.

"Oh," he remarked.

"Prrruuuuuuuu," trilled Moona.

"Yeah? Good morning to you too, bird." Moving made things crackle and pop; joints protested here and there, but the night's agony was nothing more than a ghost just then. His voice-- _Shinichi's_ voice, not Conan's!-- sounded strange in his own ears, and as he stroked the dove with fingers that felt weirdly too large, he wondered where everybody was.

Thin traces of sound filtered up through the open window: Agasa, talking on his cellphone. The door below slammed shut as the elderly scientist came back in, and Haibara's voice met and mingled with the Professor's in a quick question and response. "Can't let them see you," murmured Shinichi, staring out the window; his fingers slid across the bird's back, and as Moona shifted he felt the cool brush of a metal cylinder strapped to one pink leg brush against his arm.

Shinichi freed the note with a moment's work (though it took him longer than it should, bigger fingers clumsy on the tiny catches and latch of the message tube). Its brevity startled him almost as much as did the customary Kid doodle in one corner. This time, the doodle had eyebrows drawn on as well, brought up and together in the center to indicate...concern? It layered extra facets into the brief message, facets which Shinichi wasn't sure he could decode completely. The message simply read,

_Welcome back._

Something complicated and almost painful lodged in Shinichi's throat, and it was odds either way what it was going to turn into for a moment or two. In the end, it dissolved enough for him to carefully roll the tiny note up again and tuck it in his wallet on the table, in with the charms he'd been given. The something didn't vanish entirely, though, and he sat there absentmindedly stroking Moona as the autumn sunlight sent patches of heat flickering across the room.

He'd... dreamed something about Kid. It was all mixed up in the pain and the heat/cold of the long night-- not clear enough to be remembered, but vivid and sharply outlined, hands and scars and a strange thread of _comfort_ running through everything. The details wouldn't come through, not quite; but, brow furrowed, he thought that if maybe he concentrated... he could almost... very nearly...

_(...warm? I--)_

There were footsteps coming up the stairs. In Shinichi's lap, Moona fluttered her wings and hopped down the bed almost primly before taking off through the open window just before Agasa's head popped around the doorjamb. "Shinichi?"

"Yeah," he said, summoning a smile; it felt odd on his face, but it grew as he ran one hand through his tangle of hair. "Yeah, it's me."

"Good," Agasa nodded, beaming as he bustled around the room. There were considerably fewer medical implements left out than there had been the last time Shinichi had been awake; Agasa began to pack away some of those still remaining, talking to Shinichi over his shoulder as he did.

"Ai-chan wants you out of bed and dressed in ten minutes. She told me to remind you that the clock is ticking, and we have only about 22.825 hours of guaranteed time before you enter the risk zone for changing back. She wants you back in this room on IV's before that happens." Agasa paused, clearing his throat somewhat nervously, and continued in an appropriately sheepish tone. "...She's already called Mouri-san and asked her over. She said there was something important to tell her. So you, ahm, should expect a visitor within the hour."

Shocked silence. Then, very carefully: "She. Did. _**What?**_**"**

The Professor sighed, patting the boy he'd known very nearly since birth on one shoulder. "Get dressed, Shinichi. Your clothes are in the closet-- I brought them over a few days ago." The older man hesitated, one hand on the door. "Don't be too hard on Ai-chan, hrm? I think she thinks she's doing you a favor."

Shinichi closed his eyes. "She's not."

_It might be necessary, it might've been a long time coming, but a favor? No. Not a favor._

"I'll be down in a few minutes, Professor. Is there coffee?"

"Of course." The man sounded faintly wounded, and Shinichi opened his eyes just in time to catch the fleeting expression of guilt that passed over his face. "Decaf. --or at least Ai-chan _thinks_ it's decaf; I, err, might have changed containers." The scientist had the grace to redden slightly before he stepped out of the doorway. Before he pulled the door completely shut, however, he added gently: "It's good to see you, Shin-chan. It'll all work out, you'll see." He closed the door.

_It's good to be back, Professor,_ thought Shinichi a little grimly as he rose carefully to an unaccustomed full height, swaying unsteadily as he tried to bring newly-lengthened limbs under control. _Now all I have to do is survive this morning, and Ran._

* * *

Ran was, basically, trying not to think too hard.

The morning was bright and cool, Autumn edged with the first thin touch of winter; as she rounded the corner of the last block before Professor Agasa's large and oddly-shaped home, she shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her sweater and did her best to concentrate on just walking. But--

--there was the Kudo house, Shinichi's, overgrown lawn and locked gates silent as a questioning face. She hadn't been inside since... it'd been months, hadn't it? A long time. And while Ai-chan hadn't been very clear over the phone about the 'important thing she needed to hear', Ran wasn't an idiot. So now she dug her hands in, fisting the soft knit tightly between her fingers and tried not to hope. Or think too hard. Or panic.

She'd done enough of that already, hadn't she?

Ai was the one to drag the big door of Professor Agasa's house open, leaning against it to hold it open as she flatly regarded the young woman on her doorstep. "Mouri-san." An expression flickered through the child's features as she greeted Ran, almost too fast for Ran to catch. But the change in her eyes, from stony to something less than that, was clear, though quick. With more trepidation than she'd had before - even though she knew well that Ai-chan was _always_ dour - Ran stepped into the genkan. She toed her shoes off, leaving them neatly beside each other, as Ai spoke in low tones.

"Would you like a drink, Mouri-san? We have water, orange juice, Pocari Sweat, and Paical."

Ran looked up at that. "Paical?" What would she need alcohol for at this hour of the day?

Ai smiled without mirth. "It was just an educated suggestion. Follow me, we can sit in the living room."

"Um, orange juice'd be fine." The girl was doing it again, acting all... Ran didn't even really have a term for Ai's behavior, other than 'unchildlike'. Which, considering Conan's uneven standards of behavior, didn't exactly work very well-- 'childlike' wasn't a very useful or definitive term. She followed the little girl into the living room, glancing around. "Isn't the Professor here?" she asked, settling onto an overstuffed couch.

"He's occupied," Ai answered with her characteristic terseness. The girl wasn't even facing Ran as she talked, instead focusing on the small details of sorting....pills? A large amount of pills. Ran tried to keep her apprehension from her face, feeling less and less certain what was going on.

"Then...did you have something to tell me, Ai-chan?" she ventured, hoping for conversation that would fill the eerily silent void of Agasa's cavernously huge living room. "Did you want to talk about school, or something else?"

Ai shot a glance over her shoulder at Ran, one that was...by Ai standards...almost sympathetic. "I'll get you that orange juice." She left the room.

There were footsteps on the stairs, heavy and a little uneven; from where she sat, Ran could just see the first-floor landing and the steps leading up from that. Hands in her lap, she watched sock-clad feet and denim cuffs descend into view, making their way a little unsteadily downwards. Feet, cuffs, knees... _Agasa doesn't wear jeans,_ she thought, prickling with --apprehension? The steps stumbled just a little, almost as if the walker wasn't quite sure where his feet would land when he stepped downwards. Knees, the beginnings of a red sweater, large hands holding onto a railing with a tight grip--

"...Shinichi?"

"Hi, Ran," said Kudo Shinichi quietly, smiling. That smile faltered as Ran's beautiful blue eyes filled with tears; as they spilled over silently, and she bit the inside of her lip, so subtly, a little motion that many other people might miss, Shinichi did his best to hurry down the remainder of the stairs and cross Agasa's large living room toward Ran.

Once he'd reached her, he sat delicately down on the couch to her right, bracing himself with his hands as he lowered down. His manner suggested sore muscles and exhausted limbs. Still his expression was earnest, invigorated just by his proximity to her. He looked at her - straight at her, not craning his neck up to see, not propped on a stool - _straight_ at her, and his hands - the right size, his _real_ hands - wanted so badly to smooth Ran's flyaway hairs away from her soft mouth that he had to clench them against his knees to hold still.

Shinichi started to speak, then paused, looking over Ran's face with concern, noting the tightness around her eyes, the crease of her brow that she was fighting to smooth out. "Ran...are you okay?"

She shook her head, wiping the tears away almost angrily. "I almost, a-almost don't believe it's really you," she said; her hands clenched. "Every time you show up it's like a mirage or a ghost or, or I'm making you up. _No,_ I'm not okay. How long'll it be for this time? Ten minutes, or maybe even an hour? Or are you going to, to _look_ like you but not _act_ like you? You've done that too." Another tear spilled out, she raised her hand to wipe it away, but fingers closed around hers, stopping them, and Ran looked back up.

"You could tell?" Shinichi's dark blue eyes were shadowed, tired; he looked haunted, older than his seventeen years should have allowed. "You could tell that it wasn't me?" He reached out with his free hand and wiped away the tear; the knuckles of his hand were warm, almost feverishly hot against her skin.

"Not at first. Afterwards... you just weren't you. You looked right, sounded right, moved right, but--" He hadn't let go of her other hand yet; abruptly Ran was aware of a difference, a change in Shinichi's appearance that had nothing to do with impostors or _whatever_ had gone on. He was, just a little, larger; his wristbones hung out of the red sweater's cuff, his arms and legs seemed longer, his hair needed cutting... and he needed a shave. Just barely, but that was stubble edging his jawline.

Wait. Red sweater...?

"I gave you that, didn't I?" Her own free hand came up to touch the cuff, and a small smile broke through Ran's agitation. "Back when we were supposed to meet at the movies and there was that awful explosion."

"You did," Shinichi answered, laying his fingers beside Ran's on the red fabric. "I haven't had a chance to wear it since then, but...today's perfect for it." He frowned slightly, covering Ran's hand on his wrist with his own before moving it away. Their other hands remained joined, and far from letting go, Shinichi gripped Ran's hand even tighter as he spoke.

"Ran, about when I'm going to leave...this time isn't going to be like any of the others. I'm going to stay in this room with you until you're satisfied, until I've told you what I need to tell you. And after that, I'll stay with you for as long as I'm able, and when I'm not able, I promise, this time, you'll _know why._"

There was a polite cough from the far doorway; Ai stood there, not one but two glasses of orange juice in her hands. Wordlessly handing them over, she stared at Shinichi for a long moment before glancing back at Ran. "Let me know if you change your mind about that Paical," she said calmly, and slipped out of the room.

_Ran's actually going to listen. I'm actually going to tell her. Can I panic now, please?_ Shinichi swallowed hard, and for one brief moment wished a little bizarrely that he was wearing Conan's glasses; the urge to hide behind something was almost overwhelming. But that was what this was all about, wasn't it? No more hiding, not from Ran, ever again. _I've always said that there was only one truth; time to see how much I mean it._ "Ran? You remember when we went to Tropical Land the night I--" he hesitated; "--I went away?"

She nodded; their hands still clung to each other between them.

Shinichi sighed. "Those men I followed... Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't seen them. I'd still be here, I'd be in classes with you, I'd still live at home, we'd be talking about college and cram school and I'd be _ordinary."_ He said the word wistfully, like it was some sort of incredible dream or unattainable goal-- and then snorted. "Or as ordinary as I can get. Who knows? Anyway, I, uh..." The teenager took a drink of his juice and sat it down. "I'm stalling. Right. Ran? You want every detail now, or just the important ones?"

Ran's face was drawn in concentration, brow creased, eyes hard and strained with the difficulty of holding herself back as Shinichi rambled. At his question, she shook a little as she drew breath to steady herself, drawing stillness into her just as smoothly and effectively as her karate had trained her to do. She squeezed his hand, not letting go, and looked up from her lap to look Shinichi straight in the eye.

"I know you said you would stay. But Shinichi, you haven't --" She stopped, bit her tongue, and took another deep breath, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she'd gotten her equilibrium back, and addressed him levelly. "I want...I _need_... to know where you've been, what you've been doing, and when you'll be back for good. Now. Before you disappear again."

_Oh. She's going to kill me. And I __**deserve**__ it. Here goes. Deep breath, don't flinch, just say it._

His fingers tightened on hers. "I've been close by. I've never really left. And... God, Ran, I don't know how to explain this to you, but--" Shinichi closed his own eyes. "Wednesday night you talked about those Penguin Adventurers books; you pointed out which one I used to like best, said I used to take them on trips. Thursday morning you burned your wrist with steam when you were cooking rice for breakfast. And you asked--" (he swallowed) "--Conan-- to bring you back something special from his trip." His voice was a little rough, shaky around the edges. "I don't know what happened this morning because I wasn't there."

Dead silence.

Ran's mouth drew tight, lips white with hard pressure, while she blinked back the tears that had begun to pour in thick, fast rivers down her face, beginning to saturate the chest and neckline of her shirt. She opened her mouth to speak; nothing came out. She tried again and managed a small, frightened, soft noise. Finally she choked, swallowed, and then the words finally flowed.

"S-so-- So many times, so many - so many moments, I kept thinking, and every time, I mean, it's crazy, it's stupid, it's impossible, but -- but I _know you,_ Shinichi, and - and - and I thought I was going crazy, that I was feeling like the you in the forest was less you than - than - and - and every time, every time I really thought I was just _sure_, and that I could ask you, that I could finally say - that - _every_ time, something -- and it was so convenient, but I couldn't - I couldn't wonder, because you were _right there_ - but then you'd be gone again - and - it - I --" She swallowed, a soft, barely audible keening note swelling in her throat as, finally, her tears gave way to a real, full-throated sob, wrapped around his name.

"_Shinichi,_ I --" She covered her face in her hands, tearing them free of his. Tears leaking between her fingers, Ran left her mouth uncovered, head bowed, shoulders curled in as though that would help her with the pain, and found her voice again, lower and steadier than before.

"Conan-kun. Conan-kun." She waited for an answer; when none came, she tried again. "_Conan-kun._" Still nothing, Shinichi sitting wordless beside her. Angry now, Ran sat up straight, eyes blazing, and grabbed one of Shinichi's hands with both of her own, gripping painfully tight. "_Shinichi,_ Conan-kun, _somebody_ answer me!"

"I will," came a dry voice from the doorway.

Ai stood there, small hands gripping her own glass of juice, incongruously unruffled. "Kudo-kun? Do shut up for a few minutes, will you? I believe that this part of the explanation belongs to me." Slippered feet silent on the carpeted floor, the girl took her own seat beside one window, feet dangling but neatly crossed at the ankles as she sipped her juice. Shinichi made a convulsive movement, his hands knotting dangerously into fists; Ai ignored this, leaning back comfortably in her chair as if this was an ordinary conversation between ordinary people. _That word again,_ thought Ran, gripping Shinichi's hand and trying to ignore how he had clenched her fingers almost tight enough to hurt.

"I don't believe in absolution," said the child quietly. "My guilt is my guilt; it doesn't belong to anyone else. Before I met Kudo-kun, my name was... well; you could call me 'Sherry' if you wanted to." She half smiled. "I worked under duress for a criminal organization to develop a drug, one with a number of uses; and Kudo-kun here? He was the unwilling test-subject for that drug due to following the wrong people at the wrong time." Ai glanced at Shinichi, a mere flicker of a look, acknowledgement: _Whatever you're guilty of, you didn't choose this part of it. And I'm not willing to share._

"Yes. He was, is, will be... Conan-kun. Just as I was once a grown woman, before my own encounter with the drug." And, finished, Ai sipped her juice again for all the world as if she'd said nothing extraordinary whatsoever.

Ran frowned, listening carefully, trying to distill the nonsense into sense, and as the incomprehensible flowed past her, unclaimed, one detail that _was_ within her comprehension snagged her attention. "...Will...be?" Shinichi flinched away from those words, and Ran, seeing his reaction, pressed them harder. "_Will be?_ Shinichi, you're - this --" She gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut; her two-fisted grip on Shinichi's hand tightened so much that his knuckles creaked. He didn't even squeak in complaint.

"You're going to leave me again. You're going to..."

"Ran, I'm not leaving you." Her head whipped up, eyes like ice fire, ready to fight that empty promise, but Shinichi held one finger up, a half centimeter, a breath, away from her lips, and startled her into silence.

"I'm staying with you. And - yeah, I'll change back. But this time, I won't hide it from you. I'll let you see. I won't run away from you again. Ever." _I promise,_ said his eyes, tired and wearing an echo of pain. _I promise. Never again._

"He _should_ have left, you know," added Ai with a touch of waspishness. "It would've been safer for all of us if he had, oh-- gone off with his parents, I believe that was a possibility; but he chose to stay here, with you." The girl (not a child at all, how had Ran ever mistaken her for one?) shrugged slightly. "Still, I suppose there's safety in numbers, such as it is." She regarded Mouri Ran over the rim of her glass, pale eyes unblinking. "Or did you suppose he remained with you, **like that**, for his own amusement? Or out of sheer embarrassment? My former employers are not flexible, Mouri-san. They killed my sister when she slipped their grasp, they'd kill myself and Kudo-kun if they could locate us... and," she added with the first trace of sympathy that she'd shown in the conversation so far, "they'd destroy you as well, your family, your acquaintances, anyone who might have an inkling, even the barest _hint_ of their existence if they became aware of that threat. To them, it'd be like stepping on a cockroach, nothing more."

The child-- the young woman-- sighed, her calm slipping just for a moment to show something else beneath it: sorrow and a profound, heavy weight. The glimpse lasted barely a second before her mask slid back into place with an almost audible click; then Ai added almost lightly: "So have a little charity, Mouri-san. He didn't hide all this time in the guise of a little boy because it was _fun."_

Silence. Ice in the three glasses cracked audibly, tiny clicks and creaks.

The girl glanced at her watch, sliding from the chair. "Twenty-two point zero five hours left. Amazing, isn't it, how little time a revelation can take?" Carrying her glass, Ai left the room as silently as she had arrived.

In her wake, Shinichi sat still, looking sickened; beside him, Ran was clearly doing mental sums.

"At the play...and when you pretended to be Shiragami-sama...that was it, wasn't it?" She turned to Shinichi, sitting on the edge of the couch to face him straight-on, and took his hands in her own. "That was why you always disappear without...without saying goodbye, or telling me when you're going to leave. That's why Hattori always has to cover for you with those silly stories of his. That's why I never know when you'll come and when you'll go." As hope rose in Shinichi's eyes, Ran smiled gently, squeezing his hands with affection, and tilted her head prettily. "Isn't it?"

"Yes, that's wha_oooouuuuwww!_ Ran, what the--OW! Ow!"

With both Shinichi's hands trapped beneath one of hers - smaller, but stronger, and holding onto his fingers with a fearsome strength - Ran had one hand free while Shinichi had none, and was using that advantage to slap him _silly_. Once across his face, another on his shoulder, a slap upside the back of his head, a pounding impact (much gentler than her real strength) to his chest... and all the while she held onto his hands with a grip just shy of "maimingly" tight.

Too slowly, Shinichi's hindbrain informed him that he _might_ have wanted to be wary of that too-sweet-to-be-true smile, especially coming from his darling, beloved, highly combustible Ran. _No, __REALLY__?_ he crisply responded to it, tensing his jaw just in time to keep from biting his tongue when the next slap across his face landed. As he brought his head back around to center, cheeks stinging (she hadn't backhanded him yet, but he figured that was probably next) he noticed she was saying something under all the abuse.

"Stupid, selfish, immature, careless, selfish, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID--"

"Woah, Ran, Ran, ple--" He paused as another slap landed, wincing. "--Please, Ran, calm down, what--"

"CALM DOWN?" It was a good thing Ran had hold of Shinichi's hands when that question, as full of righteous anger and indignation could ever make it, thundered from her thin frame, or else he might have scuttled across the room in an instinct dive toward self-preservation. Sure, Ran could get scary. Of course he knew that - he'd _always_ known that. But. _But._ Shinichi swallowed thickly, eyes wide, wondering how to make himself a smaller target.

"Shinichi you _idiot_, you think I can calm down when I just found out that you've _been_ here and you - and they - and --" Hysteria began to take over. "Drugs! And guns! And secret employers who are going to kill me! And kill you! And you're seven! No, wait, you're eighteen now! And you haven't done _any_ of your college applications paperwork!" She paused for breath, suddenly deflating, and leaned away from Shinichi, scooting back into the deep comforting cushions of Agasa's couch. Drawing her knees up to her chin, Ran released Shinichi's hands, wrapped her own around herself, and settled her chin on her knees with the deliberate, numb motions of someone who is merely bemused, not distressed, by watching the world crumble around her.

"I think I want that Paical now."

"Would a little Madeira do instead?" That was Ai again, back in the doorway; this time she had an extremely agitated Professor Agasa hovering behind her, and if any large man in the world could've managed to fit his body behind the tiny one of a child... "Paical-- that was a little joke of mine," added Ai, looking satisfied. She brought over a very small glass full of a rich, ruby liquid.

Ran's hands were shaking; Shinichi took it for her, holding it out while wondering if he'd get his arm back intact. "Paical... wasn't that the stuff that turned me back that time with Heiji--?" he asked, rubbing one cheek ruefully. Ran gave him a baleful look and accepted the glass, choking on the potent liquor. She shuddered, still huddling in a tight, self-protective curl, but her breathing began to slow a trifle as she sipped her drink.

"Yes, that. You don't need to be anywhere near it, Shin-chan; who knows what it'd do to you in your present state?" Agasa was all but hiding behind the doorjamb, and when Ran looked up at the sound of his voice he gave her a hangdog grimace. "Sorry, Ran-chan. So very sorry." He paused and then added a bit timidly, "Errr... could you not beat up on Shinichi any more? The bruises'll show on Conan after he changes back, and he's so much smaller then."

Ran's head swiveled from Agasa to Shinichi on a slow pivot. Then she blinked, taking in Shinichi's sheepish expression, cheeks flushed from her slapping, shoulders hunched, hands red and sore-looking, and her eyes went wide and her mouth got very small. "Oh, oh god, I didn't--" Clear as if it was written across her face, visions of battered-child!Conan flickered through her mind's eye, and guilt began to overwhelm her anger.

Before Ran could get too apoplectic with guilt, Shinichi caught one of her hands in his own and, having caught it, closed it gently within both of his own. A glance over his shoulder in the direction of the doorway was more than a little pointed. "Could you guys...you know, give us a minute?"

"Twenty-one point five five hours," Ai muttered, as she followed Agasa out of the room.

With the distractions gone, Shinichi turned back to Ran with an apologetic expression on his face. He released her hand gently. "Agasa's right about the punches...but you don't generally get bruising if you just use slaps. And I know I deserve them."

A little of the guilt filtered away. "Yes, you did," she said, "but I didn't mean to... to..." Both her hands caught his in turn, and Ran stared at it, turned it over in her own as if she'd never seen it before. "You're actually going to turn back into, into--"

"--Conan. Yeah. You'll be there, Ran, I promise. I said so, didn't I?"

Her fingertip measured out the outline of a smaller hand against his, thin lines on his palm; Shinichi swallowed, memory shouting into bits of his brain and getting an echo back that had a very odd shape to it. "But he's so _little._ Where does it all..." Ran paused, looking up with a slightly queasy expression. "...go?"

"Um. I don't exactly know. I think it kind of melts."

That knocked the guilt away as well as any lingering vestiges of anger. _"MELTS?"_ she said in horror. "Oh my God, Shinichi, how many times've you done this?" She was still holding on. "There was the thing with the play, and Shiragami-sama, and the... wait, that wasn't you that time, but there was the-- never mind. Never mind." Picking up the almost-forgotten glass of Madeira, Ran swallowed the last sip and shuddered again. "Shinichi? Who else knows?"

He rubbed at his eyes with her free hand, grateful that she hadn't blacked one of them; that would've been hard to explain. "My parents, Hattori... that's about it. For certain, anyway; Takagi-san and Megure-keibu probably know something, and Nakamori-keibu. Nobody else except for Agasa and Ai, that's it." Shinichi looked down at the hand that still held his so tightly. "Ran? ...What do you want to do now, now that you know?" He took a deep breath, preparing for what he'd known he'd have to ask. "Do you want me to move out? As Conan, I mean... I can stay here, with Agasa." The detective felt his other hand clench but kept it at his side, hidden.

Ran's hands contracted around Shinichi's closer hand before she'd even drawn breath to respond. _"NO."_ She blinked - the aggressiveness of her response had surprised even her. Shinichi, also, was looking puzzled. Ran drew a breath, let it out slowly, and tried again. "No, Shinichi, you're going to stay. First off, it makes more sense that we _not_ change what we're doing, if you don't want to get discovered. And it would be very much out of Professor Agasa's way to have to tote you around for form's sake. I already am used to taking you to - to school," Ran explained, gamely pushing on past the awkwardness of that idea. "And picking you up again, and Dad would wonder why you suddenly moved out, and - and - oh gosh, _that's_ how you always have your homework done so fast. I had wondered."

With a giggle, she squeezed his hands, then released them, lifting one hand to smooth down a wild section of his hair. She left the back cowlick alone, of course, a lifetime of experience with both Shinichi and Conan having taught her that some battles just couldn't be won. Her gesture was caring, delicate, and instead of returning promptly to her lap once she was done fussing, her hand hovered beside Shinichi's cheek, fingertips tracing his ear unthinkingly. "It all makes sense now," Ran murmured, thin glassy streaks of tears beginning to trace her cheeks once again. But the tear tracks swerved, drawn off-track by the high, friendly curves of her cheeks, rounded by her smile. "It all finally...this whole past year...Shinichi, it all makes sense again."

_Yeah, but when you start working through it, some parts are going to make you want to put me through a WALL,_ he thought, memories of a certain hot springs trip passing all-too-vividly through his mind. "That's-- good? I think? Ran?" Even with her eyes reddened and tear-tracks on her cheeks, she looked beautiful. No, she looked like _Ran._ And the memories of the girl and the childhood friend and the gangly middleschooler and the lethal karate champion all tangled in his head and his heart, melting and melding with Conan's Ran-neechan, who was as real as all the rest. "You'll let me stay?" He blew out his breath, almost a gasp of relief more than a sigh.

Her hand was still against his face, fingertip slipping along his cheekbone; Shinichi held it there with one of his own. "Ran, I can't promise this'll work," he said quietly. "I can't even promise you'll ever see me like this again; I mean, this isn't a cure, it's a temporary patch and that's all. Ai and the Professor, they're trying, but-- there's a really good possibility that I'll have to," and his voice faltered for a second, "grow up all over again. And there's the Black Organization and all the secrecy and... I'm not asking you to wait for me. Not again."

"But... will you work with me now? Not wait on the sidelines, not live for a promise or a maybe, just... will you help me? Like I am? Even if I can't make it back to where I was before?"

It was the hardest thing in a huge handful of hard things, one of the myriad possible questions Shinichi'd promised himself he'd ask Ran if she was willing to listen. Because, before she'd been anything else, before they'd become aware of each other as male and female and girl and boy and young woman and young man, they'd been friends. And a friend could ask another friend for help, couldn't they?

(_Chibitantei,_ whispered Kid's mocking voice in his mind, full of affectionate teasing. _Warm,_ said his own voice back, and Shinichi honestly couldn't say to whom the response was meant.)

Ran sat still, her thumb rubbing across the back of Shinichi's hand gently while she thought. After a moment, she glanced up, asking quietly for another glass of wine. Shinichi brought it for her, giving it carefully into her hands, and sat beside her again. Ran slipped her hand around his again, a firm and gentle grasp, and sipped her wine, watching her reflection in the surface of the rich liquid. Another sip, and she set the glass aside on the table. When she looked up her lips weren't any redder for having drunk the ruby liquor, but her cheeks were flushed, and when she spoke, Shinichi realized why.

"I don't know, Shinichi. I have to... If I'm nev-- If I'm not going to see you this way again for a long time, I have to... I want to... I..." Unbidden tears, again. But Ran had the peculiar ability to work through her tears without denying them, and without being weakened by them either.

"I don't mind waiting, Shinichi. I'll wait another ten years for you...twenty, if it takes that. And - I'm not saying I don't want to help you, that's not even...that's not even a question. I'll _always_ support you and help you. But... But...if this is going to be goodbye to _this_, at least for a while...then...Shinichi, can I...please..."

"Not goodbye yet," he said, wiping away tears with one finger. "Didn't you hear Ai? Twenty-something hours." And _then_ he kissed her.

It wasn't as if either of them had any experience or technique; but for a first kiss, it had shy enthusiasm and a lot of emotion behind it. Neither had anything to complain about, nor about the one that followed, nor about the one that followed that.

Outside in the hallway, possibly not quite as far away as they should have been, Ai looked at the Professor. "Ten minutes, and then we'll walk loudly," she whispered; and he nodded, following her at a tiptoe back towards the lab. Haibara'd always been the more practical of the two.

* * *

_Wheeew. Wild ride, and it's not even close to over; remember, the one and only trueism with Three Thieves is that once you believe you have a handle on things, they're subject to change. So please, keep reading, and let us know what you think, hm? Many Thanks........ Ysabet and Rednightengale_


	12. Hangover, mailbox, movie

_Good afternoon, and welcome once again to this week's installment of _**_Three Thieves_**_; we hope you're all ready to be entertained, confused, amazed, delighted, obfuscated, defenestrated, extrapolated, sliced, diced, served with a spicy vinaigrette dressing and-- _

_Wait, wait, that was last week's entry, wasn't it? Sorry. This week's entry will just be entertaining (we hope). Our apologies. ^__^ **edges away**_

_On with the show! Please remain in your seats until the performance has ended, and do let us know what you think, hmm? Thank you..... The Management_

* * *

_**Book Two, Chapter Four**__**: "hangover, mailbox, movie"**_

In the bedroom he shared with Kuroba Kaito, one internationally feared, renowned, and cursed jewel thief, Kaitou 1412, aka Kaitou Kid, was whining.

"Loud loud loud louuuuud," he moaned, covering his head with a pillow. Unfortunately, the noise he was suffering from wasn't the kind that could be blocked out with a pillow.

_Youuuuuu picked the alcohol,_ Kuroba sang gleefully at him, "stomping" around their mental shared space under the guise of doing a jig. _Youuuuu decided not to call it quits after twenty shots._

"I was weak! I have sinned! Benten, forgive me! Oh, for luck's sake, my HEAD." Mumbling obscenities, Kid stuffed a knuckle into each of his ears, trying to plug them up; even the swish of water through the pipes of the house seemed to pain him.

Mercifully, Kuroba came to a halt somewhere around the midpoint of the mental room, smooth wooden paneling below his feet, brightly polished mirrors to his right. The ceiling above was high, but he pushed it higher, then mirrored it, both with no more than a thought. Interior decorating had a different definition when you shared headspace.

Outside their head, Kid flopped over onto his back, again sprawled on their broad queen-size bed -- the only place in the mansion that he felt comfortable in talking openly to his other half, despite repeated assurances from Jintarou that the staff had been selected with the most selective of confidential personalities in mind. Looking up at the blissfully plain, stationary, uncomplicated ceiling, Kid threw one arm across his brow with a sigh, wiping some of the sweat from his skin as he did.

"Oh thank luck, thank Benten, thank everything. Kuroba, I don't care what they say about you, you really...are...oh, wait. Wait wait wait _wauuuuugh_, stoppit, stoppit, oh FOR LUCK'S SAKE, KUROBA, _put down the fire!_"

Kuroba smiled angelically, bringing his five flaming juggling pins down from their double arc pattern and collecting them calmly in his hands, fingers splayed around their necks. The fat bottoms of the pins, wrapped in incendiaries and dunked in oil, burned merrily, the intensity of the bright flames made even more glaring by the chemicals lacing the cloths and twine wrapped around the pins. Acid-bright green, pink, and orange flames, so much more visually distracting and jarring, twined around each other, one color to each pin, reflecting chaotically off of the mirrored ceiling and wall, blinding Kid from the inside out.

_Down? Why should I put it down? I'll burn our varnish._ He thumped the wooden tiling for emphasis, and the dulled thuds made Kid's head throb.

Kid moaned pathetically, rolling back over and burying his face in his pillows. "Oh, gods and goddesses, why in the name of all that's blessed am I stuck with a _Magician_ for a headmate?"

_Because I got stuck with a drunkard Fool,_ Kuroba cheerily responded. _Except you're not really much of a drunk at all. Except when you get depressed, and then the next morning, I get to practice my circus magic!_

"You are a sadist."

_Naw. I would be the High Priest if that were so,_ Kuroba shrugged, before launching the pins ceilingward once again.

A few minutes passed in glitteringly obnoxious silence, before Kuroba glanced 'at' Kid and smirked. _Figure anything out when you found the bottom of the bottle last night?_

"I would have greater faith in your earnesty if you would _desist with the shiny,_" Kid grumbled. "And no. Save that I am completely, utterly, fucked." He glanced to the window, the half-open curtains of which showed a cheery midmorning sky. "I hope Chibitantei is doing okay with Mouri-san."

_You're not worried?_

"Worried? Of course I am! It would be bad if she killed him."

_What if she doesn't want to?_

Kid sighed, rolling onto his side. His head sloshed, and he winced, moving much more slowly to tuck his knees up against his chest. "To be completely honest, I hope it goes splendidly. I hope it goes beyond splendidly."

Kuroba snorted, passing two of the pins behind his back. They spun over his head and back into his hands; then he repeated the pattern. The pins drew a flaming figure eight in an arc over his head. _Despite your contradictory interests?_

"Nearly because of them, magician. Those two have a history."

_A __history,__ even?_

"Fair enough."

Kuroba paused, letting the pins collect in his hands again, and studied Kid contemplatively. _What says that you and Kudo can't have a history, too?_

"...Go back to your goddamn juggling," Kid groused, burying his head under the pillow once more. Kuroba shrugged, stood on one leg, and tossed his pins skyward again.

* * *

"Make a fist, please; good. Blood pressure is one-sixty over ninety-eight, still somewhat hypertensive. Adult weight is up one point eight-seven kilos..."

Kudo Shinichi was experiencing a rather strong bout of déjà vu. "Didn't we do this already?" he asked a little desperately. It had been bad enough seeing the Professor dabbing at his eyes sentimentally over himself and Ran, but having Haibara knock theatrically on the doorjamb and say _Finished yet?_ in that tone of hers... And now he had to just sit there with his shirt off and let them play doctor.

While Ran watched.

Fighting the flush that he just _knew_ was creeping along his all-too-visible face and neck and everything else, Shinichi looked pleadingly at Agasa. "Any chance of breakfast, Professor?" It was still fairly early, and his transformed body had informed him in no uncertain terms that it was starving; even now, a hopeful rumble that ended on an almost plaintive whine made itself known.

Typing figures into a handheld datapad, the older man chuckled. "Of course, Shinichi, of course. For both of you-- Ran-chan, you couldn't've had time for breakfast yourself." His smile turned apologetic. "It's a pity we can't go out somewhere, but, hrrm, well. Not possible." He shrugged slightly, fingers flying.

True enough; that was the problem with coming back from the dead, even in the most figurative sense... If you wanted your enemies to believe that you were still among the deceased, then showing your face at a local restaurant wasn't the best way to do it. Or on the streets, for that matter, or in any kind of public anywhere; he'd made that mistake before and very nearly not gotten away with it.

_Hell of a way to celebrate. I'd like to take Ran out someplace nice. And I wish..._

There'd been a thought lingering in his mind-- a stupid, ridiculous, selfish thought, totally unrealistic and impossible, but one Shinichi was having a lot of trouble banishing. It had its seeds in the list of who-might-know-about-Conan that he'd reeled off, in his one deliberate omission: Kid, of course. Why?

Tugging the red sweater back over his head (and tugging it vainly down over his protruding wristbones-- great, having a growth spurt and a _growth spurt_ coincide, very weird), the teenager poked a little randomly at the tangle of impulses that had prompted the omission. Protectiveness, that was understandable; a touch of guilt, check; a dislike of even mentioning the thief anywhere outside secure surroundings, right... and, oddly enough, a twisty little need to keep their friendship to himself, locked away and separate.

And yet, there was that wish... most probably born out of the euphoria of coming clean: the desire to have Ran and Kid meet. It kept intruding; try as he might, Shinichi couldn't quite banish it. _Stupid; where's your brain, Kudo? That's not part of the arrangement; he wouldn't appreciate it, any more than you'd feel comfortable being dragged into the middle of whatever Kuroba's got going on with Nakamori's daughter. Use that mind of yours... What's that thing Kasan used to say? 'If wishes were fishes we'd swim in the sea'? --Okay, maybe not THAT saying, considering the subject, but still._

He winced as a stab of pain shot through one knee, wobbling a bit as he slid off the exam table. "Joint aches?" asked Ai, one eyebrow tilting. "To be expected, but be careful. Your temperature's a little higher than normal too; be sure to drink as much liquid as possible right up until you reach the risk zone." She hopped down off her stool, almost comical in her diminutive slightness (unless she was holding a syringe; there was nothing comical about Ai with a syringe), gathering up clipboard and notes with brisk efficiency. "I'll get breakfast started; you two come along when you're ready."

Which, of course, left him alone with Ran again, who'd been very quiet since they began the exam. A little shyly he glanced at her, feeling an involuntary smile curving his mouth; her hair was slightly mussed. And he knew why, too; that had been from _his fingers,_ sliding through, the first time he'd ever had the nerve to do any such thing. "Ready for breakfast?" he asked.

"Famished," she admitted, flushing as she realized what he was smiling at. Anxious hands reached quickly to pat down the tangled section of her hair while she tried her best to keep her blush from spreading. But Shinichi's hands in her hair, cupped around the back of her neck to hold her close to him while they kissed, had been so gentle and caring..._loving_, even, that it was very hard to resist the urge to replay that recent memory, to maybe imagine what it might have been like if that red sweater she'd bought him had been her pillow, instead of covering him...

Flaming red now, Ran stared fixedly at her fists on her knees. "I-I-I wonder if I should go help Professor Agasa with breakfast--"

Shinichi felt the smile tip over into a grin. "Not unless you can produce a second microwave out've thin air-- he's big on the nuke-it-til-it-goes-ding! kinds of food. Ai cooks sometimes and she's been really pushing the healthy stuff, but I think they live mostly on frozen or takeout." He leaned back against the table, hands clasping the cold metal to either side; it felt so strange, seeing everything from his height-- disorienting, really, instead of familiar. "Anyway," he added teasingly, "right now they can take their time. Know what, Ran?"

She blinked. "What?"

"You look a lot better from this angle than you did when I was--" He held out a hand at waist-level, mock-frowned, and dropped it a few centimeters. "Adults look so WEIRD from down there. Not that I minded, much; but this is a lot better." And he simply leaned back and _looked_ at her, just looked.

From the right height, from the right eyes, from the right viewpoint. At last, even if it was temporary.

Ran flushed, then rallied herself; with her characteristic confidence, she leaned forward, hands on her knees pivoting to wing her elbows out in a challenging pose. "Oh? I think I like it better when you're not looking up my nose at me! I think you - well you --" Conceding the fact that she didn't seem to be able to finish her sentence while staring at Shinichi like that, Ran stood up and brushed her skirt off matter-of-factly, and stepped forward so she was right in front of him.

"Well!" And then _she_ kissed _him._

Ran was a fast learner; the tentative kisses of earlier had proven that, and there was more confidence in how her hands settled on his collar, pulling him down so that they were on the same level. Still shy, still hesitant; Shinichi was too, but she was warm and soft and strong, and if they didn't have much time left then this was the best thing to use it for, wasn't it?

"I missed you," she said, breath against his lips, not pulling away. "Even if you were here, I missed you."

"I - ahm - _Ran,_" Shinichi managed, before pressing forward for another kiss. One hand behind her head to hold her close, Shinichi caught Ran's hand as she brought it up in halfhearted protest, weaving his fingers with hers and holding on tight. With their hands folded together at their chins, as though in prayer, Shinichi kissed Ran and wished for a way to make their scant twenty hours last longer.

They jumped apart at the sound of rapping at the door. Shinichi's head swung to the open doorway, seeing no-one; Ran, heart fluttering, looked as well, then glanced back at Shinichi.

"I have no idea," he began, before the rapping interrupted them again. Placing it better this time, Shinichi - with mild disorientation - swiveled around in place to peer up at the small window in the back wall of the room, directly over the exam table he sat on. Shielded by the constant greenery of pines, the tiny window had an even tinier sill, and a somewhat out-of-scale dove perched on that sill, rapping at the glass for all that she was worth. "She," of course, because Shinichi recognized her as Keeta - Kid's dusty rose dove.

"Oh," he said.

"That's a... Does the Professor keep pet birds?" asked Ran, baffled, because why else would a bird be obviously trying to gain entrance? The dove tapped again, ruffling her wings impatiently.

"Long story," murmured Shinichi, popping open the window. "Come here, it's okay, it's just me, shhhh..." The dove shied back slightly, but allowed herself to be lured in and soothed; he stroked her breastfeathers gently, smiling. "She doesn't belong to the Professor, but she..... um....."

Now, how the _hell_ was he going to explain _THIS_ one? It was almost worse than drugs and guns and so forth.

His stomach chose that moment to growl rudely, startling the bird. Scratching the tiny feathered head with a fingernail, Shinichi sighed. "Ran? Can I just say that it's a **really** long story and tell you that one later? So we can eat? I need to send her back-- oh; her name's Keeta, by the way." There was a message-capsule attached to one leg, of course; he popped it free and unrolled the slip of paper as he spoke.

_Shinichi -_

_Because I hope that's who I'm talking to, in body as well as mind -_

_If the drugs killed you, please inform Haibara that I'll be along to wreak my revenge on her for taking away my one good playmate._

_If not, please send your second out to check the mailbox. If you choose to accept them, the tools for a day's escape are concealed within....but promise me you'll only use them if it wouldn't trouble Mouri-san too much for you to do so._

_If she __does__ feel it's a fair price to pay for the chance, Mouri-san may find herself rewarded by the other little present I've left for you two. In the mailbox again. If the choice is unacceptable, the passes can be exchanged for any other _divertissement_ of equal value (which means sorry, you can't go see that one that just came out this weekend.)_

_And lastly, don't worry about duplicating anything...I promise you, your doppelganger will be quite occupied for the window of hours intended. But not far away at all._

There was no signature, nor Kid doodle - but it was very clearly Kid's handwriting.

Shinichi allowed the thin paper to roll back up, brain reeling; half of him was going _He did what? Wait, what? He arranged a way for me to what? YES I CAN GO OUT, OH THANK GOD. Only I'm going to have to tell Ran something, he HAS to know that, but he--!!_

...while the rest was hiding beneath the nearest piece of furniture and muttering _Please don't let this involve me wearing a skirt. Please._

He shook off the notion and looked up, still absentmindedly smoothing Keeta's feathers, to find Ran staring at him apprehensively. "Shinichi? The last time I saw a dove-- a trained dove-- was in the park," she said with a certain trepidation. "And it had to do with the Kaitou Kid. Did he just send you a heist-notice?" She sounded more than a little bewildered, and he shook his head quickly.

"No! No-- it's, uh, part of that 'long story' thing." Shinichi scratched his head, allowing Keeta to sidle up his arm until she sat firmly beneath one ear. "I promise I'll explain, but... could you do me a favor? Go check Agasa's mailbox, okay? Please?"

With an unconfident glance at Keeta - who cooed and began to nibble Shinichi's ear - Ran skittered out the doorway to do so, apprehensively checking over her shoulder as she left until the hallway bent and took her out of sight. Shinichi settled down on the edge of the exam table to wait, disengaging Keeta's beak from his earlobe, and tried not to fidget in nervousness.

It struck him, rather belatedly, that he'd just sent his _girlfriend_ best friend out to open a small enclosed box which had certainly been tampered with by the Kaitou Kid, without _any_ idea what was in that box.

_Please don't let her get a gas capsule,_ he grumbled, reconsidering his choice of company. Nice, normal, ordinary people didn't have crazy people for friends. Realizing that, Shinichi frowned. Man, being an ordinary person must be boring.

At that point, Ran returned, breathless. She'd clearly run the way back from the mailbox, and unfortunately gathered some lookers-on as she did. Agasa walked into the exam room behind Ran, who carried a mostly flat cloth-wrapped package big enough that she was supporting it with both forearms to keep it level. "The note said not to shake it too much," she explained, handing the bundle over into Shinichi's arms.

The bundle was wrapped like a bento lunch, in one flat cloth with its corners tied in the top center, and a small sheet of stationary - printed with an excess of green clovers - advised just what Ran had reported. Additionally, it read:

_Make sure to read all the instructions, not-so-chibitantei. I didn't pack you any spares._

Shinichi closed his eyes. "Okay. First thing to remember: this is from a friend. Second thing to remember? He's crazy." Very, very carefully he undid the knot and drew back the edges, and only _then_ did he open his eyes.

There was a makeup brush.

Okay, wait. Shinichi focused on the whole package, and then the brush made sense. There was a makeup brush, the big fat kind, carefully nestled on top, where it wouldn't get squished. Beneath and beside it were shapes of latex rubber, irregularly textured and weirdly shaped, each of them within its own cellophane envelope. Adhesive and solvent packages, tiny enough for one application, lay beside those. Underneath the brush, a small compact of makeup colors and shades, and a folded note. Actually, now that he focused, _everything_ had a small folded note attached to it, from the brush to the facial prosthetics to the clothing (casual jeans and two layers of shirts, clean but worn-in, and not his style at all) folded neatly beneath the disguise material, and the sneakers (a different brand and tread pattern than his own) paired carefully beneath that. A square of cardboard on the bottom of the whole assembly made it stable and easy for carrying; tucked into the shoes were a pot of gel-format hair dye and (incongruously) a tube of unflavored mens' chapstick.

Shinichi sat back from the array of implements, laid out across the exam table beside him, and boggled.

Ran, on the other hand, was slightly more vocal. "This... friend of yours? Likes disguises, keeps trained doves, sends mysterious notes?" She fixed him with exactly the kind of stare she'd been using on Conan for nearly a year when he'd tried to tell a few of his less believable whoppers, and Shinichi wilted.

"I, um..."

"And he's given you--" Delicately she lifted the makeup brush, flicking the soft bristles against her palm, "a present? Just what _does_ that note say?" Before he could do more than open his mouth she had twitched it from his fingers; on Shinichi's shoulder, Keeta made a disapproving sound.

Ran scanned the page quickly, her pretty eyes narrowing as she read; she flipped it over but found nothing on the back, and so returned her attention to the message. After reading it a second time, gears visibly turning in her head, she handed the note back to Shinichi and darted out the door of the exam room, past Agasa.

The men watched her go. "Ahm, Shinichi? D'y think I--"

"Yeah, I can handle this," Shinichi said, waving assurance at the scientist. _Though, really, I probably can't._ "Go on, I'll be okay."

With a mutter, Agasa left.

Poking through the bundle, the teenager carefully examined each item with a sort of horrified interest. There was a definite pattern to the prosthetics, the clothing, the makeup; it all pointed to a very specific look. _Not that Kid'd be sloppy about this, even working with an amateur,_ thought Shinichi as he held a cellophane envelope up to the light. _And... he meant it as a gift; not a joke, a... Ran had it right; a present._ The word could mean 'current moment' as well as a gift, of course; just the kind of play on word you'd expect.

He'd flipped open the note a moment or two before Ran's footsteps sounded at the door again; she was out of breath, carrying a small envelope in one hand. At his inquiring look, she held it up.

"It -- I peeked, sorry, Shinichi. It's movie tickets. For tonight, for a movie at the theater, with popcorn included and everything. And inside, look." Ran held out the envelope for Shinichi's perusal. Within were the two vouchers, just as she'd said; besides that, on the inside of the envelope, revealed by the removal of the tickets, was a short message:

_Only if you can see through his masks, Mouri-san._

They studied the message in silence together, Ran perching on the side of the table beside Shinichi, chin pillowed on her own knuckles, the fingertips of which rested hesitantly on the crest of his shoulder, allowing her to curl closely beside him without quite admitting to it. After a moment, Ran snickered, burying the sound in the knit of Shinichi's sweater.

"Shinichi...is the Kaitou Kid...setting us up on a date?"

He nodded.

"Really?"

Nod, nod.

"Why?"

_Because... he wants to? Because he can? Because he-- you don't say 'he has a good heart' about somebody you try to shoot with anesthetic darts and catch and put in jail, right?_

Instead, Shinichi turned his head and rested his chin on top of Ran's head, closing his eyes and breathing in her scent. "Because he's my friend," he said softly, and it was the truth.

Silence, peaceful and complete; neither moved for a moment... until tiny, forgotten pink feet began to step their way delicately from Shinichi's shoulder onto Ran's ear and up her hair, one clawful at a time. She made a small, inelegant squeak; "Shhh, she won't hurt you, will you, Keeta?" Keeta meeped back, scaling Mount Ran until she reached the next ascent. Her feet were warm and scratchy as she struggled up Shinichi's shorter hair, at last reaching the summit with a triumphant flutter of wings.

From the doorway there was a sudden click and flash; startled, three pairs of eyes fixed on the small blonde holding a camera, who lowered it with a satisfied look. "For posterity," said Ai smoothly, and if they hadn't caught the brief glint of her smile as she turned away they would never have known it was there.

Ran snickered, sitting up straight, and made an inexperienced attempt at petting Keeta - who suffered it with only a small squawk of complaint - before brushing herself off perfunctorily and standing up. "Well. Since I think we know what we're doing tonight, let's leave these things here and go find something to do around here until then, okay? This room is too cramped."

"And you'll be back in it for an hourly exam in....thirty four minutes," Ai added. Shinichi groaned.

"Breakfast?" said a voice from behind Ai; Agasa poked his head hopefully into the room, holding a donut. Without even looking, Ai's small hand shot up and took it from him. The gray-haired scientist sighed, crestfallen. "Poptarts, pastries and..." Ai dropped the donut into a trashbin by the door with a pointed _thud._ "...No poptarts, no pastries. Rice and eggs? Toast? And coffee, decaffinated, of course." Agasa beamed at his guests with a virtuous I-never-touch-the-stuff smile before sliding his gaze up to Keeta. "Will your, ehrm, guest be joining us, Shin-chan?"

"She'd like toast," he responded solemnly. "But no eggs, that'd be cannibalism." Beside him Ran snickered again and the five left the small room behind for breakfast.

* * *

"So... what about the Shonen Tantei? What're they like when you're one of them?"

Breakfast was long over; Shinichi and Ran were sprawling in front of Agasa's widescreen TV, paying very little attention to whatever happened to be on the screen. It had been predicted (correctly) by Ai that her human guinea pig would be almost constantly hungry, fueling the process that kept his body from reverting back to its more condensed state. So, high-protein energy drink in hand and a bowlful of something resembling rodent chow ("It's granola. Just _eat_ it, Kudo-kun") beside him, Shinichi crunched thoughtfully and considered the question.

"Most of the time? Exasperating, loud, as distractable as a cat with a piece of string... and really bright. Terrifyingly bright." He sighed with contentment, stretching out his long legs and propping his feet on the table opposite. The young detective regarded those selfsame feet smugly; _Couldn't do that this time yesterday,_ he thought, flexing his toes back and forth inside his old pair of housescuffs, fished out of Agasa's storage after so long. _Or not without stretching, anyway._ "Some of that's because I've trained them, and yeah, I do recognize the irony. But a lot of it's because they're three intelligent, inquisitive kids. Mostly they're pretty typical, pretty normal-- they fight like cats in a bag, Mitsuhiko wants arcade games, Genta wants to stuff his face, Ayumi wants to boss us around... and that's good, that's how they ought to be. They need that normalcy to balance against the other stuff, because--" (he crunched another mouthful) "--most kids their age don't see dead bodies several times a month."

Shinichi swallowed, shifting a little; his aches and pains were still very present and not quite ignorable. His skin felt weird, oversensitive and oddly thin; there were peculiar jolts of heat along his spine and hips every now and then, radiating outwards through muscle and bone. But oh, it was worth it, it was _so_ worth it.

Beside him, Ran grimaced. "I worry about that sometimes," she murmured, stealing a handful of his granola; she examined it for a second and then tossed it back into the bowl.

"Me too. But little kids are resiliant, and _these_ kids-- Murders still creep them out, but they're... enthusiastic about them. Creeps ME out. You know they take along packs of child-sized plastic gloves in their schoolbags now?"

"You started them on that, Mister Tantei-sama," floated Ai's voice from around the corner where she sat reading. "That was _your_ idea."

"I know, and they took to it like ducks to water. Not that I mind, but..." Shinichi grinned in a mixture of pride and embarrassment. "You know what Ayumi said the other day? She watches that detective series, _Kiina - Impossible Crime,_ and she got annoyed because Haruse-san picked up a weapon at a crime-scene." He mimicked the little girl's voice: _"'CONAN-kun, you told us NEVER to pick up guns or knives, she messed up the PRINTS.'_ It was funny. I think she wants to be Kiina when she grows up."

"You watch it too," Ran pointed out, and her brow furrowed. "Um. Conan-kun does. I mean... I let him-- you-- stay up on Thursday nights..." Her voice trailed off as Shinichi snickered. "You know what I mean!"

"Yes, Ran-neechan," he answered meekly. "--ow! Ow! Ran, quit it!"

* * *

"...so that was Kid the whole time?"

"Well, it sure wasn't me. I was right there with you, remember? Short and annoying as ever."

"I don't know about that." Ran frowned, remembering, as she stroked her thumb across the back of Shinichi's hand. "There was this one moment where Co... where you took off your glasses and your voice sounded serious, and you just looked...you looked so much like normal, and I swear, I was about two _seconds_ from crying," and here she punched him in the shoulder, twice, and wiping the mistiness from her eyes while he winced from her, "And - and then it was Shinichi in the doorway again, all soaked from the rain, and..." Ran sighed, narrowing her expression. "And then he was gone again, and you were out on the step watching the sky, and all I could think was that I didn't _know_ where you were, at that point. I wasn't sure that you'd left and I wasn't sure that you'd ever been there to start with. I was so confused that it hurt."

_Ooogh._ Guilt poked its pitchfork at Shinichi, a very unwelcome demon on his shoulder. "You know the first time I almost told you?" he asked her hastily, trying to think of ways to make Ran's smile return. "We were on the shinkansen and there was that thing with the bomb in the woman's briefcase-- you remember?" She nodded. "I started keeping track-- here, I'll show you." He dug into one pocket, pulling out the wallet he'd stuffed in there earlier; a thin bankbook was extracted, and Shinichi flipped it open to the yearly calendar. "Check out all the places I've circled; those were days I nearly came clean... and then didn't, for whatever reason." He made a face. "They were usually good reasons, but-- anyway."

Ran perused the calendar, her fingertip tracing through the weeks and months since Shinichi had first been shrunk. She paused in the middle of spring, where two days in a row were circled. "What was this one?"

Shinichi blushed furiously, taking the bankbook back. "Th-that was just a trip we went on, and--"

Realization hit Ran like a hammer, and her eyes flew wide along with her squeak of shock, as she flushed to match Shinichi. "That was the onsen trip! Oh my--"

"_To my credit,_" Shinichi rushed to protest, edging away from Ran as quickly as he could while not spilling his food and drink, "I tried _rather desperately_ to get out of that situation!"

Ran fishmouthed at him, blinking frequently as though each blink shuffled through a mental stack of polaroid memories, all of which - far from fading with time - were now displayed in somewhat more lurid detail to her memory than when they were made. "I - ah - oh my god! Oh my --" Cheeks flaming red, Ran buried her face in her hands and began to shake. Against his better judgment, Shinichi reversed direction and edged closer again, setting aside the protein drink and granola bowl so he could set one hand on her shoulder hesitantly.

"Ah...Ran? A-are you okay?"

Ran brought her hands down and lifted her face, which was tracked with tears and still very red from embarrassment - and was split wide in a lunatic grin and silent mirth. Giggling uncontrollably, she tipped forward to lean against Shinichi's shoulder and let her laughter grow in volume, giddy and perhaps a little frantic.

"I wondered --" More giggles. "Why little Conan-kun was _sooooo_ desperate -- to bathe -- on the boys' side! I just wouuuuldn't -- take no for an answer, either!" A peal of laughter flattened her against the couch cushions and Shinichi's shoulder, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I really -- I really asked for this one, didn't I?"

Shinichi sighed in unspeakable relief; she wasn't going to strangle him, she wasn't fleeing in outrage because he'd seen her naked. _And it isn't like she didn't see __me__ too--_ The thought stopped him in his tracks, suddenly twisting around in a way it wouldn't have if he'd still been Conan-sized, Conan-shaped...

_Oh my god she saw me stark naked too. Stark. Naked. Like __THAT__. All-- all-- __**OH MY GOD.**_ Totally mortified as only a healthy adult male can be, it was _Shinichi_ who fled and spent a little quality time in the bathroom, hyperventilating and red-faced before he could calm down enough to return.

* * *

"...and you just push this...right here? Is that -- ohmygosh!" Startled, Ran jumped back in her seat, dropping the shoe she held. Shinichi caught it before it hit the ground, grinning.

"Yeah. It's not gonna hurt you, Ran, the sparks are just a little energy spillage from the main generator." He tapped the toe of Conan's shoe with his palm, three times, and it settled into silence. "This is the only way I can kick things with any kind of force when I'm that little."

"So the shoes...go with the belt, right?" Ran tapped the belt buckle that lay on the couch cushion beside her, careful to avoid the launch button on its side.

"Right. Though, I really can kick anything that's handy with them; I just have the belt so that I always _will_ have something handy." Shinichi shrugged, proud despite himself. With Agasa's help, he really had made the best of his situation as Conan, and being able to show off the tools of his trade, so to speak, to someone who would appreciate them was a rewarding thing in and of itself.

_Guess this is how Kid feels when he shows off for me,_ he realized, tucking the thought away until later.

"So there's the glasses, and the belt, and the shoes," Ran summarized. "That still seems like it's missing something, though. You have a weapon for distance, if someone's far away from you; but what if someone gets too close? You throw yourself into all sorts of crazy situations without even thinking about it, but Shinichi, when you're like that you're still just a kid! And somebody might hurt you..." Wrapping her arms across her chest, Ran leaned into the cushions, frowning as she studied the pieces of Conan's equipment in front of her. "I'm going to worry about you _so much_ now, you know that? Even more than I used to. Because now it's not just Conan-kun that I'll be worrying about, it's Shinichi, also."

He studied the shoes; it was easier than looking her in the face as he answered. "Can't help it, Ran," Shinichi answered unhappily, feeling his conversation with Kid from the Italian restaurant echoing in the words. "I know. I've been shot, knocked out, shoved off balconies, almost stabbed... I know." The scar from his bullet-wound hadn't remained its original size; it had stretched along with his skin, becoming a jagged splash of whitish tissue, more alarming than it had ever looked in its more diminutive form, and Ran had seen it - and been upset by it - when Ai took measurements for his hourly checkups.

"I'm sorry. I'll do my best not to get hurt... but you know I won't quit. Can't." Shinichi drew in a breath, blew it out in a sigh. "And hey, better me than one of the Shonen Tantei, right? That's why Agasa won't make shoes for _them._" From the other side of the room, the Professor nodded soberly.

Ran sighed, stroking her hair back from her face with one hand. "Still. I just wish you had something...something more direct, you know? Just in case you get in a pinch."

"Well, I have the locator chip in my glasses, so Agasa and Ai could find me if they needed to; and the Shonen Tantei radio badge, too." Ran gave him a Look, and he wilted. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Agasa cleared his throat, a certain warning light in his eyes; and Shinichi sighed. "--okay," he conceded to the older man's unspoken hint. "Just a second." A minute's rummaging around among his belongings in the back bedroom, and a certain red bowtie lay on the coffeetable along with a watch. "There's these. You're maybe not going to be so happy about them, but I said I'd explain."

"Shinichi..." Ran's tone was warning enough. "What are these?"

"Ahem." Somewhat nervously, he picked up the bowtie and flipped it over, revealing the dials on the back. He adjusted them, turned the device on, then held the bowtie up in front of Ran's mouth. "Say something."

"Shinichi, wha--_oh my god._" Ran's suspicion was replaced by complete shock, and she took the bowtie from Shinichi with careful hands. "How the--"

He smiled wryly, daring so far as to wrap one arm around Ran's shoulders so he could reach the bowtie's controls on both sides. "That setting's my favorite. It's the one I used second-most," he explained, tweaking the dials as he talked. His cheek was companionably close to Ran's, and the heat from her gentle blush made him smile. Across the room, Agasa was abruptly very busy with a magazine. "That one's how I could call you with my own voice every once in a while. There's a phone booth outside your dad's agency..." At Ran's gasp, he chuckled. "Yeah. Hmm, here's another one you might like. Try it."

Ran held the bow up to her mouth and, with a glance of uncertainty at Shinichi, spoke nonsense into the microphone. It came out the other side with the nasal, sharp tones of Suzuki Sonoko, and despite herself, Ran giggled with surprise. "Oh wow! Can it do my voice, too?"

Shinichi took the bow back, detangling himself from Ran, and after a brief adjustment, held it up. "Of course it can, Ran-chan," he said. The creepifying quality of hearing her own name _in_ her own voice made Ran shiver, wide-eyed.

"This is incredible! Agasa-sensei, did you make this?" she asked, and the scientist looked up from his reading.

"Ah, yes, I did," he said, nodding, "Though Shin-chan had to perform the calibration, to get all the voices right. It's an analog setting, so there's a lot of fiddle room."

Ran took the bowtie back, speaking into it as she twirled the dials. "Ah la la la la la la," she sang, giggling as she heard her voice travel the vocal spectrum, from obaachan to toddler, woman to man. Watching her, Shinchi smiled with fondness, and glanced across the room at Agasa.

"Professor, if you wouldn't mind...?"

"Ah, no problem at all, Shinichi, just make sure --"

"I'll tell her," Shinichi promised, waving Agasa on. When he'd gone, Ran looked from the doorway to Shinichi.

"Tell me what?" Some of the suspicion had come back into her eyes, and Shinichi reached across to smooth out her frowning brows with his thumb.

"Ah le le," he murmured, "Don't make that face, Ran. You just looked so cute when you were singing at the bowtie..."

Ran flushed a little, wagging the device at him warningly. "I was just playing with it! You don't have to--"

"I know," Shinichi smiled, closing his hand around hers, bowtie and all, as he leaned in to kiss her again. When they finally pulled apart, Shinichi breathless, Ran smug, her expression was querulous.

"What was that for?"

"Just because," Shinichi explained, kissing her again briefly. "I never thought I'd be able to - to tell you all of this, and here we are, and I've told you nearly everything, and we're _playing_ with my bowtie. I just --" He shook his head, voice soft and awed. "I was starting to think I'd never get to be like this with you again. Or that if I ever did tell you, you'd never want to speak to me again for lying to you."

Ran grinned. "Shi-ni-chi," she sang, "You baka. I wouldn't stop speaking to you just because you lied to me for a whole year, left me waiting with absolutely no explanation and no reassurance that you were okay, that things were going okay with your case, that you would ever be back, or even what your case was _about_, and all the while were running around perfectly safe under my nose, giving me headaches from having to constantly fish you out of crime scenes and murder situations, freeloading on Tousan and myself for food and bed, leading other legitimately small children into a life of danger and proper criminal procedure...." Ran's smile was clear as sunshine, which in Shinichi's opinion, made her all the more scary.

"W-well that's good to know?" he ventured. Ran's eyes twinkled.

"Isn't it? I bet you're also going to _love_ the new bedtime that I'm going to give Conan...and the curfew...and the chores..."

".....THAT IS SO UNFAIR."

"Really?" She held up the bowtie meaningfully. "Phonecalls. _Lots of phonecalls._ Do I really need to say anything else? Or would you like me to go through each one of them? I keep lists too." Her smile could have graced a plaster saint... or been used to break bricks. Shinichi cast around rather desperately for something, practically anything, a new subject--

_Oh. Oh yeah--_ "Um... here, can I see that for a sec? I didn't-- I mean, there's-- you can create new settings, program them in. Like this." Hoping to provide something distractable enough (and keep himself at least a _little_ ways out of the doghouse), Shinichi clicked a few tiny controls on the bowtie's settings before turning the dial again. It really was a marvel of miniature engineering... "Watch this," he murmured, scaling it to a setting he'd never had opportunity to try, or at least not in public. "Ahem. Professor? I believe we need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow."

Shinichi's altered tones, childishly light and feminine though in a lower register than one might expect, had their results: Ai's head popped up like a meerkat's from where she had curled up with her laptop on one of the Professor's enormous chairs. For a moment she stared indignantly, her usual dignity slipping entirely. Then, deadpan:

_"Extra_ blood tests in twenty minutes. And possibly a core temperature reading." Her head vanished behind the chair back, leaving the other two to digest this.

Shinichi snorted. "As if." He fiddled with the settings again, trying for something he'd considered earlier but had yet to try out. "Ah... no, not right... testing, testing, testing... noooooo..... testing... OH yeah." His laugh, a little softer and more breathy than usual, modulated into a careful, controlled tenor.

"Ladies and gentlemen -- _showtime!"_ And he laughed again. It wasn't quite right, but it was pretty close, all things considered. Beside him, Ran stiffened slightly. "Here, want to try?"

She took the device a little dubiously, considering her earlier enthusiasm; it perched in her fingers like a butterfly, thin antennae upraised. "We still need to talk about him, don't we," Ran murmured, and the peculiar mismatch of Kid's voice and her questioning eyes made most of the laughter drain out of Shinichi's face. Around went the dial, tiny marks ticking past the pointer; it was easier for her to calibrate it than for Shinichi now-- his large fingers found the delicate controls a little difficult to manipulate.

"How long've you been friends?" she asked softly in Kisaki Eri's voice, modulating the tone out and away from her mother's voice into something new and unfamiliar. "I didn't expect that. I remember the time you chased him-- I mean, you, like--" Ran waved her free hand vaguely; the dial clicked again. "Something about helicopters and a clock and diamonds; you were pretty useless at school for _days,_ and you kept doodling little drawings of hangliders on your schoolwork. Then nothing for a long time until..." the hand dropped, flat out at a meter above ground even as the young woman's voice spiraled down in tone with it to match Mouri Kogoro's. Shinichi winced, but nodded.

"That first time, Nakamori-keibu didn't want you there; I remember that too." Fingers moved behind the bowtie again, nails sliding the secondary control over into a higher register again, though still in the male range; _clickclickclickCLACK,_ and now the preset of Heiji's voice without his usual Kansai dialect replaced the Sleeping Detective's raspy growl. "And you never... Conan never seemed interested in any other thief, just Kaitou Kid-san." The honorific came off as distinctly strange; with a shock, Shinichi realized that he'd never used it even once.

'Kid-san'. It sounded... odd. Unaccustomed. Wrong, like calling Ran 'Mouri-san' would. What did that say about him?

"Shinichi? I do want to hear about your, um, about... that 'long story' and all, but first-- what's your watch do?"

_**Uh**__-oh..._

From the other side of the room, Ai snickered, then poked her head up over the top of the chair she was sitting in. She was probably standing on her tiptoes to do so, but from Shinichi's perspective, she looked like nothing less menacing than a surfacing shark. "Very nice, Mouri-san," Ai chuckled, resting her chin on her hands across the back of the chair. "That's another one of the Professor's little toys, isn't it, Shinichi?" Damage done, she receded back into her seat, leaving Shinichi sweating bullets on the couch beside Ran.

"Well, it, ah," he began, then as Ran picked up the watch itself and began to poke at its sides: "**Don't--!** Ah." Gathering it carefully from her hands, he sheepishly faced her extremely suspicious expression. "Ahm. I can explain."

She gave him a Look. "Don't tell me, it's some sort of Secret Decoder Ring-- um, watch." At his expression, Ran's own grew even more deeply suspicious. "Shinichi? If you were Conan right now I'd wonder what you'd broken in the kitchen. _Talk."_

Very gently he depressed the trigger on the side-- not the firing mechanism, but the little one that flipped the crosshairs-screen into place. "It's a... gun, sort of. Fires anesthetic darts; they induce sleep almost immediately. Very, very deep sleep." He sighed. "Like... what your father goes into, when he solves cases."

Ran blinked, tension lines appearing between her eyes. "...You know. I had this instinct that you were somehow to blame for Dad going crazy...well, crazier than before...but I didn't think you would be quite so _directly_ at-fault as this." She sighed, plucking the watch from his fingers, and held it up with one hand, turning and aiming it with the other. "So how'd I fire? Just this little button right heeeeeere...?" She lowered the crosshairs-screen, putting the watch and her hands in her lap, and smiled tiredly at Shinichi.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Shinichi, because I don't even have words for how happy I am to have you back, but you _really_ are a pain, you know that? At any size."

Shinichi snickered, grinning despite himself, and Ran grinned back, despite herself. "I could remind you what Holmes said about irritants," Shinichi offered brightly, and ducked away from Ran's quick swipe at his head.

"You're a loo--ooh, oh. Mnn." The girl drooped where she sat, falling against Shinichi's shoulder; he caught her with alarm, shaking her in panic before he realized what must have happened.

Sure enough, in Ran's lap, a tiny silver dart, not even fully fired out of the watch's air-pressure channel, was embedded into her thigh. _She must have knocked the button when she tried to hit me,_ Shinichi sighed. "Well, shit."

Ai popped up again, like a meerkat with a barracuda's smile. "You could always--"

"Next one's aimed at you," Shinichi warned her, setting the watch aside. Ai receded behind her chair again, and Shinichi shifted on the sofa, stretching his legs out lengthwise and pulling Ran into his lap, pillowing her head on his chest. "Can we do this hour's exam in here, Haibara?" Shinichi asked after a few moments, angling his arms to better support Ran as she slept.

Ai peeked out from behind her chair again, this time to the side; after studying the pair on the couch for a moment, she sighed and settled back into place; the snap of a newspaper being straightened out was her only reply.

"Thanks, Ai," Shinichi murmured, resting his head against the back of the couch. He might as well get some sleep too... because, once awake again, he knew Ran wouldn't waste the precious few hours she had left with him on _sleep_ if she had a choice about it. _Long night for us, then,_ Shinichi mused, as he settled in comfortably, feeling the soft rise and fall of Ran's breathing against his own. _That's okay with me._

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a strangly relaxed fashion. For once, there was no crisis-- no impending or past murder, theft or other crime, no investigation or imposture to keep up, no mystery to be solved other than that of the human body and two people who had a lot of catching up to do. Chinese take-out (with extra portions to keep Shinichi's appetite assuaged) took care of lunch, somewhat to Ai's annoyance and everyone else's gratification-- you could only eat so much granola. Ran woke up from her little nap with a fortunately-clear memory of bumping the watch's trigger herself, thus sparing Shinichi further damage; medical checks were completed, data compiled, and Ai pronounced herself satisfied that the two could go on their outing without Shinichi collapsing into a heap of preadolescence.

"You'll probably experience more joint pains," she added clinically, capping her pen. "If they get too severe... no, never mind; I won't insult your intelligence by requesting that you come back immediately, because you won't, will you?" With that snipe, a little of Ai's sardonic edge smoothed off just a little; her eyes were actually slightly anxious as she shuffled through her paperwork. "It's very possible that the end-time will fluctuate severely, Kudo-kun. I don't really like this low-level fever that you've been running, or your blood-test results; but it's not like we live in a perfect world, ne? If the process begins to reverse itself, I'm sure you'll be in capable hands." With that cryptic utterance, the diminutive blonde gave him one last searching glance before going back to her own affairs.

And _that_ left Ran and Shinichi free to investigate-- and put to use-- Kid's gift.

* * *

Kid had been cautious when creating Shinichi's costume. Though the differences between their faces were significant enough to those who knew them, from a distance, or at an angle, they were close enough to be brothers - especially when examined in a hurry. And without the technology - or training - to change his voice without the use of the bowtie (there were some trade secrets Kid wasn't yet prepared to share with his new friend), Shinichi was going to sound like Shinichi, and that was that. In the end, it was probably better for Ran's sake that he did; every moment, Kid knew, was going to be precious to her, and while taking Shinichi away by degrees was unavoidable if the date was to happen, leaving the detective's voice in place, he hoped, would soothe her.

The clothes, much more casual than Shinichi's normal fare, and the shoes, much more beat up, would be the man's primary line of deception. The shoes, fitted internally to as close of a guess to Shinichi's real foot size as Kid had been able to gather during his time in the Kudo mansion, were externally a full size bigger, and possessed a tread pattern that Kid had double checked was very dissimilar to every remaining pair of Shinichi's shoes that he'd been able to find in the mansion's storage. The hair dye would work with Shinichi's natural coloring, rather than against it, tinting it darker in convincingly gradiated ways. It would also gum up his hair at the roots, where the heat of his skin would keep the dye from fully drying out. This would make unruly the detective's whole head of hair, disguising the untameable cowlick that was one of his most distinctive characteristics - and doing so without requiring dependence on a hat, a flimsy defense at best.

Knowing Shinichi had no experience with contact lenses, Kid had forgone those; it was unfortunate that the distinctive blue eyes, a trait not shared by many, couldn't be hidden, but Kid had instead chosen the colors of Shinichi's wardrobe to disguise them. Rich reds and browns would bring up the scant earthy tones in Shinichi's blue eyes, so much more pale than Kid's own, and would give them the appearance of greyness. Every little bit counted.

As for the makeup and prosthetics...Kid was most nervous about those. It took skill to convincingly apply prosthetics that effectively changed a person's face shape, and skill to wear them; rather than challenge the detective and take the chance he would fail in a public way, Kid had instead sent Shinichi simple prosthetic additions, which would round his jaw, slightly change the shape of his nose and cheekbones. Concealing the detective's profile was important, and for that, the jaw prosthetics would have to do; Kid hoped that with the casual clothing, looser and more layered than Shinichi usually wore, the detective would convincingly look thirty pounds heavier. Not a lot, but significant enough to support the illusion that Kid was trying to weave. Every disguise was a matter of layering, little by little. Big gestures tended to be more transparent than little tweaks. Working _with_ your body's strengths and weaknesses was much more effective than trying to counteract them, especially at a beginner level.

And oh, was this a beginner level. Kid had frowned as he packed the disguise up, adjusting things here and there, switching out one color of makeup for a related shade on impulse. "Shinichi, you are a _shitty_ liar," Kid grumbled, slipping the hair blacking into the heel of one shoe. "Please, Benten, let him figure out how to lie for _one_ night."

The makeup that Kid included was, as the rest of the disguise, subtle. By following the instructions provided, Shinichi would be able to smooth out the hollows of his cheeks, gently change the hue of his skin, add wrinkles here, smooth them out there. A little eyeshadow - subtle enough that it wouldn't look as anything other than a change in his skintone to careful observation - would help the greying-out of his eyes. And dark powder in his eyebrows would thicken and lower them, giving the illusion of a heavier, lower brow line. When the finished product was done... hopefully...

He wouldn't recognize himself.

* * *

Shinichi stared at himself in the mirror. The fact that he could feel Ran's hand on his shoulder through his jacket, and could see her holding the same pose in the reflected image, was one of the few clues to which he could cling to reassure himself that the reflection wasn't playing tricks on him.

_I look like my older brother, if I had an older brother. Or a cousin. Or... Kuroba, a few years and a bit of junk-food down the line-- no, not Kuroba, not Kid either. Maybe an uncle?_

"You look a little like your tousan's college photos," said Ran, poking a cheekbone very cautiously. "Is there a moustache in the kit?"

"No, and good thing," Shinichi answered, adjusting the borrowed clothing, "It'd probably make me sneeze all night."

Ran snickered. "Well, you look great. What's your name?"

"Shinich--" He stopped. "Oh. Right."

Ran laughed, a beautiful sound that nearly distracted Shinichi from their current conversation. "Well we're going to have to make one up for you. Which reminds me, where did you get Conan's name from?" She poked through the implements of Shinichi's disguise, checking to make sure they hadn't missed anything; a moment later, she held up the chapstick with a smile. "Forgot this! Let's see what the note....oh. Um. Well."

_Makeup, latex, and the like aren't very tasty, and suck moisture out of your skin. Keep a layer of this on to keep your lips from drying out...and to save Mouri-san's._

Shinichi grinned to himself. Surprisingly practical, Kid was; something that didn't usually occur to you in the aftermath following a heist, when you were too busy cursing and fishing confetti out of your underwear. But yes, he was. The teenager used the chapstick without comment and tucked it discreetly into a pocket while Ran blushed. "Hirai Taro," he said out loud, stomping his feet in the unfamiliar shoes to get the feel.

"Huh?"

"I took my-- Conan's-- name from a couple of books on the shelf next to me the first time you asked," he explained, stretching his arms and shrugging; padding settled into place and he fought the desire to sneeze (how the hell did Kid stand this sort of thing on a regular basis?) "I was _paralyzed;_ you had me scared to death, you know that? Anyway, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Ranpo... but that last one, though, it's a pseudonym, a play on 'Edgar Allen Poe'-- the author's actual name was Hirai Taro." Shinichi sketched a formal bow in Ran's direction. "Pleased to meet you, Mouri-san. Would you do me the honor of going to the movies with me this evening? I've got free tickets." He waggled his darkened eyebrows.

Ran grinned, playing coy. "Oh, I don't know, Hirai-san, I'm not in the habit of going on dates with _strange_ men I barely know," she dissembled, eyes shining in a smile that didn't match her fake expression of wariness. "How do I know you just won't whisk me off into insane adventures, or disappear right before my eyes?"

"I'm afraid you don't," Shinichi returned, "You'll just have to trust me."

"Hmm. Could be worse," she opined philosophically. "I mean, you're a writer, right? You could be a detective. My kaasan once told me _never_ to get involved with detectives; she claims that they're lazy, untrustworthy and immature. Especially immature." Dimples peeked out of either side of her smile before Ran smothered it back to seriousness. "You'll get me home on time, though, right? Before you turn into a, a, a pumpkin... or a gradeschooler, or even a d--"

"Right. I promise," Shinichi said fervently. The very idea of shrinking in a public place was enough to make him sweat bullets. _Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Once. The __**first**__ time._

"Then let's go," Ran decided, saucily holding out _her_ arm for him to take. Laughing, he did so, but only used it as a lever to spin her around into his embrace and look at her. Every inch of the faith, ease, and confidence that she was showing him at that moment existed as a stark and definitive contrast to the fears of guns and medicines that he'd tried to protect her from, even after everything that she'd been told in the last twenty-four hours. Shinichi felt his throat tighten.

"Ran, do I even deserve you?"

A softness touched her eyes for a split second, quickly replaced by the playfulness that had been there before. "Nope! Which is why you have me." And with that, she tugged him away, waving assurances and goodbyes to Ai and Agasa as she shoved Shinichi out the door.

* * *

_Please stay tuned for next week's chapter: "caffeine, early, puzzlebox"; and don't forget to tip the ushers on your way out. ^___^_


	13. Caffeine, early, puzzlebox

_**Book Two, Chapter Five: "caffeine, early, puzzlebox"**  
Theme music: "Rescued" by Jack's Mannequin  
Warnings for a bit of gruesomeness._

* * *

The movie theater was familiar to both of them - nearest to their houses and their school, it was the one they'd always favored in the past. Now Shinichi held the door open for Ran, grinning as he did so. She beamed back, sharing the private glee of his proper height and size just between the two of them. As the rest of the patrons glanced knowingly at them - _lovebirds,_ their eyes said - Ran and Shinichi filed into line to exchange their passes for tickets and snacks. Though he'd expected a problem - old paranoia died hard - the exchange was made without a hitch, and the pair made their way in to the theater easily.

"Is it just me, or are you expecting...um, _him_, to pop out of the walls somewhere around here?" Ran asked, as they navigated the maze of back corridors that would lead them to their assigned screen (screen number 42, as it happened). Shinichi snickered, shaking his head as answer, and was saved from having to answer by the appearance of their theater doors.

_And she doesn't even know the man like I do,_ Shinichi considered wryly. _If she did she'd probably be carrying a can of RAID or something._ He snickered as the image in his mind mutated. Abruptly, he imagined a little - or not so little - white cat, troublesome as anything, with a bob tail and a top hat, clambered up onto a high bookshelf (or similar), facing off against a determined Ran armed with a water spray bottle and an exasperated smile.

_They __would__ get along well, wouldn't they?_ he realized, recognizing the affection in the allegorical scene, and the thought recalled an earlier emotional suffusion:

_Warm._

Preoccupied, Shinichi dismissed that thought (carefully folding it up beside the memories of Ran's kisses) for later perusal, focusing on helping Ran into her seat ("I'm okay, Sh--Hirai-san, but thank you"), settling in himself, and enjoying the film.

* * *

The movie'd probably been pretty good. Shinichi'd have to check later on, he supposed, because frankly he hadn't much idea about what the plot had involved. Or who the characters had been. Or, well, what the title was...

They'd had a lot of catching up to do. Mostly this hadn't involved much talking, and the movie had passed in a happy blur. They'd probably eaten popcorn-- he had a definite memory of Ran laughing and managing to toss a kernel down his shirt, but when he'd tried to do the same thing in return she'd given him a Look. It hadn't been a warning, it had been a prediction, and Shinichi had answered it with his best innocent grin. Ran had tsked at him, then cuddled close... with her hand on the bag of popcorn, her cheeks pink, a smug little smile on her face.

She'd looked just beautiful. It'd been a _GREAT_ evening, and it was only getting started.

Outside on the sidewalk, stretching his hands high above his head, Shinichi looked over at Ran with a smile. "Where do you think we should go next? There's an ice cream place on the other side of the plaza," he suggested.

An artfully designed relaxation area opened up before them, directly across from the theater's doors. Small shops ringed flagstone paths, which themselves bordered greenery and a modest fountain in the center of the little plaza. Lights from under the water made the rivulets of liquid glow as they splashed and cascaded through the fountain's several levels, and footlights along the edge of each plaza, plus standing lamplights reminiscent of old Europe, gave the whole area an artificially bohemian feel. Though it was an illusion, neither Shinichi nor Ran minded. It was pretty, and that was enough.

"I don't know, it's kind of chilly for ice cream," Ran mused, leading the way to a small space of unclaimed territory on one of the raised planters' edges. She hopped up onto the ledge, swinging her feet against the wall below her, and Shinichi stood beside her amiably. The crowd, just released from the cinema, was especially thick; in the next fifteen minutes, the detective estimated, only the idlest of the group would remain, himself and Ran among them. Then there'd be more room to move around, and maybe he could talk Ran into making wishes in the fountain with him.

He glanced at the sky; the clouds from earlier had thinned out, and stars were showing above Beika's streetlights. A beautiful night, a perfect evening, a good (if exhausting) day, one in a... Shinichi calculated; one in about 270, really. Too long.

"Hot chocolate?" he asked, hands in pockets, watching Ran's profile as the fountain splashed behind her; tiny droplets misted the air and caught the lights like tiny airborn diamonds. It _was_ chilly, and he considered maybe scooting up beside her-- just to conserve warmth, of course. It was just as he'd crossed the point of passing off the gesture as just a readjustment, when his arm was extended and curved behind her, but not yet securely wrapped around her shoulders, that the cry - no, the _caroling_ - came.

"O~niiiii~chaaaaaan~!" The voice was piercing, sharp, and clear - it probably carried for a quarter kilometer. It wasn't particularly grating, but it _was_ attention-grabbing, and every. single. person. in the plaza turned to see where it had come from.

Shinichi did not. "Oh for the love of."

Ran reached over her shoulder, grabbed his arm, and tugged it the rest of the way down, wrapping his hand around her arm even as she poked him with her free hand. "What...Shi--Hirai-san, what is it?"

Shinichi leveled a much-put-upon look at her. "I really don't know, but I know it's going to be trouble."

Soon the voice's source came clear - a small girl in muddy boots and without much aplomb at all, barreling straight for her brother on the other side of the plaza. As she shrieked past, her voice eventually fading like a doppler wail, Shinichi and Ran followed her departure with somewhat boggled expressions. Therefore, they were _completely_ taken aback by the soft, husky voice that suddenly spoke, calm and matter-of-factly located directly behind their shoulders, just between their heads.

"Nii-chan, you should really say something to that child's mother. She's despicably over-caffinated."

"Holy---!"

The young man behind them, crouching in the center of the planter on which Ran had perched herself, simply closed his eyes and smiled blithely at the two of them. Shinichi had been completely caught off-guard, and if it'd been possible to jump out of his skin, he might have done so; from a distance of a meter or so away, he stared in fading panic, heart beating rabbit-quick, at the man crouched behind Ran, who seemed to have the situation well-in-hand.

"Nii-chan, who's your lovely date? And could she stop - ahgmmm. - strangling me?"

"Ran, Ran, I think -- I think it's okay," Shinichi managed finally, stepping forward to lay one hand on her shoulder; despite his assurances, Ran kept a firm grip on the fistful of fabric she had grasped at the young man's collar. The full-arm torque that she'd put on the cloth meant that not only was her victim not getting away anytime soon, she had also cinched the opening of his layered t-shirts' collars such that he was having some difficulty breathing.

"Ran, really, let go of him," Shinichi insisted, studying the other man's eyes very carefully. "We know him."

The young man smiled again, one of those irritatingly angelic affairs with closed eyes and an unscratchable panache. _Or poker face,_ Shinichi thought wryly. Meanwhile, their guest was climbing down from the planter to stand beside Ran, who had yet to let go of his collar, but had at least reduced the torque on his shirt so he could breathe.

"Delightful to meet you," he said, executing a shallow bow without taking his eyes off of Ran. "I'm Hirai-san, Taro's younger brother. Hirai Shigeki."

_Shigeki - 'irritation'._ Shinichi laughed to himself, grinning at their new companion. _Not subtle at all, Kid._ Kid had chosen a disguise very similar indeed to Shinichi's, and - ironically - the brotherly resemblance that their true faces shared was echoed even more strongly in the pair of disguises. With the same lowered brows and altered jawline as Shinichi, Kid had taken his personal disguise a few notches further, adding grey contacts, additional prosthetics, and what were surely padded body cushions, in order to create the flawless image of Hirai Taro's younger brother. Where "Taro" was past the peak of youth, solidly standing in the territory of adulthood in both bearing and appearance, "Shigeki" still had to cross that peak of maturity, and had about him the roundness and plumpness associated with an eighteen-year-old not yet acquired of his final growth spurt. It was, frankly, a brilliant complement to Shinichi's costume - flawless in its own right, and the perfect alibi to support the detective's own. And it provided a prepackaged dynamic between the pair, a joking, teasing, brotherly affection that was easy to intuit and play off of.

_Not that far from our usual fare,_ Shinichi thought, smiling at Kid with true warmth. _You're insane, but it's good to see you._

"This is Mouri Ran, 'Geki." Kid's brow lifted as he recognized Shinichi's pun, and Shinichi fought back a laugh again. _'Drama' suits you as a nickname, 'Geki'-chan._ Meanwhile, Kid and Ran were exchanging pleasantries.

"I can't believe how softly you snuck up on us," Ran was saying, a light of challenge in her eyes that hadn't made up its mind whether to be friendly or not. "It's almost like you're used to running about on high places."

Kid's eyes sparkled beneath his makeup and contacts. "Nothing but a bit of misdirection, Mouri-san. Simply employ the right hints at the right time, and anyone can be a magician."

"Clearly," Shinichi offered, "Or else you'd never have gotten within three meters of Ran. She's a Karate champion, you know." He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she swatted his hair perfunctorily, turning her attention to Kid.

"Thank you for coming out tonight, Shigeki-san," Ran said with sincerity, "I'm very glad we can all be together like this tonight."

'Shegeki-san' cocked his head to one side a bit. "Likewise," he said cheerfully. "I did want to wait until you'd finished with the movie, though. Did you have a good time?" His grin had nothing of artifice about it and quite a lot of deviltry.

"Absolutely." 'Taro' matched him grin for grin.

"Oh, really? Then you can tell your little brother _all_ about the plot and the music and that interesting little twist they put in at the end, can't you?" He did everything short of bat his eyes. "I understand they really broke some new ground with this flick-- fantastic casting, award-winning screenplay, beautiful sets, innovative special effects-- no, no, go ahead, tell me. At length. You DID pay attention, didn't you?" Beaming with innocent interest, the other cranked the grin up a notch and leaned back against the planter, all ears. "I'm liiiiistening..."

"Uh." Red to his artificially-altered hairline, Shinichi gave his 'little brother' a slightly desperate look; beside him, Ran had flushed strawberry-pink.

Shigeki peered closer at the both of them, smiling wickedly. "You're turning red! You are!"

"No I'm not! It's - it's the sunset," Shinichi stammered, blushing even further; beside him, Ran had looked up sharply, her wide eyed gaze holding something of amusement in it, too.

_Misdirection, right--_ "Hot chocolate! We were talking about getting some hot chocolate-- My treat?"

'Geki's' grin became beatific. "Oooh, chocolate! Caffeine _and_ sugar. Lead on."

Now questioning the wisdom of his suggestion, Shinichi did so.

* * *

"I mean really," Kid was saying, gesturing pointedly with his biscotti across the table at his companions, both of whom were looking a little overcome by the thief's enthusiasm. "Yes, there's arguments to both sides of the debate, of course. But have you ever thought about that one in the _technical_ sense? Of all things, why use _caterpillars?_"

"Why...indeed," Shinichi managed, trying to blink away the stunned-with-a-two-by-four expression he was wearing. Beside him, Ran began giggling, lifting her free hand to cover her mouth politely. Kid popped up one eyebrow in query (_His face must be made out of __rubber__, that's the only explanation,_ Shinichi decided) and wrapped his lips around the green straw of his hot chocolate. Around them, the soft hum of the coffee shop gave more than a passing similarity to any other busy public place, and its ubiquitousness - enforced by the fact that it was a chain establishment, of a brand that many more bohemian coffee drinkers considered a scourge upon the earth - was a comfort to the trio. Yet for understandable reasons, none of them were completely relaxed.

_Well._ Shinichi watched their tablemate as the other listened to Ran. He didn't so much sit as _hover_ in his chair, tethered only tenuously to its seat by that inconvenient thing that most people called 'gravity' and Shinichi would guess Kid had renamed "red tape." Not a moment went by that he wasn't shifting, fidgeting, or twitching in place. _'At ease' might be a more accurate term than 'relaxed,'_ Shinichi considered. _Kid is many things, but one thing he's surely_ not_ is 'relaxed.'_ The detective frowned, comparing Kid's current behavior to their meetings in weeks past. _But how much of what I'm seeing right now is Kid, how much is the costume...and how much is Kuroba?_

"I'm going to go for refills," Shinichi said, gently interrupting Kid's flow of monologue. Ran smiled appreciatively at Shinichi as the detective stood, collecting cups. "Do either of you want more?"

"I'll have some," Ran said, "No cream on mine, please."

Kid waved the offer aside gently. "No thanks," he said, displaying his cup - which, startlingly, was still half full from his first serving of hot chocolate. "I'm good." Then, to Ran: "Mouri-san, I'm just asking you to consider this. Obviously, chinchillas have a greater fur capacity per animal, are generally easier to interact with - even if they do tend to nibble one's fingers a bit overmuch - and they're certainly not as, ahm, _flattenable_ as caterpillars. So why hasn't the industry switched over yet?" He sat back, a disappointed and distressed expression on his face, and Ran found herself nodding blankly at him.

"Indeed, Hirai-san, it's just...illogical."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. _Something's illogical, and I don't think it goes any further than the inside of that nutjob's head._ Not that he should be surprised - they _were_ dealing with an internationally wanted jewel thief with a penchant for daredeviltry. _I should get him a caterpillar for Christmas, or something._

The thought made Shinichi pause, and the clerk at the counter had to repeat his question. "No cream on this one, right, sir?"

"Aaah, right. No cream," Shinichi confirmed, reviewing his previous thought. Getting Kid a present at Christmas... he really was losing it.

The chocolate sloshed slightly on his wrist as he caught the cups up, scalding it; he swore beneath his breath and mopped at the minor burn with a napkin before toting both his own and Ran's back to the table. As Shinichi sat the two down (interrupting Kid being incredibly enthusiastic over... cellphone charms? Or livestock? Or something?), he blinked hard for a moment, shaking his head.

"Sh-- Hirai-san? Something wrong?" Ran touched the back of his hand just above the burn, concern furrowing between her brows. Kid had paused, chin resting on the palm of one hand, disguised eyes fixed enquiringly on the other's face.

"Nothing, just..." He shrugged, refusing to let the faint wash of lethargy interfere; the evening was just too good. "Kind of tired. It's okay," Shinichi added with a reassuring smile. "I don't turn into a pumpkin until midnight."

Geki raised an eyebrow at his 'brother,' then went back to calmly sipping his hot chocolate. "A pumpkin? We could make pie out of that. It would be better than the alternative, at least. That would be kind of gross." Shinichi groaned at the horrible pun and Ran's own eyebrows went from concern into an attempt to hide in her hair.

She watched them over her cup for a few moments, taking a long sip. "You two are... I was going to say 'horribly alike', but that's not really true. You're more like a cat and a dog making noise at each other through a fence." She snickered behind her cup, brushing a long strand of hair out of the way and tucking it behind one ear. "Take away the fence and you've either got a fight on your hands or a couple of friends."

Shinichi blinked; that was one way to look at it, he supposed.

"Depends on who's watching when the fence goes away," Kid murmured, low enough that he almost could have been talking to himself. Seeming to come to a decision, he stood and tapped the tabletop lightly, looking from one to the other. "I'm going to go stretch my legs. I'll be back in a few minutes." He tossed a glance in Shinichi's direction as he went, pairing it with a smile. _This'll give her a chance to process this whole idea without being rude in front of me. Don't worry._

Ran looked worried again as 'Taro's little brother' slipped away, moving easily through the thinning crowd. "Did I say something wrong?" She sat her cup down onto their table with a faint click. "He's _nothing_ like I would've expected... and I keep thinking, shouldn't I be upset? Shouldn't he be upset? The last time I saw him, I called him a bully and," she paused, frowning, "I, um, kind of implied that he was a coward for attacking Kikoman-sama. And I was going to kick his head in, if necessary. Or punch him, or throw him across the r-- What?" She looked at Shinichi suspiciously.

He covered his mouth, fighting back a snort. "Seriously? He didn't like the comment-- I was listening, remember?-- but trying to put him through a wall'd make him one happy little kaitou. Remember the last heist, the one where I threw up in Nakamori's squadcar? I got him with a dart." Shinichi grinned, Conan's satisfaction gleaming through for a second. "We really _did_ fight it out like cats and dogs, and... it was great. About a seven on a scale of one to ten, with 'one' being 'mentally challenged' and 'ten' being 'certifiably ready for a rubber room', that kind of great."

Ran said nothing for a long moment, regarding him over the cooling dregs of her chocolate with a bemused expression. "You really do like him, don't you?" she asked at last.

"......define 'like'....."

Ran blinked at Shinichi, color rising in her cheeks. "You - I didn't mean it like THAT!" Her palm smacked across the top of his head hard, earning a squeak of startled protest from him, and a look from one or two of the patrons. "I _meant_," Ran continued, sotto voce, leaning in so she was nearly whispering in his ear, "You two are really getting along well. As friends."

Shinichi focused on his drink. "Yeah," he agreed, chancing a glance up at Ran - and wilting when he saw the embarrassed sternness still in her face. "I didn't _mean_ to, though, but when you get past the crazy, he's actually a really good guy." He considered this for a minute, slowly sitting up more straightly, and Ran edged back in tandem, until they had resumed their friendly side-by-side postures. Ran's expression softened, as though she was beginning to regret her sudden outburst; before she got very far with that, Shinichi coughed delicately, with a sheepish smile.

"There's a whole lot of crazy, though."

Ran's mouth quirked up at the corners. "I could sort of tell," she answered under her breath. She shot him a sideways glance, almost as michievous as Kid's, and with a teasing note in her voice went on: "He _is_ awfully cute." She lowered her voice. "And he's got a lot of fangirls out there, I've seen them in the news and... are you sure you're not turning into a fan yourself?"

Shinichi opened his mouth indignantly, cheeks flaming... and at Ran's giggle collapsed beside her in his best defeated pose. "You've caught me, Ran; you learned my deep, dark secret--"

"--not _another_ one--"

"--All those times you think Conan's doing his homework? I'm actually writing fanboy mail." As she chortled, he added a little more soberly, still quiet against the coffeeshop's noise, "But actually he's taken a pretty good risk this evening, meeting us like this. I didn't really know if he would... We've had to work through some pretty weird stuff, just to get to this level of--" Shinichi hesitated, looking for the right word. "--trust."

Ran nodded, still amused. "But you _do_ like him, though; back at the Professor's you called him your friend."

"He is. We're still kind of defining that too, but--" She laughed again, and he gave her a Look. "Fine; what's so funny?"

"Well..." Her eyes twinkled. "If you're still working on it, is that why you're still blushing?" She pointed.

_Oh, for the love of--_ He was, too; he could feel the heat in his face, and _What the hell, Kudo?_ he asked himself in chagrin. A possible answer flashed through his mind; it trailed thin traces of memory, something (a dream, a snatch of delerium) from the incoherent hours of his recent change. The memory was too faint and swift catch, but the flavor it left behind made him open his mouth to answer... and then close it again without saying a word.

Ran blinked. "I _was_ just teasing about your blushing, you know," she murmured, leaning against him. "You DO know that, right?" she asked, eyes questioning.

"I know," Shinichi answered, leaning back, and wondering why he didn't really have an answer to Ran's question.

* * *

When Kid came back, his approach startled Shinichi and Ran, both of whom had been curled against each other in a very sweet and obvious manner. As they tried to detangle their linked hands, Kid waved one hand gently at them, a benevolent smile working its way easily through his pliable disguise. "No, no, don't move on my account," he murmured, voice lower and smoother than the affected tones of Shigeki-san. Shinichi vaguely recognized it as the Kid's real voice, revealed in the safety of his disguised context, and raised his brows (the prosthetic stretched against his skin, irritating him mildly) in askance. Kid just smiled.

"Sorry about that, I really did just need some fresh air. Sometimes I just have to see the moon."

Ran nodded at that, and Kid settled into his chair across the table from her and Shinichi, drawing one foot up to the seat so he could rest his chin on his knee. On a person in their late teens, as Kid appeared to be, the pose looked natural.

"I do wonder if it wouldn't be better if we retreated to a more amenable setting...especially if you keep nodding off like that, nii-san." Using the clean end of his wooden stirring stick, Kid poked Shinichi's forehead. "Not fooling Geki-kun, buddy."

"Not fooling Mouri-san either," said Ran with a slightly worried look. Shinichi blinked, feeling unaccountably hot; a fine prickle of something, not quite pain but a close cousin, stirred beneath his skin. "Are you alright?"

"I...yyeah. I think so." He glanced around at the coffeeshop's patrons; the place was suddenly altogether too loud and bright. "Maybe you're right. Library?"

Kid stood sharply, his chair squeaking as he pushed it back, then in. Crossing to the other side of the table, he slung one of Shinichi's arms over his shoulders and hoisted the slightly taller man to his feet, despite squawks of protest.

"I can walk on my own," Shinichi snapped crankily, pulling his arm free of Kid's shoulders; the sudden motion turned into a swaying lurch to the right, and Ran slipped his arm over _her_ shoulders with even less room for protest than Kid had allowed, her grip like steel.

"Hirai-san, let's get you home," she murmured, leading Shinichi from the coffeehouse. At her stature, it was easier and less obstructive to support Shinichi than if Kid had done it; thin and womanishly short, Ran was able to guide and stabilize her friend without looking much more unusual than any other girlfriend plied to her boyfriend's side as they walked home.

_Girlfriend? Is that what I am...we are, now?_ Ran wondered, wide-eyed. Ahead of them, Kid prowled with just slightly too much purpose and alertness to be casual, and Ran watched the light play over his jacket, curving as it spilled across his rounded shoulders, with absent focus. _Well, we've kissed...a lot...so does that make us girlfriend and boyfriend?_

"Shinichi?" She murmured his name, so low that nobody but the two of them could have heard it. Resigned to her support now, Shinichi shifted so he could glance down at her, smiling despite the flush of color rising on his face, and the sweat pooling at the corners of his brow.

"What is it, Ran?"

She opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, and pressed up against his side tightly, bringing them to a halt. "It's starting, isn't it?" she whispered, lifting her face to his. The corners of her eyes reflected the lights, subtly wet. "It's starting."

They stood that way for a moment, long enough for Kid to realize that they'd stopped, and the thief doubled back to their side with a measure of impatience.

"Mouri-san, please. I don't believe my brother is feeling well at all right now--"

Ran released Shinichi's side and pushed her way to stand directly in front of him, grabbing the lapels of his sweatshirt jacket in both fists.

"You listen here, Mister Detective," she hissed, to all intents and purposes ignoring Kid at her elbow. Her tone was no less powerful for its low volume. "You listen here. I am NOT taking the chance that you'll disappear again, or that we'll get half a sentence out and then you'll--" She bit off her words, shook her head once to clear it; tears flew like crystal from her eyes, but when she looked up again, her face was calm and under control, expression warm and loving. She'd locked down the fear.

"I have no idea how long we have. So you - you have to tell me now. You have to tell me now."

Shinichi's eyes were looking directly at Ran's, but it was questionable just how much he saw; there was a glaze over them, and sweat now beaded up visibly before her eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, to answer her-- "R--" He coughed, drew in a gasp of breath. "R--"

"Mouri-san. _Mouri-san,"_ said Kid insistently. "He has, he will if he can. He **told** me. Trust him, please?" She turned towards Kid, anger beginning to flare in her eyes-- which was when Shinichi's knees buckled.

He didn't go down - force of will or sheer luck helping him to stay vertical - but it didn't matter. Suddenly, the need to get him home was paramount, even above Ran's unanswered questions. With one of them under each of his arms, Ran and Kid towed Shinichi out of the plaza. Ran instinctively headed for the train stop, but Kid guided them past it, for the taxi stand. Pushing forward to the front of the group of waiting travelers, Kid left Shinichi to Ran's support and darted in front of a gentleman who was about to escort his companion into an idling taxi.

"Full fare for you and fare and a half for the driver if you let me have this taxi," he snapped, standing between the man and the taxi's door. As the cabbie looked on in confusion, Kid waved to Ran, beckoning her closer, and turned to the driver. "Double fare, then. I need this taxi."

The driver shrugged helplessly at his ex-client. "Sorry, man, I can't argue that logic."

Kid shoved a few thousand yen - a modest cab fee indeed - into the other man's hands. With a short bow to his lady friend, and a murmured apology, Kid took Shinichi from Ran as she reached him. "Go in first, I'll pass him to you."

Ran nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, bowing also to the gentleman and lady. The woman waved, sympathetic, while her date looked pouty.

"Is he sick?"

Ran nodded again, just before she ducked into the cab. "Very."

"I hope he gets better!" The woman raised her voice to make sure Ran, now in the interior of the cab, could hear her, but neither she nor Kid were paying the woman much attention. As Ran got Shinichi buckled in to the middle seat in the back of the cab, Kid slid in beside him, slamming the door shut himself. The cabbie, startled by this breach of etiquette, nevertheless moseyed his way around to the front of the cab and settled into the driver's seat. He was startled by a handful of thousand-yen bills which Kid extended at arm's reach to him.

"As fast as you can," he emphasized, giving the driver the address of the coffee shop near Shinichi's and Ran's houses. Confused but compliant, the driver put the car into gear and laid on the pedal.

* * *

"He was supposed to be okay until midnight," Ran insisted, frustration bringing tears to her voice and eyes. "Midnight! We were supposed to have three more hours." She bit her lip, hands tightly fisted around Shinichi's clammy right hand. "It's _always_ like this."

On Shinichi's left, supporting the detective's drooping head against the bumps and shocks of their speedy travel, Kid wisely stayed silent.

* * *

They got Shinichi into the Kudo library before he started groaning. Near tears - as she had been for the entire cab ride - Ran knelt beside Shinichi's head and stroked sweaty bangs back from his brow. They'd laid him out on the soft library couch, stripping the extra layers of his disguise off, and now one low lamp, the most light that Kid felt it was safe to risk at this hour of night in the heart of a home supposed to be long ago abandoned, lit the features of all three teens with heavy shadow and a low, golden glow. Sweat had beaded up on Shinichi's face like dew, but the patches of latex prosthetic were made all the more artificial-looking as they stayed dry and cold.

Kid seated himself on the arm of the couch above Shinichi's head, uncapping a small plastic bottle. Pressing a cotton handkerchief to its mouth, he upended the assembly, and the harsh scent of rubbing alcohol filled the air around them. Shinichi began to cough.

"What are you--" Ran broke off as Kid bent to his work, working the cloth along the lines where he knew the edges of Shinichi's costume prosthetics were glued. Slowly, they began to peel up from his skin, making the detective's already sickened countenance look even more unnatural and strange. Despite this, Ran watched with intensity as, inch by inch, Shinichi's true face was uncovered. Kid drew the cloth across Shinichi's face in confident, firm strokes, leaving stripes of clean skin in its wake. He soaked it with fresh alcohol when the first dose became too dried out; then again, and again. A second bottle was produced, and the process continued. Ran helped Kid to lift Shinichi's chin, so he could reach the piece glued to the bottom of his jaw and throat, and rubbed her fingers in gentle circles across the sides of Shinichi's tense neck as the latex peeled away.

A sudden spasm hit Shinichi, catching them all off-guard, and Kid's hands jerked up and away from the detective's face as his whole body buckled with the pain. The alcohol in the thief's hands spilled, but he shielded it from falling back down on Shinichi's face, where he might accidentally swallow it. Wiping alcohol out of his own mouth, Kid set aside his handkerchief, pulled out a new one, and continued.

Ran glanced up at the thief as he sat back from his work, scrubbing the back of one hand across his jaw and mouth to clear them of alcohol and sweat. Abruptly, she realized that the spilled alcohol had done its work on Kid, as well. Two latex prosthetics - one across his cheek, and another along his jawline under his lip - hung rather gruesomely like loose skin from his face, where the combination of solvent and friction from his hand had ripped them free. Clean skin and a delicate, peach-fuzzed jawline lay bare in a stripe for her to see, and the shock of seeing it brought a quick flush to her cheeks as she looked away. It was almost like seeing Kid naked, she thought. Maybe it actually was.

"Thank you," Ran murmured, stroking Shinichi's cheek. Eyes closed, brow drawn in concentration or pain, Shinichi was still beautiful to her. Grateful that she would get to see _his_ face, not the mask of his disguise, in his final moments as his proper age, Ran smiled up at the thief who had made so much possible for them both. "Thank you."

Absently, or at least with as much dispassion as to appear absent, Kid stripped the hanging latex from his face, wincing as the glued ends wrenched free of his skin. "Ow." He shook his head, rubbing his jaw and chin to soothe the skin, and looked down at Shinichi, still dressed in 'Hirai-san's' clothing, still with blacked and mussed hair, but looking entirely like himself in face and features.

Well. For now.

Kid stroked hair back from Shinichi's brow, then paced away from the couch, checking the windows and domed skylight by rote. "Mouri-san, you should go to find --" He was interrupted by Ran's near-growl, a startling contrast to her gratitude of moments before, and the distinct sense that he'd just stepped on a minor landmine.

"_No,_" she countered from where she knelt beside Shinichi, showing her strong, straight back to Kid, "You can go to Agasa's. I'll stay here."

"Mouri-san." Kid addressed her with a small amount of frustration showing through his patience. "I, if you may remember, am an inter--"

"_I don't care,_" Ran gritted out, finding and lacing her fingers through one of Shinichi's hands. "_I am not leaving him._ You will go next door and get whatever it is we need. I'm _staying here._"

With a sigh, Kid left the room. He startled Ran when he returned a moment later, carrying a kitchen washcloth damp with warm water. "This will get the rest of the makeup and the alcohol off of his skin. I don't know how much he'll be affected by what's on his skin while he changes, but it's best not to take chances. Make sure he's clean."

Kid's light footsteps receded into silence, and Ran shivered; the Kudo house was dark and so very silent, a ghost of the friendly place it'd been while inhabited. Other than the rasping breath of the sufferer on the couch, there was very little to hear.

Shinichi suddenly gasped, a harsh, choking sound; his long body _arched_ like a bow, free hand gripping and twisting in the fabric of his shirt. His head tossed from side to side, bathed in sweat. "H-hot-- 's so hot," he moaned. "Where-- where--" He blinked, dazed, trying to focus.

"We're in your old house." She wiped at his face, trying not to allow her hand to shake. "You're safe, you're going to be fine, it's going to be okay." Ran attempted a smile; turning his face to press his cheek against the cool cloth, Shinichi shuddered hard, a fine, continual tremor rattling his frame from head to toe.

"I-- r'member now, right," he murmured, eyes closing. Gently wiping at his face and hands, Ran did her best to remove the rest of the alcohol before the next spasm hit. "Wh-- Kid? Where's..." His eyes popped open wide again, but there was very little sense in them; the pupils were narrowed to pinpoints and his usual dark blue seemed faded, grayed. "Kid?"

Folding the cloth in half, the young woman placed it across Shinichi's forehead, swallowing as the heat of his skin radiated against her own. "He went to Agasa's. Just rest, please." She fought back tears as he writhed again, face contorted. "Please--" He was hurting so much; Ran almost wished he'd lose consciousness, as much as she treasured the few minutes that she had left with Shinichi before he...

She couldn't even think of it.

"No, n-no, he shouldn't..." Shinichi's eyes slid closed again; he twisted on the couch. "Shouldn't," he whispered. "D-don't--" There was an odd scent in the air, and Ran's breath caught in her throat; was that _smoke_ rising from Shinichi's body?

_Oh God, please..._ It was.

With her free hand, Ran yanked his sweatshirt jacket open, stretched the collar of his tee as wide as it would go. The sluggish white smoke, which carried too sour of an odor to simply be steam, rolled off Shinichi's body in thin sheets, literally rising out of the pores of his skin. Scared, Ran watched as the smoke began to thicken. It didn't seem possible that this was how it was _supposed_ to happen, but what did she know? She'd never watched a person _de_age before. Wishing Kid had brought a bowl of fresh water to refresh her washcloth with, Ran made do with it as it was, one-handedly folding the cloth inside out and dabbing at Shinichi's temples and brow. Smoke and steam rose in the wake of her cloth, and she bit back a sound of fear. In no way, in no sense of _anything_, was this right or natural.

She brushed her fingertips against Shinichi's cheek again, and jerked them back as though burned when the skin _slid_ under her touch, folding over on itself like soft noodles. Her hand entwined with Shinichi's tightened, and it was scant reassurance to her that he squeezed back, ever so faintly.

"Oh, God. Oh God, Shinichi -- Kid! _Kid!_" Ran called into the hallway, hoping the thief - or anyone - might hear. "God, please!"

* * *

The Enka singer on whatever late-night show was playing had reached a part of her song that really should've been taken up by someone with younger vocal chords; Agasa winced, turning the volume down. He sighed, shifting his considerable bulk to settle a little more comfortably on the couch as he stole a look at the clock. And sighed again.

Ai was nearby, curled up into a disturbingly cute huddle of blonde hair and loose, boneless limbs. She barely stirred as the cellphone on the couch arm buzzed, and the professor kept his voice down as he answered. "Moshi moshi...?"

_"He needs you. It's started. He's next door; come get him." _There was a pause. _"Please." _Click.

Agasa stared at the silent phone in dismay. _Oh no--_ From the couch there was a sleepy grumble. "...Professor?" Ai blinked sleepy eyes, rubbing at them with the back of her hand as she sat up. "Who was that?"

He took a deep breath, panic rising up from the pit of his stomach. "I... It doesn't matter. Ai-chan, would you prepare Shinichi's room? I'll be back with him in a moment." Worried eyes met startled blue-gray ones, sleep falling away like a shadow.

"Of course."

* * *

Agasa burst into the front hall of the Kudo mansion to the sound of Ran screaming. Rushing into the library, he held a finger to his lips as he crouched beside her. "Shhh, Ran-chan, shhh, or Shinichi will be in even more danger than he is." Shakily, Ran nodded, murmuring as she sat back - still refusing to let go of Shinichi's rapidly-diminishing hand - to let Agasa see the teen's condition.

"He - his skin, and the heat, and _smoke,_ and Professor, I --"

"Shhhh. I know. Shin-chan has done this several other times. Usually even more quickly than this." At Ran's horrified look, Agasa nodded grimly. "He loves you very, very much, Ran-chan. Help me lift him."

Shinichi's weight had already halved by that point, and he was now little more than a skin-and-bones shadow of his normal self. Kid's loaned clothing hung off of him like tent fabric, tangling around the hands of the two who tried to aid him. In the end, it was Ran, not Agasa, who carried the bulk of Shinichi's weight. With his body folded into her arms like a child, only his long legs stuck out on one side. Agasa walked beside Ran hesitantly, supporting Shinichi's heels and trying to keep them from banging off of anything, as they made their way out onto the lawn.

The implements and miscellany that Shinichi and Ran had shed were left in the Kudo mansion in the light of the single low lamp, and Ran, without detouring to the front of the house to retrieve her shoes, carried Shinichi out the back door of the Kudo house and along the back path that led to a small neighbors' gate which linked the Kudo and Agasa properties. Barefoot, cheeks wet with tears, hair somewhat a mess, Ran carried the smoking, shriveling body of her best friend in her arms, through Agasa's back yard, and into his house, with a dignity that surpassed some matters of state. Ai met them at the back door, holding it aside as Ran entered. Her burden was growing lighter by the second, but getting increasingly hard to hold.

Only once she had laid him delicately into the hospital bed in Ai's tiny ward did Ran concede to the tremors that were shaking her body and hands, wracking her with a shivering, horrified quaking as strong as the spasms that still moved Shinichi, and collapsed witlessly into a bedside chair. As Agasa and Ai moved quickly to their work, attaching Shinichi to various implements of medical authority, injecting one or another substance into his forearm - and cursing proliferately at his veins, which were literally shifting position as Ai tried to pierce them - Ran clung to Shinichi's thin, fragile hand with both of her own, too afraid to grip tightly, too terrified to let go.

* * *

Hands clenched on pine-bark, tight enough to crumble bits in a steady shower all the way to the ground below. Hidden in the shadows of greenery just outside the small room's window, a quiet figure watched, expressionless. Only the way his nails bit into the treebranch showed emotion, his thoughts finding their way out through his fingers.

Inside the room, the figure in the bed writhed in agony; the vapors streaming up from the shrinking body pooled like smoke against the ceiling and the windowglass, leaving a thin, oily slick on the pane. No sound made it through the glass; but, shrouded in the fine white mist, the sufferer's mouth could be seen to open, crying out. Beside him, the girl's lips moved as well, frantic endearments and worry spilling in a torrent. The small form bowed and twisted one last time before shuddering back onto the bed, limp and still.

Soft bark crumbled and tore, larger pieces now.

Movement in the room: two others large and small, blocking the view, taking vital signs, conferring together. Large shoulders slumped in relief on the older man; he turned, spoke soundlessly to the other two and patted the young woman's arm, urging her. A hand came forward, stroked a forehead from which the last faint mist had finally dwindled into nothing, stroked sweat-damp hair to one side before trailing off. A sound-monitor was activated, IVs were checked, and the sleeper was at last left alone to rest.

On the branch, the hands stilled.

* * *

The next morning, during a careful check of Shinichi's...._Conan's_....vitals, Ai noticed an indistinct lighter spot of color in the center of the window above the exam table. Ran knelt on the table to reach the window and clean it of oil and grime, the source of which made her tremble just to think about. When cleared, the window revealed a narrow rectangle of folded paper, taped to the exterior of the window.

"Whoever left this must have been in the tree to do so!" Agasa remarked, standing at the base of a small ladder to stabilize it while Ran climbed up to reach the note. Simply folded shut, with no seal to ensure privacy, it nevertheless was marked across the front: _For the detective only._ Ai and Agasa regarded the letter with guarded expressions, but Ran clutched it close to her chest.

"I'm going to give this to him when he wakes up. Because - _he_ helped us, when Shinichi collapsed." As their expressions didn't change, Ran challenged them further, glaring from one to the other. "He's _helped_ us! All of us. And I don't care what he's done, but Shinichi thinks he's a good man. So I do too."

"I don't know, Ran-chan," Agasa said, turning away with a troubled look. "You can't deny that he's done wrong things."

"I _can_ say that he's not murdering or killing or hurting people when he does them," Ran protested. "And if we're going to judge people based on their histories, then _none_ of us can say we're good." Ai's frown sharpened, her eyes narrowing.

"Mouri-san makes a salient point, Professor. At this point, distrusting the Kid is more risky than trusting him...at least if we trust him, or appear to, we'll be close enough to hear his steps when he sneaks up behind us to betray us."

"Kid's not _like_ that," Ran protested, but Ai had already left.

* * *

Shinichi woke slowly, aware of loud, irritating sounds-- somebody, several somebodies arguing; there was the Professor's voice, Ai's, Ran's... footsteps, heavy and light, a door sliding shut.

A cool hand, smoothing over his forehead.

_...Ran?_

He stretched cautiously, feeling the burn of fatigue in every limb, every joint and tendon and nerve. And oh _God_ he needed a shower; his skin felt crusted, stiff with something thick and chalky. But he was back now, it was over and...

...oh. _**Oh.**_

He was back.

_Sigh._ Shinichi-- Conan-- opened his eyes to sunlight and Ran's face, wan and exhausted. "Morning, Ran-neechan," he managed after a moment, and smiled at her; his face hurt.

Ran bit her lip, shaking her head firmly. "No. Not when it's just us. Not anymore. Just Ran, okay?"

"Just... kidding." He winced, struggling to sit up. "Aaagh... next time I do this, somebody shoot me with--" Shinichi hissed, leaning back against the pillows as Ran carefully helped him up. "--with one of my own darts," he finished, and deflated, staring at his small hands. The digits popped and creaked as he flexed them; Ran reached out, clasping one of hers over the back of his for a second before letting go and settling into her chair again.

She looked so tired; her eyes were shadowed as much by what she'd witnessed as by lack of sleep, and as Shinichi yawned and took stock of his aches and pains, Ran watched him in silence. "Are you really okay?" she asked at last.

"As okay as I'm going to get," he answered wryly. "Right now I feel like I've been on a three-day beer-and-coffee binge with no sleep. You look like you could do with some sleep yourself," Shinichi added; he reached out, just barely able to brush her cheek with his fingertips. "You know, I never asked-- where's your dad think you are right now? I mean, you've been here for a day, pretty much, right?" He hesitated. "It-- _is_ still morning, right?" For a moment he wondered just how long he'd been sleeping.

She gave him back a wan smile. "Still, yes. And you've got mail."

The letter was terse, written in a considerably more shaky version of Kid's standard hand.

_Chibitantei__yourself__ healthy again._

As always, Haibara's solvency is at risk if she has killed you.

...This time I really was afraid she had.

Please let me know when you feel

As usual, there was no signature. The only identifying mark, where the signature should have been, was a tiny sticker depicting a white meatbun with ears and a smiling face.

A little shaky himself, Shinichi wondered what Haibara's reaction would be if he told her that a crazy person had her imminent demise in mind if her experimentation happened to cause his. _She'd probably just raise her eyebrows and say 'He'll have to take a number' and then she'd bug my phone._ He folded the note, glancing up and smiling at Ran reassurringly. "It's okay; he was just checking up on me-- wanted to make sure all my parts were in working order, that sort of thing. Probably wants to make sure I didn't end up with two heads or an extra leg or... whatever."

She rubbed at her eyes, returning the smile to a small degree at least. "I didn't read it," Ran said simply. "Oh-- and Tousan thinks I'm at home; he's in Okinawa on a missing-persons case, he won't be back 'til this evening." She sighed, slumping in her chair and leaning her forward onto the edge of the bed. "God, I'm tired. I could sleep just like this."

"Yeah, and get a crick in your neck." Shinichi stretched again, groaning as various things creaked; he felt loose and unsettled, and his skin positively _crawled_ with the need for a shower. "Look, I need to clean up; why don't you lay down here for a bit?" At her startled blink, Shinichi shook his head. "It's fine, Ran; you're not going to do anybody any favors if you fall over, and I'm okay... no, really. No, _really,_ Ran. See? It's not so bad this time; maybe all those nutrients and stuff Haibara shoved into me really did help." Moving cautiously, he slid one leg out of bed and then the other, locking his knees to keep them solid enough to stand. Thankfully someone (and he devoutly hoped it'd been the Professor) had not only removed whatever IVs had been hooked up to him during his change back, they'd also dressed him in a clean-if-oversized yukata again, just like before. The room spun a little, but other than a certain dizziness and the lingering collection of aches, Shinichi really didn't feel all that horrible.

It took a little persuasion, but a few minutes later the hiss of the shower came from the tiny bathroom across the hall; and when Shinichi shuffled back in, overlong yukata dragging around his ankles, it was to find Ran curled up where he had so recently slept. Her hair was a drift of chestnut across his pillow; Shinichi smoothed it back, watching her peaceful face smile ever so faintly in sleep, and left the room as quietly as possible.

* * *

Kid wasn't online, and Shinichi wasn't feeling particularly patient. Ensconced in blankets and pillows, thoroughly dosed with painkillers and vitamins, well-fed and (in his opinion) quite sufficiently worried-over, thanks very much, he had about as much privacy as he was going to be able to find while still cooped up in Agasa's house. Granted, with Ran around, it wasn't like Shinichi was aching for solitude. Even having returned to Conan, Shinichi still felt that being around Ran was somehow easier, more satisfying. _Honesty often is._ The thought made him smile as Ran glanced up from her novel to meet his eyes, then back to her page. They were on the couch again, but now that Shinichi was so much smaller, the open spot at the center of the couch - between Ran's tucked-up feet and Shinichi's blanket-bundled legs - was big enough for a whole adult to sit down with room to spare.

Unbidden, Shinichi's mind filled in that missing person, the unruly hair and sparking indigo eyes.

_God, I hope he's okay._ But why wouldn't he be? Shinichi, not Kid, had been the one to undergo the dangerous transformation during the previous night. Kid had been smart enough to _leave_ before Agasa and Ai got involved - or at least, that was the best guess that Ran had been able to offer Shinichi as she explained the night's events. "His mask, it'd...it was starting to come off," she'd said, and that much worried him. Kid surely wasn't one to run around without proper precautions - including disguise repair. Shinichi was sure of that much. But then why...

He shook his head, trying to dismiss the tenacious thoughts. Another glance over the edge of his manuscript (the unpublished Lupin volume, which Kid had finished with and returned to the library sometime in the past week) showed no change in Kid's online profile, where the little bubble-shaped icon was still grey, meaning "offline." Shinichi sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment, and opened them again.

Green.

The bubble was green. Shinichi had dropped the manuscript, pulling his laptop from where it rested on his shins up to his lap, close enough to type, before he'd even thought. The keys rattled as he typed a greeting and sent it. On the other end of the couch, Ran looked up first with curiosity, then understanding, as she observed Shinichi's attention narrowing in to include the screen and little else.

"Tell him thank you from me," she murmured, low enough that Ai, on the other side of the room in her armchair, would have had to make a rude point of eavesdropping before she could comment on the request. Shinichi looked up from his screen, fierce eyes showing soft gratitude for Ran through the wash of competitive focus that was directed Kid-ward, and had opened his mouth to reply when a little electronic ding enraptured his attention.

_sombody was camping my profile, i see,_ 1nb!u sent. Shinichi could all but hear the wry amusement in the thief's voice.

_Timing is everything,_ answered Dductshn cheerfully. _I was worried, actually; wanted to make sure you'd made it home okay. I wasn't really aware of a lot after a certain point, just-- well. I was pretty out of it. Wanted to thank you, too, and so does Ran._ He considered for a second before crossing his blanket-covered ankles and adding whimsically: _Think you've got another fan there. You made quite an impression._

He hit the enter key and watched the message blink from his past to the thief's present; 'wanted to thank you' was... pathetically small for what he wanted to say, but burbling on about _you gave us a fantastic gift_ and _I think if I'd collapsed before you got Agasa and Ai to help I might've died_... he couldn't do that. Wanted to, but couldn't.

So all Shinichi did was add one more line: _Glad you were there too._ And hit enter before he could change his mind. He didn't have long to wait until the little graphic popped up to indicate that Kid was typing; then, shortly afterward, the message came through:

_wouldntve missed it 4 th world_

The detective bit his lip to keep from grinning too much; Ai'd start looking at him with that 'You Need Medication' stare of hers if he wasn't careful. _Yeah, well, think it'll be a while before I try that one again. The other times were a lot faster. Kind of glad I don't remember a lot, really. So- now I've got 4 more days before I'm officially 'back'. Poking, prodding, blood samples, no joy there. Boring as hell--_ Shinichi thought a bit, snickered beneath his breath and once more added an end-tag: _--and I have to spend it feeling like a weekend._

_...must b sleepy, but im not w u on that 1. is the pun english or jpn?_

The snicker made its way out, causing Ran to blink at him with a little smile of her own. _Either. Not a pun. Weekends and me, we're both just too damn short._

The grin that split Kid's face at that - startling himself - was a toothy, gleeful one. With a sense of ease he hadn't had in the last twelve hours, he settled back against his pillow and tapped out a response.

_glad 2 see u can laugh urself, chibitantei._ The warmth that suffused him at that thought, picturing Shinichi's cocky grin - in whichever size - helped to further release the knot of tension that had its hands around his heart. _you're really alright, then? i will lower my guard for just long enough to impress my sincerity on you._

A familiar cooing interrupted Kid, and he lifted his fingers from the keys to dig them gently into the shoulder muscles of the dove perched on the edge of his laptop. Around him, the Kuroba conservatory was in the process of becoming gilded with sunset light, and his doves were beginning to congregate around him, the most ambitious of them perching on his arms, toes, and laptop. "Ladies, I'll be with you in a moment," Kid assured them, turning back to his laptop to finish his comments and send them.

_I don't often see someone in as much pain as you seemed, tantei. That's why I need to be certain._

On his end of things, Shinichi sighed. His body remembered the agony better than his mind did-- brains were resilient, they shoved away the things that harmed them so often. But when he remembered the beginnings of it with his mind, his body recalled the endings; it was a little like the phantom pain that an amputee supposedly experienced, only--

_--only mine's __everywhere__. I don't want to remember._

His grin had faded; Shinichi nodded to himself (or perhaps to Kid) and typed: _I'm as well as I can get. It's why I was told a week, because we didn't -know- how I'd be when I came back. The nutrients helped, the preparations helped, even those goddamn protein drinks that keep getting shoved on me are helping. I wobble when I walk, but I -can- walk and my two Mad Scientists have been checking and measuring everything they can think of._

Shinichi was silent for a moment; his fingers were slow on the keys when he began again. _First time I changed, I thought I'd died- that was the first thing I thought of when I woke, that I'd been killed. Every time I go through this and make it back, it's one more victory over death, one less murder. And - I'm sorry you had to see that. Not easy to watch, I imagine._ He remembered the note on the window; so Kid had been there for the end. Somehow, Shinichi wasn't surprised.

In the conservatory, Kid frowned, tapping his fingernail against the body of his computer, fighting back half a dozen impulses to say a dozen different things. None of them were particularly appropriate. Frustrated, he settled for an exit:

_i had the easier job._

i'll be in touch...

He clicked his status over to 'idle/absent,' a yellow bubble replacing his green one, and gently set the computer down on the flagstones beneath his bench. Shifting position, accompanied by the sussurant rustle of feathers from the many doves perched on and around him, Kid pillowed his head against the rail of the bench, leaving the cushion he'd brought down from the bedroom to support his neck and back as he reclined.

_"Cat got your tongue, Kaitou?"_ The mental image of Kuroba Kaito settled into a seated position "on" the flagstones beside Kid, hands gathered with a deck of cards in his lap, and as long as Kid kept his eyes closed, the illusion was convincing enough to count as reality. The magician was dressed, as usual when it was just the two of them and both were turned inward toward the space and wealth of imagination they shared, in a black outfit of turtleneck and slacks, similar to Kid's civilian choice of thicker black turtleneck and rugged navy jeans. Mirror images of each other, except that one was a little rougher, one a little cooler, one a bit more fey, one a little harder.

"Mmmn?" Kid glanced over at Kaito, opening his mind's eye but not his real ones. Absently he stroked the dove sleeping on his stomach, rubbing at his hair with his free hand. "No, not at all...too much I want to say to him. Not a useful thing out of the bunch."

Kaito bent the deck, then let the cards feather out of his fingers, rising in a careful, steady arc from one hand to another. _"Well, try some of them on me."_

Kid considered this, his bearing casual but his expression concerned. "I really was afraid I'd lost him." He frowned, hands now working in tandem over the dove's back and wings. "Which implies he's mine to lose. Which opens a whole new puzzlebox."

_"Well, you __have__ solved the Edogawa puzzlebox now. It was about time for you to find another Gordian knot to toy with."_

Kid snickered mirthlessly. "But I only found the Shinichi puzzlebox again when I solved it. And now there's Mouri-san to consider." Kaito's face shuttered closed at that, and Kid nodded knowingly, holding one hand out to the magician. Kuroba riffled half the deck into Kid's palm, and, nodding thanks, Kid began an arc-shuffle of his own.

_"You know how I feel about that sort of problem,"_ Kaito murmured, and Kid countered him quickly.

"No, that's the very funny thing, Magician. 'That sort of problem' is different than the problem of Mouri-san."

Kaito let the cards fall still for a moment, then after a moment more, looked up to meet Kid's sadly smiling eyes. _"You know, I was not serious, back when I told you to kiss him. And if you were planning to anyway, I believe you've just missed __exactly__ the sort of window that you were looking for."_

Kid shook his head a little, handing his half of the deck back to Kuroba and laying his head back on the rail of the bench. "I'm not sure that's the most important thing, though. I nearly lost him, Magician, after only just getting him back."

_"Back?"_ A pause. _"Oh, well. That's not a very healthy way to look at it."_

Kid shrugged eloquently, calling a black messenger cap out of the air to shield his eyes as he settled in for a true nap. "Nothing about our psyche is healthy, you know. Viewing the fondness of my illicit friend as a replacement for the affection of my murdered father...at the same time as admitting to a rising affection for said friend that, aside from crossing all boundaries of legality on both sides of the law, has nothing at all to do with paternal liaisons...while juggling the commitment I feel to ensure that the relationship between he and Mouri-san is insulated from whatever damages I can manage... all the while knowing that my care for her, while legitimate now that I am acquainted with her, was originally seeded and nourished out of a misplaced source of guilt from the knowledge that I am by the very fact of my identity unable to halt the endangerment of your hopes for Nakamori-san and yourself..." A grin, shaded only a few degrees off of Kid's standard mania. "Well, I don't feel any of that is more unhealthy than any other pastime I've indulged in over the last year."

Kuroba chuckled, reassured. _"So long as we're clear."_

* * *

_Thank you for reading, all! Hope you enjoyed it; next week's chapter will be titled "identity, cows, assistance". Yes, cows. Yes, really. You'll see. XD -- The Management_


	14. Identity, cows, assistance

_Welcome back to __Three Thieves__, Book Two, Chapter Six. To everyone who's been waiting for the "Big Mystery Case" of the story.......well, here's __one__ of them. This chapter begins the second arc of the second book._

_Hold on to your hats, folks._

_**Three Thieves**__: __A story that is progressively becoming less about crossing boundaries, and more about wholeheartedly ignoring them in favor of curiosity, self-interest, compassion, impulse, conviction, loyalty, and faith.  
...And which now becomes involved in telling the story of crossing even the boundaries that are made not to be crossed._

_by __**ysabet**__ and __**rednightengale**__, half from each to make a whole larger than the sum of its equal parts._

_

* * *

  
_

_**Chapter Six**__**: "Identity, cows, assistance"**__  
Theme music:__Falling Down, by Oasis__  
_

On the sidewalk in front of the Mouri Detective Agency, a man dressed casually in denim and a baseball cap came to a halt, craning his neck back to grin up at the second-story windows, and pulled out his cell phone. Inside, the phone that rang was not the imposing black affair on Mouri Kogoro's desk -- a good thing, as the man was tipped forward onto his desk, asleep between beer cans and shrimp chip bags -- but instead the small cell phone of the smallest resident of the agency.

_Beedeepbeedeep-- click._ "Moshi moshi?"

The agency was, aside from the TV, rather quiet; Ran had been picked up by her mother and dragged off protestingly to a college open-house to look at paralegal programs and their requirements. She'd been intrigued but a little doleful-- Shinichi (or rather, Conan) had only 'returned' the previous evening. These things needed to be looked into, though, and so the only other sound to hear was Mouri's saw-edged snoring, which blended into the television's banal white-noise rather well.

On the sidewalk, the caller smiled. "Yo, chibi."

Shinichi laughed, leaning back in his chair. His legs were far too short to reach the table in front of him, so he kicked them up onto the cushions instead. "Took you long enough to figure out my phone number," he snarked, recognizing the caller.

"Figure out? Whaddaya mean, I've had it this whole time!"

Shinichi snickered. "Suuuure you have. That's why you've called so frequently."

"Anyway," the caller said, shrugging that one off without argument, "Ya gonna let me in 'r not?"

"You never seem to have problems just wandering into places at other times. What makes today different? Just wander on up, then you can call it breaking and entering."

"Why would I wanna do that, Kudo? First, with an invitation, it can't be considered trespassin'. Second, since you just explicitly mentioned breaking and entering t'me, what would make me wanna come in anyway? The old man busy? You oughta just come down an' meet me."

"You _like_ being contrary, Kid. I thought letting you pretend to be entering without an invitation might make you happy."

"_Kid?_ Now waitasecond, Kudo, who's the kid around here? Last I checked _you're_ the shortie."

"That reminds me. When was the last time you saw Hattori, anyway? You do a damn good impersonation of him, for only having run into him a couple times." Shinichi pushed himself up from the couch, padding to the window, and peered down to the sidewalk. There, glaring up at the Mouri Detective Agency's big windows, one hand shading his eyes against the afternoon sun with the help of his beat-up, worn-in, signature baseball cap, was Hattori Heiji. Shinichi grinned, impressed. "You did a damn good job on the disguise, though, skin tone and everything. Looks really good. Give me a minute to get a note written to tell Mouri where I'm going, and I'll head out with you. Ran's not here, so she can't come along, though she says hi. But come on up in the meantime, yeah? Standing around on the sidewalk like that makes you look lost."

There was silence on the line. Then it went dead, and a thunderous rattle could be heard, charging up the stairs. And in another moment, Hattori was framed in the open doorway of the detective agency, hands on his hips, glare firmly fixed on his features, and his hat was turned around backwards.

"_Who'd you say I was?_" he challenged the shorter detective, eyes narrowed.

There are moments of dread, and then there are _Moments Of Dread._ Kudo Shinichi experienced one of the latter, staring up at the Osakajin who, for once, was doing his best to loom (which he managed quite well.) "Uh. Hattori?" Granted, the idiom about what makes a duck a duck ("If it looks like a tantei and quacks like a tantei--") didn't properly apply in any situation where Kid might have the faintest chance of being involved, but--

_Shit. It really IS Hattori._ "Just... kidding?" Shinichi hazarded, hoping for the best.

Hattori grabbed Shinichi by the back of his collar, using every advantage that his height, strength, and size afforded him to lift the pint-sized detective up to eye level. And then asked him again, with more of a growl in his voice,

"_WHO_ did you think I was?" He even added a little shake, for good measure.

"Awp! Dammit, Hattori, put me down!" Shinichi hung there, half-strangled by his own collar, feet kicking. "Goddammit, DOWN!"

Hattori merely transferred his hold from Shinichi's collar to his armpits, using both hands to hold him up: all the elevation without the strangulation. "Nope."

Behind them, Mouri snorted and muzzily raised his head. "Mnzz...'zwhere's Ran? Whassa happenin?"

_"...nothing,"_ said Shinichi, staring Hattori muleishly in the eye. "We're just going out, Ojisan. We'll be back later! Not. Here. Put me down and let's GO, Hattori."

Mouri blinked, flopped back onto his desk, and drifted back to sleep, babbling all the while. "Whussa...CHIPS! I need m're chips....mmmweeeeee, chips for Yoko-chaaaaan~"

"Sleep tight, occhan," Hattori said cheerily, rotating Shinichi in his hands so he could pack the ersatz child under one arm, like a sack of potatoes. "Whatcha need, chibi? Got your wallet an' everything? House keys? Okay, let's go."

Ignoring Shinichi's squirming, Hattori kicked the kid's shoes out the door of the agency, following them out and hanging the "closed" sign, as well as locking the agency door, as he went. From there he headed down the stairs to the street, booting Shinichi's shoes down ahead of him, and ignoring for the most part Shinichi's struggles, which had elevated to kidney kicks. By the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, one of the shoes' generators had gotten turned on by a random bounce, and when it hit the stoop just outside the agency, the kinetic force ricocheted it back and up, narrowly missing Heiji's head. It clanged against the overhead light in the lobby, and the high _tisshhhh_ of breaking glass was audible even above the sounds of the street outside. The shoe thumped to the floor at the bottom of the stairs, still humming, and Heiji plopped Shinichi down with a frustrated growl, heading back into the lobby to retrieve the shoe.

"Gawdammit, that nearly took my head off."

Nursing a serious case of injured dignity (and extreme Logic Fail), Shinichi sulked as he received the shoe back and jammed both onto their respective feet. "Not like you were using it for anything useful," he muttered, yanking his sweatshirt back into place. "And like I said, _not here._ Come on." Breath fogging in the cold midmorning air, he led the other detective down the sidewalk, stomping in what he was entirely aware was a fairly ridiculous manner... exactly like a sulky child.

But _not here_ was correct; the stairwell wasn't the place for daytime explanations...

There was a playground not too far away, edging a certain park that had several months back hosted a Kid heist of sorts. The swingset was empty for once; too cold and damp to encourage much of a crowd, the entire park was mostly empty that day. _Good._ Shinichi made his way across the brown autumn grass and took his favorite spot, the swing seat on the end towards the trees; and he waved irritably at the tall figure who'd followed him. "Sit DOWN, Hattori. You're giving me a pain in the neck."

"_Look who's talking,_ Kudo!" Hattori snapped back. "You actually thought I was the Kid, and you were going to _go hang out with him!_"

Shinichi sighed, slumping in his seat and deflating a little-- but not all the way. "Yeah, I did," he said flatly. "Things've... gotten complicated lately." He kicked at the ground, pushing off just enough to move the swing but not to do something as childlike to actually _swing,_ though his legs wanted the movement. Guilt suffused him: he hadn't called or emailed Heiji in too long. But--

_Complicated._ The boy raised his head to glance back at Hattori, bad temper draining away a bit. "--in lots of ways," he amended. "For instance? Ran knows about me now."

Heiji opened his mouth to yell-- then froze, snapped it shut again, and started pacing. His frown deepened. "And _when_ were ya gonna tell me alla this? Shit, d'I gotta move down here to keep a freakin' leash on ya, Kudo? You're off the deep end! Tellin' Ran means you're puttin' her in danger. And hanging out with _the Kid?_" He pulled off his cap, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Seriously, please, tell me this's all some big joke. Haibara's got a camera on me, right?"

"God, I hope not." The smaller detective shuddered. "And it happened, well-- some of it happened all at once, some of it happened after that heist with all the explosions, and some of it happened last weekend. Stop yelling, would you? Please." Glasses in hand, he rubbed at his eyes. The days following Shinichi's return to his diminished state had, for the most part, settled his aches down to almost nothing-- except for a lingering headache, occasionally severe. Ai had theorized that it had to do with somatotrophine levels that still fluctuated almost constantly and probably would continue to do so for a few more days; what it felt like was a low-level hangover. "Still getting used to the idea; it wasn't easy, but I had good reason to do it. And-- did you _**really**_ want to be around to watch her blow up?" The boy tipped his head back, eyes still closed and hands clasped loosely around the chains of the swings, glasses dangling. "She took it better than I expected, but it wasn't easy... I honestly thought she was going to kill me at one point. And Hattori? If she'd heard that you'd known all along..."

In the pause that followed as Hattori absorbed this, Shinichi thought hard and fast. Just what could he tell that wouldn't be a betrayal? What could he hold back that wouldn't be an _equal_ betrayal, only this time of Heiji?

_This sucks. Totally sucks. Okay, stick with the basic beginnings; you don't have the right to say anything else, not really._

".....and as for Kid-- you heard about some of Nakamori's squad almost dying in that mess a few months back? Rescued by an anonymous good samaritan who ended up damaged and hospitalized? Saved four men from being roasted alive?" Hattori raised an eyebrow beneath the edges of his hat, acknowledging this, and Shinichi hiked one small shoulder in a matching shrug. "He was wearing white." Hooking his elbows around the swing-chains, the detective crossed his arms defiantly and rested his chin on his wrists. "And... that's all I can say. At least right now. I _won't_ lie to you, and I _can't_ break my word. So I guess I'm screwed." Hattori could've figured out the rescuer's identity with a little investigation of his own, considering his father's connections; so this very limited amount of information was, just barely, permissible within Shinichi's narrow avenue of just what he would allow himself to say.

But it still felt wrong, both to start telling... and to stop. The boy blew out his breath in one unhappy sigh, frosting the air; totally apart from the throb in each temple, he felt like utter crap. Couldn't he just once, once have some sort of relationship that didn't involve a heavy helping of guilt?

After a long moment, Hattori flopped into the next swing over, and with a long-legged kick off the ground, set himself swinging. When Shinichi looked over, startled, Hattori shrugged without looking at him and focused his gaze on the sky.

"No point stayin' mad at you. Done's done, so I might's well chill an' get the whole story from ya, so I know what not t'say to who." His mouth popped open in a big white grin, and the over-the-shoulder look he gave Shinichi was enough to assure the boy that all was forgiven. "Even tho I still say you're off your freaking rocker."

He pushed off the ground again, pointing his toes and leaning back to gain speed. "So what now? I jus' came inta town cause I had a free weekend and I hadn't seen ya in a while, and Kazuha was gettin' on my nerves anyway, so here I am. But now I don' know what I can do t'help you cause all the rules changed, so you're gonna hafta gimme a chance t'catch up."

Now it was Shinichi's time to sit and absorb his friend's response; it was-- entirely a Hattori Heiji thing, hot-tempered and doggedly logical in turns, perfectly capable of smacking you in the head for being an idiot and then savaging anybody else who dared to attack you. Tilting his head so that the cold swing-chain rested cold and solid against one temple, Shinichi eyed the Osakajin as he swung, relief pushing out into the crook of a one-cornered grin.

"...we'll figure it out. And-- thanks, Hattori."

Straightening, he pushed off with his feet; Shinichi didn't have the weight or the long legs to gain momentum like the other, much heavier swinger did; the thick metal frame made ominous creaking noises as the two gained speed. Pushing himself, feeling the exertion in limbs that still twinged with the chimerical aftereffects of his change, Shinichi found himself giving into the elation of movement and leaving gravity to take care of worry for the time being.

Forward and back--

Higher and faster, chains taut and no longer jingling; the rush of the climb backwards, legs straight and pushing on momentum as if it had mass and a place for your feet. Then the fall and the upwards arc, so hard and swift that there was a moment of weightlessness at the top when your seat bucked and you (almost) soared free.

Forward and back--

Flash of Heiji's face, grinning like a kid as his hat went airborne.

Forward and back--

Level and even and _backwards_ and then _forwards_ and then climb! and push! and _let go--_

Heiji, heavier and with a kendo competitor's sense of balance, landed on both feet with a tremendous double thud and posed there like an athlete, _TING!_, until he allowed his knees to go and he fell over flat on his back, huge grin on his dark face. Shinichi, on the other hand, did a fairly decent imitation of one of his own soccer balls and landed in a rolling tumble on the cold grass nearly two meters beyond. Spitting out grass, he propped himself up on his elbows and grinned back. Both grins broke up, and the two laughed at each other like lunatics in training until they were weak.

The sun had tucked behind the buildings by this point, and the shadows already pooled across the playground and lawn grew darker as the pair laid in the grass and watched the clouds scud across the purple-blue sky. The colors peculiar to urban sunset washed the buildings and sky alike, turning them colors before the deep blue of true dark began to leach that color away. As the deeper chill of evening settled in, Heiji and Shinichi headed back for the Mouri agency, expecting Ran and warm food.

"You think she'll be upset I didn' warn her that there's an extra for dinner?" Heiji was asking, as they waited for traffic to clear so they could cross the street.

"If she's back yet," said his companion, distracted by a squadcar that passed, lights and sirens going full blast. Shinichi did a mental check on the car's number; nobody he knew. "Her mom dragged her off to some sort of college thing." He shrugged, watching the lights doppler out of view. "We can always order takeout." He gave the Detective of the West a sideways, upwards look, grinning just a little. "You nervous about her? She did figure that you covered for me, you know, I wasn't kidding about that."

Heiji mulled this over. "I dunno, she didn't kill _you_ yet. But then 'gain I'm not her boyfriend, so she's maybe got less reason not t'kill me than you. But I've done less to get killed over, too?" Heiji shrugged as they trotted their way across the street, coming up on the sidewalk directly in front of the agency. "Eh, I'm not worried."

"Yeah?" The word _boyfriend_ didn't make him flush like it might have a week earlier; Shinichi'd had a little time to get used to the concept (the movie had definitely helped) and as they gained the sidewalk, he raised an eyebrow. "I'm not so sure about that 'done less' part. Somewhere," Shinichi added darkly, "I think she's been making a list of how many times we've messed with her, and what we owe in payback. And now that Ran knows, she's going to collect."

_BOOM._

It was not so much a sound as a tangible percussive blow, the sort of bass sound that pushed at your ribcage and sternum. In this case, though, it had more clearly tangible aspects as well, including flying shards of concrete and ice. Shinichi and Heiji, both accustomed for different reasons to the necessity of quick reflexes, were able to shield their faces and necks from injury, as the percussive _slam_ that landed not one foot in front of their faces sent dust, concrete, and shards of razorlike ice flying at them in a blast radius. Heiji gritted his teeth, some sound escaping, as one of the larger chunks of debris ripped a gash in the back of his shirt, drawing blood in a line from his kidney to his shoulderblade. Shinichi, a much smaller target, felt chunks of ice beginning to melt in his scalp, mixed with the blood they had drawn, as everything came to a standstill.

All the debris was on the ground, now that the single moment of impact had passed. Car sirens _whoop-whoop-whooped_ their complaints to an uninterested handful of pedestrians, two of whom had rushed over to help Shinichi and Heiji to stand. Heiji, despite his injury, held the well-meaning pair back at arm's length, turning slowly to look at what had caused the veritable explosion.

"Ku--Conan," Heiji said slowly, studying the fallen object that had landed - hard enough to create a ten-foot-wide crater of cracked and broken concrete, and deep enough to reveal the dirt and municipal structures below that - on the sidewalk between the two detectives and the Mouri agency. Ran and Mouri appeared, one on top of the other, in the street level doorway of the agency, and both pulled up short to boggle at the same thing Heiji, Shinichi, and all the onlookers were staring at as well. Ran had clearly come from cooking, as her chopsticks were still in hand, apron wrapped around her waist, and Mouri looked fresh from a nap. Shinichi gathered all this information with a perfunctory glance, then turned his attention back to the incident of the moment, stepping to the side to get a different angle on it.

"Yes, Heiji-niichan?" he asked, phoning in his mannerisms as Conan, the elementary detective with a magnetism for trouble.

"When I said I was worried about Ran-neechan having enough food for all of us...haha, wow." Heiji boggled and Shinichi stepped in.

"Well it's lucky, right? For a whole frozen cow to come to our doorstep like this?"

Ran looked to the meat - which was, in fact, the entirety of a dressed, flash-frozen cow, pinky red and vaguely rectangular, ready to be parceled out into individual cuts, and twice as long as Conan was tall - and then glanced at the pair of detectives in turn.

"Well," she said, visibly marshaling herself, "Don't just stand there. Come on in and wash your hands, dinner's almost ready."

Heiji stared blankly at her, then at the beef. "...The cow?"

Ran tsked at him and - admirably - held a straight face. "I can't use _that_ for sukiyaki, it's not thawed."

A little dazedly, Conan knelt beside the smoking crater. 'Smoking', because the frozen carcass was much cooler than even the chilly autumn air; 'crater', because it had quite thoroughly demolished the sidewalk below, and water from at least one busted pipe was beginning to pool around the glossy meat, adding to the thaw. "Airplane," he murmured; beside him Heiji squatted as well, supporting himself with one outstretched arm.

"Had t'be. Not like cows go skydiving every day, especially dead ones." He absentmindedly wiped away a trickle of blood that had been trailing down his arm.

"Mmhmm... two thousand feet, maybe? The airport's pretty far away. And-- what, three-hundred-fifty kilos, you think?" Conan scowled at the crater, blinking irritably at whatever was fogging his eyes. "So, the hole's about a meter deep; that sets velocity of impact at, um..." He calculated. "...just short of one-hundred-ten meters per second and-- uh, Heiji? You're dripping."

"So're you. You got cow in your hair, Kudo."

A hand fell on each shoulder. "Would you two heros _please_ come inside and let me bandage you up?" Ran was standing behind them, gritting her teeth. "Tousan called the police; they should be here any minute and I wasn't kiii_iiIIIEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!"_ The young woman literally leaped backwards, jaw dropping in horror as she pointed into the pit. All around, the crowd of bystanders jerked in response.

"What? Dead cow, we know! What?"

"Th-th-th--_Dead! Hand!_" Eyes bugging out, Ran continued to point...

...at the frozen, grayish and unmistakably non-bovine hand and forearm protruding from the carcass's broken ribcage, fingers loosely curled.

Shinichi stared at the hand for a long moment, sighed tightly, and pulled out his cellphone. "Megure-keibu? Yes? Yes, this is about the cow that ojii-san just called about. Yes, there's something else about it..."

As the boy headed inside for privacy, scooting to the side to let Mouri pass on his way back outside, Ran had started to try to care for Heiji while the Osakajin detective flatly refused to leave the body.

"I gotta take pictures, Neechan," he protested, as she tried to hold him still so she could get a bit of gravel out of his back. Ran hit him hard enough to make him wince for that one.

"You're bleeding all over the crime scene, _Hattori-kun,_ so just. Hold! Still!"

Mouri passed them, unrolling a roll of yellow police tape as he went. "Back up, please, back up! This is a crime scene now, back up! Back _up!_" The crowd sluggishly obeyed his demands, inching off of the broken concrete at the crater's edge.

By this point, Conan was back on the street, putting his cell phone away even as he tugged on Mouri's pant leg for attention. "Ne, ne, Ojii-san, I talked to Megure-keibu, because Heiji-niichan and I thought that the cow came from an airplane. So Megure-keibu's gonna send us a list of all the planes that were gonna fly over us this evening. I told him to fax it to us."

"Ahhh, that's good, good job, bozu. Now get out of the way, you're stepping on police territory."

"But Ojii-san, there's no police here to make--" 'Conan' was cut off as a strong hand gripped the back of his shirt collar.

"Either you tow Hattori-kun inside and let me clean the both of you up, or I _pick you up_. Am I making myself clear?"

Shinichi turned his head by careful degrees to look over his shoulder at Ran. She was a powerful convincing actor, Shinichi decided; of everyone watching, he would lay money that only he or Heiji would have been able to identify the warning glint in her eye, meant for him as an equal, rather than a child. The rest of her behavior was not a notch changed from before the past week; Shinichi had to give her credit. Ran could maintain confidentiality as well as any detective.

Displeased with his hesitation, Ran tugged meaningfully on his collar. _She would do it, too._ Shinichi wasn't sure whether the thought amused or dismayed him.

"H-hai, Ran-neechan," he answered, trooping up the stairs into the agency, and leaving Mouri on the sidewalk to control the crowd. The wail of sirens, faint but growing louder, assured the trio that Mouri wouldn't be alone for long.

* * *

"Itai! Ow! Leave me a little skin, okay?" Hattori would've shrugged himself out of Ran's hands if he could; however, the hand that was gripping his head like a five-fingered vice had a lot to do with his reluctant choice to remain in place-- well, that and the threats. Shirt off, the Osakajin sat bare-torsoed in the agency's office, having the last of the dirt, blood and thawing cow scrubbed from his back. Shinichi had already received cleanup and care for his own, more minor wounds (scalp-cuts and one slightly jagged gash square above his nose at the hairline; Heiji'd remarked that if it'd been just a little lower he could've done a decent Harry Potter impression.)

"Just a--" Ran took a good swipe with her antiseptic-soaked wad of gauze. "--second-- There, done. Let it clot for a minute and I'll tape you up." She sat back, wiping her hands on a cloth nearby before her gaze strayed back to Shinichi. "How's it feeling?" she asked a little worriedly. From outside the static of a squadcar radio mixed with Mouri's brusque tones and the gabble of the crowd. A newscrew had already shown up to film the thawing mass, which some wit had already judged in Television English to be a 'U.F.O.'-- an Unidentified Falling Object.

"Where's the rest of it?"

"What?" Ran blinked. "Rest of what?"

Heiji snorted, picking up the spattered mess of his shirt and jacket, poking one finger through the rips and then allowing them to drop. "Rest've the corpse. There wasn't room in that one cow for th'whole thing." He glanced at the ceiling ominously; the other two followed his gaze, and the room held a pregnant silence for a few seconds.

"That's... eeeew." Ran grimaced. "One's enough." She picked up Conan's glasses from where they'd been folded during his own cleanup, straightening the earpieces and offering them. "Here, you'd better put these on before Tousan and Megure-keibu come in." Then her expression changed, and the next look she aimed at Shinichi had less worry and more mischief in it. "You _did_ tell Hattori-kun about me and... your friend... and, um--" She held her hand out at Shinichi-level and then dropped it down to Conan-height, one eyebrow up.

"Not all of it, not yet, but some." Shinichi rubbed his forehead, looking at her in dismay. "Am I really THAT short?"

She slid the glasses onto his face, settling them into place with one hand; the other touched his hair softly, lingered for a second. "Well, for a little while you weren't," Ran murmured, before beginning to clean up the first-aid kit debris.

Heiji watched Ran's back as she carried a double handful of alcohol wipes, used bandages, and bloody tissues into the kitchen, then pivoted on his heel to look pointedly at Shinichi. One raised eyebrow asked his question for him.

"Not now, Heiji," Shinichi muttered, walking across to the windows and looking down at the circus splayed across their front stoop.

"Suppose it's a good thing it didn't land a meter further toward the buildings," he remarked, not actually sounding all that relieved by it, "Or we'd be phoning in for some ceiling repair as well as having a murder on our hands."

"About that, Kudo, I'm worried," Heiji muttered, standing beside the shorter detective with one palm flat to the glass panes.

Shinichi looked up at him. "Hmm?"

"Rest've the body's somewhere, right?" Hattori made a face, staring out. "These things're usually packed in cargo planes like sardines. Kinda hard to b'lieve that just one would fall out like that... and if there's body parts in _our_ cow, you suppose maybe there's more?"

"--more--??"

"More cows droppin' from the sky, more body parts." The Detective of the West made an expansive gesture with his hands, indicating another sidewalk-boom. "Y'know, _more."_

"Oh. Yeah." As Ran went back to her father's room to find a sweater for Heiji to borrow, Shinichi slid the window back open and leaned out. "Megure-keibu?" he called to the hatted officer below, who had just finished flipping his cellphone closed. "Have there been any other, um, falling cows?"

Megure looked wearily up at the Agency windows and the two faces staring down at him. "Wh--? Oh, Conan-kun... and Hattori-kun, nice to see you." He sighed, moustache drooping slightly. "Four more in a line across Beika, several blocks apart. And yes," he added, "the closest three had, err, extraneous material inside. An arm, a foot...part of a calf. Ahm, a human calf. Not the, ah - well. All were frozen." His cellphone went off again at that point; Megure answered, listened, hunched down slightly and sighed again. "Hai, thank you." The phone shut with a click. "Make that seven cows, _all_ with body parts."

"Seven more, or seven counting ours?" Shinichi called down, and Megure's face did something funny until Shinichi clarified. "Um, I mean, counting that one." He pointed.

"Seven total, Conan-kun." Megure's voice, bearing, everything, was tired. "Hattori-kun, do you have any ideas?"

"No, but I'm workin' on 'em," Hattori called down to the inspector. "Can I be let in on the examination once we get the bits an' pieces to the morgue?" As Megure nodded wearily, turning away to answer questions from an officer at his side, Heiji towed Shinichi back in the window and sat down on the floor inside of it, between Mouri's desk and the windows. Shinichi chose to stand, putting the pair almost at a level.

"Ya worry me when y'lean outta windows like that," Heiji commented, as he noticed Shinichi's frown.

"No, that's not it, it's just --" Shinichi shook his head, clearly chewing over something that he couldn't quite get a grasp on. "It shouldn't take seven cows to hide one body," he mused. "And..." He shook it off with a huff. "Agh. Anyway, we at least can project a rough direction of the flight, and with a range of drops, now we can more accurately take a guess toward its time, too. Let's go ask the officers where the other six cows landed."

* * *

The line led directly towards the airport at Chōfu, a path that seemed to settle as poorly with Megure as it did with Shinichi and Heiji. That was for later, however; the line of cattle-caused destruction was enough to take up every bit of the two detectives' attention, plus that of Mouri, who seemed to be under the impression that he was in charge.

Cow #1 had been the Agency Cow; number two had made a disturbingly-neat impact in the middle of a road-median two blocks away. Number three had gone through the roof of a shoestore, landing directly in the employees' breakroom and injuring two of the staff; number four had found a home in the midst of a tangle of live wires and half a telephone pole, fortunately in a back alley. The fifth cow had made another stellar sidewalk landing next to a takoyaki stand, causing a fire and some minor injuries; the sixth had taken out an imported 2008 Audi A4 sedan belonging to a local physician. And cow number seven had smacked down squarely on top of a very tall building, fifty-six stories up. It was just the building owner's bad luck that it had hit the section of roof topping the elevator shaft; they'd be finding scraps of previously-frozen meat in the gears for _weeks._

Mouri Kogoro had ended up riding with another officer over to view cows number Three, Four and Six; Conan and Heiji visited Two, Five and Seven. Poor Ran had been required to stay behind and officiate over the cleanup of the broken sidewalk and to deal with the sad fact that the busted waterpipes had been those of their own building. With any luck the water'd be back on by the time everyone returned, but so it went. "At least nobody got killed," said Shinichi philosophically to Hattori as they viewed the remains that were being fished out of, well, the _remains_ of Number Seven. It had made an unforgettable impression on the elevator, a cow-shaped one, and now meat and mangled machinery were residing in the building's basement. "Nobody but the ones who were already dead."

"Point," said Heiji. "How many hands've they found?"

Shinichi checked his notepad. "Eleven," he chirped, and behind him, Shiratori-san snapped his mouth shut with a frown.

"I was about to say the same, Hattori-kun. We have an uneven number of hands found, but the more disconcerting part is that we don't have all the parts of those five...and a half...people, either. Notably, we're finding mostly feet and hands and heads, but so far only a few limbs, and no torsos." Shinichi and Hattori looked at each other, worry traveling across the glance, then back to Shiratori as he continued speaking. "Beyond that, even from the scattered communication that we've managed between the seven sites, the odds of these being five _matched_ pairs is not good. Only about half of them are matching up by way of rough dimensions or simple left-right determination; we'll have to get them all into the same place before we can say for sure which of the non-matched ones are simply shrunken from their, ahm, unofficial embalming, and which are simply odd ones out."

"Kinda like the lost gloves y'always had when you were a kid," Hattori quipped glibly. Shiratori looked pained, but the expected blithely cheerful riposte didn't come, and both detectives looked around to see where the conversation's littlest member had gone. Something had caught Shinichi's eye, and he was already scampering across the scene to reach it, ignoring - as always - the shouts and protests of the professionals he darted around.

When he reached it, he wished he'd let someone else find it instead. It took a very large amount of willpower for Shinichi to summon the brightness of Conan's innocent voice, and even then, he couldn't keep all of his adult's grief out of his tone as he called across the ruined elevator shaft to Hattori.

"Niichan, there's one like that over here, too. Like a lost glove...from a child."

Detective Shiratori Ninzaburo had, at certain past moments, come across as a rather unfeeling or insular individual. However, there was nothing unfeeling in his horrified eyes as he stared over Conan's small shoulder at the pathetic scrap of damaged human flesh that lay to one side of the wrecked elevator. The hand was just barely recognizable as such; the descent and impacts had not been kind to it.

Photographed, tagged and bagged, the hand left the scene in a biohazards container, to be carried per regulations in an ambulance. Conan looked up at the shaken officer. "Shiratori-keibu, were there any other, other pieces," (he swallowed) "from a kid?"

"No, Conan-kun," Shiratori said numbly, letting his hand rest on the top of the child's head with a weight that suggested he wished he could do more. "Come on. I know you like to help out at these sorts of things, but Conan-kun, please, this time, go home with Hattori-kun. Okay?"

Shiratori's radio went off at that point, the staticky, brusque voice of Megure coming over the air distinctly. Shiratori listened for a moment, then turned back to Conan and herded him back across the scene toward Hattori. When they were close enough, Shiratori addressed them both.

"Megure-keibu just spoke with Mouri-kun, and she wants you home right away, Conan-kun. Hattori-kun, if you'd like to stay, you'd be welcome, but in that case I'd have to assign an officer to run Conan-kun home."

"I can get home on my own, Shiratori-san," Shinichi chirped. "I'll be okay."

"No," answered the officer firmly, still slightly pale. "I don't think I'd be too happy about leaving you without an adult's supervision, not just now." He watched as the ambulance drove away carrying its tiny, pathetic cargo. "Not today."

_Thanks, Shiratori, but this makes things awkward._ Conan nodded, glancing up at Hattori. "We can go on home together, then, can't we, Hattori-niisan?" He moved closer to the other, looking for all the world like a tired, somewhat rattled child. "And we can talk about the case on the way home." The nudge to Heiji's kneecap wasn't visible from the front, but the other detective looked down at the boy and shrugged.

"Sure, chibi-han, let's go. Shiratori-keibu? I'll be in touch."

The pair didn't speak until they were past the hearing range of the officers, technicians, and detectives within the police cordon around the building. When they did, it was as Shinichi and Heiji, and the pair made fast tracks toward the train station as they spoke.

"Another?"

"Think so. We need to get back to Mouri's and plot out the points of the ones we know about already."

"What'll we tell him?"

"You can distract him while I snatch the information."

"Why me?"

"You're more annoying."

"And what about Neechan?"

"I'll talk to her."

For security reasons, if not for the sickened feeling that each detective was struggling with on his own, it was better that the trip back be made in silence, and so it was.

* * *

Dinner (beef udon, ironically enough) was easily reheated; not so easily cooled down was Ran's temper, which had suffered somewhat due to her enforced absence. "Trust me, Ran," Shinichi murmured sotto voce while she began heating up the neglected dinner; Mouri was in the shower, but it never hurt to be careful. "You wouldn't've wanted to be there, not this time." Quickly and quietly he outlined what they had found, including the last discovery; Ran visibly flinched, but rallied after a moment.

"I still hated to see you go like that," she murmured, turning up the heat on the lefthand burner. "Now I know the sort of thing Hattori-kun and you get into-- or at least I can guess. And I know you're not going to let up on this, you've got that look."

"Look? Me? What look?"

Ray eyed him sideways, her face flushed from the heat of the kitchen; pointing down at him with a pair of cooking chopsticks, she raised one eyebrow. _"That_ look," she said, "the one you usually get a few hours before somebody calls me from the stationhouse and tells me that little Conan-kun'll be delivered in a squadcar when the paperwork's finished, and not to worry because the murderer was caught and nobody got hurt this time. _That_ one."

Hattori snickered from the doorway. "You sound like Kazuha; she chews me out the same way." There were several folded printouts in his hand, and he brandished them at Shinichi. "Got 'em, Kudo, flight-paths, shipping companies, and I marked the locations on GoogleMaps. Nice big curve heading northeast, and th' cows got dropped about the same distance apart each time. 'Cept, you know, this one big gap between six and seven." He scratched his head, frowning. "Want to go look around in the morning? And, uh..." He blinked, looking vaguely embarrassed. "...can I borrow your couch? Didn't exactly plan on staying the night or flying cows or whatever."

Shinichi turned a supplicant's hopeful gaze on Ran, who snickered and addressed Hattori directly. "Hattori-kun, of course you can, but I can do you one better than that. Roll out our spare futon in Tousan's room, and sleep there tonight, okay?"

Shinichi frowned. "Ran, it's a small room, there's not room for three of us at once without stepping on each others' faces."

Ran casually turned back to the udon, her smirk partially obscured by a big cloud of white steam as she spoke. "That's why Conan-kun will be sleeping in my room tonight," she explained, as though it was the most obvious solution ever. As Shinichi's blush traveled all the way up to the top of his scalp, Ran stepped lithely around him and leaned into the hallway. "TOU-san, dinner~" she called, and the squeak of the shower turning off answered her announcement.

"Coming, Ran-chan," Mouri hollered. "U-don! U-don! U-_don!_ Yahooo!"

"I wonder if he's been drinking in there," Ran muttered, scooting back into the kitchen and parceling out servingware, bowls and napkins, with businesslike efficiency. "Go get these laid out, 'Conan-kun,'" she winked, "And Hattori-kun, the spare futon's in the closet beside the stairs, okay? Roll that out for me now, would you?"

As Heiji headed off to follow her instructions, shooting an apprehensive look at Shinichi over his shoulder as he went, the smaller detective pivoted in place to address Ran. "Um, _Ran?_"

"Oh shhh. I just want to be able to talk tonight, without anyone listening in."

_She says it like it's just that simple,_ Shinichi thought, flushed bright red, as he carried his armful of dinner implements over to the table. _And here I was afraid she'd be __awkward__ about all this...!_

Dinner was scarcely laid out before Mouri, hair still wet from the shower, and Hattori joined Shinichi and Ran at the table. "Itadakimaaaasu," Mouri caroled, digging in immediately. At a more sedate pace, the younger three followed suit.

"Tou-san, Hattori-kun said he thinks he found a lead about the cows," Ran said, once they'd all settled into the rhythm of their meal, and had time to mostly finish thier first servings. "He was going to go check that out tomorrow morning. You're going to be meeting with Megure-keibu, right?"

"Urmhrm," answered her father through a mouthful of noodles; he swallowed, gesturing with his chopsticks at Conan and Heiji. "At noon in his office. Said to bring you two along, too." The Sleeping Detective grunted, a slightly annoyed sound; "Lead? What kind of lead?"

Hattori swallowed as well, working his way through his bowl with enthusiasm. "Might be another cow," he answered casually, "maybe some place where people didn' notice it comin' in." He took another bite.

"'Another cow'? How could you miss somthing like that?" scoffed Mouri, watching Hattori suspiciously and keeping pace; a scraping sound indicated that his chopsticks had met the bottom. Heiji's did as well, and the two both looked at Ran with identically-hopeful expressions.

Ran snickered, smiling as she collected their bowls and served them more. Meanwhile Shinichi had an explanation for Mouri.

"Maybe nobody's home where it landed," he suggested, before rushing to finish his own serving. Just as Ran handed over the second of two refilled bowls, Shinichi gulped down the end of his portion and winningly offered his empty bowl to her as well before she could close up the pot and put down her ladle.

"I dunno about that," Mouri dissembled, starting on his seconds, "These cows made a big crash coming down. Somebody would've noticed."

"We just wanna check it out anyway, Occhan, just t'be sure," Hattori assured him, nodding a quick thanks to Ran before digging in himself.

Ran sat back to finish her portion - which was nearly gone - with a thoughtful look on her face. "And if you find one? You should call Megure-keibu right away, Hattori-kun, before you go prodding at it on your own. You don't want to disturb the scene."

"Ku--uhhhh, Conan-kun an' I here aren't amateurs," Hattori assured her, emphasizing this with a gesture of his chopsticks. "We won't go divin' into anything without lookin' first."

* * *

"Ran?" Shinichi's light voice was a soft whisper in the darkness of the bedroom. He'd avoided the issues of potential awkwardness by staying out of the room until he was completely sure that Ran was completely and totally ready for bed, but laying in bed in the dark room, side by side on separate matresses, under separate quilts, Shinichi nevertheless felt self-conscious. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Nothing in particular, Shinichi," Ran replied gently. The thin light in the room traced the line of her arm and wrist as she laid it across her chest, over the folded blankets. "I just haven't really gotten a chance to talk to you without, mm, filters, this week."

_"Neither of us is accustomed to talking without filters."_ Shinichi remembered Kid's voice, paired with the afternoon light of the coffee shop, warm in his memory. For a moment, he could imagine that the darkness of the bedroom concealed the black and blues of the thief without all his masks. The image faded as he turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"It wasn't the schoolwork to catch up on so much's the kids," Shinichi mused, force of habit and rightful paranoia (_it isn't paranoia if they're actually out to get you_) holding his voice just above a whisper. He folded his hands behind his head, regarding the ceiling. "Ayumi especially. Poor kid...I kinda wish I could let her down _now_, but she hasn't confessed yet, so I can't do anything."

"She asked me for advice, did I tell you that?" Ran laughed quietly, fabric rustling. "She wanted to know how to become a better woman so that Conan-kun would notice her."

Shinichi smiled ruefully. "I remember. You called me to tell me -- hah, to tell me that Conan had a crush on you. Well, guess what, Ran." He snickered.

"Oooh, _you_," Ran groaned. Her familiar tone caused them both to pause, a little flustered, before Shinichi extended one short arm to bridge the gap between them.

"Ran, reach out," he whispered, and she did so, linking her fingertips with his own. "There," he murmured.

In the dark, fingers just barely hooked together, it was hard to tell anything other than the sensation of touch. Shinichi's hand might've been his own, not Conan's; Ran's might have been that of the child she had once been. It didn't matter, really.

"Should've told you a long time ago," he murmured. "You're dealing with it so much better than I thought you w--" Stopping in mid-sentence, Shinichi hesitated. "I... thought you'd hate me."

Her voice was soft. "I couldn't hate you. I _was_ angry, but I got over it. Now, if _Kaasan_ ever finds out, you'll get the Shovel Speech. You know that, don't you? Shinichi?"

Oh, he knew; Kiseki Eri was one scary, scary woman.

"I think I'd prefer it if _neither_ of your parents found out, Ran," Shinichi winced, hooking his fingers tighter against hers. "For now, I'd prefer this just stay between the two of us."

Ran smiled, a little warmth in her chest growing as those words bent sideways and applied themselves to the link of her fingers with Shinichi's, to the teamwork of her knowledge and his own.

"I agree," she murmured, rolling onto her side to face his futon through the dark. Their arms no longer stretched tight between them, but neither of them moved to fully grasp the other's hand, perhaps both understanding the illusion of equal size would be broken if they did. Ran burrowed her face deeper into her pillow, hair a soft-smelling curl around her neck and shoulders, and closed her eyes tight.

"Goodnight, Shinichi. ...L...Love you."

The room's dim light traced lines across the glasses lying by Shinichi's pillow, reflected back like faint twin moons from the lens. It was this thread of illumination that he watched-- Conan's mask, his safety and identity; but it was with his own voice that he answered (or near enough; what was ten years, anyway?) when Shinichi whispered back: "You too, Ran. Goodnight."

* * *

Morning brought clear weather, cold and sharp enough to bite; Heiji, who was once again wearing one of Mouri's old sweaters and a jacket that had (amusingly enough) been left at the agency by a certain Kudo Shinichi a year past, blew on his bare hands as they exited the train station into the brilliant sunlight. "Ne, Kudo? I'm gonna have to start keepin' clothes at your place. You know how many shirts I've ripped on cases with you?"

"This didn't start out as a case," pointed out Shinichi, his own hands tucked deep into his pockets. "It started out as property damage."

"Huh." Heiji thought about that for a minute. "I wonder - I mean, this isn't the first body that tumbled outta the sky at me, but it's the first one where we didn't know it was a body till after. So do the other ones count as property damage or cases, first? I mean, whether first sight trumps first impact."

Shinichi shrugged, short legs double-timing it to keep up with the other's longer stride as they turned down the street that edged their proposed search area. "Pretty sure murder's a bigger poker-hand than willful or accidental destruction... like playing a Full House against two pairs." He glanced around. "Think we're getting close now..."

Their path had led them to the neighborhood just beyond where Number Six had so spectacularly ended the life of an innocent foreign car; large houses and townhomes shared space with a scattering of high-priced restaurants and expensive shops of one kind or another. By Japanese in-city standards, the lawns and gardens around the spacious residences were quite large, enclosed by fences and walls for the most part and as opulent as the houses they surrounded.

"Hattori, where's that map?"

The Osakajin detective pulled out the requested city map, unfolding the section on which a steady curving line of points was plotted. One through six, then one outlier; between points six and seven, two concentric circles had been carefully graphed, along with guide lines. "Says we oughta be coming up on it in the next block," Heiji said, pointing with one hand in a diagonal that veered away from the orderly lines of the street. "We take a right here, an' check the, hmmm, ought to be the third an' fourth houses from the corner."

Side by side the two made their way down the sidewalk. "I'd say no on the third house," answered Shinichi thoughtfully, slowing down. The residence in question was larger than its neighbors and had a yardfull of shrieking, running children playing some sort of game that involved an oversized red ball and kicking.

It also contained a dog: a small, cream-colored Akita, who had planted his furry posterior beside the wooden fence dividing the yard from its neighbor. The dog was barking, a steady, tired bark that had the hoarse quality of something that had been going on for some time. One of the children came over even as Heiji and Shinichi watched, petting the animal. "Hatchiko, _stop_pit," said the boy irately. "C'mon, there's nothing there!"

The dog kept barking, nose to the fence. Shinichi and Hattori looked at each other.

"Nee, bozu," Hattori called, as the pair of detectives crossed onto the edge of the yard to approach the dog and child. "How long's Hatchiko been doing that?"

The boy looked first at Hattori, then at Shinichi, suspiciously. "He hasn't shut up since last night. He was inside then, and just stood at the window the whole time, and then as soon as we came outside he went over to the fence and hasn't moved at all. I don't know what's wrong with him."

"Nii-chan and I have an idea about why Hatchiko's upset," Shinichi explained to the boy, reaching out to pet Hatchiko too. The dog turned to lick his hand once before going back to his steady barking. "Has anybody looked inside the neighbors' fence?"

"No!" the boy answered, cross. "Kaasan says it's rude to snoop on the neighbors. That's what the fence is there for."

"Well," Hattori said, reaching down to grasp Shinichi's hands and hoist the little detective onto his shoulders, "Sometimes ya gotta bend the rules a little. S'cuse me, Hatchiko." With Shinichi standing on his shoulders, Hattori walked right up to the fence.

Shinichi's reaction was immediate. "Hattori, we got 'im. There's something in the pool...all tangled up in the pool cover. And the whole yard's flooded, and the pool's level is down to about a third." _And the water's red,_ Shinichi added silently, but there was no reason to announce that tidbit while there were children around. "Let me down and I'll call it in, and you explain to the mom."

"What mom?" Hattori asked, just before a firm hand clapped over his shoulder, right beside Shinichi's foot. Hattori supported Shinichi as the boy turned and hopped down from his perch, landing in a crouch on the grass beside Hatchiko. The Akita sloppily licked all over Shinichi's face.

"Hatchiko stopped barking," the other boy said, amazed, as he watched Shinichi with the dog. "Is there something over there for real?"

"Yeah, there is," Shinichi said, looking away from Hatchiko for a moment (and getting his ear bathed in the meantime). "Nii-chan and I are detectives. We're here because of the thing in your neighbor's pool." He glanced over at Hattori, who was getting his business handed to him, in no uncertain terms, by a matronly figure whom Shinichi assumed must be the mother of the household. Deciding that Hattori could handle himself - or, if he couldn't, that he could at least keep the mother busy until the police arrived - Shinichi pulled out his cell phone and addressed the boy again.

"Could you tell your kaasan that the police are going to come to look at what's wrong with the neighbor's place, so it would be nice if she could take everybody inside for now? I have to call them now." Wide-eyed, the boy walked over to his mother - followed by Hatchiko - and tugged on her pant leg. Shinichi took advantage of the moments that afforded him to give Megure-keibu a quick call.

* * *

Some time later...

"One cow, portions of two legs and an arm, and one head." Shinichi tucked his chin down, lips compressed to a tight line as he considered that last one. The head had not been an adult's. "Did Megure say anything about fingerprinting results? Even with damage caused by the freezing they should've been able to pull prints."

This cow had, due to its softened landing, come down in the most pristine condition of all eight; the pool-cover had more or less packaged the carcass and its contents, despite the partial thaw created by the water. Both Shinichi and Hattori had hopes for at least _some_ clean residue from forensics-- fibers, non-victim hair strands, maybe even jewelry or tattoos on the corpse parts. As they walked back towards the station, the smaller detective glanced up at his friend; despite the morbidity of the situation, a flicker of graveyard humor crept into his eyes. "Can you imagine what the coroner's office must look like right now? 'Oh God, not another cow--'"

Hattori snickered despite himself. "Yeah. Bet there's a lot of vegetarians workin' there." They walked on. "You don't happen t'have any contacts in the labs, do ya, Kudo? Megure's gonna be reluctant to let any info out, even to us," the Detective of the West asked, kicking at a dead leaf.

Shinichi blinked. "Not... exactly," he said slowly. "But I might know somebody who could help. Go on ahead, though, will you? I need to make a call." The other blinked; then green eyes narrowed just a bit, drew together in an incipient scowl-- and then Heiji nodded shortly.

"Awright. Meetcha at the train station." Hands in pockets, he left Shinichi to his privacy and his phone.

_I probably shouldn't do this. But he __did__ say to call if I wanted help._ It wouldn't be the first contact to Kid regarding the case, for that matter; there'd been the text he'd sent from the bathroom... and the one after dinner...

_"I didn't expect a call so soon, meitantei."_ The voice was gravelly, rough; nothing Shinichi had heard before.

"If you decide you don't want to be taking this call, I'll understand if you hang up," Shinichi began, shifting his grip on his phone. The cold fall air made the sudden clamminess of his palms even more strange. "And eventually, we should probably devise a pass and counterpass, if the both of us are going to keep switching voices on each other." A soft chuckle that Shinichi recognized well, ill-fitted to the voice that had preceded it, both relaxed the pint-sized detective and assured him that the person he was speaking to really was the Kaitou Kid.

"Myself and the other detective I'm working with aren't going to be able to easily access the information about this case," Shinichi explained, feeling more paranoia than he did normally, even when Hattori slipped and called him Kudo. Glancing around would just feed his own fears, though, so he kept his voice low and his gait smooth, which helped to maintain his appearance of relaxation, though nothing about the situation was setting him at ease. "But neither of us can just sit by and do nothing, either. There's a lot of victims - but we haven't fitted all of the, ahm, _pieces_ together to fill in the whole puzzle yet."

Kid winced on his end, Shinichi's meaning coming through all too clearly. _"What can I do about it?"_

"The morgue is likely in need of a good puzzle-solver," Shinichi suggested carefully. "I'm not suggesting anything beyond information-gathering. Neither myself nor Heiji can blend in like you can - quite the opposite, actually. And what little innocuous presence I have had is a bit negated by the, mm, correlation of some of the puzzle pieces to my current size."

_"This one's too rough for even Edogawa to witness?"_ The rumble of Kid's faux voice made the question more challenging than it was probably intended, but regardless, it failed to rankle Shinichi. His focus was on the case.

"Something like that." Shinichi shifted his phone again as the train station came into view, a block or so further down the street. "I'm not even sure if you'd be able-- and that's _not_ a challenge, simply a statement of my unfamiliarity with your methods."

Kid snickered. _"Rest assured, tantei, it wouldn't be my appearance that would give the game away. I would be more concerned about acting the part."_

"You've mimicked officers before," Shinichi countered.

_"No, it's the case information that would be hard to duplicate. And if I chose someone low enough not to be privy to all the details...well, there's the same problem that we have now, isn't there?"_

_'we have.'_ The words had a certain resonance in Shinichi's ear. Kid was - intentionally or not - grouping himself and Shinichi on one side. As allies, even.

"Only if you think you can do it. There are eight, ahm, _envelopes,_ and a variable number of puzzle pieces has been found in each. I need to know how many full sets those pieces add up to, and what kinds of sets. I can't get any clue about the who behind this until I know some of the what."

_"I'll try, tantei,"_ Kid promised, in his normal voice. _"Get me what information you do have, and your best guesses too. If I have any luck, I'll let you know."_

"Thank you," Shinichi murmured, as the line went dead.

In the Kuroba mansion, Kid sat back in his chair, letting the back of his head come to rest against the wall behind him with a tight, close-lipped sigh.

"Young master?" Jintarou looked up from his paperwork at the far end of the table, then flinched as Kid bounced the back of his skull off the wall. "...I leave you to it, then," he murmured, turning back to his registers.

* * *

_To be continued next week with Chapter 15: "Germaphobe, three piece suit, taboo". Jaaa!_


	15. Germaphobe, three piece suit, taboo

_Welcome back to __**Three Thieves**__, folks! This week we have a __very__ fun chapter....despite all the dismemberment. As if last week wasn't enough of a fair warning: This case is going to be gruesome. You have been warned. But we promise that we'll pepper the sobriety with gleeful, happy moments from Kid, Shinichi, and the rest, to make the reading easier._

_Next week, we'll be taking a one-week vacation from Three Thieves for Valentine's weekend; while Nightengale works her __job__ at Katsucon, Ysabet will be journeying off to __war__. On the __**19th**__, we'll be back with Chapter Eight, which - we promise - is just as good as this week's chapter._

_But first, of course, we have to get through Chapter Seven! This week, there's a few easter eggs for you all. See if you can find the references to __Holmes, Sweeney Todd,__ and the __Dresden Files__! There's also coffee abuse, an abusive cat, text messages, and a very finely tailored suit! Keep your arms and legs within the vehicle at all times, please, and enjoy the ride._

_One last thing: In this document there are several messages between two of the characters, sent as texts via Twitter. Due to 's undying and diligent war against posting links, the best I can tell you is to try typing this one out to find Shinichi's texts: http colon slash slash twitter dot com slash Dductshn and THIS one out to find Kid's: http colon slash slash twitter dot com slash 1upin. Good luck! (or, of course, you could go and read at our LJ account, http colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash. If you do, please leave us commentary __somewhere__, though! Many thanks, and on with the show................ The Management_

* * *

_Book Two, Chapter Seven:__ "Germaphobe, three piece suit, taboo"  
by _**_red_****_nightengale_**_ and _**_ysabet_**_._

They'd lucked out on the trip back; their traincar was almost empty except for a noisy handful of middle-schoolers down at the other end. So, side by side, Shinichi and Heiji had their end of the car to themselves. They still kept their voices down, but the rattling clack of the train itself was enough to ensure security for the most part. "Any good?" asked the Osakajin, indicating the boy's call and still looking a little prickly about the whole matter.

"Won't know 'til later." Shinichi sighed, scrubbing at his head; his headache was waking up again. "Maybe... maybe not. Depends on a lot of things." _On his paranoia. On how much of a challenge Kid thinks this is. On how curious I made him. On how much he really feels like helping. This isn't about me, not this time; it's tangential, but it's not about me, and I don't have the right to expect him to react like it is._ That phrase, though, the one containing 'we'; it chased away some of the unease, and mentally Shinichi tucked the memory of it away in a safe place to think about later.

"Hm." Hattori eyed him sideways. "Gives a whole new meanin' to 'don't ask, don't tell', doesn't it?" At his companion's snort of laughter the other detective prodded Shinichi in the ribs with a finger. "Speakin' of telling... What was your girlfriend on about you and--" He mimicked Ran's hand-motion from the night before, Shinichi-high down to Conan-low. "You have some sort've temporary growth spurt, Kudo?" _And why didn't you tell me?_ his expression asked, somewhat hurt.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, less than a day long-- not a cure, just an experiment. Ai has this theory she's working on, something new; this time was a hell of a lot rougher than usual. I don't want to do _that_ again for a long time, not unless it's permanent." He shuddered before dropping his gaze, a hint of a smile creeping in. "That's when I, y'know, told Ran. We, uh, spent a lot of quality time together; or at least we did until I had to change back." The look he returned was apologetic... and a little embarrassed too. But only a little.

Hattori's expression hopped quickly from surprise to a rather lecherous grin. "Ahahaaa, made sure t'get your money's worth, huh? Kinda like shore leave, yeah?" Shinichi shot him a baleful glare, and the Detective of the West wisely chose discretion as the greater part of judgment.

"So, ah, whether'r not we can get a hand from your friend, we still gotta figure out what our next move is, with these cows." Hattori's expression sobered as he brought the conversation back around to its point. Reaching over, he ruffled Shinichi's hair with one hand as he mulled the problem over. "Not t'be a pessimist, but I'm not banking on catchin' the guy just from whatever little prints they pull offa Hatchicow," Hattori mused. Shinichi elbowed him in the kidney, and Hattori looked down with more annoyance than pain. "Awww, c'mon, the pun was just _waiting_ for me!" The smaller detective sighed.

"Whatever. You're right, though, we're going to need something more substantive to prove foul play - even if there were fingerprints on the outside of the cow, the case could easily be made that the body parts were concealed within the frozen flanks when a handler, or someone on the shipping line, touched the cows. I think going after motive would give us the most information, but to do that we need to know who was killed. And that brings us around to our starting point again." Shinichi sighed, rubbing at his temples. "It's starting to look like we can't do anything until we know the identities - or at least demographics - of the victims."

"Think we could surmise some'v it?" Hattori lifted his hat to ruffle his hair, smoothing it back as he replaced the ballcap - backwards, of course. "Eleven hands at least, maybe more, and all in the same shipment of beef, means there's good odds that all the folk were killed around the same time period. Mass-processed beef like this processes an' ships pretty quick, so it's not like the murderers were fitting bodies into these cows over a couple'a weeks. Probably more like a couple'a days."

Shinichi frowned. "Loading the bodies, yes. Killing them? Not necessarily. If the murderer has free enough access to a meat packing plant that he - or she - can conceal bodies this way, it's also logical to think that the bodies could be kept on ice for a period of time before they needed to be disposed of. What I can't figure out is why choose such a blatant method? The shipment can easily be tracked to its originating plant."

"Maybe that's what they're banking on?" Hattori suggested. "We could be lookin' at a frame job."

"Maybe, but even _that_ seems too obvious." Shinichi frowned. "The more I think about it, the more this looks like a faux frame - an attempt to frame an opponent by making it look like the opponent was framing the killer. Or killers." He paused for a moment, gears turning quickly behind his eyes, then continued in an excited, quicker tone. "And the method was chosen to make the murders look less crafted than they were! I'll wager that one layer of the fence will be a claim that this was a crime of passion - and that would lead me to believe that the bodies are related to each other."

"Well sure they're related," Hattori agreed, vaguely confused. "They were all found together, mixed up."

"I mean," Shinichi clarified, looking up at his friend with excitement, "I think this was more intertwined than even that. There were children's and women's body parts in the cows, correct?" At the other end of the car, one of the middle school students looked up in alarm at that, and Shinichi hunched down to hide behind Hattori, and lowered his voice. "As gruesome as it sounds, if we frame this as a familial murder rather than a series of random killings - and obviously, we'll have to wait on evidence to prove this theory - then things begin to come together. Then it makes more sense for all the bodies to be mixed together. Wouldn't it take more effort for the killer to spread the body parts among various cows if they were doing it gradually? The thawing and refreezing process would be much more laborious that way than if they batch-murdered the whole group, then mixed and divided the bodies. If they were banking on the cows being distributed across a wide range before the parts were found, decomposition in the human parts as they thawed over time and at different rates, depending on cooling conditions in each of the destined delivery locations, would make it near-impossible to rematch the mixed bodies - and obscure the total number of corpses represented."

Hattori blinked down at his small friend, whose eager, nearly gleeful expression and intensely focused eyes were at the moment reminding Hattori of some sort of horribly intelligent hunting dog proudly presenting its kill. Perhaps a terrier.

"Sometimes, Kudo, you scare me."

Shinichi saluted his larger friend with an ironic eyebrow. "Says the guy who spent an entire train-trip back to Osaka trying to one-up me by text on the most foolproof ways to dispose of a body... Time to play Devil's Advocate now. Hmmm." The look of concentration deepened, blue eyes thoughtful. "Three things," and Shinichi began counting off on his fingers. "One: just as a possibility, this could also be a group related by other links-- poverty level, geographic location, et cetera." He shrugged. "Two: those body-parts? if the rates of relative thaw match, I'm wondering if they were frozen at the same time as the cows instead of separately, which'd mean that the window of opportunity to insert the pieces would be much smaller, both by place and time. And three: whether or not the faux frame hypothesis works,out it's still possible that the cows were dropped accidentally rather than on purpose. Have you ever seen how they get shipped? The planes have a kind of mechanized belt system with meatooks; the carcasses are hung from the hooks one after the other like coathangers in a closet and cranked into the cargo bays. If the belt wasn't locked down, the cargo'd shift back against the hatch and..." He made the same hand-motion that Heiji had made the night before. "Steaks from heaven."

Hattori gave his fellow detective a disbelieving look, then ignored the joke. "So," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe we oughta see if any've these planes landed with damage, huh? Just in case. The family thing, though... that's a lot of bodies to go missing. _Somebody'd_ notice, wouldn't they?" He scowled, shoving his hat back. "Unless they were paid not to talk, or the family tended t'take long trips, or they were threatened, or-- Kudo? You know anybody down at the precinct in Missing Persons?"

"Oh... maybe one or two."

* * *

The main Beika City police building was located not far from a major train station, so it took relatively little time to reach. Shinichi'd texted along what little information they already had to his 'contact', hoping it would help: times of cow arrival, numbers of body-parts, approximate distance and location between sites, et cetera. That done, now Edogawa Conan stood on tiptoes at the building's reception desk, just barely able to peek over the top. The uniformed receptionist, a gray-haired matronly type, smiled down at him and greeted him by name before typing his name in; Heiji got a bit more of a once-over, though he'd been there often enough.

"Two to see Chirokawa-san, Oba-san. Is he in?"

Visitor's badges were passed over. "Of course, Conan-kun. Some days I wonder if he ever leaves." The woman looked a little resigned. "Go along, now, you know where his office is. Don't forget about the shoes," she added as they left.

Hattori blinked. "Shoes?" He glanced down at his feet; as the building was not a residence, they had kept on their outdoor shoes rather than changing into scuffs. "What about shoes?"

The boy beside him wrinkled his nose. "Chirokawa-san's a bit of a germaphobe. We get along okay because I don't pitch a fit over his ideas on sterile procedures, but he won't let the rest of the Shonen Tantei in the lab. Just follow my lead, okay? And don't touch _anything_ unless he hands it to you."

* * *

The sign on the door said _NO ENTRY WITHOUT SHOECOVERS/GLOVES. THIS MEANS YOU._ Hanging on a hook beside the doorjamb were two bags, one full of blue vinyl gloves and the other with the sort of baggy elastic-topped one-size-fits-allshoe covers usually found in hospital clean rooms. Without comment Conan dug into the second bag, carefully knotting the toes of his pair so that they'd fit more or less over his small feet; beside him Heiji looked on, nonplussed.

"Feet condoms? What kind of whacko _is_ this guy, Kudo? We're not visitin' Forensics, this is Missing Persons..."

The smaller detective pulled a pair of child-sized gloves from his backpack, snapping one at the Osakajin. "You wanted a contact, you got a contact."

"Iiii dunno 'bout this," Heiji mumbled, nevertheless covering his hands and feet as directed. When both detectives were ready, Heiji knocked firmly twice. There was no immediate answer. He had just turned his attention down to Shinichi's level, preparing to say something, when the door rattled and jerked open. Heiji looked up into the brass bell of a souzaphone.

"...Um?"

"Hold this!" a voice rapped from behind the instrument, and the horn wobbled in front of Heiji's nose, insistently demanding his attention like a large metal puppy. Hesitantly, he took it from the hands that held it, then held it aside (over Shinichi's head; there was only so much room in this doorway) to look past at the person who'd offered it.

A thin man with an irregular cloud of fluffy but sparse white hair, stooped over his desk, waved one (rubber-gloved) hand behind himself in the general direction of the doorway. "Come in come in, or go out go out, I don't care, just stop letting the air in!"

Heiji held the souzaphone out of the way so he could stare at Shinichi. _Are you friggin' serious?_ his expression clearly read. Shinichi just rolled his eyes at him, then addressed the bustling, cranky man within the office.

"Chirokawa-san, that's an 'out,' right?" he asked, perky Conan voice on about 80% power, pointing helpfully at the souzaphone as he did so.

"Yes, yes, an out! An out. It's not mine, I don't want the filthy thing. It has _spittle_ in it. Some bright bulb decided to leave that in my office, as though I'm the only thin man with white hair in the building! That belongs to Waldo Butters, down in the medical examiners' offices. I don't even know how it got up here, is that even in the same building? It's probably not, I would bet it's not, just-- Augh. Put it in the hall."

"Yes, Chirokawa-san," Shinichi answered obediently, shooting a pointed glance at Heiji. _Well? Do what he said!_

The souzaphone went into the hallway, ending up with a muted _clank!_ onto the tiles some ways away from the office; still eyeing Shinichi as if wondering where the joke was and just who it was on, Heiji closed the door behind him and propped himself against it, arms crossed. The office itself was as eccentric as its inhabitant, and as Shinichi navigated around a stool that was taller than him, Heiji's bemused gaze wandered from one end of the room to the other. Neat rows of file-cabinets reigned surpreme, festooned here and there with yellow sticky notes; lists and charts and graphs were pinned to all wallspace, overlapping to the point where you couldn't tell if there was actually a bulletin-board underneath or not. And _they_ were covered with yellow sticky notes too. Past them a desk stood in overcrowded splendor (or lack thereof, mostly lack), piled high with files and books and files and legal-pads and files and forms and files and... more yellow sticky notes. Everywhere.

"There's a note on your elbow," said Shinichi to Chirokawa-san helpfully.

The elderly man blinked, peeled off the note (which said _DRY CLEANING LINMEI'S 4:30 TUESDAY_) and stuck it on the front of the nearest file-cabinet, lining up the edges in careful precision with the note beside it. Actually, all of the sticky notes in the room were the same precise shade of yellow, and were lined up with absolutely rigorous, meticulous symmetry to whatever they happened to be stuck to. All of them, every one.

Heiji took all of this in with a quiet amazement, allowing Shinichi to take the fore as Chirokawa-san settled himself behind his desk, adjusting pens, sticky notes, and the angle of his chair so that all laid in perfect parallelism and perpindicularity to each other. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Edogawa-kun?"

"The cows, Chirokawa-san," 'Conan' answered, pulling a little stool out from a nook between filing cabinets and hoisting himself up onto it -- after carefully checking to make sure that all four of its legs were placed in the precise centers of the floor tiles on which they rested. "I wanted to know about who was in them."

Chirokawa-san, who seemed to find absolutely nothing wrong with an apparent seven-year-old asking for classified and almost certainly horrific information regarding numerous murder suspects, switched his gaze from the boy's face to Hattori's casual slump against the door. "Can your guest be trusted?" he asked as if the Osakajin (who had stiffened in absolute indignation) were nothing more than a particularly unsightly piece of office-furniture rather than the sole offspring of 'Oni' Heizo, Chief of the Osaka police precinct, yadda yadda yadda.

"Absolutely. Don't let his appearance fool you; he's almost as bright as I am."

Sparing Heiji one last suspicious glance, Chirokawa-san harrumphed and pulled a single file out of a perfectly-aligned stack of identical files. "Yes, well then. The cows, as you say--" He cleared his throat and began to read aloud.

* * *

And afterwards--

"'A bit of a germaphobe'. Right... Kudo? You know the weirdest people."

"Who, me? --watch out for the souzaphone, Hattori. Ooops..."

* * *

The text Shinichi had sent him didn't explicitly mention the cow case at all, though Kid knew the odds were stacked against the summons actually being unrelated. He'd been waiting for the contact for about a day, having done what work he could on his end; doubtless, this was a business call...well, of sorts. Still, Kid found it hard to keep the mischievous grin from his face, exchanging several quick texts with Shinichi as he dressed for their meeting and made his way to the cafe. The distance he had to cover wasn't negligible, but covering significant lengths in a short span of time was a talent he prided himself on. So, as Shinichi's most recent text pinged into his phone, Kid was walking in the doors of the cafe, smiling at the homey jingle of bells on the door. A waiter came up to greet him, but he smiled and waved one hand to dismiss the man.

"Thank you, but I'm meeting Enomoto-san and Edogawa-kun."

"Ahhh, they're a bit busy at the moment," the waiter -- who had served, and been befuddled, by Kid and Shinichi the last time they'd met at this _Poírot Café_ -- chuckled. He smiled guilelessly at Kid, not recognizing the thief, even though Kid's makeup was very light, disguising little of his facial features. Save for his contact lenses, the main component of Kid's disguise was actually his clothes. Vastly different from his civilian fare, or his normal uniform, they flattered his figure and completely changed his apparant nature -- one of the easiest costumes he owned, yet one of the ones - save for anything involving women's nylons - he had to be most delicate with.

Proceeding past the waiter and through the cafe, Kid nudged his way gently through the kitchen doors as though he had been invited, because he had been. As he expected, Shinichi's ladder was propped close to the swinging door, and so Kid was careful to edge his way around it as he entered the staff-only area, warm from the baking ovens and imposing kettles of soup simmering over low heat. With a respectful nod to the distressed young woman he could safely assume to be the owner of the stranded cat, Kid introduced himself.

"Good afternoon, Enomoto-san. I'm Takeda-san, a friend of Edogawa-kun's parents. He sent me a little message saying he'd be here -- has he gotten into any trouble?" The voice he chose for this costume was rounded and warm, full of lush vowels with a definite Westerner's accent. His makeup and grey contact lenses gave Kid the appearance of mixed ethnicity, adding a bit of Occident into his strongly Oriental features. In the three-piece charcoal grey pinstriped suit he'd chosen, he looked every inch the part of a young, ambitious businessman with both traditional and Western connections, and as he'd hoped, Enomoto-san was sufficiently impressed.

Kid tipped his head back to look up the ladder. "Good afternoon, Conan-kun," Kid said, his affected persona and voice allowing him the indulgence of an unprofessionally warm inflection. "Do you need a bit of help with the little neko-chan?"

There was a brief pause at the top of the ladder, both of movement and of the low-voiced muttering that had been just barely audible: "--notgoingtohurtyougetyourOW!clawsout'vemywristbeforeOW!OW!okaygreatjust_stay_upthereforallIcare--" Conan's head swiveled; he blinked, did an almost visible but very quick mental recalibration... and yelped. "AAGH!" When he jerked his arms back from the half-closed cabinet, they were full of rather large amounts of cat and the cat's mouth was full of thumb. "The 'little neko-chan' is doing just wonderful," he gritted out between his teeth. _"I_ may need surg-- err, I mean... no, no, I'm fine. Enomoto-san? Could you take him?" The cat bit down again, and Conan quivered. "Please?"

Enomoto-san, a thin-faced young woman in a waitress's uniform, backed away wide-eyed. "Oh no, Tenshi-chan doesn't _ever_ let anybody hold him. Just drop him."

_Thud._ With an evil glare, Tenshi-chan slunk away across the kitchen floor as the boy gingerly made his way down the ladder. Three feet from the ground, he found himself lifted - gently, and firmly - off its rungs and set down on the floor with a gentle hand. 'Takeda-san' crouched to the boy's level, smiling at 'Conan-kun' as he turned to face him, holding one hand out between them. "Is your hand okay, Conan-kun? Tenshi-chan seemed to have a pretty firm grip there..."

Startled into stillness, the other blinked. "Uh-- fine, I'm... fine." He looked at his own hand; the scratches and bitemarks weren't severe, mostly indentations and fine white clawscrapes rather than gore-dripping punctures. He shook it out, flexing slightly-chewed fingers with a wince before glancing back up with a small grin. "It's good to see you... Takeda-san." He'd fished the name out of Kid's conversation with the waitress, obviously, and now the grin widened slightly as he took in the suit and tie. "Thanks for coming to see me; Kaasan says you're awfully busy these days, what with the stockmarket and all those nightclubs..." Pausing in his extrapolation for a moment, the boy turned a blue-eyed look onto Tenshi-chan's owner. "Enomoto-san, could we get some coffee? Ran-neechan won't mind so long as I put a lot of cream in mine, you know that."

A few minutes later found them both settled into a booth, steaming cups before them. From one corner of the room, Tenshi-chan elevated a hind leg and began washing in an improbable pose.

With an amused glance at the cat, past Conan's ear and over the top of the low booth seats, Kid opened their conversation with a casualness that was comical only to the two of them, both in on their own private joke. He had smoothly unbuttoned his suit jacket as they sat down so that it wouldn't buckle or strain, and his waistcoat, of the same pinstriped wool as his suit, showed his trim figure and contrasted well with the rich sapphire blue of his necktie. A tiny green clover tie tack kept the satin in place.

The thief's smile, delivered over the rim of his coffee mug, was an expression all in his eyes. "How've you been, Conan-kun?"

"Okay, Takeda-san. Heiji-niisan's been visiting us, did you know? He's at the precinct with his father right now, though, all day long," he chirped back, mostly for Enomoto-san's ears as the waitress walked past to greet another couple, glancing back at them and smiling as she passed. The _Poírot Café_ was fairly quiet that afternoon, low light from the street filtering in and gilding both their faces as if with a brush. The added emphasis to the last sentence was very slight indeed but still there, and, Shinichi hoped, would allow a little more of a feeling of security to their conversation.

Dropping the chirpiness (and lowering his voice), the detective allowed a real grin, teeth and all, to replace his Conan-smile. "Pinstripes. _Nice_ suit; you look a little like a '30s-era gangster, all you need is a carnation in your lapel. And maybe a violin case." In truth, the suit... suited the wearer, and very well; Shinichi was aware of a trace of envy in his voice. He was also aware of an odd shyness, just a little-- this was the first time they had met face-to-face since his return to his diminutive state. _Not the first time he's seen me, though,_ and Shinichi knew that with a peculiar certainty. The prospect of being watched should have bothered him, but it didn't, somehow; the whole thing was more _I've got your back_ than _I'm behind your back,_ and was kind of comforting in a bizarre way.

He noticed something, smothering a grin; "Enomoto-san thinks it's nice too," he murmured, watching the young woman as she stole another glance; there was a distinctly appreciative glint in her eyes.

Kid glanced over at the young waitress, not entirely falsifying the warmth in the tiny smile he sent her way. As she all but jumped in response, flushing bright red, and bustled away to her work, Kid turned back to Shinichi with a self-satisfied smile twisting his smirk.

"I enjoy this outfit," he murmured back, savoring a mouthful of coffee to pace himself as he spoke. Truth be told, he was riding high on a buzz of excitement and adrenaline, and the effort of holding it back - to keep its associated vibration from ruining his chosen persona - was distracting him a bit. It hadn't been that long since he'd seen Shinichi in person - no more than a week and a half, twelve days on the outside. But he still puffed up a little under the detective's praise.

"I don't get many excuses to wear this one out," Kid explained, smoothly shifting position where he sat so he could cross one ankle over his knee under the table. "Seeing you seemed like as good an excuse as any." Before either of them - Shinichi or Kid himself - could get hung up on that phrasing, Kid propped one elbow on the table and leaned forward with a conspiratorially gleeful expression, one finger tapping his lips thoughtfully. "So you have news for me, my little informant?"

_That_ term earned the thief a distinct warning look, the kind that in other circumstances might have been accompanied by a sedative dart, high-velocity soccerball or other kickable projectile. "Four-letter word," muttered Shinichi, before letting it go. "Anyway-- yeah. According to the search-radius that Missing Persons is running, we're looking at a non-Asian population group, mostly male, young adults and a few children possibly from a very impoverished region demographic. And one anomaly, an Asian male in good physical shape... from what they can tell. Ring any bells with your own research?" He took a long drink of his cofee, making a face at the cream-pale surface.

"From the discussion I was able to listen in on - which, I'll warn you, was precious little - nobody at the morgue really believes that they were nationals. With the exception of our anomaly, none of them were accustomed to flouride in their water or the anatomy of a toothbrush. Determining familial ties will have to wait until the DNA testing comes back, but they're betting on it." Kid paused for a sip of his coffee, which was tinted with considerably less cream than Shinichi's. "They _have_ determined that the bodies were killed and promptly frozen in batches, not all at once and not individually. Some batches of them seem to have been stored at sub-freezing temperatures for a couple months, perhaps; others have almost no, erm, 'freezer burn,' you could say. They're planning to match up the body parts within those sets - like several small puzzles before they put together the big one."

Another sip of coffee paced the conversation, giving Shinichi a moment to contemplate what Kid had revealed so far before he went on.

"I also did some poking around at the police station, since I got so little of use from the morgue. They've identified the shipping flight that dropped the cows, as well as the company that was to receive the beef shipment. Hoshi Gyūniku, which has a warehouse presence in the Koto ward in Tokyo. Normally, they get their beef shipments from Narita, as you'd expect, but this particular plane was routed through _Chōfu_ Airport."

Kid let that little tidbit sink in for a moment, knowing Shinichi would understand the significance as well as the thief himself did. The majority of the flights routed through Chōfu, a much smaller airport than Narita, were commercial sightseeing and vacation trips to the islands south of Tokyo. Under the management of the Tokyo Metropolitan government, Chōfu, located in the northeastern quarter of the Tokyo metropolitan area, also regularly landed a small number of personal flights and private planes. A large freight flight like the one that had dropped the cows was not at all typical of Chōfu's usual schedule.

"They quarantined the remainder of the shipment once they'd tracked the plane down...all of the beef in it has been declared unsafe for consumption, of course, and they're thawing it to look for any remaining puzzle pieces. Problem is, Hoshi Gyūniku isn't talking about where it was getting this beef from, and the plane's manifests are full of bogus information. Dead ends." Kid frowned deeply, stirring an extra spoonful of sugar into his already saturated coffee. "And it's obvious what _that_ looks like."

The boy nodded, frowning as well; for a moment, their expressions matched each other's with almost uncanny symmetry-- had Kid not been wearing contacts and makeup, the effect would have been even more striking, and as it was Enomoto-san (who'd been watching from across the café) paused in stacking saucers, momentarily nonplussed. After a moment her face cleared, though, and she went on with her work.

"A cover-up," said Shinichi thoughtfully, "but is the company covering up their own activities, their sources, an outside activity or a future line of revenue? It almost always comes down to money or territory when you have a high body-count. And there's this," he murmured, ticking off points on his fingers. "Why were the bodies frozen at different times? And why in batches? And mostly," he tipped his head back, staring unseeingly at the windows and street beyond, "why were there no torsos? Hands, heads, even feet, you can pull identifying information from these-- but torsos? What makes a human torso so valuable? What kind of use can you put a torso to that you can't use a... wait." He blinked. "Did you hear anything about... were the heads, ahh, mutilated in any way?" The question was posed almost clinically, but the sickened look in Shinichi's eyes was anything but clinical; he drank again from his cup, watching his companion over the brim.

"I didn't hear, no, but I see where you're heading," Kid murmured back, shaking his head slightly. "The possibility had occurred to me, as well."

The words _organ farming_ were written on both faces, and not all the coffee in the world could make it palatable.

Eyes from a head, heart, lungs, liver and kidneys from a torso, even solid bone, bone-marrow and certain membranes; if a 'donor' was newly dead enough (and a murderer who had the facilities for this sort of thing could surely choose his time, couldn't he?) the blood could even be drained and processed. Black-market organ sales were nothing new, and while the risk factor was high the profit margin had to be astronomical... if you were the sort of creature who could view human beings as so much two-legged cattle.

How... appropriate. Shinichi placed his cup back down on the table, cold queasiness settling into his stomach.

"If," the detective said slowly, choosing his words with care, "you were looking to provide the market with-- this particular product-- you'd need a viable source from which to obtain it. Non-Asian, low-income; bad teeth, you said? I wonder if the hands and feet were calloused. A purely adult set of victims would lead to a farmed population of homeless victims, but there were children... and that'd mean a more widespread group." Shinichi grimaced. "A third-world country of some kind, maybe? Work camps, labor programs, some place out of the way where the lure of food or money would bring in victims that wouldn't be missed." He sat back, appalled.

"We can't yet rule out the possibility that the bodies were planted," Kid reminded his companion, forcibly dragging both of their imaginations away from the gruesome details of Shinichi's suppositions. "Nor that they may have been planted to appear planted."

"A reverse frame?" Shinichi wondered, and Kid nodded, then shook his head slowly.

"I need internet." He spoke with less horrified distraction and more precision, more aggressiveness, than before. _As ironic as it sounds,_ Shinichi thought to himself, _It's just like he's on a case. I wonder if I look like that._

Kid raised a hand to summon a wait staff; Enomoto-san perked up and came swiftly across the floor toward them. Just before she drew close enough to hear, Kid looked to Shinichi with layers in his glance. "Would you take care of the tab here? I'll meet you in half an hour in the library. Bring a laptop if you own one...I want your help on this."

And he left. Behind him at the table, Shinichi glowered down the sidewalk at the thief's receding silhouette. "Oh, _sure,_ stick me with the check _again_," he grumbled, pulling out his slim walletful of yen. "He's such a cheap date..."

The squeak at his elbow drew Shinichi's attention to Enomoto-san, who was flushed bright pink and staring at him as though she'd never seen him before. "A-ah, C-conan-kun, did you need s-something?"

_What? Why's she so--_ Mentally backtracking, Shinichi felt himself do what could only be described as a whole-body cringe of dismay. _Oh. My. God. Eeeep! Uhh....._ "N-no, no, just... for my uncle and me? My uncle? You know?" He held out money a little desperately to ward off the rattled waitress in much the manner that Van Helsing might have brandished a cross. "On my... mother's side? We had, um, had coffee?"

Enomoto-san looked at the empty seat opposite the boy, then back at Conan, then back at the seat and then back at her customer again. If the wheels in her head had turned any faster, the noise would have been deafening. "Y-your uncle?"

"My uncle. Absolutely my uncle." Eyes wide and all but glowing with his best Absolutely Sincere Conan aura, Shinichi held out the money again. "And now I have to go, -chandoesn'tgetstuckagain,jaaa!"

He was out the door and pounding up the stairs to retrieve his laptop before the bells had stopped jangling. Behind him, Enomoto-san watched the door settle shut, shook her head and began clearing the table. Tenshi-chan brushed against her legs as she picked up the cups and she glanced down at the cat, muttering beneath her breath:

"...kids these days, honestly..."

* * *

Kid looked up from his laptop screen when Shinichi came into the library. Sprawled across Shinichi's favorite chair, knees hanging over one arm and shoulders braced on the other arm, Kid was already surrounded by a veritable nest of research paraphernalia: papers, opened books, documents protected by plastic sleeves and others dotted with post-its and scribbled notes. A big mug of coffee stood on the table nearish his seat, and all the lights in the library were on, flooding the room with illumination. But the windows - except for the skylight - were covered by thick draperies that Shinichi had never noticed before (or had they even been there?), and the detective relaxed somewhat at the sight of them, his concerns about a security risk shrinking.

"Took you long enough," Kid greeted him, a raised eyebrow standing in for an actual wave, as both his hands were busy - one on the keyboard, one holding a book open beside the screen for easy comparison.

"But I'm early!" Shinichi complained.

"The early detective catches the murderer," tsked the thief; Shinichi rolled his eyes, heading for the kitchen for some coffee of his own.

From the doorway he surveyed the tableau of Kid, computer, paperwork and coffee; his eyes crinkled in amusement as he watched the other work. Aside from the context, it was very much like watching a large cat, comfortably ensconced on the best and softest cushion, perfectly at home and licking its paws. This particular cat, _Felinus Japonicus,_ had made itself very much at home indeed; and rather than feeling like an intrusion, the impromptu settling-in made the Kudo house feel more welcoming than usual rather than otherwise.

It was nice, actually.

It was also rather astonishing, more than astonishing-- not that Kid was so adept with research, that was a given; but that he would pour so much energy and time into something that was neither a heist nor had anything to do with one. "How long've you been working on this?" Shinichi asked curiosly, scooting up onto the couch and booting up his own laptop.

"Since you brought me into the case," Kid responded bluntly, his tone indicating he thought the answer rather obvious. He glanced away from the screen only briefly, then turned his intent focus back to his screen. "Should I have started on it when the cows came home to start with? Also, my coffee needs refilled."

Eyebrows on the rise, the detective mulled this over. His first impulse (a startled mixture of gratitude and annoyance) flickered across his face, and he made no effort to hide it. His second impulse, however, was born of the usual insistent urge towards data, any data, the determination to connect the dots. "And I thought I was a workaholic," he muttered, pulling up his latest data and checking a few responses in his email. "But, um. Thanks."

Shinichi typed his own notes up, adding a few observations to the ones he'd detailed out earlier in the day prior to their meeting at the _Poírot Café_; but this only kept him occupied for a few minutes, and eventually his curiosity got the better of him (as Kid surely knew it would.) "So. Observations? Opinions?" He saved his document a final time before hooking one foot beneath the other and sitting back expectantly. "I know better than to think that you wouldn't have any." _Though,_ Shinichi added silently, _I'm still surprised you're cracking down on this so hard. Murder's not your usual field of concern, Kid; why are you so caught up in this?_

Paradoxically, it wasn't the thief's morality that was in question, not in the least; nobody who had 'No-one gets hurt' as the first and abiding rule of their heists could be the sort that stomached murder. That much Shinichi was absolutely certain of. And admittedly? It felt unexpectedly good, knowing that the other was working on the case as well. Still...

Never mind. He was just grateful that Kid's incisive, inquiring intellect _was_ applying itself to the case, because he had the feeling that this one was going to need all the help it could get.

Kid glanced up at Shinichi - specifically, at how Shinichi had actually removed his hands from his keyboard - and then turned his focus back to his own keys, where his fingers were still restlessly tapping. He scanned the screen, attention catching on one particular paragraph and looping back to read it in closer detail, as he answered the detective. "I told you my observations already: my coffee's empty." To help Shinichi bridge the cognitive gap, Kid held out his mug demonstratively.

Okay, gratitude or not... Shinichi considered several responses, hit on one, and quite meekly slid off the couch. It was the work of a moment to retrieve the thief's cup and not much more than that to locate the rather elderly jar of instant coffee that his mother had once bought out of curiosity. _Good thing the Krup's got a hot-water dispenser,_ he thought cheerfully as he added in several spoons of sugar.

Without a word he delivered the cup, slipping back onto his seat and settling his laptop into place. "Did you get those files I sent earlier?" he inquired, all innocence.

"I did," Kid answered, looking over his screen to briefly meet Shinichi's eyes. "Though with Chirokawa-san's information, much of it becomes expansion of data points we already know, rather than introduction of new information. It's fairly easy to assume that a loading door breach - or a belt failure, really it's a chicken and egg problem - caused the cows to drop. And Chirokawa-san has confirmed that the body parts, scrambled, were frozen in un-scrambled batches. What we don't know for certain is whether the ratio of cows to batches is one to one; obviously, the batches were scrambled after dissection and freezing, before they were bovinely interred."

Kid paused for a sip of his coffee, ignoring its scalding hot temperature. He swallowed, then glanced over the rim of the cup at Shinichi, one eyebrow raised in startled regard. With a faint smile and a short nod, Kid acknowledged the accuracy of Shinichi's hand at sugaring a cup of coffee to suit its recipient, then set the drink aside and turned back to his screen, scrolling briefly while he continued speaking.

"We've established that most of the victims were of a similar demographic and likely uniform national and local origin. What we haven't addressed yet is the presence of the single outlier. His - well, we presume it's a 'his,' but 'hers' wouldn't change anything - hands don't show the abuse that the other pairs do; he's from a different social class, and likely a different ethnicity. A visitor, perhaps, to the site of murders; whether he was there for business or pleasure isn't sure. But with more accurate dental and genetic records in populations of higher economic standing, he stands as our best chance to identify the source of origin for these bodies. We simply need to identify him...and then shadow his every step."

"Hm; post-mortem surveillance; not the first time I've done that one." As he watched Kid take another sip _(He can't __really__ like instant, can he? It's like where bad coffee goes to die)_ a thought occurred to Shinichi and he sat his own cup down, feeling slightly queasy. "You didn't, um... see the remains, did you?" That single pathetically-small hand had featured unpleasantly in his dreams the night before; finding out that it had been accompanied by several more hadn't helped.

"Some," Kid answered, the line of his mouth tightening a bit. "Enough." Another pause, another sip of teeth-rottingly sweet coffee, and Kid visibly shook the thought away. "Let's get back to work, Tantei. There's miles to go before we sleep."

* * *

Kid - and presumably Shinichi - had long since lost track of the volume of coffee - in varying degrees of quality - that they'd consumed. Evening had shaded into night, and both stomachs had begun to growl rather obnoxiously when, finally, the breakthrough came. Kid read over the text he'd found twice, to be sure of himself, and then forwarded the long, complex URL via PM to Shinichi. The book, "Marketing Beef in Japan," made available by the infinite wisdom of the Google Overlords, contained a wealth of information about the production, preparation, delivery, and sale of beef and steak in Japan, and - buried somewhere in the middle of all of this - a priceless clue.

"Tantei. The link. Page one hundred six." Kid's voice was soft, intent, nearly reverent. He waited a few moments for Shinichi to find and begin reading the page.

When Shinichi spoke a moment later, his normally-high child's voice was lower in pitch than usual, slow and exact and very thoughtful; it could almost have been mistaken for his normal adult voice. "The beef was frozen; therefore it wasn't intended to see a Japanese butcher or be consumed by the Japanese market. What grade was it?" Without a pause he pulled up a screen of notes and answered himself: "Low-grade, not heavily marbled, the kind of beef that's considered cheap even by international standards, much less the Japanese market...at least, that's what it was according to Hoshi Gyūniku's sorry excuses for shipping manifests.

"So: we have carcasses that should never have made it over here. ...That were never meant to be rendered into cuts? Meaning they wouldn't go through as stringent an inspection, probably just some paperwork jockey-- being sent from locations unknown via a small airport to some plant where they'd be processed as-is, rather than being checked over for safety. Maybe. Probably. If I wanted to see a cow and its cargo turned into something unrecognizable, just... meat..." Shinichi stared unseeingly at the screen, lips taut in a thin line. His voice, however, remained clinical and precise. "...I'd have it ground up. But we've already established that the end product was never intended to reach markets for human consumption -- well, _probably,_ dependent on the fact that the meat in question is utterly unmarketable domestically, and wherever it was shipped from, it _could_ have been marketed...but wasn't... so this meat wasn't meant to be food in the first place. And in any case ground beef of that kind would require butchering to separate the larger bones from the useable meat. Therefore, to dispose of everything, bones and human remains and any possible forensic evidence--"

Despite the detachment with which he'd been speaking, there was sick loathing present in his eyes when he focused on Kid again. "_Pet food._ Canned, processed petfood. A nice, simple way of disposing of inconvenient human waste left over from surgical procedures... particularly if you already have a working pet-food plant. Profitable, too; after all, if it's in a can then it's already been inspected, right? Nobody'd look twice at it at that point, you'd just feed it to your dog or cat-- thousands of individual disposal units, all working to get rid of the evidence." Restlessly Shinichi pushed the laptop away, sliding it onto the table. "God. I wonder how long this's been going on?" The rage that didn't usually show during a case was present this time, clearly audible; clinical objectivity only went so far.

With sympathy to his companion's anger, Kid's next words were offered quietly. "January, fifteen years ago, as near as I can see," Kid murmured quietly. "One shipment every three months or so. The archived flight records at Chōfu show years of small freight flights just like this one, quarterly, belonging to Hoshi Gyūniku."

Over the course of their relationship - ranging from the very first meeting at the clocktower, through the trial by fire to their current library sessions and text message meetings - Kid had discovered that he reacted to crisis differently than Shinchi did. In general, where Shinichi got hard and focused, Kid lifted himself above the problem, establishing an emotional and analytical distance between himself and his subject. Chill dispassion was his first recourse, the foundation of his Poker Face, and his most reliable way to be sure that the challenges he faced were conquered with logic, not rash emotion. Where passion, dedication, and obsession drove Shinichi through his cases to their completion, Kid was propelled by a competitive urge that didn't just share a border with, but set up shop and threw a _party_ in, the realm of the neurotically, absurdly perfectionist.

In most cases, the net result was comparable: Kid and Shinichi had been, and continued to be, each other's primary and ultimate rival, their talents perfectly balanced, their enthusiasms gleefully symmetrical. But when the heist at hand was more precious than silver...when it dripped 'precious rubies'... then Kid's ability to remain detatched became a liability rather than an asset. Coldhearted against the petty anger and frustration of those he thieved from, Kid was ill-equipped to open his heart to the sort of profound pain that Shinichi challenged, armed to bear against it, on a daily basis. When it came to the victims of murder, and their families, Kid's heart had room for the remembrance of only one.

Shaking thoughts of his father from his mind, Kid turned his attention back to his computer screen. Shinichi would be the one to confront the criminals and close this case; Kid could best provide aid from the shadows, which would protect both himself and Shinichi from implication. His next task, Kid decided, would be the search for more conclusive proof that Hoshi Gyūniku's quarterly shipments were in fact wrought of the same cruelty that had created the most recent eight cows and their cargo. With only flight records, the link was a shaky one; more conclusive evidence would reinforce and solidify Shinichi's argument that Hoshi Gyūniku was an active participant in the murders, not just an innocent recipient of a misdirected cargo, as it would surely claim. The quality of meat would probably be recorded, in the past flights' inspection records, as a higher grade than it actually was; well, that simply represented one more layer to divorce Hoshi Gyūniku from the pet food processing plant they surely owned in the Koto prefecture; one more layer that Kid would remorselessly rip free of the company's defenses.

He shifted in his chair, resting his temple against its back cushion, and folded his toes under the arm of the chair, burying them in the crease between arm and seat cushion to warm them. The house was chilly and the vast ceiling of the library seemed to be just _waiting_ to be given a noise loud enough to be echoed back at the studious pair in its center. Kid shifted again, restless; he'd been perfectly content just a moment ago; why was he now---

Belatedly, Kid recognized his instincts for what they actually were. _Shit,_ he cursed, rolling silently out of the chair, leaving his notes and laptop scattered in his wake. With a finger to his lips to silence Shinichi, Kid flew from the room, headed out the main library door, then hooking a sharp right at the next available minor hallway.

In the kitchen, the cellar door rattled and clanked open.

"Hell, Kudo, whatcha hold this thing shut with, a bank vault? I hadta all but slam inta it to get it t'open."

_**Oh. No.**_

Given the right impetus, the wrong thing can be the right thing at the right moment. Or vice versa. With totally ruthless (but regrettable for his laptop's sake) logic, Shinichi snapped his small computer shut, shoved it directly down the gap between the couch-back and cushions, and then slid sideways with a grab at his coffeecup. He cursed audibly and virulently as coffee went, very deliberately, everywhere-- onto the notes in particular, though not actually doing any damage in particular but making one holy hell of a mess. Under the couch went his mug; into the seat in front of Kid's own laptop he went himself, and off went the laptop's switch, _beep._

"Dammit, Heiji, knock or something next time, will you? Aargh--"

What Hattori Heiji saw when he entered the room was a) one coffee-soaked, swearing Kudo, b) one laptop cycling down into an unplanned shutoff, and c) dripping notes and couch and chair. Spattered and wearing a lapful of fortunately-tepid liquid, Shinichi waved a handful of wet paper at him. "Towels in the second drawer by the sink--"

Heiji trotted out of the room to the kitchen, and reappeared in the hallway outside the library just as quickly, bearing a large handful of well-worn kitchen towels. "Jeez, Kudo, tell me you've got a guest over, won'tcha? I about walked straight into her."

Before Shinichi had had more than a moment's time to boggle at that statement, Heiji fully entered the room, stepping to the side as he did. From around the tall Osakan detective's shoulder came a very familiar head of long brown hair, and an even more familiar voice.

"Mouuuuu, Shinichiii, this is a mess! What did you do, try to juggle your coffee mug?"

Aghast, Shinichi stared.... at Ran. At Not-Ran. Not-Ran frowned back at him, stepping past Heiji and tsking at the flood of coffee. _Oh this is... is... going to go pear-shaped any second now. It's going to go pear-shaped so much it'll sprout leaves and support a partridge,_ he thought faintly.

_Any second now._ "I, uh. Sorry, Hattori. We just were--" _Researching?_ "--talking. About the cows." _Aaaaany second now, yeah._ He gave the other detective his best attempt at a smile; it emerged from hiding as a grimace.

To Hattori's side, 'Ran' flushed light red, busying herself with rescuing and drying off the papers and notes scattered across the carpet and table in front of the couch. Hattori looked askance at her, adding things up in his head that didn't quite amount to any clear sum, though they _looked_ like they'd make at least two different kinds of sense. Setting his confusion aside, he addressed Shinichi with a frown. "Well, great, even Neechan finds stuff out before I do," he grumbled.

"Good thing your parents won't see this stain for a while, Shinichi," 'Ran' sighed, diverting the topic before Hattori could continue or Shinichi could look too much more awkward. Settling the damp papers into a small stack, she brushed off her lap and rose to her knees, turning her attention to the mess on the seat of the couch. "And now I'll have to get a new cup of coffee, too. At least yours didn't spill. Is it still warm?"

"Y-yes," Shinichi gritted, trying not to show displeasure as he choked down a mouthful of Kid's brew - which, because of his own damned morbid curiosity, had continued to be refilled with rather disgusting instant over the course of the evening.

"That's good," 'Ran' murmured, clearing spaces on the couch now for Hattori. She sat down on the end of the couch that was nearest Shinichi, leaving the other two thirds for his fellow detective, and laid Shinichi's small laptop across her lap on top of the pile of damp papers.

Hattori - and Shinichi - blinked at it. "Wasn' there just one laptop here a minute ago?" Hattori wondered, looking from one to the other.

'Ran' raised an eyebrow at Hattori, unimpressed. "No, it was right here the whole time. Under the papers. See? The corner's still all wet from the coffee." She wiped it off with the cuff of her turtleneck sleeve before popping the lid open and booting it up. "I'm just glad I'd closed it before you made a mess of everything, Shinichi."

Not-Ran had her accusing look down _pat._ It just wasn't fair. "Sorry, Ran," he answered meekly. The look softened a little, and he blinked; how the hell did Kid DO that? Shinichi stared in fascination; he could tell the difference, but it was just...

"Anytime you two're finished with the soulful looks an' all, you want to tell me what your 'researching' dug up?" asked an amused, slightly irate Heiji. "'Cause I spent the resta' the whole damn day followin' my Tousan around and listening to bureaucrats. Wasted time. The old man wanted me down here so's he could introduce me to half th' damn police force, or at least the ones I didn't already know." He sighed, settling back expansively against the cushions and shoving his cap halfway over his eyes. "Still wants me to join the force the easy way," Hattori muttered from beneath his hat. "Not gonna happen." He blew out his breath in a sigh.

"Did you hear anything the officers were talking about?" 'Ran' asked, tapping lightly, almost hesitantly, at her keyboard, while she paid more attention to Heiji than to her internet browser. Shinichi watched 'her' hands move, fascinated with the difference in manner and attitude that Kid brought, even to details like that, in his disguise. 'Ran,' meanwhile, was still talking.

"We found out some things. The cows that landed around here weren't beef like you can buy at market, even at Azusa-san's -- she's very nice, but her cuts of meat aren't always as good as her vegetables. Anyway, these cows were much lower quality. Shinichi thinks that's because they weren't meant for people to eat them; he said that they're, um, for pet food." 'Ran' looked upset and awkward at this, hiding her face behind a fall of her hair as she focused on the computer screen. Even though her gaze was shielded from Hattori's sight, 'Ran' didn't send a single glance in Shinichi's direction - not a single bit of a hint for how to proceed next. And as though the presence of the aggressive detective beside him was no concern at all, Kid, in disguise as Ran, simply resumed his research while he waited for Shinichi to pick up the conversational slack.

_Think of him-- her-- as Ran. Act like it's Ran, don't flinch. And... don't lie if you can manage it, not to Hattori._ Easier said than done, but this had so, so much potential to go sour; the best thing Shinichi could do was trust the thief to do what he was best at. Trust; it always came down to that, didn't it?

Story of his life.

"Pet food's just the start," added Shinichi a little grimly; he forced his shoulders to relax. "Arms, legs and heads, no torsos; Heiji? Have you heard any rumors of an organ-farming ring operating internationally? Not a new one, the company we're looking at shows records of similar cargo going back at least fifteen years." The disgust he'd felt earlier was allowed to permeate his words, but he kept his focus on the detective instead of 'Ran'; the more distraction, the better. Quickly he outlined what they'd dug up, beginning with the information regarding the company and ending with his and...'Ran's'... speculations regarding the organ-farming operation.

Hattori pulled the brim of his cap even lower, the bill flattening out against the couch-back behind him. "So; we got Hoshi Gyūniku, a freight company who can't keep their paperwork straight an' usually ships through Narita but still keeps sendin' smallish shipments once'n a while through Chōfu. We got substandard beef that's been frozen instead'a chilled. We got bodyparts that've been bagged and tagged at different times, and the original owners weren't 'xactly possessed of shiny whites." He scowled. _"How_ far back didja say? Fifteen years?"

"Shinichi thinks it's at least that long," 'Ran' confirmed, her voice strong but fighting to stay so. Just like the real Ran's always held a note of quivering emotion beneath her iron will. With a frisson of illicit glee that tensed muscles all across his body, the same electric, addictive thrill he always got while pulling off a successful con, Kid licked his lips and turned to Shinichi, looking for confirmation of 'Ran's' claim. "Couldn't the shipments to Chōfu have been for something else, though?" he asked in Ran's voice, threading a note of hope through the words that sounded weak to even his own ears - just as he meant it to.

"I... don't think so," said the boy slowly; yes, he realized that this was just part of Kid's keeping in character, but it was an avenue of conjecture to consider. "Their paperwork may have been falsified, but it's hard to completely eliminate fifteen years' worth of data. What we need more than anything right now is to establish where the victims came from, and that includes our anomaly."

_...and what I need, right now, is a kiddy-sized dose of valium. Or one of my own darts. And for Heiji and Not-Ran to be in two very, very different places. When did Ran say she was coming back from that thing with her mom? Seven-thirty?_ His hands were sweating where he gripped Kid's closed laptop, Shinichi noticed, stealing a glance at the clock across the room. It was two short of seven, and oh he was so screwed...

It was the rumble that saved him just then, the growl emitting from Heiji's stomach. The Osakajin shifted, one green eye peering from beneath his cap-brim. "'Scuse me. Didn't have time for lunch," he muttered, and then snorted as an answering and very indelicate grumble emerged from the young woman between himself and his fellow detective. "Hey, Nee-chan, sounds like you could do with a little somethin' yourself. You oughta make Kudo cook now, after all those times you had t'fix his dinner--"

A lightbulb went off; choruses of angels sang a discreet _Hallelujah!_ above Shinichi's head, and he grabbed his chance with utter grattitude. "Dinner! Mouri'll be howling for it any time now and I'm starving-- Hey, Hattori? Can you head home and keep him from drinking himself into a stupor? Ran really hates that. We'll pick up something on the way and meet you there." _Please? And Kid can get away and I can call Ran and have her meet me at that dim-sum place on Toriyama and there must be a God Of Detectives somewhere, He probably wears a deerstalker and plays the violin--_

"Uh, yeah, sure," Heiji nodded, aiming a puzzled glance Ran-ward. She didn't speak, just smiled lightly at him; Heiji looked back to Shinichi with a shameless expression. "Double portions on mine, yanno."

"I know, I know," Shinichi answered impatiently, shooing Hattori toward the door. "G'on. You don't get any food if Mouri's drunk when we get there."

"Goddamn slavedriver," Hattori grumbled, toeing his shoes on. "You two better go get food right away, y'hear me? No time for googly eyes, I'm starving!"

'Ran' challenged him with her look. "See you in a few, Heiji-kun," she said, underlining the implied _Leave now, plz._

The back door clicked shut behind Heiji and Shinichi slumped against the couch, exhaling loudly. "Shit. That was too close. Ran's gonna be here any minute..."

"I'm right here, Shinich-- Ran -- the real Ran -- slowed to a halt in the genkan just past the front door, and her shopping bags clunked to the floor beside her shoes.

* * *

_...and that's all for this week! We'll be going on a one-week break over Valentine's weekend due to the both of us being away from our respective homes, so the next chapter will be delayed an extra seven days. Please put down the chainsaws, we promise that the wait will be worth it. So join us again the Friday after next for Book Two, Chapter Eight: "Apologies, helmet, tattoo". -- The Management_


	16. apologies, helmet, tattoo

___Hello there! Did you all have a lovely Singles Appreciation Day? We did-- we were both busy as beavers in a bad winter, one of us at an Anime con and the other at an SCA war. It's that time of year when loooooove is in the air (and Artist's Alleys, and rattan swords...)_

____

Anyway, we're back and so are you. And now it's time to move things a little forward, both in the current case and perhaps in a few other things as well. We hope you'll enjoy our most recent offering; please let us know your thoughts and conjectures, hmmm? We'd like that very much.

___On with the show!.......... The Management_

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_**Chapter eight**__**: "apologies, helmet, tattoo"**_

_References this time around include tarot, Aoyama's other works, The Usual Suspects, Finding Nemo, and two lines of dialogue quoted from and as an homage to Joisbishmyoga's "Deal". Find them all and win a prize :D Warnings include pink (again), decapitated heads, and shamefully blunt foreshadowing._

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* * *

  
_

Kid stood. "I'll be leaving now," he murmured, using a voice that was neither his own nor Ran's.

When he was gone, Shinichi hopped down from the couch and moved quickly down the hall to Ran's side. She had sat down on the raised step of the genkan, her shoes beside her, house scuffs held distractedly in one hand.

"Shinichi?" she said in a careful, controlled voice that nevertheless had a distinct _this had better be good_ quality to it, "Just what happened here--? In ten words or less. Because if you take too long to tell me, we're both going to regret it." Running beneath her studied calm was an undercurrent of serious anger, not the sort that led to sharp, painful words but the kind that led to something worse: silence.

The boy swallowed hard. "Research, Hattori showed up, Kid improvised, Hattori left, you're here?" Shinichi offered, his face completely serious. And held his peace, waiting.

"But... why me? Why look like me?" The anger was still there, the undercurrent was still dangerous-- not hurt, not quite, but still full of undercurrents that could drown better impulses unless the waves were given a damn good reason not to.

"I'm not sure. Maybe because he already knows how?" Shinichi hesitated, thinking hard. "This place, it's been... kind of a safe haven, neutral ground. Kid's used to being paranoid, setting things up in advance; I-- can't be sure, but if I were him I'd take every precaution I could, and that would include something like, like..." He groped for words. "...like this." Small hands clasped together over his knees, Shinichi sighed. "Known qualities; as little left to chance as possible-- he really did have to improvise, Ran. Hattori damn near kicked the back door in, you know what he's like; bull in a china shop sometimes. What do _you_ think he'd do if he found Kid without any defenses up?"

"What do I think he'd do if he found Kid, at all," Ran murmured softly. She reached forward, taking both Shinichi's hands in her own and pressing a soft kiss to his tiny knuckles. "I shouldn't care so much. Appearance means so little, now." Warmth touched her eyes at this admission, warmth and wry self-awareness. The world saw a young woman and a child on the genkan step; Ran and Shinichi just saw each other.

"But to see him, as me - I knew him as soon as I saw him, it was something in his eyes, even if it wasn't obvious, I mean, we don't know anyone else who can do that --" Ran shook the tangled attempt at clarification away. "To see him sitting with you like that, in my, um, 'skin,' I guess...it was like he was another woman. I--" Now she snickered, realizing the absurdity of her feeling even as she said it. "It was like I caught you with another w-woman!"

Scarlet-faced, Shinichi shook his head. "Well, you didn't. And hey, jokes aside... they do say that imitation's the sincerest flattery, right?" If he kissed her, really kissed her in the shape he was in, it would feel-- awkward; wrong. So he repeated the same gesture she had made, brushing his lips very gently against the back of her hand where it gripped both of his. Her skin was soft, the bones strong and graceful beneath his lips; and he--

_(tendon and muscle, knots relaxing, soothed into smoothness as fingers and thumb worked them out of tension into peace, bones strong and graceful beneath his)_

--and he blinked. What. The. Hell?

Ran answered his confused blink with a quizzical look of her own. "Did you think of something, Shinichi?"

Confused, oddly shaken and feeling like an incredibly important and completely invisible clue was staring him _straight in the face,_ he frowned and shook his head once, hard. "Not sure," Shinichi muttered. "Let's just go, okay? We need to pick up dinner before your dad orders out again. Remember the last time?" It had involved both alcohol and pizza topping choices, and the smell of kimchi mixed with tomato-sauce and cheese had permeated the agency for days.

Ran shuddered, pulled the boy to his feet, and a few moments later the Kudo house was dark and silent once again.

* * *

_Tantei,_

_I owe you an apology. The situation was dire, but a hasty exit would have been better than what I chose, I think. I just didn't want to leave the planning, the cover story, the explanations, all to you. I admit I feel very possessive over our discoveries so far. I am as much a part of solving this case as you._

_Still...that was one disguise I'd promised myself I wouldn't take again, now that things have...progressed between you two. And us._

_I'm sorry. To both of you, but especially to you._

_Kaitou Kid._

The private message had been waiting for Shinichi after all the dust had settled-- dinner, case discussion, et cetera. Heiji had given Ran a puzzled look or two, but a surfeit of steamed pork and vegetable dim-sum had taken up most of his attention. Mouri had been remarkably sober and had actually talked over his most recent investigation during the meal; of course, he'd used it as an object lesson to point out 'helpful tips' to the Detective Of The West, causing a vein in the Osakajin's forehead to visibly throb. Shinichi'd eventually pleaded a headache and fled the room, temporarily borrowing his usual futon back along with a little privacy.

And now he stared at the email and wondered how to answer.

They'd talked more on the way home, he and Ran; the whole mess had gradually downshifted from 'issue' to 'over'; and by the time they arrived with their arms full of take-out bags the topic had turned to other things. If the young woman's eyes had dwelt on Shinichi with a thoughtful look in them on occasion, well, there was cause; and if little Conan had been quieter during dinner than usual, that wasn't so unusual during an open case.

His screensaver (random fractals at the moment, replacing the usual childish screenshots from Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba) blinked on in a flare of rainbow-and-black as he sat crosslegged, back against one leg of Mouri's bed, thinking hard. Despite the gruesome nature of the case, the day had been a good one; Shinichi'd had the morning to work alongside Hattori, taken time for coffee with his 'uncle', and then had spent the afternoon and evening juggling research with Kid. He was used to the tandem-harness feel of his and Heiji's investigative style-- sometimes it meshed well, sometimes it didn't, sometimes they completed each other's sentences and sometimes they tripped over each other's feet.

But working alongside Kid, that had been _different._

There'd been very little duplication of effort; the thief had been ruthlessly efficient in his research, stalking lines of inquiry with all the skill that he used when setting up his insanely-complicated heist preparations. Not a surprise, of course, but-- they'd talked a lot, throwing conjectures and possibilities back and forth like a pair of well-trained jugglers who had met by chance and found out that, surprise!, they knew similar routines.

He'd enjoyed himself, Shinichi had. Kid had shown a talent for ferreting out the oddest details... It had been more than interesting, working with him; it had been a pleasure. Watching that singular, multi-talented mind corral its own instincts and focus on one effort, one line of inquiry--

The screensaver flashed to a new design, casting reflections of spirals and Mandelbrott-inspired sequences in his Conan-glasses, now folded neatly and laid aside. Slowly he reached for the keyboard and began to type.

_  
Kid:_

_Apology accepted. We both ought to know by now that Murphy's Law has a special clause for detectives (and thieves, apparently): 'If the situation can in any way become even more FUBAR'd, it __will__.' Ran even asked me to pass along a message when I talked to you next-- 'Never do that ever again or I'll dislocate your kneecaps' and 'My hair actually looked pretty good.' If you're worried about the kneecaps thing, try sending her a flower or something._

__

I understand the possessiveness all too well, and I agree, you're as much part of this as I am. And you know, as weird as it got, it was still MUCH better than it would've been if Hattori'd found you there.

_Shinichi_

_&_

* * *

_Shinichi--_

Kid tugged on the lock. It held, so he exchanged the lockpick in his right hand for a thinner one and tried again, twisting the wires delicately between his fingers.

_It's a funny thing that you mention Murphy. While he may have a special clause just for you troublemakers, we thieves he holds in highest esteem._

Sweat dripped across his brow as he worked, running away from his eyes because of his position. The blood that drained toward his head made his eyes pound and his temples tight; he blinked the irritation away and focused more sharply.

_He is, after all, dedicated to the proliferation of entropy and chaos. Thieves, especially those who work on a grand scale such as myself, are merely his tools._

A soft click warned Kid that the lock had given. Lockpicks quickly slipped between his lips to hold them out of his way, Kid got his hands under the safe door only moments before the secondary bolts drew back from its rim and the whole twenty-pound contraption dropped straight into his hands. His shoulders and biceps screamed with the sudden burden; if he'd been at any other angle, it wouldn't have been so bad. But hanging upside down from the ceiling an arm's length away from the safe, so that when the door detatched, he had to hold support it with outstretched, already fatigued arms? Not so easy. Biting his lip, Kid drew the door - and its cargo - toward him.

_The thing is, I've never yet had opportunity - or reason - to test what might befall one of Murphy's lockpicks in the occasion that it began to close locks rather than open them. And while I don't have a single flicker of conscience regarding what I'm doing to help you, I can't help but notice how many formerly uncrossable Rubicons the pair of us have traversed in the course of this last few months._

To bring the safe door to himself, straightening his back and shoulders as he simultaneously pivoted the door in his hands, arms slowly tracking the quarter-circle between horizontal and vertical, was a feat of athleticism and gymnastic strength the like of which he hadn't performed for a long time. Every movement had to be smooth, every inch traversed had to meld effortlessly with the one before and the one after. Kid craned his neck back, tipping his face toward the floor, as his arms drew vertical and the safe door came to rest, held tightly by tired hands, directly under his head. He surveyed the mercury lever balanced on the door's center with a critical eye.

_As our... 'advanced acquaintanceship' approaches its sixth month, I find myself wondering whether by illegally aiding Beika's legal defenders, if I'm not actually causing more mayhem, in a macro 'balance of things' sort of way, than I ever did before. What, after all, is more chaotic and worth Murphy's blessing than for one of his own tools to buck its proscripted role?_

_I'm getting philosophical again. Forgive me...it's not my intent. Spending too much time with you tends to do this, unfortunately. I enjoy myself so very intensely for the first few hours...and then in comes the existentialism. Perhaps it's a side effect of our similarities - neither you nor I can define ourselves by the narrow, neat categories of body, identity, and name, that most of Murphy's playthings take for granted. In my case, even genetics abandon me: as far as the law knows, my roommate is myself. You and I know this isn't true._

A mercury lever, similar to the one that Shinichi had encountered in the Toto Tower bombing incident, required the utmost deliberation and care while disarming it. As delicately balanced as an egg on a spoon, a tiny bead of mercury sat ensconced within a metal loop. For the bead to roll to either side and touch the wire meant detonation. Any impact - even the slightest nudge, if it was sudden enough - might set it off. So it was with extreme concentration that Kid held the safe door and its burden still, not even daring to shift a finger's grip on its edges, while he worked.

_I never had anyone else to know that fact before you. The Magician and I were the only two to know that I was of my own for the longest time. Jintarou, too, I suppose, and my mother...but they expected my arrival before it happened, and they knew our father. Somehow that makes it feel, to me, as though their knowledge was cheatingly gotten. At least, in comparison to yours. You worked for your understanding of myself, and my Magician...or is it, the Magician and I, his Fool?_

Kid manipulated the lockpicks in his mouth carefully. First he worked them all the way to one side with his lips and tongue; then, with that end pinched between his lips, allowed them to pivot downward, pointing toward the lever and safe door in his hands. The dexterity of his lips allowed him to work both picks further up into his mouth, getting a grip on them with teeth and palate; then, carefully, he slid the point of one of them forward with his tongue, extending it past the other to begin his work.

_You're likely boggled by this point. I've never confided in you very much, despite showing you so many of my vulnerabilities. Without the decoder key, I am just so much as a scrambled lot of letters and numbers, puzzle pieces with the corners trimmed off._

_Well, don't worry. You'll never see this letter, this decoder key...I've no plans to even write it down. I can just repeat it to myself, and to the Magician, as many times as I want, and never worry about finding the stamps to post it. And it's better that way, anyway... 'Cause you don't need to know how very vulnerable I've made myself to you, and how deeply this truce of ours runs. You're one for guilt, too...and I can't visit the guilt of feeling obligation toward a lonely man on you, either._

The strain of lifting the safe door toward himself was immense. Both arms straining, elbows folded out to his sides, Kid brought the door straight up, toward his face, until the mechanism beside the mercury lever was close enough to manipulate with the lockpick in his hands. One eye closed to keep his vision clear, Kid slowly and delicately poked and prodded at the lever's wiring, attempting to isolate and detatch the one that would cause detonation. With about five minutes' worth of grip left in his hands, he made a breakthrough. Refusing the urge to grin because the expression would ruin his aim, Kid angled the lockpick in the proper direction, hooking its tip around the base of the wire, and prepared to yank.

_The 'heist' at Suzuki Jirokichi's house comes to mind, as I try to imagine what your reaction up to this point would be. To save Lupin, he caught on to something that you, also, understand: I'm just as capable of being directly __asked__ something as any other person. All but a tiny handful of the world interacts with me solely through challenge and chase, and obviously, I love playing with them in that way, even as my work holds more importance than they know. It's amusingly simple to distract them from the other option that exists there, the one concealed in my left hand as my right performs the tricks._

Around that moment, the bracers around his ankles, which Kid had affixed to the joint of the ductwork just past the open grating through which he was hanging from the waist, creaked with a worrisome metallic sound. A few pops sounded, as rivets and lynchpins gave out or were wrenched free. Kid dropped from the ceiling, legs and hips banging painfully against the walls of ductwork as they were forcibly dragged out of there, along with the rest of him, by the demand of gravity. The safe door fell ahead of him, tilting wildly to the side as it toppled from his startled grip. The mercury lever closed.

_I will keep working my best legerdemain on you, Tantei, because it's such a thrill when you walk directly around it. But - as I know you know, though you don't realize it yet - even as I perform for you, I will give my all to keep you from seeing that left-hand choice._

It was probably ten minutes before Kid found the strength to sit upright. Sprawled painfully across the safe door, its mercury lever and detonation mechanism driving sharp, uncomfortable angles into his kidneys, Kid decided he was just grateful he hadn't swallowed one of his lockpicks. Sure, he knew how to take a fall - so did Kaito, thanks to Aoko - but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Kid rolled off of the safe door and its lever, swatting irritatedly at the small device beside the mercury lever. Wired to a small explosive no more powerful than a child's firecracker and triggered by the lever, the device had set off a small bell, accompanied by a little pop-up sign which read: _"You lose!"_

"Benten and broken mirrors," Kid cursed, kicking the safe door away from him with one booted foot. Flopping back onto the floor, arms and legs spread, he stared up at the ceiling of his practice room with a frustrated scowl on his face. When he failed a challenge, the lights of the room flicked on automatically - harsh, bright fluorescents that erased shadows from every corner of the medium-sized, clinically tiled room. Various brackets and boltholes on the walls showed where other challenge setups could be attached; a large rectangular box cut out from one vertical wall, like the one on the ceiling, was made to fit a variety of mocked-up vault doors and locks. Scrapes, dents, and corners of broken tile (ceiling and floor) proved that the room had seen constant, heavy use since its creation.

Kid turned his wristwatch around to check the time. It was past two already. He'd started his workout around midnight, maybe a little bit before; just as soon as he'd settled his nerves enough to begin, actually. He'd been working on the _ductwork+ceiling vault+mercury lever_ combination for a week or more now, and something always managed to go wrong. He was beginning to realize this was going to be one of Those challenges - like the _habenero+balance beam+limited oxygen_ and the _pressure-floor+chain pendulum+suction cups_ ones had been. Well, it wasn't unwelcome.

Not far away, the illusory click of dress shoes on the tile floor drew his attention.

"Rough night?" Kaito asked, hands folded behind his back.

_Why am I on this case with you? The truth? Because you asked me to be. You asked me to come close, and you'll have to ask me for your distance again if you ever want it back._

Kid sighed, wrapping a vague grumble into the sound, and closed his eyes. "Yeah."

_Yours,  
Kid._

* * *

_Next time I decide to do this? Somebody threaten to duct-tape me to a chair. Or at least, remind me to put on extra socks..._

It'd become something of a habit lately, an embarrassing one if Shinichi ever got caught-- and he was perfectly aware, thankyouverymuch, that he was fulfilling all sorts of anime introspective-character stereotypes. But really, rooftops were a good place to think. And the makeshift not-quite-rope ladder he and Kid had put into place not all that long before was still there, and he couldn't sleep, and everyone _else_ was asleep, so...

Midnight had come and gone an hour or two past, maybe (probably) more. It was probably worth noting that Shinichi'd taken to keeping a blanket tucked behind the bookcase nearest the window that he'd been using; if he was going to brood, at least he was going to do it comfortably. So now he sat, warmly wrapped and with an extra sweatshirt layered over his pajama-top, high on the Mouri agency's roof, staring at the moon.

Insomnia was an old, old friend. The detective'd long since stopped treating her as an enemy and began courting her as an ally, back when he was still young enough that he kept a flashlight hidden beneath the bed to allow for surreptitious reading; if you had to be awake, why be miserable as well? And anyway, curled up in the three-sided space made up of an A/C unit and two disused chimneys, it wasn't so bad so long as you kept your face well out of the wind. Muffled to the eyes, Shinichi had no intentions of transitioning from Beika City's youngest detective to Beika City's youngest human popsicle.

And he needed to think. Badly.

There was a scuffmark on the asphalt-like surface, two meters away and right on the edge. Absentmindedly Shinichi catalogued it, _shoesole, small, white rubber tread;_ made by the right foot of a lightweight person as they scrambled onto the surface from below, probably using a rope as an aid in climbing or possibly even an accomplice's hand... His scuffmark, in fact, from the first time he'd met Kid up here. Why? To talk, to pass the time, to bullshit like friends do, to get another perspective...

_'Perspective'; oh hey, __**there's**__ a good word. Think maybe it's a clue, Kudo? --no, really??_

Perspective was the problem. Heiji'd said something, just an offhand thing after dinner when Mouri and Ran were discussing some sort of followup-trip the Sleeping Detective was planning regarding his missing persons case. It'd had to do with some of the data Kid'd dug up from police files; and Heiji'd shot one of those sharp, green-eyed Looks of his: _You'n Ran didn't dig __this__ up, did you? Not to be throwin' stones, but… Kudo, you're sure this's all watertight? Wouldn't put it past your 'source' to throw a monkeywrench into the works if he thought it'd be funny-- _

And he'd responded all out of proportion, snapping back something that had sounded off-kilter even to his ears; Hattori'd traded the sharp look for vague surprise, made a dubious noise and had left it at that. But now, shifting uncomfortably as a draft fingered its cold way through the folds of his blanket, Shinichi remembered the hot little flicker of rage with something akin to alarm.

Emotions were easy for him, had always been easy. He'd never believed in the stereotype of the cold, passionless detective whose clinical detachment would allow him to see into the hearts of the criminal element. It didn't make sense when you looked at it logically; violent crimes in particular almost always had an emotional component—greed, revenge, love, hatred, despair, grief—and working in a vacuum was like trying to manipulate a hammer and nail without using your hands. So, in the school of Detecting As Done By Kudo Shinichi, you didn't deny emotions; you fought your way through them, accepted them, understood them... or at least you tried, and then you could comprehend _other_ people's emotions and motives a little more clearly. Control, now, that was different. You worked on fine-tuning your control without losing your capacity.

Even so… rage. Why had he been so pissed off?

_Because,_ said the bits of Shinichi's brain that were tired of poking at this particular subject and had had it with tact, _you weren't defending the thief's credibility; you were defending the thief himself, defending your friend. _

He'd defended Heiji before, mostly to Ai (whose opinion of the Osakajin ranged from dry amusement to impatience.) There hadn't been anything like that little lick of anger then. Thinking back, though, he _had_ felt it before in relation to Kid... and Ai, for that matter; Ran had told him about Ai's comment on the morning after Kid helped with Shinichi's change. About how befriending Kid would make it easier to recognize his betrayal when it happened. That had-- bothered Shinichi, though he'd said nothing at the time.

There'd been other things too, little moments of irritation mixed with warmth, exasperation or simply pure laughter, all of them oddly strong, oddly lasting. And... the tactile things too: _warmth_ came to mind, the embrace, and tiny bits of dreams from his chemical-induced delirium more than a week past. Remembering this Shinichi curled up on himself a little tighter, snuggling deeper into his blanket and staring out across the rooftops of what had become his neighborhood. The obvious answer was simply that he was reacting emphatically to an exceptional mind, taking pleasure from the contact that he'd needed and craved so badly; the obvious answer was that he was fascinated by the thief. That term bothered him slightly, though; it seemed to border on obsession, and he was _not_ obsessed. Intellectually, Kudo Shinichi's life had plenty of stimulation (if you didn't count all the mind-bogglingly boring hours of kiddie school), what with murders, cows and so forth; but contact? The challenge of going up against an equal who didn't force him to work in subterfuge had been the best parts of competing with Kid; knowing him as a person...

...was...

_Extraordinary._

And worth a little anger. Maybe 'fascinated' was the right term, after all.

Off in the distance a clock chimed-- a thin, almost delicate sound, and Shinichi lifted his head to listen. Funny thing; he'd heard it all his life but still had no clue where it came from. Right now, though, it was announcing that three a.m. had descended upon the world, and unless he wanted to be missed he'd better be climbing down soon. As he shrugged himself out of the blanket, he sighed, rubbing his small hands together for warmth; too much thinking, too few results. And anyway, maybe he was worrying about things too much. So he'd over-reacted a little, so what? Stress did that, stress and new experiences, new thoughts.

It was during his climb back down the ladder that _another_ new thought occurred to him, one that linked emotion and tactile reactions together; one foot on the window-ledge, Shinichi froze several stories above the street to consider this possibility before finishing his climb down with a mind that was even more perplexed and troubled than before.

* * *

Kid sent the morning's first dove from school. Fully aware it was rash, dangerous, risky, and downright stupid, he nevertheless stood on the highest point of the high school's roof with one arm outstretched, scanning the sky for his girls. Soon enough, a trio of them came fluttering down to land on his arm. The first to land was Yukito, who held onto his wrist for solid footing while she rapped at his thumbnail, trying to convince him to uncover the tiny morsel of food he'd held out for her.

"Spoiled princess," Kid chuckled, petting her neck and those of her companions for good measure. "Can you take my letter to Tantei-san?" Yukito disliked large message tubes, and wouldn't fly with them because of the weight. But the note Kid slipped into her tiny aluminum bracelet was brief, written on a suitably small slip of paper.

"Fly safe," he murmured, hopping down from his perch as Yukito and her escort flapped up into the cold sky. He brushed dust and tiny feathers from his cuffs, straightening his uniform jacket fastidiously. As he turned around to approach the rooftop's stairwell door, it popped open in front of him, making him jump back a pace when he saw who it was.

Akako eyed him critically. "If you hang around, I'll make you punch a timecard for your hours, Fool," she threatened him, a certain glee in her eyes. Kaito's witchy classmate had always given Kid the chills - not only because she clearly knew more about him than the rest of his class combined (excluding Hakuba on the increasingly rare occasions that he was in town), but also just because of her attitude and demeanor. The girl _tried_ to make people discomfited, and to Kid's great displeasure, she often succeeded.

Kaito stepped to the fore as Kid busied himself with a mental twiddling of thumbs. "Witch, mind your own silly business. I don't need to be in class right now anyway; I've already turned in the homework, and I needed fresh air on my new bruises anyway. Aoko was too cruel to me this morning!"

"Crocodile tears," Akako scoffed, glaring at the magician without an ounce of sympathy. "Get back downstairs and play nice with your girlfriend. Sensei will be happy I found you so quickly....but of course, that's why it's _me_ who's always picked to find you."

"You or Aoko," Kaito grumbled, rolling his eyes. "I would be better off with Hakuba stalking me all over the building!"

"Doesn't he do that already?" Akako asked, feigning politeness by holding one hand up to cover her amused titter.

Kaito propped himself against the doorframe, utterly unimpressed with every inch of Akako's attitude. "You're blocking the door, Witch. If you want me back in the classroom so badly, move your oversized butt and let me down the stairs."

"I'll make yours twice as big if you say that again, Magician," the witch warned, and Kaito quickly held up a hand in a little bow.

"Okay, hai, won't say another word, thanks very much, wonderful talking with such a lovely flower of delicate femininity, etcetera, etcetera, see you in class." He scooted past her and leapt over the stairway railing, landing with light, firm footing on the treads of the stairs one full story down. From there he trotted ahead, putting as much distance between the witch and himself as he reasonably could.

_Nuisance,_ Kid and Kaito bitched as they fled. _As if Hakuba, Aoko, and school itself weren't bad enough. That witch serves absolutely no purpose but to get in our way._

As he skidded into the classroom, making perfunctory bows to the teacher as he skittered into his seat again, Kaito thought back to the letter Kid had sent to Shinichi.

_What next? Your move, I'll follow --kk_

_"You sure about that?"_ he asked Kid quietly, flipping to the appropriate page in their textbook with the aid of a rather irritated Aoko. _"It's not like you couldn't choose a path forward for yourself, based on what you know now."_

_Didn't say I would sit idly by, did I?_ Kid grinned, kicking his feet up in the privacy of Kaito's mind's eye. _But this is his case, and he's the one to make the presentation. He wouldn't presume to tell me how to run my own heists, of course._

Kaito chuckled, finally turning his attention to their coursework - it was literature period - as the teacher's tone levelled out into a monotonous lecturing drone. _"Just let me know what I can do to help, too,"_ he reminded Kid, setting a gentle elbow to Kid's ribs to ensure he had the thief's attention.

_Hai, hai,_ Kid chuckled. _But I'm not going to put you out of your way. I think I can do this in my normal planning time, and not take any more of your share of the hours._

_"Well, let me know anyway,"_ Kaito said. _"The more I help you out on this, the more you owe me later."_

Kid's laugh at that was sudden enough to startle their body into actually chuckling out loud, and the glares that Kaito received in response - and then passed on to his counterpart with interest - were enough to bludgeon Kid and his indefatigable snark into silence. Well, at least for the moment.

* * *

"--and we found Mitsuo-kun's dog in Numi-san's backyard just like we thought and Numi-san apologized and said he'd fix the hole under the fence and--" (gasp for breath) "--Mitsuo-kun said maybe they could take them to the park together and let them play and so we solved the case and--" (gasp, gasp) "--there weren't any dead bodies this time at all! AND that there'd probably be puppies!" Ayumi-kun finished, face pink with excitement, lack of oxygen and triumph; to either side of her Genta and Mitsuhiko looked proud. "Only you weren't there so you didn't get to help," she added a little sadly. "Where WERE you all weekend, Conan-kun?"

School had just let out for the day; the quintet of first-graders which the teachers had taken to calling The Usual Suspects was crossing the playground. All around them their classmates thundered by, straggled, loitered or ran headlong, each and every one seemingly incapable of saying anything at less than maximum volume. Conan dodged one of the less careful of the thundering variety ("Watch it, Rumiko-kun--" "Sorrysorrygottago!") and tried to look contrite. "Just... around."

Genta snorted, a sound that could have done an ox proud. He pointed an accusatory finger. "I KNOW where you were... Conan-kun was investigating that thing with the cows. All that beef, and nobody could eat it!" He contemplated this awful fact for a scant second before being elbowed sharply in the ribs by Mitsuhiko.

"Geeeeeenta-kun, there were BODIES in the cows; I saw it on TV. Pieces of them, anyway. Who'd want to eat that? Eurgh!" All three children made horrified faces; trailing a little behind as usual, Ai raised an eyebrow and looked at Conan, who sighed and capitulated. He spent the next few minutes laying out the bare bones of the case for the Shonen Tantei, making it as uninteresting as possible... which, as a tactic, wasn't very effective. Cows and dead bodies and mysterious descents from the sky and exciting craters were kind of hard to dim down.

Despite his best efforts, Mitsuhiko had begun enthusing about searching the area for a _ninth_ cow (unlikely at this date; it would've almost certainly been reported, if nothing else due to the smell) when there was a sharp _beeeeep!_ from outside the school gate; they all looked up... and there stood Hattori Heiji, or rather there sat Heiji, astride an unfamiliar dark green motorbike of some sort, apparently a rental. "Yo, Kudo?"

"Shinichi-niisan's _not here,_" Shinichi hollered at him. "Did you need him for something?"

Heiji had the good manners to look contrite. "Ah, yeah, Conan, we oughta go phone him. He can probably help me with the _case_ that we're working on."

"Us too, us too!"

Shinichi, who'd been expecting the shrieks, was even still caught off-guard. Heiji stuck one finger in his ear with a wince. "Sheesh, kids, that usedta be my eardrum."

The shortest member of the Shonen Tantei turned his best contrite-but-practical look on the rest. "We can't all fit," he pointed out, snagging the child-sized helmet which the Osakajin had passed him; without looking at it, he slipped it on and accepted a hand up before noticing the wide-eyed grins that Mitsuhiko and Genta were unexpectedly sporting. Even Ayumi was giggling behind her hand-- "What?"

The little girl pointed.

Off came the helmet, and Shinichi groaned; pink with bright decals not unlike the 'guun-guun' stationary a certain thief had sent him, all capering animals and dancing meat-buns... "Hattori, couldn't you've picked something less-- less--" he stage-whispered from one corner of his mouth.

The other detective snickered. "It was all they had, Kudo-_taaaaan,"_ he drawled, which was almost certainly a lie. With a feeling of doom (_Please God don't let Ran or Kid or anybody at all I've ever known anywhere see me wearing this_ Shinichi slipped the evil thing back on and waved at the rest of the giggling Shonen Tantei as the engine revved.

Haibara had the last word. "Cute," she murmured loudly enough to be heard over the noise; against Shinichi's arms, Hattori's ribs moved as he laughed(_bastard_) and they pulled away into traffic.

Hattori steered them through Beika in the direction of the police station, dovetailing with Shinichi's expectations; being seen and seeing at the station would be educational. Hopefully, the balance of education would tilt in favor of Heiji and Shinichi, rather than against them...but information was power and Shinichi and Heiji both knew this particular case was going to require a lot of both.

* * *

There was no sousaphone in Missing Persons this time; instead there was a decapitated head.

--not the real thing, of course, but a fairly remarkable computer mock-up of one, rotating in all its lifeless glory on Chirokawa's screen. The pits where eyes had once been had, mercifully, been filled in with basic shapes to mimic the orbs that had been removed; and as for the face itself...

"Skinned?" asked Shinichi, fighting back a wave of nausea. "Are you sure, Chirokawa-san?" He tucked his feet in beneath his chair, huddling instinctively in on himself protectively; leaning with his back against the door a few feet away, Heiji looked a little green.

"Skinned, yes, presumably to hide the tattoos," the elderly man said shortly. "Not that it worked, of course; tattoos go deeper than mere epidermal levels. Forensics has been able to retrieve them from burned areas, limbs planed down by road friction, from long-dried remains... disgusting, messy business. But as you can see--" He tapped a command on his keyboard and the rate of rotation slowed; another command, and suddenly fleshtones filled out, angular planes smoothed into curves and bright, black eyes replaced the blocky shapes. "There we go."

Both Heiji and Shinichi were silent. Chirokawa's expectant stare did little to loosen their tongues. "Oh, for crying out loud--" the old man finally exclaimed, clicking out of the simulation. The graphical head returned to blocky anonymity, and Chirokawa levelled an irritated glare on Shinichi and Heiji both.

"_Gang_ tattoos! Those are gang tattoos. Are you going to make me do all the work myself? Now I don't know where from or what for, but you two bright bulbs," he said, with a glance in Heiji's direction that said he was applying the label with generosity, "You two are the detectives. So _you_ go figure it out. Go! Go!"

"Y'can't just head us out the door an' expect us to memorize the damn thing," Heiji countered, remaining stationary in front of the door even as Chirokawa continued his insistent forward shuffle, gloved hands held before him in a sweeping gesture. A moment later, Heiji's belly intercepted the man's hands, and Chirokawa shuffled to a stop. Frowning, the technician looked up the considerable distance between his own height and Heiji's, meeting the Osakajin's unimpressed frown with an obstinate one of his own, and resorted to poking Heiji's belly impatiently with all his fingers.

"You need to not be here. Wasn't I clear enough about that?"

Heiji, more disturbed than distressed now, glanced over at Shinichi. "A little help here, Kudo?"

"Chirokawa-san, Heiji-niisan's right, we can't memorize that man's tattoos just looking at him once. They're too complicated." He hopped down from his chair and crossed the small office to tug on Chirokawa's sleeve. "Also, Heiji hasn't washed that shirt today."

The result was instantaneous: Chirokawa leaped back from Heiji, who seemed unsure that he appreciated Shinichi's version of 'help,' and ripped off his gloves. Into a red hasmat container they went, before Chirokawa fastidiously began to wash his hands in the office's small sink, using water that sent up steam and turned his pale skin red.

Snapping on a set of new gloves, the man sent a withering glance at the Detective of the West. "I can see," he said icily, "that you don't know how to take a hint. Or attend to basic cleanliness, either." Heiji, who had opened his mouth indignantly, closed it with a snap as Shinichi made soothing noises. _"Do_ shut up, Edogawa, you sound like someone's nanny." Skirting around them both with obvious distaste, Chirokawa typed in a couple of brief commands and a printer spat out a page of text and a full-color copy of the tattooed face. "There. --Well, pick it up, go ahead, I'm certainly not going to touch it."

"Err... thank you?"

"Out, out, OUT! Shoo! Go investigate!" Waving his gloved hands like a farmwife herding chickens, Chirokawa successfully gave the two the brush-off. "And change your shirt!"

The door shut with a remarkably cranky click. In silence, the two detectives looked at each other and then at the photo. Shinichi was the first to speak. "Gang tattoos? Hattori, those aren't yakuza."

"And he's not Japanese," pointed out the other. "But hey, gotta start somewhere, and it's a better lead than we had." He glanced around, simultaneously kicking off shoe-covers and gloves. "We need internet. Agasa's? Your old place, or Mouri's?"

Shinichi quickly hid his wince. "Mouri's," he declared, "We can listen in on ojii-san while we work." _And we won't run into Kid._ That was the better benefit to using the detective agency, but Shinichi wasn't about to tell Heiji that.

The trip back to the Mouri agency was accomplished simply, though Shinichi did take the time to offer Heiji a second withering glance on account of the pink helmet. And his hopes for anonymity were somewhat derailed by a rose-pink dove, who paced them for the space of half a city block. Her ankles were empty, though, so Shinichi hoped Kid didn't have on-dove cameras and turned his attention back to the road. Hattori drove the borrowed cycle like it was his own. Arms and legs much too short to hold himself in place, Shinichi relied completely on his grip on Hattori to keep him on the bike. It was a little harder than normal, as Hattori hadn't brought along his body-hugging riding jacket, and his coat and layered shirts slid around more than they should. But one good thing about being a kid, Shinichi reflected wryly, was they had proportional hand strength almost equitable to an adult's.

He regripped a double handful of Heiji's clothing, knuckles pulling the fabric taut across the other's stomach. That was one thing he missed, among many, many others, about his old body -- he'd been fit. Quite fit, actually, and had been pleased to overhear a girl he didn't know admiring his "cute soccer butt" on more than one occasion. He'd been a vain little prat back then, Shinichi reflected. Becoming Conan had cured him of that vanity quickly indeed. But still...

_God, I promise not to stare at myself in the mirror if I can get my body back,_ Shinichi tried, directing his thoughts in a near approximation of 'upward.' _Not even on the first day I get it back. Well. Not much. And then can I have an exception for after I win any contests with Kid or Heiji? Physical ones, like running. Not thinking-based ones. Those I can just gloat in person about. But I won't even do that, God, if I can have my body back. For good this time, and maybe less painfully than last time?_ A moment of reflection.

_Um. __Definitely__ less painfully than last time._

Promises to God or not, he arrived at the agency in the same shape he'd left it in. Neither Mouri nor Ran were home; belatedly Shinichi recalled something he'd caught that morning about errands and settled down to his laptop with a mental shrug. A few minutes later the tattooed man's photo had been scanned as a file, shared with Heiji, and they both settled down to some serious research.

Facial tattoos were historically prevalent; Maori, Inuit, North American tribal... you found them everywhere. And gang-tattoos, well, those too; the symbolism varied from country to country, but the majority were done for the same reasons of ownership, identification and personal history. The small amount of data recorded by Forensics regarding chemical composition indicated that despite the elaborate nature of the tattoos, they'd probably been done using ordinary ballpoint-pen ink and at least partially without a mechanized gun, which sounded odd until you considered that tattooing had been done without motorized needles for thousands of years. The ink composition pointed once again towards a lower-level demographic (possibly even jail tattooing), and that sent both Shinichi and Heiji off on a search for meanings of the victim's symbols.

"Kudo? Think I found somethin'." Heiji's accent was thicker than ever, the long vowels and clipped-off ending consonants of Osakabin more voluable than usual. "You ever hear of 'Mi Vida Loca'?"

Shinichi blinked. Spanish was _not_ his strong suit, but... "The --crazy life?" he hazarded.

_"'My_ crazy life,'" corrected the other detective with relish. He pointed to a triangular-shaped design just beneath and behind the left eye, dotted with three circles. "Found this one inna thing on gang symbolism in South America-- says it's talkin' about the El Salvador-Guatemala-Honduras drug connections, and you find it a lot on South American gang members, 'specially a gang called the Maras." He punched the air in triumph. "Lotta cows in South America, ne?"

"A lot," Shinichi echoed, somewhat more subdued. Hattori's breakthrough was significant - so much so that Shinichi's mind was already leaping ahead to connect the implicated dots. If the victims were coming from Guatemala, that matched much of the supposition that he, Hattori, and Kid had each come up with. If there was gang involvement, however, that could potentially change the overall demographic of the victims...which could change the motive.

But there were the children to be considered, Shinichi reminded himself, the children and the probable female hands. The victims had been taken from a full range of age groups - perhaps none extremely old -- and, now that he'd thought of it, that would be a useful tangent to follow up on; the average age of the victims as compared with the average age of their supposed country of origin could go a long way toward describing the group as a cross-section of a particular cross-section of a population, so to speak. It would at the very least help guide the search - or tell them that they were way off base.

But that didn't answer the original question. Was this a different sort of murder than he'd assumed? One based on retribution?

Something nagged at him, though, a little niggling voice... something from the sparse notes, some little detail that didn't fit in. It was always the anomalies that made the case: the scratches on the balcony, the broken pane of glass, the scuffmarks without a reason... and therefore Shinichi tended to pay little niggling voices their due attention. He followed this one's hint, scowling horribly at the screen for a second. _C'mon, what was it, what-- oh. Huh._ "Heiji," he said slowly, "did you see the comment about the abraision marks on the victim's right cheek?" There was an odd blank patch there; in the photographic simulation it showed as plain, pinkish skin, but in the diagrammed layout it had vague traces of ink in no particular pattern overlayed with scarification. Forensics had briefly noted this as an abraded area, relatively recent but healed and with no subdermal damage to the bone beneath, which ruled out accidental abrasion from, say, road-rash. "Why would a gang-member have his tattoos removed?"

Hattori frowned at the same images and text on his own screen, popping back and forth from the photographic mock-up to a disconcerting flattened spread that displayed the designs as one continuous flow; it looks peculiarly (and appropriately, in a sick kind of way) like a deathmask from some ancient culture. "'Cause he wasn't a gang-member anymore?" He swung the office-chair of Mouri's that he'd commandeered around, facing Shinichi's own cross-legged perch on the couch. "And if he wasn't a gang-member anymore--"

"--then he had to have a good reason for quitting, they don't just let people go--"

"--like jail? Family pressure? Young guy, tryin' to find a job? Maybe an arrest-record somewhere; they keep info on tattoos and scars--"

"--we can find out from Interpol, but it'll require more help from Missing Persons."

Full stop; gloomy silence.

With an air of solemnity that would've done justice to the retainer of a samurai about to commit seppuku, Heiji handed the phone to Shinichi. "Nice knowin' you, Kudo."

".....up yours, Hattori."

"Oh yeah, REAL mature look for you, Kudo. You gonna teach your little kiddie friends how to give people the finger too? Go on, call the guy."

The phone rang through to voice mail on the first try, after about eight rings. Shinichi, with a puzzled expression, hung up and tried again. This time it rattled loudly, the sound of a handset being knocked off its cradle, and then rattled again as Chirokawa hastily picked it up.

"Moshi moshi, Chiroka---" Shinichi began.

"_THIS IS NOT THE TIME,_" came the old man's voice, very strained and frantic, at a loud enough volume that Hattori heard it, and pulled a face in surprise. Shinichi rubbed at his ear, switched the phone to the opposite one, and tried again.

"Is something the---"

Chirokawa cut him off again, and if the noises in the background were any indication, he was demonstratively accompanying his gestures with slams and punches. "_MATTER, YES, THE MATTER IS THE MATERIAL OF MY OFFICE. SOMEONE HAS BEEN IN MY OFFICE. SOMEONE HAS BEEN IN MY __**OFFICE**__."_

Shinichi cut a quick look to Hattori, wariness in his gaze. Hattori got up immediately and began collecting their coats. "We'll be there in a moment, Chirokawa-san," Shinichi reassured the man, receiving a burble of frustrated noise as response. "Don't leave your office. We'll be there as fast as we can."

"This might be gettin' ugly," Hattori muttered, tossing Shinichi's coat to him as the smaller detective clicked the phone shut and pocketed it. Shinichi met this comment with a dry look.

"Right, because _bodies_ falling from the _sky_ inside of _cows_ is totally normal and not worth commentary."

Heiji shrugged. "Dunno about you, but only the cows part is new to me."

* * *

Back to the station... and this time, as payback for all the gas and transport, Hattori announced flatly that he'd be waiting in the lobby while Shinichi had his little chat with Chirokawa. Due to the presence of the front desk officer (this time a rather pretty young rookie who seemed quite charmed by cute little Conan's serious demeanor), the Detective of the East was not able to express his opinion of the Osakajin's cowardice in the kind of language that would do it justice... but the look he threw Heiji over his shoulder as he reluctantly plodded down the hall spoke volumes.

Forty minutes or so later he returned with a sheaf of papers in his hand and a troubled expression in his eyes. Hattori had fallen asleep, sprawled deeply in a lobby chair with his hat over his eyes and his hands clasped behind his head; Shinichi scooted up onto the nearest seat and began quietly studying his findings.

"How's the clean freak doin'?"

Apparently Heiji's sleep was merely... apparent. Shinichi turned a page, speaking quietly. "He's not a clean freak, he's a germaphobe. And when I left him, he was autoclaving his paperclips-- and no, I do _not_ know where he got an autoclave. He also has plans to redo his office, by which I mean 'remove everything, sterilize it down to the grout in the tiles, and put it back together while wearing a clean-suit.' That's a quote." He glanced sideways, clearing his throat; Hattori hadn't moved at all. "It looks like someone managed to acquire a pass-key to his office and rearrange things a little; it's probable that Chirokawa's notes on the cow case were xeroxed, since they'd been moved. Nothing's missing, but..." He allowed the words to trail off, an unchildlike frown on his face. "Given that, I'd bet they got into his computer and copied the data there too. And that bothers me."

"Yeah? Why? Specifically, I mean, aside from the whole 'breaking-and-entering-is-wrong' deal." Heiji pushed the hat back off his forehead with one angular brown hand.

"Because all the activity up to this point's been at a distance; we haven't even spoken to any of the shipping company's staff. We haven't even seen the face of a suspect..." Shinichi's brows drew down, and he rubbed at his forehead with one hand. "Hell, we've only seen a computerized facsimile of one of the victims' faces at that. This case isn't like anything we usually work on; it's--"

"--not personal." Hattori still hadn't moved, but there was a set to his jaw that told Shinich that he'd been thinking along the same lines. "We usually're either there on the scene when a crime happens or we come in right after; these poor schmucks could've died months ago, even longer, a long ways away. It's horrible, but it's not _here."_

"Doesn't make it any less of a crime, Hattori."

The other nodded, looking grim. "Got that right." He slouched back. "Hmmm...."

Shinichi sighed as silence fell between them, glancing out the glass-fronted panes of the lobby to the street where night was beginning to fall; they had been hard at work since the end of Conan's school day and leaden weariness weighed down his very bones. "Not personal," he murmured, watching his fellow detective absentmindedly as Heiji stretched his interlaced hands over his head with a popping of joints. Tanned hands, long-fingered; Shinichi yawned and found himself staring at his own hands, flexing the thin, childish digits and thinking of others: stronger, deft, oddly calloused, nicked here and there with tiny white lines and the glassy redness of burn-scars.

_Wonder what he's doing right now?_ The dove-borne note that had arrived earlier had surprised him-- Kid and his alter-ego had to be back in school now, right? It was more than a little weird, picturing him-- them-- tamed down and wearing a school uniform, hemmed in by the rules and Thou Shants of the Japanese public school system. Shinichi felt another bone-cracking yawn forcing itself out; he slumped back on the couch, still staring at his hands for a moment before rubbing at his eyes tiredly.

It had to be difficult, stifling down that manic, inventive personality into the mass-production mold of a high-school student; as hard or harder than shoving his own self into the simulacrum of a gradeschooler, really. Shinichi yawned again, eyes lidding closed; the couch was comfortable enough and he'd been running non-stop all day... did Kid have as hard a day behind him? Did he drive himself the same way as his investigative counterpart did? Probably, he--

A finger snapped in front of his face. "Yo, Kudo?

"Uh? What?" He opened his eyes with a start.

"Y'were spacin' out there," Hattori said, eyes narrowing. "Y'okay? Need me t'get ya anything? Glass'a water? Coffee? Some--"

"_Heiji,_" Shinichi muttered, swatting away his friend's hand with an irritated tsk. "'M fine. Just tired." And he _was_-- it had been a hard weekend, a long one, full of too much murder and not enough sleep, too much difficult thought and not enough time to simply enjoy the company of his friends, too much worry and not enough answers. Not nearly enough answers.

"At least we know one thing," he realized, murmuring the words aloud even as he grew certain of them. "We're on the right track. There would have been no reason to bother Chirokawa-san if we had him chasing red herrings or wrong ideas." Shinichi looked up at Heiji slowly, determination battling back the onset of exhaustion in his own eyes, and in Heiji's as well. "We're getting somewhere."

* * *

However, they didn't get very far. Not ten meters from the front of the station, the two detectives found themselves under-- not _attack,_ exactly, but certainly under fire.

"--understand that you actually were called in from Osaka along with your father, the famous Hattori 'Oni' Heizo? Is that true, Hattori-san?"

"--two rising young stars, collaborating on this very public case! What can you tell us about the--"

"--no less than eight cows, all containing gruesomely mutilated body-parts. Edogawa-kun, you're well-known here in Beika City; won't you--"

Hattori swore under his breath at the small group of reporters that had obviously been waiting outside; two cameras were busily filming away, and the microphones were being waved like so many cobras in their faces. He traded a dismayed look with Shinichi. "Eh, well, we're just..." Heiji glared at the most pushy of the reporters as the man nearly bopped the Osakajin in the face in his eagerness. "Back off, willya? Look, we're just... helpin' with the official inquiries, that's all. Why don't you try talking to the officials?"

The reporters crowded closer; a few traded looks, muttering about 'close-mouthed officials' and 'the people have a right to know.' Shinichi rolled his eyes, sighed, and put on his best Conan Face. "We don't know all that much yet," he said brightly to the nearest mike. "And if we did, and we don't, we'd have to clear it with Megure-keibu anyway before we said it, right, Heiji-niisan?"

Hattori ruffled his hair in a big-brotherly manner; Shinichi'd have to get him for that later. "Right, chibi. So sorry, guys, talk to the big shots; we're just little fish. You want info, you--"

"--can talk to _**me**__."_

At the barked words, the reporters jumped like a startled school of fish; the aforementioned 'famous Hattori 'Oni' Heizo' himself stood a little further down the steps beside Megure and several aides, a thundercloud darkening his face. To the reporters, however, he might have been pure gold; they moved towards him greedily, cameras rolling and mikes waving, leaving Shinichi and Heiji to breath a sigh of relief in their wake.

"C'mon," Heiji muttered, sotto voce, crouching down to Shinichi's level. The clamor of reporters' voices tangled and swelled off to their left; then his father's voice roared out over them all, cowing them like dandelions in a strong wind. Then a moment of silence...and the clamor started up again, utterly unsatiable. "Let's get outta here before some punk drops out of the rest of the crowd to gnaw on us."

"They're like those seagulls from that movie," Shinichi grumbled, following Heiji at a march toward the green rental bike. "The one with the clownfish? 'Mine! Mine! Mine!' Except these ones are saying, 'Talk! Talk! Talk!'"

Heiji snickered and shoved Shinchi's helmet onto his head. "'Spill! Spill! Spill!' or maybe 'Scoop! Scoop!' Freaking vultures."

"C'mon, vultures are better than _that,_ Hattori. And did you have to call me 'Chibi' in front of them? Anything you say in front of a reporter sticks like glue, you know that--" Bickering amiably, the two headed out into the evening traffic, the bike's rumble fading slowly as it gained distance.

It was a pity that they hadn't paid more attention to the crowd that had gathered to watch and listen as Oni Heizo and Megure dealt with the reporters and their questions; if they had, they might have noticed the man in a gray trenchcoat-- the one who paid little attention to the reporters, but who watched _very_ closely as the green bike pulled away. Narrowed gray eyes matched thinning gray hair; the man was gray all over, suit and coat and identity. And the cellphone that he pulled out was silvery gray as well.

_Beepbeep._ A number flashed briefly on a screen as the phone speed-dialed; the gray man's eyes never blinked as they turned their attention towards the crowd again-- and towards Hattori Heizo in particular. "It's me. Yes, I'm at the police staton-- no, nothing to worry about, they haven't a shred of real proof. But we need a distraction; that Osaka bastard _is_ involved." Gray eyes stared hard at the large officer. "...However, I think I might have a solution in mind. Tell me, is your, ah, 'handyman' busy much these days? I have a job for him."

The last of the green bike's noise died away, merging into the murmur of traffic until there was nothing left to hear.

* * *

_Salud! Please join us next time for _**Book Two, Chapter Nine: "fountain, phonecall, wrong"**_. _


	17. Fountain, phonecall, wrong

___Greetings and welcome to the next chapter of _**_Three Thieves_**___, written and posted by _ _**rednightengale**____ and _ _**ysabet**____ , (whom history will eventually prove to be innocent in a court of law.) This time the chapter got a wee bit out of hand-- it's quite large, the longest yet. Please let us know your comments, as things are beginning to take a very definite path and we'd very much like to know what you think-- reviews are the pickled ginger beside our unagi sushi, the milk accompanying our cookies, the antacid following our late-night pizza binge (yes, I'm hungry; so sue me.) You get what we mean._

___Anyway, on with the show!........ The Management

* * *

_

_**Book Two, Chapter Nine: "**__**fountain, phonecall, wrong**__**"**_

Heiji noticed their tail first. They weren't using his own pair of helmets, which'd had small bluetooth headsets built into them so that Kudo and he could communicate while on the road, so Heiji wasn't _sure_ the other detective hadn't seen the purple and orange bike that had been somewhat less than inconspicuously trailing them for the last twelve blocks, but the boy's grip around Heiji's middle hadn't changed, so he had to guess Kudo was still thinking on the case, not watching the rearview mirrors. That also meant he couldn't ask Kudo for a suggestion on how, precisely, they should lose the bastard - or whether they should at all, and instead fake him out by leading him to a location to their advantage. The lack of the bluetooth headsets meant that Heiji also couldn't access his cell phone, so the call he normally would have made to his father or to Megure-keibu, to alert the officers of the problem, was out as well.

_Well, shit,_ Heiji cursed to himself. _Stupid technology._ As they pulled to a stoplight, coming to a rolling glide, the light changed again, letting them through with barely a moment's pause. The bike behind them, far enough back that it hadn't had to slow as Heiji had, gained a distance of three cars' lengths on the pair through the next block, and as Heiji approached the next intersection, he made his decision.

Kudo finally _did_ tense up as Heiji switched on his left blinker, an obediently legal five hundred feet ahead of the intersection. Heiji dropped his elbows back, pinning the kid's arms to Heiji's sides, before the tension in his arms could translate into a gesture that would give their tail the drop. Instead, as they idled at this stoplight, Heiji brought his left hand forward to adjust the set of his helmet, yanking the chin down to make sure his vision was as clear as could be. As he brought his hand back to the handlebars, before bringing it into view of the bike behind them, he pointed at the rearview mirror, then patted Kudo's hands where they were clasped across his stomach.

_Here's hoping you're hangin' on, chibi,_ Heiji said, sending a prayer heavenward, as the cross traffic slowed and came to a stop. The red lamp facing Heiji and Shinichi flickered off. The green lamp flickered on. Heiji revved the bike to full throttle and peeled out of the intersection, ignoring his own turn signal and the screeching horns of the lanes he was crossing as he zipped not left, but right, through the intersection and out of view down the cross street.

Far behind him, struggling to get across the second lane of traffic to turn right, the motorcyclist in orange and purple waved broadly, repeating an insistent pattern of gestures. A dark blue car directly across the intersection, American make by the size of it, turned left, following Heiji and Shinichi's path.

*

_Shitshitshitshitshit._ Hanging on for dear life-- literally-- Shinichi felt his hair rise even as other portions of his anatomy left the bike's seat, gaining air as they skidded around a curve and took an offramp into a less-crowded street. He swallowed hard, leaning into the inner angle of the turn; memories of riding with his mother in New York rose queasily in his mind, and he gripped Heiji harder around the waist.

He stole a quick look over a shoulder; their brightly-colored pursuer had vanished, and the roadway was innocent of vehicles except for... oh. _Errgh._ He tapped at Heiji's arm quickly, turning the motion into a backwards thumbing. The helmet in front of him angled as the other detective looked into the rearview mirror, and he hunched his shoulders as he gunned the bike again.

The blue car's driver was skillful-- he took the next curve with a rising scream of tires as the two on the bike shot up an incline, accelerating hard. Trees and lamp-posts whipped by as they rounded a park; Hattori pointed, a flick of a gesture; his hand went out straight and flat, miming 'duck', and Shinichi gulped.

With an abrupt lurch, the green bike skidded onto one of the broad sidewalks leading into the park; they bumped up several steps, still climbing. Engine growling, the blue car followed from asphalt onto white cement, shooting into the park grounds with barely a pause. Shinichi clung like a leech, heart thudding in his ears and with his head ducked as low as possible; he had just barely enough notice from the lowering of Hattori's own helmet to shut his eyes and brace himself as they left the sidewalk and barreled into the bushes with a noisy crash.

Back on the sidewalk, the blue car scraped jarringly against branches as it sideswipped the shrubbery; it couldn't follow, but it snarled around the next turn and parallelled their path with amazing alacrity. Whoever he was, the driver was _good._ And Hattori saw; heart in his throat, Shinichi yelped as they swerved through the thin undergrowth and juddered once more onto the sidewalk.

Behind them, sounding much raggeder than before, there was a growl of engine noise. Again.

"Hattori, _move it,_" Shinichi reflexively growled, glancing over his shoulder for a split second - long enough to spot the blunt muzzle of the car bearing down on them. The Osakan couldn't hear him, of course, but he _did_ hear the engine roar, and with a quick glance to his mirrors, he cut the bike right, back into the bushes. This time he zoomed ahead, avoiding the worst lurches and lumps of park topography as best he could, until a small footpath presented itself and a quick decision was made.

Shinichi yelled in surprise - and some fear - as Hattori slammed on the brakes. He eased off them immediately to allow the wheels to spin as their momentum coasted them forward, and though the tail end of the bike popped off the ground, making Shinichi cling desperately to Hattori's back, they didn't flip. With one foot out to brace them - putting up smoke from the rubber tread as it dragged across the path's asphalt - Hattori executed a hairpin turn. Their pursuer, still on the sidewalk outside the shrubbery line, growled on past, until the squeal of Hattori's back wheel spinning and gripping the pavement drew the driver's attention. By that time, Hattori and Shinichi had put a thousand meters and counting of space between themselves and their pursuers, both of their heads ducked low, for speed or fear or both.

Which would've been just fine, if not for the ornamental pond. And the stairs.

No more than four meters across, it centered a shallow bowl of concrete and sunken flowerbeds three times as wide; adept as he was, Heiji had no more chance of missing it than he had of flying to the moon-- though he gave it a good try, breaking hard and throwing his weight to the side. A couple of park-goers scattered with shouts of alarm as the wheels hit the nearest of the wooden benches ringing the edges of the slope, knocking it aside like kindling; still miraculously upright (if at an angle that had _imminent fail_ written all over it) the green bike screeched down the stairs in a broken, staccato series of thuds. Its two passengers could do nothing but hang on and wait for the inevitable.

Anyone who's ever been through an automotive accident knows all about how the seconds stretch and drag, about how the moments leading to impact seem to warp into an impossible blur of helplessness; and it's much _much_ worse when you're small enough to be tossed like a child's toy: breakable, fragile, unable to do a goddamn thing but hang on and curl in upon yourself as tightly as possible. In the yawning gulf of time between the beginning of the sideways skid and its end, Shinichi felt his fingers dig into Hattori's shirt, felt the body in front of his flinch hard as the stretch of water rose up like a mouth to swallow them.

_**SPLOOSH!**_

Darkness and _coldcoldcold_ and impact and a horrendous confusion of noise--

"--Kudo? Kudo, you okay? Say somethin', dammit, oh fuck, _Kudo--"_

* * *

"....mild concussion, bruises, and contusions to the ribs and right shoulder." The doctor glanced up at the roomful of people, mildly startled by the intensity of their focus... and their number. Two teenagers standing obvious guard to either side of the bed, four small children peering wide-eyed around a large, portly man with gray hair, a middle-aged man with a black mustache and an annoyed expression, and of course the patient: Edogawa Conan, male, age seven, blood type A, vehicular accident victim.

Or rather, according to the two officers waiting not-so-patiently out in the hall, one of two _assault and attempted murder_ victims.

The second of the pair (the one who'd refused to stay overnight) crossed his arms and looked truculent. "How long're you gonna keep him?"

The doctor sighed. "Two days, possibly three; it all depends upon--"

"No."

Oh; that was the patient. The doctor blinked. _Patients,_ especially adolescent males with mild concussions, bruises, et cetera. Didn't he have the sense to know that he was supposed to be frightened and compliant and a careful listener?

"I'm sorry, ah-" He checked his charts. "Hattori-san, what exactly is your objection to your friend receiving proper medical care?"

The patient, as expected, flustered somewhat at that. "That's not what I'm sayin', doc," he protested. "I'm sayin' you can't keep him that long."

The doctor raised one disbelieving eyebrow. "I _can't_ keep him? And where is his primary guardian to say so?"

"Right here." The doctor turned his attention to the boy's second sentry, a young woman who looked older around the eyes than her school uniform said she was. "Tou-san and I have been caring for Conan-kun while his parents are away and we say you can't keep him that long."

"We, uh, we do?" That was apparently the girl's father, the one in the whole room who looked least intensely adamant about the whole process. It wasn't that he looked unconcerned at all...it was that everyone else was so _intensely_ concerned.

One of those, the dark-eyed little girl hiding behind the old man, darted forward to the edge of the patient's bed. "Ran-san, they have to keep Conan-kun! He's hurt! Don't you remember last time, when he got shot and we had to get out of the cave and it was really really bad and scary?"

While the doctor checked his chart with no little amount of surprise - yes, there it was, a bullet wound to the stomach less than a year ago - the elder of the two dark-haired girls narrowed her eyes at the younger.

"Ayumi-chan, I promise, Conan will get all the rest and care and watching that he needs at home. But we're in the middle of a case right now, remember? Conan has to come home so we can work on it."

A hand on the little girl's shoulder turned her attention to the blond, quiet little girl beside her. "Conan-kun will be in very good hands," the girl promised, in tones drier than seemed possible from such a young person. "The Professor is an adept medical professional."

As the doctor followed the girls' gaze up to their guardian's face, the elderly professor demurred the blond child's praise uncomfortably, scratching the tip of his bulbous nose nervously. "Ah, ehh, I don't know about that, Ai-kun..."

"Yeah!!" chorused the two boys - one of them seeming to appear out of thin air, though the doctor supposed he had just been hiding behind the bulk of his friend. "Let the professor take care of Conan! Bring him hoooome!"

As the professor and Ran's father tried unsuccessfully to calm (or corral) the three more boisterous children - completely unaided by the calm blonde, who just stood watching with her arms crossed - the doctor turned his attention to his patient's self-appointed 'guards'... and found himself facing a brick wall of confident obstinance.

"Concussions in children his age are serious business," he said, trying one more time to talk some sense into the pair. "There are concerns of blood flow problems from swelling and broken vessels, and the dizziness that can accompany them is not to be taken lightly either..." Both looked supremely unimpressed.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, you two. I'm trying to tell you this for his own good."

Ran's firm expression softened just a little. "Doctor, we appreciate that, but as soon as Conan-kun has woken up and can stomach some movement and get some food in him, we'll be taking him home to rest and get sleep - just as he would here, but surrounded by his friends instead of in a hospital bed. I assure you that if anything happens to worry us, we'll bring him straight back."

"Yeah, so just sign the release paper already, ahkay?" The Osakajin boy was fairly radiating saucy cockiness at the doctor now that he was in sight of victory, and whatever faith the man had had in Ran's earnestness evaporated instantly. She, however, responded faster than the doctor himself could, slapping the rail of Conan's bed as she glared over the sleeping boy's head at his other guard.

"_HATTORI!_"

The boy didn't look terribly contrite until Ran's glare narrowed even further, and her hands began to curl into fists. At that point, he offered a not entirely insincere short bow, hand upraised, to the doctor. "...Please." Meanwhile, the children's chatter, which had mostly quieted down, abruptly spiked into louder babble over some sort of minor disagreement, and in the bed, the small boy stirred blearily awake.

"Yare yare... keep it down," he mumbled, squinting his eyes against the light of the room and frowning as his body woke up and recognized its pains. Ran had already clasped one of his hands in both of hers, eyes watering, and the boy gripped her hand back as best he could while he looked around the room to take in all his visitors one by one.

* * *

_Why... are __all these people__ in here?_ was Shinichi's first muddled thought; he had some hazy notion that Mouri's bedroom wasn't nearly large enough for Ran, her father, Agasa, Hattori, Ai, Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, Genta and-- He blinked muzzily; who--? White lab coat, stethescope, clipboard, lanyard with a photo-ID tag, plastic gloves stuffed in one pocket, and one eyebrow hiked disapprovingly high; that equalled 'doctor'. _Oh. Yeah. Owww... Not my room, HOSPITAL room. Bike, park, car-chase, we... hit something? Must've. Don't remember._ He turned his head, wincing as he followed the clasp on his hand up to Ran's worried face. "H-Hey. Didn't we.... ow.... do this already?" Shinichi asked, trying with very minimal success to smile.

She gave him one back that was twice as good as his own and then some, relief turning her eyes overbright. Across from her Heiji leaned over the bed, white teeth gleaming in his dark face; "'Bout time, Ku-- uh, Conan-kun. Now tell the nice man you're ready t'go home, okay? And we can get the hell out've here." He had a bandage on one cheekbone and another just below the edge of his hairline with the bloom of a bruise shadowing the edges.

"Urgh." The boy tried to focus-- and regretted it almost instantly as the throbbing in his head increased. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing important," said Ran beside him, steel in her voice; her grip tightened for a second before loosening reluctantly. "And right now, what IS important is that you're cared for properly. Hattori-kun, could I have a little word with you outside? Immediately, please?"

In the hall, Ran gave an impressive stink-eye to the cop on the left of the door, who didn't move but did shutter down her expression, the widely understood sign of That's None Of My Business, Ma'am. Still scowling, but satisfied that they wouldn't get any better privacy, Ran tugged Hattori's collar till he bent down to her level, and offered her concerns in a manner Hattori assumed was _supposed_ to be an unobtrusive hiss.

"What if he _should_ stay here? We can't just cart him all over the place if he's got a head injury, so--"

"--We're not _going_ to cart him all over'a place," Hattori cut her off, flapping one hand at her in a mollifying motion. "Anyway, _shhhh,_ I can hear ya fine. We're gonna take 'im home an' stick him with Ai an' let her fix it. Him. She wouldn' be confused at the test results from him, anyway, like these guys would be. And it's probably safer home, too."

Ran frowned, leaning close to whisper near Hattori's ear. "Do you have any idea who tried to make you guys crash?"

"Tried?" Hattori snorted, and the policewoman's eyebrow hiked up slightly. He brought his tone back down to confidential with a growl. "They didn' just _try_ t'crash us, they did a pretty decent job'v it, but they were probably thinking more of the 'under car wheels' and less'v the 'under water' variety of crash, so yeah, I'm gonna bet they'll do something else."

Ran's hands tightened into fists, one against the wall beside them. As a nurse bustled by, fortunately not noticing Ran's murderous expression, both teens held their tongues. As soon as she'd left, though, Ran thumped the wall - rather gently, for her.

"What were they trying to do? You guys haven't done anything wrong, there hasn't been anything unusual happening recently at all, unless--" Her eyes widened, and her breath grew short. "Oh, god, what if they found him out, what if they--"

Hattori grabbed Ran's shoulders, fingers sweeping short soothing arcs over their peaks. "You an' me an' Kudo an' Ai an' everyone'd be dead, Neechan," Hattori told her soberly. "Kudo's impressed that much on me, an' he's learned it from Ai an' from firsthand experience with 'em. I'm not rulin' anything out, but I don't think it's them, not yet at least. Maybe I'll change my mind later, but for now I think you're forgetting something." At Ran's hopeful, confused look, Hattori broke into a wide grin.

"'Nothing unusual happening,' y'said? Cows falling down on your doorstep don't count?" He laughed, again making the officers at the door twitch. "I think Kudo's gotten to your head, if that's normal where you come from."

Blinking, Ran began to giggle, then grinned widely, her sunny eventempered smile restored. "I didn't even think of that, Hattori! Things _have_ been weird around here. ...Let's just get Sh--Conan home, and deal with the rest of this later."

* * *

It took some doing to keep the trip home from becoming something of a parade, what with the Shonen Tantei clamoring to come along and an Official Police Presence following behind in a squadcar just in case; as it was, Heiji and Mouri ended up in with the officer to allow the boy room enough to ride comfortably in the taxi. It also took a little doing to get Shinichi into Agasa's spare room and to make his three youngest guardians reluctantly leave; but at last, head throbbing abominably, the boy closed his eyes against the sparkles that were chasing themselves across his vision and let sleep pull him under again.

The clock on the nightstand was telling him _7:23_ in green neon when Shinichi slowly opened his eyes again; disoriented and groggy, it took a few moments for him to remember just where he was and why he was there at all. There was a glass beside the clock, water beading up on its sides; fumbling a little with hands that felt unexpectedly heavy, he reached.

Another hand beat him to it. "Here," said Ai quietly, slipping a straw into the glass and holding it out. "How do you feel?" The girl was curled up in a chair beside the bed, socked feet tucked up beneath her; her characteristic lab-coat was missing for once, and as he drank the water in slow sips Shinichi couldn't help but notice that she seemed to be missing a little of her usual collected coolness-- her eyes were shadowed, darkened with something other than clinical interest just this once. "Can you sit up?"

"Errgh... yeah, think so." Balancing a head that felt three sizes bigger than the norm on his neck, Shinichi passed the glass back and struggled to push himself upright. "Where _is_ everybody?" The recollection of bandages on a tanned face nagged at him. "Hattori? Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Ai murmured, her gaze following the glass as it passed between their hands and was set down. "He's out in the main room with Mouri-san and the Professor. The children went home. The detective is at his office. The doctor at the hospital is now having a bad day." Ai chuckled slightly, a dry humor. "The combined force of Mouri-san and Hattori-kun was, understandably, greater than he was prepared to stand against." Ai reached a hand out to Shinichi's forehead, and the cool skin on the back of her narrow, bony hand brushed his flushed skin for the briefest of moments. "You don't seem to be running a fever."

Shinichi blinked slowly at her, trying not to encourage the sparkles in the corners of his vision to make a comeback. "Aren't you going to use the thermometer to be sure?"

"In a bit," Ai murmured, curling back up on her chair, toes curled over the edge of the seat, knees tucked up to her chin. Resting her head on her knees, she looked at Shinichi sideways, that strange shadow of familiarity altering the normally cool, dispassionate gaze he was used to. "I don't feel like prodding you too harshly at the moment. Don't worry, that will change."

He eyed her with groggy trepidation. ".......don't force yourself on my account..." The boy slowly began taking stock of his physical state; in the hospital he'd been too distracted and fuzzy-headed to really pay attention to much other than the fact that he was alive and _leaving,_ but now that he had a moment to think-- "All fingers and toes accounted for? Nothing broken? ....aaagh....." Shinichi wiggled his extremities, wincing at previously-unnoticed bruises. He could feel bandages around and below one knee, something that felt like a taped-on pad at his left elbow and-- "Stitches?" He pushed the sheets back to scowl blearily at an itchy, aching place just below his ribs. "They had to suture me? How many?"

"Only four. You caught something sharp on Hattori's bike, apparently." Ai raised an eyebrow, refilling Shinichi's glass from a small jug beside the clock. "He has a similar gash just below the same placement. Are you two trying for matching scars?"

He grimaced, accepting the glass again and taking a long drink without answering. "Thanks." Everything either stung or throbbed, from his abused head down to the soles of his feet; feeling just a little (or possibly a lot) like the world could go and manage without him for a while, Shinichi asked, "So... how long am I stuck here? I take it Heiji's worried about round two?"

"He is," Ai confirmed, her tone carefully neutral. "I don't disagree, either. Until we know what inspired this, we don't know what specific things we should avoid doing to stay off their radar until we get more information. That, unfortunately, loops us into a bit of a cycle."

She paused. "Aside from a many other possibilities, most of which I doubt I have to enumerate to you, is the chance that...in the parlance of cliche...we have a leak."

"A...." Shinichi rubbed at his eyes with the back of one scraped hand. "...leak? Wait, by 'we' do you mean the police?" Horrible possibilities rose up in his mind and he shook his head (regretting the motion almost immediately.) "If by that you mean the Organization... Ai, I doubt it. They're more the sort to use fire or another disaster scenario to do their cleanup, aren't they? And actually," he added soberly, "I'm not all that certain that the attempt on our lives had anything to do with me at all." He cradled his throbbing head in both hands for a second.

One eyebrow went up. Very slowly. "The probabilities of that, Ku--"

"Are higher than you think," Shinichi shot back, sitting up-- or trying to, and ending up falling back to the pillow with Ai's hands for guidance. "I'm saying that I think it has to do with our case," he explained through gritted teeth, and was gratified to see a sliver of honest willingness to listen opening up behind Ai's gaze. "Our source got his office messed with. I don't think they want anybody paying them as close attention as we are."

He winced at the sound of his own voice, which had risen enough to jar in his ears. "And anyway," Shinichi added with his own dose of dry humor as he closed his eyes, "there's an easy way to see if they're after Heiji, me OR Heiji, or just me." At her inquiring sound, he shrugged, eyes still shut. "Ow. --We just wait and see if they go after him a second time. My being involved in the first attempt might've just been due to opportunity, not design."

"Rather cold'v ya," Hattori chuckled, drawing both small adults' attention to the doorway, where he stood with one hip cocked against the frame. "Don't mean t'interrupt, but you got a call, Kudo, an' Ran won't tell me who it is."

Shinichi glanced to Ai, then Hattori, then past Hattori, out the doorway, to the room where Ran was probably sitting with one thumb over the microphone of his cell phone. "Send her in. Ai, could we?"

"Don't take too long," Ai remarked, sliding down from her chair and padding out of the room without a glance back. "You still owe me a core temperature reading."

Hattori winced as the diminuitive - but commanding - little girl walked past, then turned a look of amused sympathy on Shinichi. "You bettern' me," he laughed. Shinichi glared. "A'right, alright. I'll get her."

* * *

"Shinichi! _Shinichi,_ oh take it, take it!" Ran all but threw the phone into his hands, careful not to flip it shut but very eager to get it out of her hands. The screen, once he woke it up, simply read "Restricted Number," and the fierce stab of satisfied vindication that Shinichi felt at seeing that almost obscured the first words he heard from the caller once the phone was up to his ear.

"_There you are. Tell Ran I didn't mean to upset her, mm?_"

Shinichi held the phone a small distance away from his cheek, but didn't cover the microphone, as he turned an inquisitive look on Ran. "He says he didn't mean to upset you?"

Ran, who had calmed down somewhat now that the phone was out of her hands, sat down on the end of Shinichi's bed - then thought better of it, got up and closed the door, and sat back down again. "I used the bow tie when I answered, I pretended to be you and the first thing he said to me was, 'Mouri-san, good to hear from you again, could you please put Shinichi on the phone,' and I didn't recognize his voice at all, and I thought it had to be him, but what if it _wasn't,_ but he wouldn't say and," she lowered her voice to a hiss, expression flickering between distress and outright irritation, "I couldn't _ask_ him, I was sitting right next to Heiji, so I had to sit there and play dumb and the whole time he's nattering at me about - I don't even know, about - about -!!" She flushed bright red.

Shinichi turned his attention back to the phone with an unamused expression which Kid couldn't see, but could surely hear in his voice. "Kid? If you _happened_ to be discussing brand names, sizing, fabric choice, lace selection, preference in padding, pros and cons of closure types, the usefulness of ribbon accents, or--" He glanced at Ran's reddening face, and continued with a growl-- "_any other related topic_ with my girlfriend, you do know that you will either have to send a dozen roses in my name to Ran's house posthaste, or suffer a _very_ uncomfortable soccer ball the next time I see you, correct?"

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. "Congratulations, Tantei. I never thought you'd say it."

Shinichi very nearly stared at the phone in puzzlement. "Say what?"

"Girl~friend~o~," Kid sang. "Congratulations and many happy returns!"

From the end of the bed, Ran's expression went from embarrassed to plain puzzled as Shinichi's complexion went from ruddy to positively ruby. "That-- I didn't-- _You._"

"In other news, Tantei," Kid continued briskly, his tone as businesslike as a Monday morning, "You really need to stop nearly dying on my watch. I'm getting rather _tired_ of watching you from the sidelines."

"Didn't mean to," muttered Shinichi with an upsurge of rebellious twelve-year-oldness surfacing briefly. "Believe me, it wasn't my idea of how to spend an afternoon." Frustration warred with his moment of embarrassment before winning-- and then promptly dying away. "Wait, you were watching? No, don't tell me." He wondered briefly if Kid had been the one to call the ambulance; someone had, after all. Past the increasingly-heavy ache in his head and the rest of his body he was aware of an odd sensation: an easing, a sense of some tense regard relaxing just a very little. It was an undeniably weird but reassuring bit of knowledge, that the thief had been somewhere around. "Um... thank you. For watching, I mean." Shinichi sighed. "And you don't have to worry for a little while, anyway; not going anywhere 'til my keepers unlock my ball and chain." Beside the bed Ran gave what was very nearly a snort, crossing her arms.

"I actually spotted it from above, and followed you out of civic duty before I realized it was you. Tell that Osakan ahou that if he drives like that again with you on board, I _will_ pluck you right off his bike."

"Seeing as he doesn't LIKE YOU," Shinichi gritted, at as low a volume as he could reasonably believe would transmit, "That'll be rather difficult!"

The pained sounds on the other end of the line indicated that surely he was wrong, _everybody_ loved Japan's most well-known Phantom Thief, didn't they? Of course they did. "Anyway, I'm stuck in bed for a while. --No, nothing too bad, just some contusions and the aftermath of a mild concussion. Right now I'm more worried that somebody'll take a pot-shot at Hattori at first opportunity, really; somebody's got their ass in a sling over this. We'd just found out they'd rifled Missing Persons before our little surprise bike-chase... The thing is, I'm not too sure where to take the investigation after th-- Hang on a sec, could you?" Ran was making urgent little gestures at that; Shinichi took a moment to confer with her before returning to the call.

"Okay," he said with a sigh, wishing the pounding in his head would settle down, "According to Ran, Hattori's planning on heading out to the shipping company's main offices tomorrow morning; they're out by . Just in case you, uh... happen to have any civic-duty-type urges towards surveillance in that area. Just be careful if you do, okay? Please." Shinichi hesitated and then added wryly, "Though I have to tell you, Hattori'd have fits at the very idea. You make him more than a little twitchy; it's kind of funny." He shifted in the bed, trying for a more comfortable position and groaning involuntarily as the sparkles tried to make a reappearance; Ran reached out, smoothing a cool hand across his forehead. "Sorry. Head hurts. Good thing I've got a thick skull, ne?"

On the other end of the phone line, Kaitou Kid held his head in his hands, phone pinned between one palm and his cheek. "I shouldn't be surprised, really; this must be karma paying me back." He knew he had no room to complain about dangerous stunts - after all, Shinichi had been the one watching during the fire when Kid had crashed, when this whole thing between them, this friendship, had been begun. And yet at the same time - Kid was a professional. He lived for his job, quite literally. And he was grown, his body lithe, strong, and trained to take all manner of abuse. He wore body armor when appropriate, he knew how to take a fall, how to perform first aid and triage on himself, how to use mental focus to block away pain until he had time or privacy to deal with it. He wasn't a small, fragile child with too-delicate bones, too-thin limbs, a too-weak body.

Kid knew that he wasn't inherently breakable, and he treated himself appropriate to that knowledge: pushing his own limits, physically and mentally, knowing that those limits would hold. But the more he looked at Shinichi, the more Kid was able to internalize how very breakable his friend was. The problem was, the guy hadn't realized it yet - after over a year of living in a child's body, Shinichi still charged headlong into all _sorts_ of moronically dangerous situations with nothing more to protect him than his own bullheaded ballsiness. No body armor, no backup, sometimes not even a _helmet_ - and through it all, handicapped by the physical limitations of a child. A very, very, very brilliant mind rested within that body, a mind that Kid couldn't get out of his _own_ thoughts, but the brilliance of it sometimes only seemed to increase the size of its blind spots, too. And those were becoming increasingly dangerous, potentially fatal, as Shinichi ---

"Oh, _spare_ me the drama!"

Kid looked up. In front of him, an illusion of Kuroba Kaito stood with arms crossed, a scowl darkening his features. "You drama whore!" Kid blinked, sat up straight, and pointed one finger towards his own chest in blank confusion. "Yes, you, you big white prat," Kaito snapped. "For crying out loud, stop _looking_ for reasons to be depressed! He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself just as ruthlessly as you 'take care' of yourself. You're a hypocrite if you think that what you consider 'taking care of yourself' passes for the same kind of care and deliberation that you are sitting there yearning to give him."

Kid opened his mouth to protest, and Kaito just pushed on through, slicing the air with one flat palm to cut off his partner. "Save it. You're anything but careful of yourself, you never look before you leap and I mean that literally, you have _no_ right to talk about what risks another _professional_ should or shouldn't be taking."

Kid bristled, puffing up. "He's a KI--"

"You're the only kid here," Kaito answered drily. "He is under cover, if you will, but he's anything but an average child and you _know_ that, hell you don't even see him as he appears anymore, just as you know him to _really_ be, eighteen years old and smarter than anything."

The thief gave him a petulant look. "Except me."

"Shut your ego, it's making noise." Kaito rolled his eyes, rubbing one hand the wrong way through his hair, and levelled a very no-nonsense glare on his counterpart. "Whether you or he is the smarter one is debatable - well, is up for question, though I doubt anyone could actually successfully conduct a debate on the topic. My point is, stop underestimating him when it's convenient for you, snap out of your damn depressive funk, and get back to your phone conversation."

Kid looked down at the phone in his hands, hardly seeing it; when he looked up again, Kaito's image was gone, but his voice remained to leave one final remark that ran down Kid's spine like an ice-cold finger.

_"He's not going to die just because you care about him, Kid."_

"--Kid? Kid? Oh for-- can you hear me?"

Blinking, Kid shook his head to clear it and focused on the phone again. "My apologies, Tantei-san." No, still not good enough; Kid coughed and cleared his throat, and when he tried again, his voice had a great deal less brittle stiltedness to it. "You were mentioning Missing Persons? Did you get copies of the data that was taken?"

There was a sigh of relief on the other end of the line. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd given yourself a concussion in sympathy or something." The boy's words were tinged with sarcasm, but the relief was quite real. "And-- wait, isn't getting copies of what isn't there kind of Zen? Never mind, so far as we could tell nothing had been taken; I've got copies of everything available." Despite his increasingly-pounding head Shinichi managed to outline his and Heiji's suppositions regarding gangmember tattoos and South American labor-camps; by the time he finished, his voice was dragging with weariness and the aches and pains were becoming strong enough that they were leaking out into the tenor of the detective's altered voice. "--and if they _are_ after me in particular, they'll wait 'til I'm up and available. If it'd Heiji then I'd expect another attempt in the next few days."

The line dropped to silence for a moment; when he spoke again, Shinichi's words were lighter, a little easier. "Must be losing my touch; I almost just said that I wished I was investigating one of your heists instead of organ banks, frozen cows and airbourne corpses." He chuckled; "The good old days, right? At least they don't have a body-count involved."

"Never," Kid murmured, his throat tight for no reason he could discern. "Tantei, I'm going to have to go. I'll be around, and so will Moona and the others. Hopefully, my involvement in this whole affair is still mostly unknown, and if that remains true, the girls will be our best way of communicating with each other. If Hattori has any inherent fear of birds, tell him he'd do well to lose it."

A slightly wan snicker on the other end of the line indicated that this was fairly unlikely. "I think his only major fears have to do with running out of things to eat-- he's a bottomless pit-- and a certain girl from Osaka's left hook." He sighed. _"God,_ my head hurts. Be careful, Kid; I'll try to stay out of the hospital if you will." There was a brief hesitation; then: "And..... if I can, when my head's not trying to explode, I'll do my best to get over to the library, okay? Jaa." _click._

Kid closed his cell phone carefully, then let it drop to the carpet beside his chair. Ensconced in the Kuroba mansion library and den, with its big brass-tacked leather armchairs and a mustiness that grew from disuse over the last eight years, Kid tucked his feet up onto the seat, laid his cheek on his knees, and without retreating behind the comfortable shields of internal snark, self-deprecation, dismissal, witty banter, or even commentary, he simply, silently, and completely without an audience, cried.

* * *

"How's he doin?" As Ran quietly closed the door behind her Hattori Heiji looked up from flipping through the channels on the Professor's widescreen TV, green eyes concerned. He scratched at the bandage on his cheekbone; already one corner was peeling up, Hattori being of the sort of individual who couldn't help picking at things. "He finally drop off?"

"If he hasn't yet, he will soon," said Ai a little grimly. "Sleep is necessary for a concussed brain to heal, once the initial danger-period has passed. If he won't sleep naturally, what I gave him upon our arrival should take effect quite shortly." Her gaze met Ran's as the young woman sank down onto the couch with a sigh. "He was running a mild fever then; how _is_ he, Mouri-san?"

"Tired. Cranky. Worried about something, and... too jittery to really rest." Ran rubbed at her eyes, her own weariness showing in the gesture. "Ai-chan? Oh-- I mean, Haibara-san--?"

The diminutive blonde gave the girl a wry smile, rising to her feet and moving towards the lab area. "'Ai-chan' is fine. You've been calling me that for quite some time now, after all. What?"

Ran bit her lip, hesitating as she glanced a little guiltily at Heiji. "That time when Shinichi, when he-- changed back-- I was just wondering if you'd gotten any further with the process. I don't mean anything you'd use right now, obviously," she said hastily, "but when that doctor in the hospital was reading Shinichi's test results, he seemed to think there were a few, um... oddities?" Ran's hands clasped together nervously. "Some of the blood-tests, bone density results, something about his white-cell count..." Her voice trailed off as she gave the scientist a questioning look. Beside her, Heiji's gaze switched back and forth between the two like someone watching a tennis match, bandaged brow furrowing.

"I'm surprised that's all he found," Ai remarked drily, raising an eyebrow as she fiddled with vials and several sheets of grid paper marked with handwritten data tables and line graphs. "Very little about your friend is normal anymore, and it's not unusual to suggest that it goes so far as his immune system. When we returned Shinichi to his proper size most recently, the process was much more deliberate - and controlled - than previous attempts, and I gained some _very_ useful information about exactly how his body interprets and interacts with the Apotoxin. My current theory involves a large amount of organic chemistry which I wouldn't expect you to understand in its formulaic terms, but a rough summary might describe the process of the last experiment as a forced, abrupt period of progressive aging.

"The fact that he reverted early, despite the dose strength of Apotoxin which he was given, tells me that he's either developing a resistance to it, which is entirely feasible, or that his body rejected the drug and its effects as a sort of 'system imbalance.' Most people call that 'getting ill.'"

Ran stared. "His body...thinks he's sick?"

"Not right now, no," Ai answered, looking over her shoulder at Ran before turning back to her table. "When he's the size you prefer him in, _that_ is when his body - according to my theory - believes itself to be severely ill. Changes in bone density and white blood cell count would corroborate that theory."

After several long moments of complete silence ticked by, Ai looked over her shoulder again just in time to see Ran collapse onto the couch behind her, her expression one of abject horror.

"...Mouri-san?" Ai was not particularly good at being comforting, but she gave it a shot. "Mouri-san, bear in mind that the original purpose of the Apotoxin was to _kill;_ Kudo-kun is actually very fortunate. He's quite alive, relatively healthy and-- if he can keep out of the way of would-be assassins--" (and she gave Heiji a Look, which he returned with a raised eyebrow as defiant punctuation) "--he should recover from his latest mishap with no detrimental effects. As for aging and de-aging, well." The child-sized scientist sighed. "This is all uncharted country, you do realize that, correct? The best results come from pooled data, and unfortunately our pool has only two cases and no control-group. The best we can do is keep Kudo-kun as healthy as possible and," she hesitated, "watch for anomalous signs."

"Like?" asked Hattori, sitting forward with the TV remote dangling forgotten from one hand.

"A healthy body does not run fever; a sick one does." She crossed her arms, wearing her best I-Really-Am-Among-Savages,-Aren't-I? face and regarding him severely. "His child's shape is becoming baseline for 'well'; so what do you think 'sick' infers?"

The Osakajin blinked. "Kudo as an adult. Well, THAT sucks." Beside him, Ran shuddered. "So, he starts gainin' a few inches here and there, hits puberty again, voice starts cracking-- what d'we do?"

Ai made a sour face, like she'd bitten a very large lemon. "Though I have no grounds for this supposition, I somehow doubt that a 'few inches' will be the extent of his - or our - problems. He reverted _very_ quickly, despite my best preparations to the contrary. Mouri-san, would you say an hour would be a fair guess for the duration of the change?"

Ran shook her head. "I was so upset, I don't know...every minute felt like an instant, and every second was an hour. He was just --" She looked up, the memories that haunted her eyes making them look hollow and lost. "I could _feel_ him shriv--shri--" She swallowed. "Shrinking. As I carried him across the lawn, I had to move my arms together so he didn't fall out between them."

Ai nodded grimly, turning a chair so she could sit sideways on it, facing both teens. "I have no reason to believe that, if he falls 'ill' and reverts again, the method will be any different."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, broken only by the distant sound of the Professor's car pulling around behind his house; he'd gone out to pick up dinner, as no-one currently felt remotely like cooking. "What about... length? Time, y'know, duration?" Heiji's brows were drawn completely together now, and once more he picked irritably at the bandage on his face. "Kudo said this last run lasted less'n a day; are we talkin' the same kind of thing're what?"

The unchildlike child in the labcoat crossed her arms, frowning. "I have no idea. An hour, several, a day more or less-- he's complained several times lately of headaches and the usual pains that have accompanied past transformations; I would have expected them to have receded by now, but... well." Ai looked at her two companions. "I'd suggest," she said dryly, "that you each might consider keeping a change of clothing at hand which'd fit Kudo-kun's larger form, should our speculations bear fruit. I'm certain he'd appreciate it."

Heiji blinked. "Uh. Right."

"I should carry a big purse," Ran said, both her gaze and her voice lacking focus. "It would have room..." Without explanation, she stood and crossed the room, disappearing quietly behind the closed door of Shinichi's sickroom. The latch clicked shut quietly behind her, muting the conversation in the main room. Noise meant Agasa had made it inside with the food, but Ran couldn't think of something less appealing to her at the moment. Shinichi slept in his bed, small as "normal", and the peace she should have felt to see him quiescent and restful was nowhere nearby. To Ai, the discussion had probably been helpful, constructive even. Helped her plan, maybe. For Ran, all it did was make her feel ill.

She knew how much the change had hurt him. She'd SEEN it, felt his muscle mass literally _melt away_, leaving oily smoke and loose skin in its wake.

Her heart shouldn't have leaped like it had. It shouldn't be pounding now.

Ran lowered herself onto the edge of Shinichi's bed, reaching gently to stroke back his thick bangs. Her hand lingered on his skin. "Shinichi," she murmured, trying to keep her voice strong, successfully keeping the tears back. "I'm sorry. It's not that I want you to hurt. I just miss you so much... and so much _more_, now. I thought seeing you that once would help. But now it's hard not to need more..."

It was strange; the hand that smoothed back the soft hair felt Conan's, but what it was stroking was Shinichi's. And even though he was only there in a mental and potentially-physically capacity (_'only'--_ what an inadequate word!) Ran could almost see him, almost touch him, as if the small shape before her was a mirror, a crystal ball, an illusion.

_As if._ Two more words that deserved the term 'inadequate'. But so much did: appearances, assumptions, smoke and mirrors...

Smoke and mirrors. Unbidden, Ran's thoughts turned to the one who'd called on the phone earlier. Watching Shinichi speak to the thief had been oddly unsettling-- he'd lit up like a Christmas tree despite his obvious aches, shown an animation and vivid spark that not even Heiji'd been able to call forth (though almost; sometimes the two detectives squabbled like brothers.) More and more she wondered what it was like, the peculiar bond between kaitou and tantei, and more and more she wondered what it felt like from within.

Because from the outside, it was looking stranger and stranger, and yet it seemed to be getting stronger all the time.

Her hand moved on its own, threading the fine strands through her fingers; they felt like silk. Beneath Ran's touch Shinichi stirred briefly, and she held her breath; but he only turned his flushed face towards her a little, breath a faint, warm tide against her palm.

If-- and she'd wondered about this at first-- if the link between them was based on gratitude and repayment for Kid's rescue and anonymity following the fire some months earlier, the debt had long since been paid. If it was based simply on mutual one-upmanship (and they _were_ both male, so that had been a possibility) it should've worn itself out into aggression long since; Ran'd seen that kind of relationship at school. And if it'd been just the fascination of the unusual and of intellect versus matching intellect-- maybe she was wrong, but somehow... somehow Ran was certain in her very bones that their conversations wouldn't have in them the pure level of trust and comfortableness she'd witnessed in the aftermath of her and Shinichi's date.

"I don't understand," she whispered, the words barely above a breath of sound. _But I guess it doesn't matter, does it? He called to see how you were; he... cares about you too, even if I don't really understand how. Good. Because me and Hattori-kun and Ai-chan and the Professor, we're not enough._

_You need us all. You need him too, somehow. I wonder if you realize that, Shinichi?_

There was the softest tap on the door; as she looked up, startled, Agasa's head poked around the doorjamb. "Ran-chan? I have dinner; you should eat before you collapse." The portly man looked past her towards Shinichi's peacefully sleeping form; he moved into the room, laying the back of one hand against the boy's forehead and tsking softly to himself. "Fever, just as Ai thought. Let him rest, Ran-chan; fretting won't help either of you, and he'll feel better tomorrow knowing that you didn't wear yourself out over him. Hmm?" Agasa cocked a bushy grey eyebrow her way and she smiled a little unwillingly, sliding off the bed and standing up. "Come, now, have a bite to eat before Hattori-kun gobbles the lot," he coaxed her.

"I-- alright." It was only good sense, really; it wasn't anything like abandonment. Shinichi'd be the first one to say so himself.

Before she closed the door between them, however, Ran stole one more wistful glance back at the sleeping figure; and if, for just a moment, his flushed face seemed to be that of the young man she'd lost a year ago and found again so recently, that wasn't so strange.

Was it?

* * *

_There was something wrong._

Drowsing half-drugged with painkillers in Agasa's guest bedroom, Shinichi knew it with the logic of sleep. Stumbling through bad dreams of crashing motorcycles and cars driven by skinless, eyeless dead men, he knew it. The knowledge chased him like guilt, hung onto his shirt-tail like a whiny child who won't shut up no matter how much you ignore it; and as he tossed restlessly in the wrinkled sheets, it wouldn't allow him to really rest until he turned around and _faced_ it.

He'd managed well enough. The concussion had left him drained and listless, and whatever medication Ai had ordered him to ingest upon their arrival at Agasa's (using her most deadpan _I'm-not-listening-to-you,-Kudo_ tone) had eventually sent him far off the map of reason and into some uncharted place where Shinichi's body might heal but his mind did not have that option. It wasn't her fault; considering the bizarre state of his current metabolism, it was amazing enough that he had any normal reactions at all.

Not that he was aware of this... no; Kudo Shinichi's consciousness, groggy and staggering back and forth between bruised wakefulness and not-quite-full-sleep, was fixed on the idea of_something wrong,_ something wrong with--

--someone. Someone close, someone he'd--

The thought danced just out of reach; and the boy curled up tightly on himself, fingers fisted in the sheets. Eyes closed, Shinichi's lips moved silently before he shuddered back into a limp, sweat-soaked curl of pajamas and covers.

_Low-grade fever,_ Haibara'd murmured to Agasa quietly some hours earlier as they'd settled him into bed. _Not surprising; it may rise somewhat and he'll have a restless night but he won't remember it tomorrow. I wouldn't be too concerned._

...but there was something _wrong._

Ran had gone home at last, escorted by a limping Heiji; his father had called in a telephonic storm of wrath and thunder, demanding that his offspring leave for Osaka immediately, and his son had refused flatly on the grounds that a) traveling targets are easy targets, b) since when did Hattori Senior think that he and his wife'd raised a coward? and c) involved parties were not supposed to leave the city of incident, and finally d) There Were Things He Had To Take Care Of, Dammit Otousan, and if you'd paid more attention you might _know_ about that, Ne?

A compromise had eventually been reached, resulting in phone calls to Heiji's school, faxed paperwork and a planned lunchtime meeting the following day. The phonecall had then degenerated into bad temper and arguing and Ran had stepped in, requesting to speak with Hattori Senior. Much to his son's amusement, the respected and intimidating 'Oni' Heizo had then been forced into social politeness by the young woman on the other end of the line ("Of _course_ we don't mind if he continues to stay with us, Hattori-san; my Tousan's been explaining allsorts of detective tips and tricks. He'll be fine. No, we wouldn't dream of you putting him up in your hotel. Thank you so much, we'll keep an eye on him for you. Goodnight.")

Ran had vehemently protested leaving Shinichi for the evening, but it had been pointed out that if _her_ father had been left to his own devices much longer, he'd either burn down the building via microwave dinner or drink himself into a sulky stupor, so both teens had departed reluctantly for the Mouri agency, leaving their littler peer in the hands of Agasa and Haibara.

Now, it was quiet; the rest of the world had long since gone to sleep, and as Shinichi's eyes flickered, fluttered and slowly opened, the sound of his own bedclothes rustling was loud in his ears. Anyone who had known him would have found his expression disquietingly blank, inward-turned and unfocused... or focused so intently on something within the backdrop of his mind that there was nothing left to spare. In his plaid flannel pajamas the not-really-a-child looked, for once, entirely like a child.

One hand still clung to the soft throw that Ran had placed over the heavier blankets; he'd clutched it in his sleep, and now, as unsteady feet slipped onto the hardwood floor and unsteady footsteps made their way from the room and down a small hallway, the throw dragged behind in a simulacrum of a toddler's security blanket. It was dropped as small hands groped for a concealed button in the wall, stepped over and forgotten as a door slid open. As the dark tunnel between the Professor's home and the Kudo residence swallowed Shinichi up, his uneven footsteps died away into silence.

_...wrong. Need to make it right. I need to Where_

__

(substantially tweaked)

Don't leave you don't have to we need to need to talk to you don't leave

(Tantei-san?)

Make it right, curiosity killed the

(camping my profile, I see)

Where not here where is he? Don't leave Please don't leave

(missed it 4 the world)

_Don't._

* * *

Before tonight, Kid hadn't cried in years; out of practice with the activity, he wasn't able to manage it for long. Ten solid minutes where nothing could touch his attention except pain and frustration was enough to push him to his absolute emotional limit. Unable to sustain such unforgiving contact with the facts he wished with all his heart weren't true, Kid collapsed into sleep through pure self-defense. Shinichi's words haunted his uneasy dreams, and he woke with them hovering about his head like a choking fog. _(Girlfriend. Eight years old. Girlfriend. Send her roses in my name. Girlfriend.)_

Perversity, and inexperience with this sort of pain, quickly defeated the distraction techniques he tried to use to get himself back to sleep. Restless, Kid found himself halfway to the Kudo mansion before he'd consciously considered the probability that he might find Shinichi there. The thought of seeing the detective while he was feeling like this - and while Shinichi was feeling just as ill and disoriented as Kid - was a daunting one, but the thief proceeded onward if for no other reason than that he was more susceptible than most to the stubbornness that makes a person more willing to take a three-block detour rather than turn back the way they've come when they realize they're headed the wrong way down the sidewalk.

When he got the trapdoor in the back yard open, slipping under ground level with a silence and soft-footed delicacy appropriate to his talent, Kid immediately realized something was amiss. In his black turtleneck and tough black jeans, his standard night-prowling gear, augmented against the weather with an under layer of heat-retaining athletic body armor, a black lycra mask to cover his nose, cheeks and mouth, a snug knit hat, and matching fingerless knit gloves layered over printless, skintight silicone gloves, Kid blended right in to the wall of the underground access tunnel without a second thought, cataloguing the flow and scent of the air. It was fresher than it should have been, warmer too, and even as the cold air that he'd let in through the trapdoor dissipated, Kid slowly sorted out what, precisely, was causing the anamolies.

Nerves on edge, Kid proceeded slowly and silently down the tunnel, taking a fork that he'd not personally walked before, the one leading toward Professor Agasa's house. Though he'd expected something similar, what he found on the floor just past the tunnel's branching, lit by the low yellow glow that washed in through Agasa's open door, still iced over his heart and his common sense as effectively as a sudden blast of winter wind.

"Shin..." Kid silenced himself before he could get the whole name out. The ersatz boy lay on the rough-hewn floor of the tunnel, arms extended past his head as though he had still reached for something beyond his grasp after falling, but before unconsciousness claimed him. He was dressed in flannel pajamas - plenty warm for wearing under the thick bedding of a proper bed. But they were nowhere near warm enough to protect an injured, exhausted, small child's body, laying on the cold subterranean floor of a chill tunnel full of icy winter air.

_Or, put more simply,_ Kid thought to himself numbly, _He's underdressed, passed out on the __ground__, and it's winter. He'll probably go hypothermic._

Kid looked to the doorway, illuminated dimly by small lights along the footboard of the wall which showed him the tile floor...and the shadowed folds of a blanket dropped just inside the door, its edge draped across the doorway and onto the top step of the five-stair descent that led to the secret tunnel.

"Benten hold me," Kid cursed softly. Walking softly past Shinichi's small body, he retrieved the blanket, then returned to the boy's side. Spreading the blanket softly across his own arms and Shinichi's side, Kid carefully slipped his arms beneath the detective's neck and knees to lift him in his arms. The blanket slid off of Kid's upper arms, draping itself across Shinichi, as Kid adjusted his grip on his friend's limp body, stunned by the lightness of it.

"Benten, Benten, Benten hold me," Kid whispered fervently, heart pounding as he recognized the terrifying proximity of Shinichi's heartbeat against his own. Carefully he shifted his grip to rest Shinichi's head against Kid's own upper arm; then, softly and carefully, he proceeded back down the tunnel toward Agasa's. Shinichi slept on in his arms, forehead warm through Kid's double layer of clothing. Kid knew if he touched Shinichi's skin with his own, it would be fever-hot.

Up the stairs, through the doorway with a quick prayer against motion-sensing silent alarms, through the living room, and into the back room where Shinichi's transformation had been effected. The bed that Kid expected was there, covers rumpled and thrown back, a glass of water on the small, clinical table beside it.

With utmost care, Kid replaced Shinichi in his bed, leaving the blanket wrapped around him rather than try to detangle it and risk rousing him. He watched the boy's face, so solemn and mature in sleep, as he laid Shinichi's head gently on his pillow. The detective's bangs slid across the bridge of his nose as his head settled into the dip in his pillow, and Kid watched moonlight trace the high, proud cheekbones that were so like his own, so much a part of the intense, nearly unshakeable confidence with which Shinichi did his work. Pulling the heavy stack of blankets and covers back up, folding the edge down just under Shinichi's chin, Kid wrenched himself away from the edge of the bed before he could give in to any of the three or four impulses which gripped him, all of which told him how soft Shinichi's hair might be if he dared touch it, how his fever-hot skin would be helped by a cool washcloth, attentively patted across his brow and temples; how his restless sleep might be calmed by a guardian by his bedside.

As he turned away, a glimpse of Shinichi's profile flitting through the corner of his vision; as he stalked, each foot light, soft, silent, and leaden in front the other, out of the room, through the house, to the tunnel, closing the door behind him; as he tucked his mask higher, hat lower, to shield everything but his bright blue eyes; as he crawled up through the trapdoor and into the cold open air of the Kudo backyard; as he did these things, Kid imagined for a moment that the man in the bed he was leaving behind was his true size, his true form. He imagined that Shinichi, the eighteen-year-old man, lay feverish and unconscious in the professor's storeroom; that Shinichi, his doppelganger and equal, had lain stretched across the coarse floor of the tunnel, collapsed halfway in his quest toward the nighttime sanctuary that he shared with Kid and Kid alone; that Shinichi, sharp chin and smooth cheekbones and angular, critical, insightful eyes, lay under the silverwhite moonbeam on that soft pillow...

Kid imagined these things and bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, knowing that, had these things been true, had he stood at the bedside of that man, held that man in his arms, that he would have, thoroughly and with every ounce of the considerable skill he possessed, careless of the significant chances of being walked in on by Haibara, Hattori, or even Mouri Ran; careless even of distracting the detective from his case, or himself from his own heists; careless of _everything_, even Shinichi's protest, he would have kissed him until they both collapsed.

* * *

___And that's it for the week, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you again for your kind attention and join us next week fo_**_r Book Two, Chapter Ten: "contact, formal, guilt". _**___ Take care, watch out for scary blue cars, and buckle up, okay? G'night!_


	18. Contact, formal, guilt

_Welcome back to **Three Thieves**, where nothing is as it seems._

_Regardless of whether you are __heartened__ or __deterred__ by the direction that our story seems to be taking, be wary! In the hundreds of thousands of words left for us to traverse, dear readers, everything can and will change. And then change again. There are over two full books of story left ahead of us. And tonight, we get one chapter closer toward that ultimate ending._

_**Three Thieves:**__ a story about crossing boundaries.  
__**Book Two, Chapter Ten**__**: "Contact, formal, guilt"**__  
by _ _**ysabet**__ and _ _**nightengale**__.  
No warnings except a bit of cursing this week.  
Crossposted in livejournal dot com to the following communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__, _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**__  
_

* * *

"--had a very restless night, it seems, with a higher fever than I really like," Haibara was explaining to Agasa the next morning at the breakfast table when Heiji stopped by just after 8 a.m., unceremoniously using the key he'd been provided to open the door without a knock or any other advance warning. _Not like I wouldn't stop in an' check on Kudo,_ he thought, toeing his sneakers off in the doorway.

"Yo," he greeted the two, eyeing the little blonde as he allowed his backpack to slip from his shoulder to the ground. "You playin' hooky from kiddie school today, Haibara?"

An unaccustomed quirk of a smile produced unexpected dimples on the small, pale face. "Yes," she answered gravely. "The Professor called in and lied for me _very_ adroitly; worry about my classmate Edogawa-kun has me upset and in tears, apparently, and he simply couldn't bring himself to submit such an emotional wreck to the rigors of crayons and Reading Hour." She took a bite of her breakfast. "And before you ask, Kudo-kun is doing relatively well, all things considered. He ran quite a lot of fever, of course, and I caught him attempting to climb out of bed just after dawn in a very altered state of consciousness-- those painkillers I gave him seem to be having a somewhat unusual effect."

"Yeah? Can I see him?"

Agasa nodded, gathering his own breakfast dishes up. "Certainly, Hattori-kun. He's rather, hmm, groggy, but he's been asking after you."

Shinichi raised his hand in a sleepy greeting, lids low over bleary blue eyes, as Hattori closed the sickroom door gently behind himself. "Yo, 'ttori, you're okay? You feelin' okay?"

Hattori removed his hat, raking his hair back with one hand as he lowered himself carefully onto the corner of his friend's bed. "Look who's talking, Kudo," he countered, stretching forward to lay the back of one hand against Shinichi's brow. "Still pretty warm."

Shinichi shook his head slowly. "I'll be fine," he said, trying to sound convincing. But his lips seemed thick; his enunciation slipped between words, and Hattori scooted closer with an unconvinced tsking sigh.

"Not going t'be able to help much," the boy in the bed muttered. He frowned, brows drawing together as he attempted to concentrate. "With the-- dammit-- 'vestigation." Dark blue eyes closed briefly before opening again. "Sure you're okay? Wasn't this... ow... sluggish b'fore." Wincing, Shinichi kicked at the covers over his feet. "Spend too much time'n this bed," he muttered.

Hattori reached over to where the blankets were tucked in at the bed's end, tugging them loose and heaping them a little more comfortably around the small feet; he tugged at one foot-shaped lump, shaking his head. "Well hell, Kudo, never thought you'd be such a total slacker, leavin' me to do all the hard work while you kick back in bed all day," he said in sarcastic tones leavened with a little humor. "....and I never thought you'd be dumb enough to feel guilty about it. Lessee..." He held out his arms, measuring what was more or less a Conan-sized space between them. "Yay tall, less than half've my weight, got smacked by mosta the bike... Sound familiar?" The Osakajin shook his head again, and when his green eyes met the other's the humor had been replaced by Hattori's familiar stubborn affection. "You want to help? _Get better._ That means layin' here and taking a freaking break."

He let go of Shinichi's foot, which he'd been wiggling as punctuation. "And stop with the guilt; makes you look damn stupid, and I _know_ you're better'n that... despite some've your ideas about taking phone calls from--" Hattori stopped at that point and sighed. "Never mind."

The irritation that had started forming on Shinichi's face faded as quickly as it had begun, and his eyes narrowed with concentration, not criticism. "S' not, not like...y'think he is," he murmured. "And that's...that's what they don't know about him. S'why he's worth..."

"...worth...?" Heiji tried not to ask it; he'd promised himself he wouldn't try to drag any unfair information out of Kudo, _promised._ But-- just this little bit; he couldn't resist wanting to know the key to the riddle of _what the hell, Kudo, you went and made friends with that damned lunatic in the white suit and I don't get it..._ "Worth what?"

Shinichi shook his head, emphatic but sluggish, and focused his gaze on his friend as much as he could. But his eyes were already sliding shut, head rolling to one side on his pillow, as he stubbornly forced out his answer.

"Worth...the risk..."

The other detective just looked at him for a long moment, silent. He reached out and snagged Shinichi's foot again, not as emphasis this time but almost, it seemed, as a reassurance to himself. "Risk," he said thoughtfully. "Risk to you; risk to him too, so-- there's somethin' I'm not seeing here. But just because I can't see it don't mean it's not there; detective work inna nutshell, really." He tugged at the blanket-covered foot one more time, gentler than before, and he studied the pale face on the pillow. "Yeah... okay. Gonna trust you with this one, Kudo, I guess." Or as much as his instincts would allow; after all, he reflected, what else could he do? And anyway, it wasn't like anybody was expecting _him_ to go buddy-buddy with any hang-gliding maniacs, right?

_.....right. Just-- Kudo's got to have his reasons, but what. the. fuck......? I mean, __**Kid**__._

Sliding carefully off the bed, Hattori let go again. "Get some sleep, okay? Gonna head out and take a look at the shipping company's site; I'll let you know how it went when I get back." He lingered in the doorway for a moment, unconsciously flexing the fingers that had held his friend's extremity a moment before; Kudo looked so, so damn _small_ lying there like that.

Kudo was silent, maybe already asleep; Heiji slipped out of the room with a frown, feeling the size of the situation - pun intended - more painfully than before.

* * *

Shinichi slept the day away, only waking around eleven for a light, dry meal of simple starches - about all he could keep down. To everyone's dismay, the fever of the previous night returned with a vengeance, and Agasa and Ai took shifts with cool washcloths, wiping sweat from Shinichi's small brow and chest, until Ran returned from school an hour early. Agasa, who had called her home as Shinichi slipped into fever dreams, followed Ran into the sickroom. Heiji, who had returned from the shipping site an hour or two previous, was sitting at Shinichi's side.

"Heiji, has he said anything? Anything about...pain?" Ran tied her hair back in a ponytail, shedding school jacket and bags at the foot of the bed. Worry bit her lip, furrowed her brow.

"Nothin' intelligible," Heiji answered, rising from the bedside chair to make room for Ran to sit. "While I've been here, tho, he said your name a lot. Dunno if he was dreaming or what. And..." Heiji frowned, looking away.

Ran's heart caught in her throat. "And?" _It's okay,_ she tried to reassure herself. _No matter what Shinichi might have said, we can trust Heiji. It doesn't matter what he said..._

(A monocle gleamed in her memory.)

_Unless..._

Heiji's answer was reluctant, but clear. "Kid. He called for Kid, once. He didn't say anything after that."

On the bed, Shinichi's hands gripped fistfuls of damp bedding, chest rising with a hard, rough-drawn breath. "Has Ai looked at him?"

"She did," Agasa confirmed, speaking up from the doorway, where the two teens had nearly forgotten about him. "His blood pressure and temperature are rising, but his white count isn't following the pattern that would suggest any...ahm..."

Heiji winced. "Growth spurts?" Agasa nodded emphatically.

"Yes. But his fever should be settling down by now, too, and it hasn't. Ai-chan isn't sure what to make of it, really."

Ran frowned. "Could...Could I try something?"

"Of course, Ran-chan," Agasa answered. Then, when she hesitated to respond, he glanced at Heiji. "Would you like us to, ahm..."

"Please," Ran nodded, glancing apologetically at Heiji. "Sorry, Heiji, it's just a hunch I have. Maybe Shinichi's as scared as we are."

Heiji's suspicious expression didn't fade, but he followed Agasa silently from the room. As soon as they were gone, Ran transferred her grip on Shinichi's hand to his forehead, stroking back his bangs. "Shinichi, you idiot...you're scaring me."

Ran toed off her indoor scuffs, then self-consciously padded across the room to check that the door was firmly latched. As satisfied as she could be about that, Ran crossed back to the bed, and crawled up onto it, laying on her side in the space between Shinichi's tiny body and the wall. She draped one hand across his shoulder gently, nervously bracing her head on one hand so she could look down at her friend.

Almost instantly, Shinichi's body language changed.

Dark blue eyes hazed with fever shot open wide; he stiffened, utterly still as he stared up into Ran's face. She was close enough that her breath made his eyelashes flicker, and, still dazed with the unsettling heat that seemed to lie beneath his skin, could only lie there and blink up at her. His lips moved: _R--_

"Shhhh," she said quietly, brushing his hair back again. "Don't talk." And she wrapped her arms around him very, very gently and pulled him close. For a moment he resisted, not pulling back but not letting go either; then all the angles seemed to soften, all the tightness and tension seemed to melt and he went boneless in her arms.

"Stop fighting so hard," she whispered, hand tangling in his hair. "Just... whatever's hurting you, you don't have to tell me what it is, but-- I know this is frightening, Shinichi, I know it's worst of all for you. But I'm here, Hattori's here, we're not-- not going anywhere." On top of his head her hand tightened for a moment into a fist, careful not to catch any of the boy's hair before relaxing and touching it softly again with the kind of gesture one'd use to soothe a small animal. "I'm here," she whispered again, and wrapped both arms around him, embracing without confining.

His voice wasn't much more than a breath. "...m'not... C-Conan. Not... not a little boy. Y-you don't have to..." He trailed off, and despite his words Shinichi's hand clutched at Ran's sleeve convulsively and he curled closer to her body, limp and exhausted.

She tucked herself around him like a blanket, bending her head to rest it on the pillow against his, chin brushing the top of his own. "Shhhh. You think I wouldn't do this if you were like you used to be?" Ran's own eyes closed, and she allowed her own body to relax, communicating _it's alright, it's okay, I have you_ with her warmth and closeness. "Silly."

_Shinichi, I'm scared too, but I can be brave for you, I can be as strong as you need me to be. I won't let you go. Whatever happens, I won't._ His breathing began to even out, a tired child's rhythm settling-- almost-- towards sleep. Nearly inaudibly, though, she heard him:

"...wish..."

"What?"

The small form in her arms breathed silently for a moment before answering. "Kid," he whispered. "S... something... s' something wrong." The words seemed to wear him out, and he sighed once before the last bit of volition went out of his muscles, shivering once before falling still. Ran's arms tightened.

"We'll check on him, Shinichi," she promised, pressing her face to the pillow and pulling him even closer. His hot skin made hers flush wherever they touched. "Tomorrow, I promise, I'll find him. I'll make sure he's okay for you." Her own promises seemed too confident, too bold in her own ears, but she'd said them...and whether or not Shinichi had even heard her, she wasn't taking them back.

* * *

_Do yourself a favor, Ran._ In class the next day, Ran ignored the texts Sonoko continued to send her ("Oh, I'm not doing anything much, Sonoko. Just thinking about my three foot tall boyfriend." -- Yeah, like I could tell her that!) and mostly ignored their teacher, doodling in the margins of her notebook while her mind wandered. _Next time you want to promise Shinichi something, make sure you know how to __do__ it before you promise!_

How, exactly, had she thought she would "check in" on Kid? _The_ Kaitou Kid? She didn't have his phone number, she didn't have his email, she didn't have his name, and she didn't know his face. And though Shinichi _did_ have all of these -- a fact which, if Ran stopped to think about it, would be plenty scary on its own -- getting that information from Shinichi in order to contact Kid would be likely impossible. Shinichi of all people _understood_ confidentiality.

Ran sighed, twirling her bangs between her fingers. Even if, theoretically, Shinichi were willing to share Kid's contact information -- which he wasn't -- would Kid really react positively to Ran_using_ that information to reach him? That was an easy, certain, _not flipping likely._ So where did that leave her? _I might as well try sending smoke signals,_ Ran grumbled, her gaze drifting to the window...

...and latching on the small swallow that was flitting past. _...Or that would work!_ Her hand was already in the air.

"Mouri-san?" The teacher glanced from the text in her hands to Ran, expectant. Ran had the presence of mind to appear distressed.

"Um, I don't know the answer, I'm sorry, Sensei, but I don't feel well. May I--?"

The teacher waved one hand, glancing around the room at Ran's classmates, none of whom had raised hands. "Anyone else? Page 1413, section K. Anyone?"

_Bueller has left the room,_ Ran snickered to herself, remembering Shinichi's amusement with that particular American movie. She scooted into the hallway, pocketing the scrap of notebook paper and pen that she had taken from her desk, holding her stomach as insurance against observant passerby. At the first fork, she headed left, away from the nurse's office. The door to the emergency stairwell stood at the far end of the hallway before her, and Ran resisted the urge to run to reach it faster. It was only two floors to the roof, and it was - though cold - a bright, clear day.

She'd noticed the two doves hanging at random moments around ever since, well, since her date with Shinichi: one peach-colored, one pure white, always together. And she'd met Keeta, of course, carrying a note that same morning right to Agasa's window (how did Kid _do_ that, anyway? Direct the birds so accurately? She'd have to ask him some day, and it really said something about their situation that she might even be able to do just that). So now, if she could just find them-- Maybe if she held out a treat? Ran rummaged in her pockets, hadn't she had a-- yes, she had.

Unwrapping the granola snack-bar, she held it out and turned in a slow circle. _Please, let it be that easy. One easy thing in the middle of all this, please..._

Maybe Someone was listening (did thieves (or detectives) have kami to pray to?), because there was a faint flutter of wings over by the fence and-- Ran's face crumpled as a line of ordinary, muted-gray city pigeons made little _brrrt?_ noises back at her from the railing. Her arm drooped a little, and she sighed. Of course it couldn't be that easy; if thieves had a kami they were probably off making police-cruiser tires go flat, and as for detectives... _their_ kami would almost certainly be busy investigating a horribly important case somewhere far, far away.

Startling the pigeons into flight, the detective's daughter rested face-first against the fence, staring out across the school grounds with the fingers of her free hand tangled in the links; it squeaked as she pressed her face to the cold wires and closed her eyes. _This was stupid. Of __course__ it wouldn't be this easy; it's not like I have any kind of, of real connection with Kid except through Shinichi and... the doves were probably just passing by or hoping for a handout. This is hopeless. So-- so maybe I could... I don't know, I don't want to go snooping in Shinichi's cellphone records but maybe if I could find a text or..._

_...or I could pay attention to what just __**landed**__ on my __**head**__._ There was an inquisitive _"OooooOOO??"_ from above her; claws that she knew to be a surprisingly bright pink scrabbled for purchase in Ran's hair and a beak pecked her lightly right between the eyebrows even as a second feathered body (this one pure white) came in for a landing a few feet down the fence.

_Thank you. Thank you. Whoever you are._ Maybe thieves and detectives shared the same kami. Maybe He (or She) had had a spare minute to listen. Maybe she was just interesting enough to make them wonder what happened next.

A few minutes later, granola-bar thoroughly pecked to death and feathers well-scritched, the two doves winged their way above the young woman's upturned face with a tiny tightly-rolled twist of paper tucked into the message tube on Keeta's pink ankle. Ran watched them go, fists clenched tight on the cold links of the rooftop fence, hope churning in her stomach before she sighed and pulled away. She still had to stop by the nurse's office if she wanted to keep things relatively honest (and somebody had to, didn't they? Maybe it'd all kind of balance out) and have a hall-pass to take back to class. Maybe the nurse'd even send her home. _'Could I be excused, please? My boyfriend's got a high fever and I need to make sure he hasn't spontaneously grown ten years while I was away.'_

Oh, that'd work. Not. And anyway... As Ran looked up at the now-blank blue winter sky above her, she smiled slightly, wishing, hoping. _Anyway, I'm feeling a little better already._

* * *

--

_Dear Kid-san: I apologize for bothering you like this but it was the only way I knew of to contact you. Shinichi's terribly sick and has been worrying about you. He won't rest, he won't __let__ himself rest until he knows you're alright. I understand that you don't want to put yourself more at risk and you've done so much already but if we all left Shinichi alone in the house could you please come see him? He's at the Professor's (I think you know the room.) I wouldn't ask this favor of you if it wasn't so important to him._

Please answer. Even if you can't come, please. We don't know what's wrong but I promised him I'd try somehow to reach you. If you can, as his friend, please help. He needs you. Thank you very much.

_Sincerely,  
Mouri Ran_

_--_

Kid had, unfortunately, been out when Keeta found him. So it was while shadowed under the heat exhaust vents on an unimportant rooftop, dressed in his recon blacks, masked and unmonocled, chilly and off-guard, that he curled up against the hot metal and read and reread Ran's missive. Keeta and Moona made soft _prrrt_-ing noises, rubbing up against his chest and ears, while Ran's voice, soft and strong, reread her words in his imagination.

_He needs you._

Kid rubbed his thumb across the ink in the page's margins, tracing the curves of idly doodled pills, capsules, tablets, and what looked like a small heap of powder. _Drugs on the brain, Mouri-san?_ Kid wondered. The worrisome conclusion - in such proximity to Shinichi's persistent fever - was all too easy of a leap.

_Kaito,_ Kid called silently, eyes sliding halfway shut to let him focus. _Kuroba, I need your advice._ A dim noise of interest, like movement heard through a closed door, made Kid call more loudly.

_Kuroba! I need your help._

Kaito shifted into "view," the illusion of himself taking a seat by Kid's side, back against the same ventilation shaft that kept the thief warm. Twins down to their turtlenecks and the curls of their hair, they sat shoulder to shoulder, staring out at the wintry city. The only distinctions between them were Kuroba's black scarf and Kid's downturned face. _"What's wrong, Thief?"_

Kid leaned his head against Kaito's shoulder, and the magician held still to accommodate him. "Shinichi. You were right, you were completely right, I'll say you're right about everything. But I'm..."

Kaito read the letter over Kid's shoulder. "That's his girl? Telling you he needs you?"

"I don't want to believe her." Kid's face pinched with emotion. "I don't want to _let_ myself believe her, because I want to keep away. I don't want to confuse him. I want her to have what she deserves."

"That sounds like love to me," Kaito murmured, and Kid nodded wearily.

"I _do_ love him. He's--"

"No, not him," Kaito interrupted. "Her. It sounds like you care for Mouri-san's feelings enough to sacrifice your own. That's what a friend would do."

Kid sighed. "A friend wouldn't lust after a taken man."

Kaito ran his hand through Kid's hair, helping the cold rooftop breeze to ruffle its thick waves. "You've never been interested in 'would' or 'should', not once, until you got stuck on him. And_he's_ not telling you 'shoulds.' He figured that much out a while back."

Kid turned to look at Kaito, honest confusion filling his normally cheerful and confident features. "But what about you? Nakamori-san? I can't--"

Kaito's expression iced over. "Did you ask me for help so you can just use me as your guilty albatross to weigh you down? Or so you can get _advice?_" Kid opened his mouth to respond, defensive, and Kaito raised a hand for silence. "Kid, you can't fix my situation. And... I'm too afraid to try to fix it myself. I'd rather hide behind friendship forever than get any closer and end up hurting her. That's just my decision, and I made it a long time ago."

The magician drew his feet up beneath him, rocking forward into a crouch, and let sympathy touch his eyes as he studied his counterpart's utterly lost expression. "You want advice about seeing him? I say you go. You've been keeping away from him for his own good, or the best guess that you can make toward that anyway. Fine. But now she - and she knows him even better than you do - says his own good is for you to see him."

Fear touched Kid's eyes. "What if I--?"

"You're an international criminal, for crying out loud," Kaito sighed, utterly exasperated. "You're supposed to have a handle on your emotions, you're supposed to know what the hell you're doing, and you're supposed to be loved by everybody. Sometime in the last month you've just completely lost track of the first two and you don't seem to give a shit about the last one at all. All you're thinking about is him, or helping him, or--or him."

"And you know what? I can give you an out for all that. I can actually _understand,_ Kid, why you're such a goddamn mess over him, cause I would be the same way if Aoko would look at me like that - like she couldn't get enough of me, like she loved to be around me and only me, like she found me fascinating and challenging and brilliant and entertaining and magnetizing." Kid, thoroughly flustered by now, had begun to blush from Kaito's implications as much as the bitter cold wind. The magician emphasized his point with a deep frown. "You've got every right to wonder about him."

Kaito stood, pulling his scarf closer around his neck. "What you _don't_ have an excuse or a right to do is to stop functioning just because you're preoccupied. To stop taking risks and jumping off of fucking rooftops because you're scared. Taking risks and jumping off roofs is what you _are_."

"I'll let you be preoccupied. I'll let you be upset. I'll let you be _lovestruck._ You're newer to this than I am even. But I won't, on Benten's name, I will _not_ let the Kaitou Kid become a coward while I watch."

Kaito walked to the edge of the roof, hopping up to stand on the ledge. "Go do something. Don't think you'll hear from me again until you find the courage to _do_ instead of _fear._" He turned away, facing the city, and opened his arms wide against the wind. "And one more thing, Kid."

"For what it's worth, I'm actually rooting for you." Kaito leaned forward, and the illusion of his image vanished like smoke. Kid felt Kaito's attention retreat into the private recesses of their shared mental space, and he was left on the rooftop alone again, feeling like he'd just finished an exhilarating sparring match with his back flat to the floor, staring up at the ceiling. And the next step, as everyone who's ever lost a sparring match knows, was to get up and turn to face his opponent for the rematch.

_Well then,_ Kid decided, folding Ran's note tightly and tucking it away safely, in the pocket over his heart. He stood, flexed his legs to wake them up, and sprinted off the edge of the roof.

_It's showtime._

* * *

She'd explained her idea to the Professor; and he'd quailed but accepted it relatively well (considering that she was asking him to hand over his home and belongings into the care of an acknowledged thief for an unknown period of time.) She'd explained it to Hattori, and after a certain amount of extremely vocal raving, arm-waving, pacing and Kansaibin-accented diatribes regarding both her and Shinichi's sanity, he'd at least agreed with the idea in general and, with exasperation, in practice.

But when Ran had broached the possibility of leaving Agasa's house for a few hours to allow for a certain visitor to visit a certain patient, Haibara Ai had gone completely, unexpectedly ballistic.

Paranoia, whether reasonable or not, doesn't stand down or fade into complaisance with just a few soothing words; by the time the small blonde had at last given a very, _very_ grudging and conditional consent ("One. Hour. No more, less if at all possible, and if he's still here when we come back I promise you that I will personally put a bullet through his head, Mouri-san." Her hands had been shaking as she spoke) it was dark outside. Shinichi had settled into an uneasy, fever-haunted sleep, sweat dampening his already disheveled hair as he tossed and turned in the small bed.

"His white cell count's climbing," said Agasa unhappily, putting away various bits of medical paraphernalia following a vital-signs check. "Not drastically, but climbing. This morning we began giving him heavy doses of the same nutrients we used during the experiment, but Shin-chan..." The portly scientist stopped what he was doing, one hand still holding a blood-pressure cuff. "Ran-chan? Do you _know_ what's troubling him so? I believe his body'd be able to heal better if his mind were easier."

Ran, curled into an exhausted ball across the room beside one of the front windows, nodded shortly. "I think so. I hope so." Her earlier optimism had gotten a little worn and rubbed around the corners with the passing hours, but it was still there... just. Now she turned back to the window, wondering if doves could see to fly at night or if they were as much in the dark as she was beginning to feel she'd been.

She wasn't stupid. But love could make a person blind in more ways than one.

A flash of white outside the window brought Ran - and, consequently, everyone in the room to attention. Even as Hattori began a recap of all his most salient points against Ran and Shinichi's sanities, and Agasa reached down to grip Ai's shoulder in a calming gesture, Ran rose from the couch to check on Shinichi one last time, the flash of color she'd seen settling oddly in her mind for reasons she couldn't identify.

It was around then that the doorbell rang.

All four faces pivoted toward the front of the house - Ai's and Hattori's expressions warring between horror and anger; Agasa's showing pure shock. Ran felt lucky that she was furthest from the door - which meant nobody noticed the way her heart caught in her throat, writ large across her face.

Ai was the first to speak. "Mouri-san, I believe that's for you."

"Y-yes," Ran stammered, rushing forward to the door and peeking through the view hole. What she saw made her collapse against the door, mouth slack.

"Neechan, you okay?" Hattori was darting toward Ran almost instantly, but she put a hand out to stop him, and he fell still about twenty feet from the door. Ran stood facing it, her posture braced for challenge. When she spoke, one hand moving slowly to curl around the doorknob, her tone was sweet and a little distant.

"You should stay back, Hattori. Ai-chan, if you don't want him to see you, maybe you should be in another room. Or you could make sure to watch him. That's...I think he'd be okay with it either way. Professor, may I?"

Agasa blinked once, recovering from his frozen state somewhat. "Err-- I, ahh-- _wait._ Yes." He cleared his throat, went to a wall-panel in the front hall nearest the door, flipped it open and pressed a complex pattern of buttons. "There, that should do it."

Ai had been watching; now she turned an outraged face towards the Professor and opened her mouth to speak. But the gray-haired man shook his head admonishingly. "Ai-chan, this is for the best, believe me... and I believe we'd _all_ be best off a room or two away, don't you?" He gave the others a hangdog look, indicating the panel. "Alarm systems, cameras, monitoring, security... they're all off now. No photos; if that's indeed your, erm, guest, then--"

Hattori gave the panel a particularly wistful expression. "Not even _one_ camera? Just, y'know, because? Like a souvenir, Kudo'd love a --No? Dammit, Agasa..." Crestfallen, the Detective of the West trailed reluctantly towards the door that led towards Agasa's capacious library. "Haibara, you comin'?" The diminutive blonde stared mistrustfully at the still-unopened door before her jaw tightened and she swung away, furious and highly unnerved, pushing past Heiji. Hands in pockets, the Osakajin looked mournfully at the door one last time (rather like a dog who'd like to bark but whose owner has a rolled-up newspaper handy) before following the girl.

"Ran-chan? If you need us..." Agasa lingered in the doorway, worry written in every crinkle and line of his face. She nodded, still looking at the front entrance; he shrugged, sighed, and pulled the door shut behind him. Distantly she could hear his footsteps fading away.

Again she peeked through the viewing hole in Agasa's front door - and this time saw nothing but his darkened front walk. The lights that should have illuminated it were out - Ran didn't know if their controls were included in Agasa's wall panel, or whether Kid had taken precautions into his own gloved hands, but against the darkened path she still figured _some_ lightness should have showed up - he was wearing stark white, after all!

She flipped the locks open, took a deep breath, and pulled the door open wide, staring straight out onto the empty stoop. With her mouth halfway open in nearly comedic letdown, Ran was taken completely off-guard when Kid folded himself out of the shadows to the left of the doorway - where he'd been leaning, completely still, against the front of the house - and grinned broadly at her. Ran smiled back, gaze lingering on the reflection of her own face in the monocle that covered half of his face.

Top hat to toes, this was truly the Kaitou Kid. Uniform suit pressed crisply and neatly, cape a fluid, heavy punctuation of every movement he made; jaw thin, visible eye richly blue, immaculately knotted tie and manically wide grin of greeting, Kid stood at attention in front of Ran, heels of his patent leather shoes snapping softly as they clicked together, and held the trademark expression for a long moment. All he really needed, Ran reflected numbly, was a spotlight or three.

"Come on in, they'll see you," she murmured, reaching forward without thought to gently guide him by the elbow in the door. "Thank you for coming." Ran closed and locked the door, then locked it again just to be sure. Not that a normal door lock would even be enough to insult Kid - but it reassured her. A little. Satisfied that she'd done what little bit she could to settle her terrified, rabbit-fast heart, Ran turned around and found her brain skidding to a halt yet again.

Kid was bent over in the genkan, busy removing his shoes in a fastidiously efficient manner. Laces neatly loose, he set them one beside the other, cape thrown over his back on the far side to keep it out of his way while he worked. He looked up at her - hat staying perfectly in place despite the improbable angle - and the soft smile he gave her was genuine.

"Thank you for writing me, Mouri-san," Kid said, straightening and reaching up to his shoulder to fiddle with the shoulderpad discs of his cape. With several substantial clicks, it came loose, and he held it up with a politely questioning expression. "Anywhere I can hang this?"

".....of course," she said, mouth working on automatic as if she received formal visits from well-mannered criminal masterminds every day. "Right over there--?" Professor Agasa's bentwood coat-tree received something rather more unusual than the normal jacket and umbrella, and Ran fought back an urge to touch the shining folds of white that draped nearly to the tiles below. "And, and you're welcome." She took in a deep breath and asked the question that she knew needed asking, first and foremost: "Do... you want me to leave? I promised, and I will. I can go in with the others if--" Her sentence broke off; she meant it, she _really did,_ but it was hard.

Kid's eyes flickered a light of understanding, but his expression didn't acknowledge the question. "Show me where he is, please?"

Heart still beating hard, Ran nodded. This person before her, this Kid, was both remarkably similar to the one she'd met on the night of Shinichi's transformation and hauntingly different-- just as difficult to predict, but with the same grin, same air of caution and care. Without a word she turned, leading him down the hall towards Shinichi's small room.

At the doorway, Kid hung back for a moment, taking stock of the scene within. Shinichi lay under tangled covers, fitfully tensing and twisting in his sleep. The tiny, unventilated room smelled of sweat and illness; Shinichi's skin was visibly clammy, sticking his bangs to his brow. He frowned, shifting position, and fell still again.

Quietly, Kid moved the few paces to Shinichi's bedside, unbuttoning his jacket for mobility as he sat down beside Shinichi's feet. Kid glanced to Ran, who stood watching with what he could only guess was a mix of intensity and fear, then reached up the bed to stroke Shinichi's brow, smoothing hair and sweat away from his eyes with soft, supply gloved fingers.

In the bed, Shinichi stirred, then with effort worked his eyes open a slit, blearily focusing on the face bent over him. "Ran...?"

Kid's smile was slight, his voice soft. "Try again, meitantei."

The triangular clover-charm swung back and forth; Shinichi's pupils contracted visibly as he tracked the movement, blinking. Awareness followed sight and he shook his head slightly against the pillow as if brain and belief weren't talking to each other just now. "....uh?" He stared at the swinging charm; stared past it at Kid's face, monocle and all; stared past _him_ at Ran; and shook his head again, slumping back. "Dreaming," he muttered restlessly, but his gaze tracked back to Kid's face. "Dreaming. Both've you here." He sighed, a trace of a smile quirking the corner of his lips.

"Is it a good dream?" Kid asked in return, scooting back a little to let Ran take the chair at the head end of the bed. She wrapped both hands around one of Shinichi's, swallowing the small fingers within the cover of her own, and smiled through nervousness at her friend.

"I asked him to come and see you. You were so upset, and you kept calling for him. You kept getting worse and we didn't know why."

Shinichi nodded with an effort, slowly processing this; when the equation finally clicked into place, he looked quickly, with alarm, to Kid.

"The others-- Ai--"

"Are in the other room," Kid answered softly. "Mouri-san offered to remove everyone but you from the house, but I wouldn't feel right putting the Professor and Ai-chan out of their house at this late hour, on such a cold night." He paused, mischief slowly becoming visible in his eyes, bright grin spreading like a lamp turned slowly to brightness. "The chance to cause Hattori-san such apoplexy might also have been an attractive aspect of the plan."

The very faint sound might have been a snort if it hadn't been so feeble. "You... want to do that, just... steal his hat, 'r turn it some sort've color. He'd..." He swallowed, wincing. "He'd lose it." Slowly he pushed at the bed, trying to sit upright; Ran slid her hands behind him, gently adjusting the pillows. Shinichi smiled up at her a little, his gaze traveling between Ran and Kid. "Still-- can't believe you're both here," he said with a little less difficulty, and as he looked up at Kid again, the quirk growing at the corner of his mouth grew. "Formal visit, huh?"

"Nothing less than you deserve," Kid purred, his smirk immovable. "Mouri-san thinks there's been something on your mind. As such an exemplary listener and keeper of secrets, I'm here to hear your woes." He beamed. "You get forty five minutes of session. The last fifteen minutes of our one hour appointment will be allotted to insurance purposes, allowing me to leave early to make sure that Haibara has no excuse to make good on her animosity. My fees, of course, are exorbitantly high."

Beside Shinichi, Ran put her hand to her mouth. She wasn't going to giggle, she _wasn't..._ Nervousness still swam loops in her stomach, and yet-- the face of the boy in the bed was still lined and exhausted, but the gray tinge that had been present since he'd fallen ill seemed a little less, and there was an alertness coming back to the dark blue eyes that had been missing.

And apprehension, that too; Ran's amusement faded into concern as Shinichi took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. "Yeah, well... might have to-- put it on my tab." She brushed his hair back in an echo of the same touch that Kid had offered a few moments earlier.

"Back when I first started chasing you," he began, voice still a little unsteady, "I used to have these, these moments... when I'd know if you were around. Thought at first it was just coincidence, but," (he paused a second, swallowing again; Ran looked up at Kid; he nodded, pouring a glass of water from the bedside table. Shinichi accepted it gratefully.) "But it happened too often, and... I don't know. Most've the time I'd find out later you'd been there, or I'd deduce it, or..." Hands shaky on the glass, he took another swallow.

"I never got used to it. It-- was like--" Shinichi turned his head, gaze flickering to Ran's face. "--like when Ran was in trouble a few times; human beings _do_ that, gain a, a sense of people that they--"

He stopped.

"And. And I knew something was..." Shinichi looked directly at Kid, weariness warring with the need to speak. "That first night I was sick. I--think I dreamed, or, or... I don't know." Gaze fixed on the other's, the mind inside the sick child's body driving the boy to finish. "You were unhappy or hurting or injured somehow. Couldn't let it go; and then... it wouldn't let _me_ go."

Shinichi slumped back, eyes lidding almost closed again. "While I was sick, while I was sleeping, all I could think about was... Ran and you. I had-- bad dreams, you were both in trouble or I couldn't help you or we were lost or... God." The effort was almost too much. "I sound like a real," he half laughed, a gasp of sound, "idiot, don't I?"

_Poker Face,_ Kaito reminded Kid, tapping him on the shoulder to try to gain his attention. Focused too intensely on the boy in front of him, Kid raised a mental hand to stay Kaito's further words; the Magician ignored it.

_You have your __Poker Face__,_ he reminded Kid again, voice intent. _It'll hide you. Use it._

_"I don't want to hide in front of him,"_ Kid murmured gently to his counterpart. _"If I have to hide from my friend, I'm no longer his friend."_

To Shinichi, Kid raised his gaze slowly, deliberate and considering. Then, just as deliberately, he removed his top hat, stripping away the moderate shadow that it provided him, turning his monocle into nothing but a glass sliver - no protection at all. What Ran had or hadn't yet seen wasn't even a concern to him as he bared his face for her to see; Shinichi had already seen him bare like this, and it was to Shinichi that Kid addressed himself.

"I carried you home from the tunnel that night," he began quietly, the closeness of his tone implying confession, maybe even shame. "I found you halfway to the old house - the library. I was heading there, myself. You were burning up with fever, but you would have frozen during that night if I'd left you. I wrapped you in your blanket and carried you back here. I put you to bed, covered you, left."

It was hard for Kid to breathe through the tightness in his chest, the certainty that even by staying away from Shinichi he couldn't have avoided this situation: a confessional with the purity of Ran's faith as witness. Shinichi had nearly said it, hadn't he? _"A sense of people that they--"_ What had he wanted to finish it with? How closely would Shinichi's words have echoed Kid's own? And what to make of Shinichi's sixth sense of him, in and of itself? What significance could Kid safely ascribe to it - not assuming too much, not concluding too little?

For once, Kid's preparedness for the situation handicapped him, rather than helping him. What he wanted to say was on paper now, for the first time and for good, and already delivered to the hands, if not yet the eyes, of his audience. Now, Kid felt neither the ability to answer candidly, and give too much; nor remain closemouthed, and belie the openness with which he'd promised himself - and Kaito - to approach Shinichi. And there were certain things that, though implied, Kid was still not yet ready to directly say.

He looked to Shinichi steadily, without flinching, as he licked his lips and continued quietly. "I...can tell you everything if you want. I'd rather keep a few things to myself for the moment, though. They'd do no good to air out just yet. But I can tell you -- your instinct wasn't wrong. You can rely on it, if you wanted to."

Silence. Strangely enough, it was Ran who spoke, very quietly: "Kid? Are-- are you alright now?"

Startled, the thief pulled his gaze from Shinichi's weary face to Ran's. It was a long moment before he spoke, one in which his eyes changed and shifted like the suddenly broken surface of a deep millpond. "I can't give you an unqualified yes to that, unfortunately."

Shinichi's weary gaze shifted between them, one after the other, settling at last on Kid's. "Will you be?" he asked simply. "How can I help?" His childish face, drawn as it was, had a spark of purpose in it that hadn't been there before.

The sharp, deep, wrenching pain that ripped its way across the Kid's expression was only visible for a split second, less than even that, before his Poker Face slammed down in self-defensive retaliation against the honesty of it. And a moment later, that Poker Face had been twisted back into the open, honest, tiredly smiling expression that Kid had held through most of the conversation.

But that split second had been enough.

"Kid--" Shinichi's own expression mirrored his distress, clearer and less practiced than Kid's in prevarication. "...I... alright. You said you didn't want to tell everything, but I--" He shook his head, and when he spoke again his child's voice was low and very tired but firm. "When you need to tell me, you put it on _your_ tab. 'Cause I'll listen." He slumped back, exhausted.

Ran had been watching them both, her expression becoming more and more troubled. She said nothing, but when she reached out again to brush her fingers against Shinichi's hair, they lingered there; and the look she turned to Kid was almost the same she'd given the boy beside her.

If she could have, if she'd dared, she might have reached out a second time... her fingers had faltered before the impulse could reach them, but the thought was still there. Later, she'd wonder what had prompted it; the link between the other two in the small room had been so _strong,_ so tangible, that saying or doing anything (even her one quiet question) had felt like an intrusion. And Kid... everything within her very limited knowledge of his nature said that despite his extravagant, manic public 'face' there was an extremely private person behind the display. Extremely private; what right did she have to even think of reaching out?

Why would she even begin to believe that there was any sort of comfort that he'd take from her, anyway? The hand of a friend? He was here for _Shinichi._ She'd invited him herself. But... that look... _Hurting and knowing he was going to hurt even more, like..._ Ran bit her lip, shuttering away her own confusion in the extended moment of silence following Shinichi's offer. But the thought remained, beating restless wings against a corner of her mind:

_...like __**I**__ was, waiting for a year without knowing, willing to let myself be hurt again because the alternative was worse than the pain._

A silent moment followed Shinichi's offer, in which Kid neither accepted nor rejected the detective's offer. The room's quiet slowly approached awkwardness, walking the edge of it as the spaces between the trio seemed to warp. Just as Ran began searching for something to say to rejuvenate the conversation, Kid reached into an interior pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small item, drawing both the others' interest.

As Kid uncoiled the small leaden fishing weight at the end of the line from the sturdy, clear filament connected to it, Shinichi made a soft sound of recognition, a weak smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. "That's how you...floated. In the library," he realized, and Kid's secretive smile utterly ignored, for the moment, Ran's presence in the room.

"These little gems are useful for a number of things," Kid murmured, paying out three feet of filament. Then, with a quick spin and release, he sent the plumb weight streaking into the corner of the room directly behind himself. It smashed with perfect accuracy into the lightswitch, throwing the room into moonlit shadow, and the door swung open as Hattori Heiji, high school detective and sometime eavesdropper, bobbled into view, startled off-balance by his sudden discovery.

Kid hopped lightly onto the bed, one foot to either side of Shinichi's short legs, and swept his top hat onto his head at a rakish angle. The moonlight from the small, high window in the back of the room cast a halo about the edges of his hair and outlined the slim lines of his close-fitting suit; the light spilling in from the doorway bounced off his monocle, gleaming back at Hattori strongly enough to make him flinch back a step.

Or maybe that was just the effect of seeing the god damn _Kaitou Kid_ poised territorially, proud and shameless, above Hattori's friends.

In the bed, Shinichi struggled to sit up, eyes wide with pure alarm; Ran's chair clattered over sideways as she shoved herself to her feet, dismay written large in every line of a body that kept wanting to go into a defensive posture before _No, it's __Hattori-kun_ pushed the impulse aside. And as for Hattori Heiji himself--

He looked... angry, betrayed, guilty; uncertain, worried... an entire range of negative emotions and reactions, registering one after the other and knotting his fists at his sides. He stared at the three in the tiny room; they stared back... and it didn't take a genius to register the fact that there was a line drawn in the figurative sand between them, with Hattori on one side and Shinichi, Ran and Kid on the other.

It didn't take very long for that little fact to dawn in Heiji's eyes, either; a lot of the fight went out of him then in a slump of shoulders, and he sagged against the doorjamb. "Kudo. GodDAMMIT, Kudo."

"Hattori--" Shinichi was reaching for his friend with his voice, striving across the room while his body struggled to quickly follow. He pushed himself to his knees with effort, shoving his way around Kid's calf toward the doorway. "Hattori, he's not--"

A deep muscle spasm, surely triggered by the boy's attempt at quick motion, doubled him over in a moan of pain, and despite his anger, Hattori reacted without thought, pushing off the doorframe toward his friend, forgetting for the moment that he'd have to go through Kid to get to him. Similarly, Ran lunged for the bed, getting tangled up in her fallen chair on the way.

Kid was faster than either of them, of course. When they both pulled up short -- Hattori at the foot of the bed, scowling into the shadows, Ran at its midpoint, moonlight in her eyes as she faced the bed -- it was to watch Kaitou Kid adjust his grip on Shinichi's shoulders and head, all of which had awkwardly gotten piled into Kid's lap. The thief shifted his support on the boy's body carefully, replacing Shinichi on his pillows. He gently supported the back of the detective's head as he settled him again, focusing his attention not on the threat at the foot of the bed but on the delicacy that Shinichi's illness demanded. Shinichi, expression drawn, held tightly to Kid's gloved hand as he sunk into his pillows, his gaze looking straight through Kid's monocle, reflection or no, to the face beyond.

Ran rounded the bed quickly, coming to Heiji's side. "Hattori, it's okay, Kid was just--"

"Leaving," Kid cut in, using his performance voice, its somewhat haughty tones familiar, if grossly inappropriate for the moment. "Excuse me, Hattori-san," he began, raising one fist above his head. Nobody in the room doubted it contained a smokescreen capsule.

"--don't," said Hattori flatly. "I'll close my goddamn eyes, but _don't._ He--" (and he pointed at Shinichi) "--doesn't need t'breath it in. You want me to face the wall or something, fine. Knock me out, whatever, I don't care." The Osakajin gritted his teeth, frustration turning his next words into a growl. "But don't give me another shitload of guilt to deal with, or him any more problems, got that? Just... don't."

There was silence as Kid lowered the capsule. Shinichi and Ran held their tongues - wisely, but with difficulty - and finally the soft tap of feet returning to the tile floor predicated Kid's next words. His face sunk entirely into shadow as he stepped away from the bed, putting Ran at his back and Hattori closer to Shinichi than himself. It was a dual gesture - stepping away from the disputed territory (Kid's sense of precision recoiled at using such a clumsy term to refer to Shinichi) and onto equal ground with his opponent, and at the same time raising his own protections of shadow and concealment.

"Guilt, tantei? Have I done something to cause that?"

Deep breath; Hattori deliberately turned his head away and stared at the wall. "No. That was me. Now get the hell out've here so we can call Ai and Agasa." Jaw set, he closed his eyes and clenched them tight. "....and... for what it's worth..."

"....m'sorry."

For a moment, Kid's head bowed in recognition, expression tightening...though in the gloom it was doubtful that Hattori could see. Then he reached back to touch Ran's shoulder, a gesture made smaller and less warm by their audience, and in the next moment he was gone. Not really through the door...and not really _not_ through the door...just gone.

Curled into his pillows, chest still tight with pain, Shinichi looked from Ran...to Heiji.

"Is he gone?"

The boy coughed, trying to speak; Ran put a hand out onto his shoulder, pulling herself against him protectively and he shivered once, tremors running through the small frame. "Yes," she said, voice non-committal. "He's gone."

"I really fucked up, didn't I, neechan?"

"You really did, Hattori-kun. Now go get the others, please?"

Eyes weary almost past the point of comprehension watched him go; and then Shinichi turned his face and pressed it against Ran's embrace, saying nothing at all.

* * *

Shinichi was pronounced to be dangerously exhausted, still running a fever (though quite a lot lower than before) and with a slowly climbing white-cell count that made Ai create a new chart that employed conditional formatting and ominous colors; Agasa, forehead creased with worry, provided more heavy-duty nutrient injections and some sort of sedative that sent the patient into a heavy, boneless sleep that lasted far into the night.

When he awoke at last, light-headed and oddly numb in his extremities, the bedside clock read 1:43 AM and Hattori Heiji sat in the farthest corner of the room, arms crossed and head tipped back against the wall. His feet were propped on the corner of Shinichi's bed, and the mothwing shadows beneath his closed eyes said that he'd probably not been asleep for very long.

For a few long moments, the boy was content to merely lie there and study him. Heiji was frowning in his sleep, brows drawn together in a scowl; his eyelashes threw spiky shadows in the dim lamp-light, and the hollows beneath his cheekbones were more pronounced than usual. The injury that had darkened one had faded; the bandage at Heiji's hairline was gone, its place taken by an inky watercolor-blob of bruise that showed dark against his skin. His hat, for once, was missing.

In short, he looked like hell.

Shinichi could sympathize; he _felt_ like hell, and in this quiet room with no other sound than the faint tide of Hattori's breathing, he could think about that a bit. His skin felt too tight, a fading patina of fever still seething just beneath; and his head still pounded. But even with all that, his mind was peculiarly clear for the first time in... how long? How long _had_ he been sick, anyway? By the looks of Hattori's bruises, not all that long... but not just a day or three either. A week? A little more?

But he was awake now, and (his body prodded at him) he was going to have to get up at some point soon and find a bathroom. God.

Lying there in the half-light, watching Heiji twitch ever-so-slightly in his sleep, thoughts and memories chased themselves through Shinichi's head. They seemed to have been organizing themselves while he slept; somehow, things were far less confused than before, though no less urgent or convoluted.

Item One (in order of immediacy rather than importance): Hattori had pulled the kind of stunt the night before that ends friendships. From what Shinichi remembered he was _aware_ of what he'd done, or had sounded like it anyway. If they were going to salvage things, they needed to do so ASAP. Top priority.

Item Two: Shinichi'd... Oh. He'd told Kid about the Thing, the one where he knew about his being nearby and about Ran being endangered. The one he'd tried to ignore before its sheer persistence had taken it from fluke into definable quantity. And he'd _never_ said anything about it before, not to Agasa or Ai or Hattori or Ran or... anyone. And he'd extrapolated on it, too, and then he'd talked about having the same sense for Ran, and it didn't take a tantei to do basic math, now did it?

_Aaack._ Shinichi closed his eyes; sighed once in trepidation and relief, opened them again. _Only one truth, Kudo. Remember that._

Item Three: There was something else going on with his body medically, something that concussion and its after-effects didn't cover. Haibara and the Professor'd been discussing somethinga few too many times for him to ignore, both in the bedroom and outside when they thought he couldn't hear-- something about 'flashbacks' and build-ups of toxins and... They obviously weren't going to tell him unless he asked. _Time to remind them that I'm not really a little kid, hm? If something's going on, I need to know about it._

Item Four: _What the hell_ was going on with the _cows?_ He--

Hattori stirred, one hand coming up to rub at a closed eye, which blinked blearily; it fixed on Shinichi's own, and the other opened so as to join the party.

"...Yo, Kudo. How're you feelin'?"

"Out of the loop," Shinichi answered, bracing his palms against the sheets and shoving hard. He made it about halfway to vertical before the sheets slid, wrecking his grip, and he slammed back down, the back of his head glancing off the headboard before landing on the pillow. A moment of silence followed, like the boggle-and-stare after a particularly excellent pratfall, in which Shinichi closed his eyes wearily.

"Just...don't even say it," he sighed.

Hattori covered his eyes with one hand. "How 'bout you just _stay put_ an' ask me to help, next time? I'm right here."

Shinichi scowled. "Yeah, I can see that. Good thing, too." The anger and hurt that he'd managed to avoid so far reared their ugly heads as red sparkles danced across the inside of his eyelids. "Am I going to have to go the 'seeing is believing' route with you now or what?" Blinking back the distortion, he opened his eyes again, pushing ineffectually at the mattress a second time. "Were you _trying_ to figure out a way to-- aagh!" His hands slipped once more.

"For crissake," Heiji snapped, exasperated, taking two long strides across the room to catch Shinichi and help him prop himself against the headboard, pillows arranged for comfort. "Stop smackin' your head on things."

"Why? Everybody needs a hobby," groused Shinichi, subsiding with a sigh of relief. For a long, long moment neither said anything. Then: "Hattori? Next time, **knock**, okay?" Exasperation mixed with weary affection pushed the more negative emotions down a little. "I think you took a couple've years growth off me, and I can't really spare them." He rubbed at his temples. "Oww... Is there any water left?"

Without comment, Heiji filled the everpresent glass at Shinichi's bedside with cool water, then passed it carefully over. "Haibara said t'keep ya hydrated." Shinichi drank it, then offered the glass back; Heiji refilled it and waited silently while Shinichi drained that, as well.

"Ran hasn' lit into me yet," he finally offered, awkwardly contrite. "Said she was gonna sleep on it an' wallop me in the morning." He leaned back in his chair, raking one hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh. The moonlight shining through the little room's high window was approximately as bright as the low incandescent glow from a nightlight Ran had installed on the far wall's baseboard. The combination of lights, blue moonlight and yellow bulb, shaded Shinichi's face in sharp contrast, color-tinting each cheek a different hue; blue spilled into yellow across his lips and chin, where his frown angled the skin. Heiji faced the window, cool blue light smoothing the lush hue of his skin; the yellow nightlight lit his body from behind, curving warm-gold petals of light around the sharp edges of his coldly lit shoulders and arms.

"If you're feeling up to it," he finally offered, hesitating only slightly as Shinichi's gaze lifted to pay his words attention, "Ya can get a jumpstart on her and start in on me now, if y'want."

"What, and mess up the job you're doing on yourself already? No thanks." The dry tone mixed oddly with Shinichi's childish register, but the expression in his eyes was clear enough. "We could beat each other up over this all night... or we could let it go. But you owe an apology."

"Already apologized to Neechan," Heiji muttered, then cut Shinichi off as the boy quickly began to protest. "I know, I know. Need t'make another one, too." He didn't expand on the thought, leaving all the indications of _to whom_ unsaid and implied.

"Yeah, well... You remember when we were talking in the park right after you got here?" Shinichi met Heiji's green eyes with his dark blue ones, tired but clearer than they'd been in days and lacking the disassociation that had so slowed down his speech. "I said I wouldn't break my word to Kid-- I'd keep his secrets-- and that I wouldn't lie to you. Still doing that so far, Hattori; help me with it, okay?"

"And," he added after a second, "as for Ran? I'd run. She's got one hell of a mean right hook." The first grin he'd been able to manage since he awoke quirked up one corner of his mouth.

Heiji cringed, picking his hat up off the floor and fiddling anxiously with it. "Think that's an understatement," he grumbled. But when he glanced up through his hair at Shinichi, he had a little smile of his own, too. "...She the only one I'm gonna have to worry about gettin' pissed at me?"

Shinichi rolled his eyes and then winced. "Depends. Trust me to not be a total idiot about who _I_ trust and we're good. I'm--sorry you were worried. And as for anybody else..." and he looked at the ceiling. "Who knows? Depends on just how much you annoyed him and how much he thinks he can make you twitch."

The conversation and its subject was draining the few resources that he had, and sleep was trying to pull him back under. But first-- "Hattori? Can you do two things for me?" At the other's inquiring look, Shinichi fixed him with the best direct look he could manage. "First, tell me what Agasa and Ai're so worried about. I _know_ there's something going on, and I think it's got to do with why I'm still so damn sick. What is it?"

Hattori had the grace to look embarrassed. "You heard alla that?" Shinichi gave him a Look. "Okay, okay. It's not anythin' big, just some side effects Haibara's worried about. No big deal."

"HATTORI. Spill it." The headache, which had apparently skipped off briefly to take a smoke-break, was returning and bringing along friends. "WHAT side effects?"

"I'm tellin' ya, Kudo, nothin' t'worry about. No big deal. Jus'...maybe y'might go tall again. But it probably wouldn't stick long anyway so ya don't hafta worry, and Haibara says if it doesn' stick the first time y'might get a second try at it...an' a third...an' a fourth... Uhm. Why're you lookin' at me like that, Kudo?"

"......Details. Now. No, later." Shinichi ran a hand across his face, covering his eyes much as Heiji'd done a little earlier. "Not now, I can't think straight. But-- just-- aaaagh..." He subsided, pale to the hairline at the thought of becoming some sort of chronological yoyo.

Heiji gave his best attempt at an optimistic grin. "Well, if ya get tall again, at least you got Ran to make you feel better?"

The boy in the bed eyed him, eyebrows rising. "Keep it up and I'll tell her you think she hits like a girl. And, uh, Hattori?" He winced, looking uncomfortable. "About that second thing?"

One of Heiji's eyebrows slid tentatively higher than the other. "Uh? I figured I'd write something down and make you give it to him."

"No, not THAT second thing, the _other_ second thing." Shinichi squirmed slightly, desperate. "Could you, uh, help me get to the bathroom? Right now? Please?"

Heiji blinked, then laughed, and reached forward to fold Shinichi's blankets back from his lap, tucking one arm under Shinichi's knees and the other around his shoulders. "Get your arm 'round my neck, and let's go."

* * *

_Thank you for reading. Next week: "Rose, meeting, distraction."_


	19. Rose, meeting, distraction

_Hello again! Welcome back to our story! Tonight's chapter is rather special in its way; things get laid out a little more plainly, old friends show up unexpectedly (and not for the last time, either) and the Matter Of The Cows begins to move in a direction in which neither of our detectives expected it to go._

_This chapter is quite dear to our hearts. Let's let it speak for itself, shall we? But-- please, tell us what you think of it afterwards, hm? We'd really like to know. Enjoy................ ____The Management  
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____**Three Thieves,**____ a series of fan novels by **red**__**nightengale**____ and _ _**ysabet**__  
_**__****Book Two, Chapter Eleven**___**: **_**__****"rose, meeting, distraction"**___  
_**__****Warnings:**___ escalators, brain-breakage  
_**__****Crossposted to Livejournal communities:**__ _**dc_yaoi**____ , _ _**detective_conan**____ , _ _**magic_kaitou**____ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

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He slept, a deep, dream-ridden sleep that for the first time in too long lacked the fever that had been igniting his dreams into nightmares. When Shinichi awoke at last it was to a dazzle of winter sunlight filtering through his room's small window and breaking into long stripes across his face as someone-- Haibara-- adjusted the curtains. At the rustle of sheets she paused, and he could see her reflection smile faintly in the window-glass. "Good morning, Kudo-kun. Did you sleep well?" she asked prosaically, hands still.

He yawned, not quite willing to do anything so energetic as stretching just yet. "Weird dreams," he murmured, voice rusty.

The scientist nodded as if that had been answer enough. "'Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms; in the morning we must sweep out the shadows,'" Ai answered calmly. "Gaston Bachelard," she added in response to his confused blink. "A very erudite French philosopher; he wrote _The Formation of the Scientific Mind._ Breakfast or vital signs?"

"Ergh?"

Turning around and leaning against the wall, the blonde laced her hands in front of her. "Would you prefer," she said slowly and distinctly, "your breakfast first or for me to take your vital signs? Assuming you want the former and still have the latter."

"Uh-- breakfast?"

"Patient shows signs of increased comprehension," Ai murmured as she left the room, her little smile just barely a hint but still there; "Prior diagnosis of reduced mental faculties possibly premature..."

_Ha very ha, Haibara. Don't quit your day job._ Shinichi yawned again, wiggling his toes beneath the blankets; they ached. _Oww._ Everything ached. But he was feeling-- better? Clearer-headed, more rested, all of that; breakfast (and even vital signs) sounded like something he could handle reasonably well.

With effort, Shinichi braced his hands on the bed beside him and pushed. _No slipping this time,_ he promised himself. Edging his rear backwards and locking his elbows straight, Shinichi braced himself and double-checked the world before he was satisfied that both it, and he, were staying put. The room wasn't swimming, his head wasn't pounding, the bedsheet beneath his pillow wasn't soft, and for the immediate moment, at least, things were more-or-less in their right places.

...Wait a second. _Back to that last one. That can't be right...._

Shinichi flexed the hand that had slid under his pillow. Something crinkled against his fingertips, and he yanked it out from beneath the pillow with a quick motion.

_Tantei,_ the paper, an even, narrow strip which seemed intended for either a very small register or an adding-machine, read. Shinichi felt a wide grin snap into place across his features, even before he'd tugged the next foot of paper - bearing the next sentence - out from under his pillow.

_I write this before having delivered it, a fact which when considering anyone but yourself or myself would be self-evident. But this is us, so it doesn't hurt to state clearly that I'm writing this before seeing_ (Shinichi pulled more tape out from under his pillow, careful not to rip it.) _you; after Mouri-san's summons, but before I attempt the insanity that is confronting your friends on residential territory. I have no doubt Mouri-san, and you, if you are awake when I arrive, will defend me; I am surprised that I don't feel upset by that idea, the thought_ (Again Shinichi pulled more tape free of the pillow, mostly oblivious to the small pile of coiled paper tape that was gathering at his right hip.) _that I could find use for your aid. I suppose it's the nature of it that makes the implicit offer so comforting; aid of a friend, not even of an ally or an equal; but a friend._

A wide space separated Kid's words so far from his next ones. "Paragraph break?" Shinichi snickered to himself, tugging another three feet free. As the tape unfurled, small doodles of Kid's trademark caricature began to pepper the text, bearing expressions and props appropriate to the context of the text around them, and Shinichi couldn't help but smile as he encountered the first of them, a romantic-looking Kid caricature, with one disembodied hand holding a small rose for Shinichi's examination.

_It has been said of me that I was extremely bored as a child, as though my mischief or insanity can be so easily traced to cause. In fact I had no awareness of my childhood; maybe I grew up right along with Kuroba, not knowing myself as thief -- just Magician. I wasn't yet Fool, of course. You're probably not going to be very fond of the bent I'll take in the coming few weeks, or however long this prolonged heist lasts; I can promise you, though, you won't be encountering any more of my more blush-worthy 'talents' -- they're all on indefinite hiatus._ A series of pensive Kids, each studying a small clock face, became increasingly frustrated as Shinichi scrolled the strip sideways and the time on the clock faces did not advance.

_I am not one to idly bide my time. And so I will drop the masks and the pretenses of Thief, Detective, or Friend._

A small series of caricatures: Kid removing his top hat, staring boldly out of the paper.

_I've been fighting to keep you from noticing my ledgerdemain. Whether or not you work it out of me when I see you tonight, whether or not I confess it readily, I'll put it on paper here, and hide this and my gift beneath your pillow, because that's just how I do things: wildly, with insanity in the face of caution, in ways that cannot be taken back._

Shinichi pulled free a further length of the paper tape, carefully drawing it free of the pillow. It smelled faintly of something beautiful - probably more of Kid's strange colognes.

_I confess to holding you...in importance. To valuing you, to exalting you in my worldscheme of talents and great minds. You are exemplary to me._

Another series of caricatures, this series spaced further apart: a slower motion, this time. Through the sequence of drawings, Kid's clothes changed, white uniform to black turtleneck, his street clothes. His monocle was the last piece of his uniform to be removed. The last Kid doodle looked nothing like the Kaitou Kid heist notice caricature that had begun the note; it was just Kid's own representation of himself, portrayed the way that Shinichi often got to see him.

_I care for Mouri-san deeply, and I will protect your bond with her to the extent of my abilities._

__

But I thought it would be honest of me to give you this confession, if for no other reason than that I know you can see me, at least to some extent, with eyes of truth. I ask nothing of you other than understanding that I am a man, human as well as myth.

_Kid._

The end of the paper tape slipped through Shinichi's fingers, following the length before it into a coil on the bedspread. Working on instinct, Shinichi slowly lifted his pillow up. Beneath it, pressed flat by the weight of his head through the night, was one furled bud of a tiny, thornless, orange tea rose.

It was a good five minutes before he moved to pick up the rosebud, and when Shinichi at last did he sat in silence with the small thing in his fingers, unmoving. A phrase kept running over and over through his mind, and dimly, distantly, he recognized it as another Holmes quote: _'It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.'_

Roses had a more deeply-ingrained symbolism than almost any other flower, even in Japan; red roses for love, white roses for purity, yellow roses for peace, pink ones for elegance... orange ones for admiration, attraction, passion. A rosebud could mean many things in its shape: inception, timelessness, immediacy. A _thornless orange rosebud_ said--

He swallowed hard, staring at what he held in his damnably small child's hands. --it said something very like what he'd almost said the evening before. The thoughts chased each other back and forth in his head, his own voice and Kid's imagined one, rising from memory and a strip of close-written paper... He hadn't finished the sentence. Had he needed to? Shinichi whispered it out loud now: "People do that... gain a sense of people that they care about." Caring, concern, value.

_'You are exemplary to me.'_ His own thoughts echoed back with a one-word realization from the Mouris' rooftop, perhaps two weeks past: _'extraordinary.'_ And the thoughts that had followed after, halfway down a rope-ladder and several stories above the street...

He was handling this very well, wasn't he? Barely breathing, Shinichi closed his eyes and-- let go.

The tiny rosebud was such a small thing; why didn't it shred apart into a hail of petals and green fragments with the storm that was raging around it? It took all the strength in Shinichi's weakened frame to keep from clenching his fist, to keep the fragile bit of symbolism intact as he sat there and shook and allowed himself to _feel what he'd been feeling_ in carefully locked-away moments: on a futon late at night, on a rooftop, in a dream. Terror played a large part of it; so did longing, so did regret and wonder and (hidden like the tiniest point of light in an iron-clad lockbox) a shocked and secret joy. Recognition, too; he'd felt it all before, every last bit, directed in a very different direction.

Towards Ran.

_'I care for Mouri-san deeply, and I will protect your bond with her to the extent of my abilities.'_

Towards Ran; and that was still, **still there**... but so was _**this.**_ And strangely (or maybe not so strangely), guilt played no part in what he was feeling at all.

The trifle, the rosebud, slid from his fingers; Shinichi caught it before it could hit the floor. With hands that shook only a little he wound the long strip of letter around the bud itself, cocooning a symbol in an expression before he tucked it safely in the pocket of his flannel pajamas. And then he did the only thing that he could do, in that time and in that place: he folded up the terror and longing and regret and wonder and joy, wrapped the emotions tightly around themselves like the petals of something waiting to bloom and hid them away, inside, in the warm dark where they'd be safe.

Because that was what you did with precious things and with secrets until you could let them out.

* * *

"Toast, tea, plain rice and enough vitamins t'choke a damn horse, Kudo, eat up!" announced Heiji with boneshaking cheer as he came into the room a few minutes later, carrying a lap tray piled with breakfast foods, trailed by Haibara and an anxious Agasa. They'd seen Shinichi's faltering wall-guided progress to the bathroom outside his door a few moments earlier, and there'd been some wrangling as to whether or not someone should have been waiting outside to help. ("Let him set his own limits, Hattori-san," Ai had said practically; "I think he can manage to urinate on his own. Unless you're willing to assist...? I didn't think so.")

Propped up among his pillows, the childlike figure of the Detective of the East looked at the smilyface of jam that had been drawn on his toast, looked up at Heiji, looked back at the toast and sighed. "Good morning to you too, Hattori." Suddenly ravenous, he took a bite and turned the first slice into a one-eyed assault victim.

"Toldja he'd be feeling better." Grinning, the other detective stole the second slice.

"Hold off on that smug," Shinichi warned him around a mouthful of toast. "All I know is I'm vertical - mostly - and hungry. We'll see how long it lasts." Trying not to upset the lap tray's stand, braced to either side of his legs, Shinichi flexed his muscles one at a time, hip to toe, and felt the deadened tingle that meant they were already halfway to numb again, despite that he'd just walked to and from the bathroom on his own power.

"I need to get out of this _bed,_" he groused, taking a long drink from his teacup -- and, under Haibara's expectant glare, adding a few pills to his liquid mouthful before swallowing. "I feel like I'm atrophying. No action, nothing to see, nowhere to go..." _At least my mind's keeping busy,_ he reflected, a bit of gallows humor tingeing the smile that accompanied the thought. _Though not, probably, on what it __should__ be busy with._

"So, Hattori - what've I missed? With the cows, I mean. What's the situation there? Did you get anything useful at the warehouse in Koto prefecture? Have we confirmed anything about the identity of our pursuers - or their purpose? Has there been another attempt on you? And have you given your father any of the information we've put together so far?"

Hattori's grin, if anything, widened. He tilted the chair back, balancing it on two legs and propping his own on the edge of the bedframe with his arms crossed behind his head. "Ooooh, testy," he teased; there was a smear of jam beside one corner of his mouth. "Maybe this'll be too much for you, maybe I ought to wait 'til you're feelin' better... no? No. Right, after I got a new rental I headed out to take a look around, and..."

* * *

_The records office at Hoshi Gyuniku Shipping & Transport was small, cluttered and badly lit; hands in pockets, Hattori Heiji stared down at the old-fashioned filing system and the nervous young clerk that had been assigned by top management to keep him occupied-- that is, to 'assist him in any way possible, of course, Hattori-san, make yourself at home.' Slimy-but-stupid had been his first thought about the businessmen who had met him on his arrival; now he wasn't so sure. "Y'mean to tell me," he said slowly but with a shove behind it, "that you can't find the files showing who signed for that cargo, flight manifests, fuel records or anything else? No inspection records, no weight documents? Nothin'?"_

__

"Nossir." The clerk gulped, waving a hand at one corner of the office's yellowing ceiling, which sported caved-in tiles and spreading rings of soggy brownish damp. "Yomiuri-san said they probably got tossed out, we had this leak in the roof and--"

"Yeah, yeah, heard all about it." Hattori scowled at the soggy debris that occupied that corner of the room. "Real convenient for you."

The staff'd been falling all over themselves to be helpful; they'd shown him the planes, the loaders and unloaders, freezer units, cargo-bays, licenses, et cetera et cetera ad nauseum... and had explained in great detail how they'd lost a full quarter of their records to rain-damage, so sorry, too bad. He'd spent a long morning simultaneously worrying about Kudo and coming to a slow boil over the blatant misdirection and herding he'd experienced under the eye of one Yomiuri Seichiro, a fat, balding man who oozed smiling insincerity with every suggestion he'd made.

_But no records equalled no paper-trail and no proof of __deliberate__ involvement; what he needed was a smoking gun--_

* * *

"--or a smoking inspection permit," Hattori said, munching on his third piece of toast. "Made a few calls from my cell, 'cause places that ship meat in'r'out have to have freezer units, and freezer units break down a lot." He swallowed and continued, crumbs littering his sweatshirt. "There was a sticker on each've the freezer rooms showing when they'd been serviced and the company that did it; I talked t'the guys there and hey, wouldn't you know it, they had records going back nine years on the place, an' every inspection listed the general freezer contents." He smirked. "Nothin' too detailed, but enough t'show shipments of cattle carcasses on a regular basis, quarterly at least. And THAT led me to looking at who does the maintenance on HG's freezer-trucks, and guess what? They had manifests showing where the trucks were worked on, mileage, cargo, general contents... and they've all been comin' and goin' from the same direction: northwest, up by Nagoya."

"And don't tell me, HG's got a contract with a Nagoya company that cans pet food." Shinichi took a small bite of rice, looking thoughtful. "Good idea, going after the maintenance companies; even if HG trashed their records, the other businesses keep theirs-- there's no such thing as a totally wiped paper-trail these days." He yawned. "Sorry. So nobody tried to run you over with a fork-lift or anything?"

Hattori raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly," he drawled, "but close. There was this thing with an escalator..."

* * *

_Hoshi Gyuniku's warehouses were located a distance of several blocks from the nearest Beika-bound train station. By the time Hattori had reached it, a dual-level affair with express service to downtown Tokyo and Nagoya, among other destinations, his mind was miles away, dissecting the information he'd acquired for patterns and clues. Yomiuri was trouble, Hattori was sure of that much, but whether he had friends who were also going to be trouble was another question entirely. He had enough time before dinner - well, if he pushed it back a few hours, but this was case time, so a missed meal wasn't much trouble in the scale of things - anyway, he had time to get out to the airport at Nagoya, and maybe even the one of two pet food canneries up that direction, too. He'd have to be tactful in this stage of things - it would send up some major red flags if he bumbled the questioning at the airport - but he could grab a quick lunch at the food court there, and be out of Nagoya city limits and on his way to the Kiti Kusa petfood cannery before twilight._

_Hattori stepped onto the escalator, heading down toward the lower level of the station, with his eyes fixed on the sky. Shinichi'd warned him that Kid might have an eye out - and then, despite Hattori's bitching, forcefully reminded him how helpful a backup could be, just in case. Hattori tugged his collar closer to his neck, even though there were no doves visible against the white-blue sky, and grumbled to himself. _Like he needed backup from a guy like---

__

A sudden impact against his right shoulder sent Hattori bouncing into the side rail of the escalator. As the friction dragged his hands upward, he glanced right and down to see who'd shoved past him, but saw no-one. Twisting to the left, Hattori turned backwards on the step, looking up the way he'd come. Nobody there either. He'd just reached up to adjust the bill of his cap, a tingling sense of Not Quite Right putting his nerves on edge, when the scarf around his neck pulled suddenly, constrictingly tight, and Hattori was yanked off his feet.

He landed flat on his back, head facing down the slope of the escalator, one arm twisted at an uncomfortable angle. The ground level came swiftly up to meet him, and the bill of his hat blocked his sight as he tried to look over his head, toward the landing where his assailant was either escaping...or waiting for him. He braced his hands on the sharp, toothed edges of the escalator stairs, intending to use a backflip to regain his footing, but a preliminary tug on his feet, tensing the muscles to prepare the jump, informed him he had bigger problems than the collection of scrapes he had already gathered.

A quick glance toward his sneakers confirmed what Hattori feared - the laces of his shoes were jammed inbetween the stairs of the escalator, tethering his feet against the metal. With a growl, Hattori transformed his pull into a push, seeking to sit up and yank his feet free, with or without his sneakers; it was at that point that his second, more primary problem became apparent.

Hattori had by this point - a scant second or two after his fall - reached the bottom of the escalator, and the back of his head thunked onto the metal catchplate just past the point where the escalator's treads submerged themselves back into the machinery. Rather than being slid along this flat surface, Hattori felt tension growing around his neck, as the ends of his scarf were consumed by the gears and teeth of the escalator. Five feet further down the line, the escalator dragged his feet steadily closer, regardless of the fact that there was increasingly little space for the rest of Hattori, between the two extremes.

_Split seconds passed like whole minutes as the catchplate tugged his scarf tighter around his throat, the tension increasing exponentially as his body was forced into a backbend by the captured laces of his sneakers. With an effort, Hattori wrenched one foot free of its shoe, trying to get his fingers around the scarf looped tight around his throat. Around this time, someone nearby started screaming, and as Hattori's vision began to flicker, he idly hoped that whoever brought a knife to cut his scarf away could manage not to catch his jacket collar in the same swipe._

* * *

Shinichi sat motionless, staring at Hattori with an utterly boggled expression.

"Hattori-kun," Ai dryly interjected, speaking up when it was clear Shinichi could not, "Did it occur to you that this might be the sort of thing that Shinichi would appreciate hearing _first_?"

Heiji shrugged, raising both eyebrows. "Case first, attempts on my life second. Big deal. I mean, obviously it didn't _kill me_ or anything," he pointed out cheerfully, "so what's the problem?"

Ai blinked. "I... suppose there isn't one," she conceded. "That's a very practical viewpoint, actually." Behind her, the Professor rolled his eyes at the girl's faintly approving tone.

Hattori swallowed another bite. "Anyway," he said, wiping his mouth, "next thing I know there's this loud screeching goin' on and..."

* * *

_At first he'd thought that the noise had been the gears and teeth, protesting as they were clogged with Heiji's scarf; his vision greyed and began taking on a red tinge as the pressure around his neck increased, and the screech began to be drowned out by the pounding in his ears._

__

Then there was an abrupt jerk, a shove against his chest-- and he was heaving in great gasps of air, the escalator-treads still flattening themselves endlessly beneath his rear and legs as someone held him up from behind, gabbling a torrent of excited and distressed words into his ear that slowly became intelligible as his brain caught up with his breathing:

"...SAID are you ALRIGHT, young man? --Noyen, could you please be a dear and call an ambulance? I don't think he's well at all." The voice carried the frailness of age in its agitated tones but was surprisingly rich; still leaning back into the hands that supported him, Heiji slowly turned his head.

_A thin, worried old woman's face looked at him anxiously; it was her hands, the nails a vivid and startlingly youthful red, that had been supporting him. She knelt almost primly on the escalator platform; her black hair was carefully coifed and curled (a wig, said the detective that lived inside Heiji's head) and her wrinkled face was an advertisement for the makeup artist's art. "__There__ you are," she cooed, a delighted smile spreading across her tinted lips. "Noyen, the poor thing's awake-- can you stand up, young man? Of course you can, can't you? Noyen, darling, give the lad a hand, he's getting all dusty lying there on the floor." This last was to an elderly man, obviously a manservant of some kind; he helped Heiji to his feet, steadied him as the milling crowd around them began to disperse now that the show was over._

__

Wrinkled hands brushed him off, both those of the old man and the elderly woman; as he massaged his abused throat, Heiji could make out two uniformed figures on the next level up with Security Guard written all over them making their way purposefully towards the top of the escalator. "M--" (coughcough) "Much obliged, Obaasan," he said with difficulty; "I really appreciate the help." From around his neck Heiji fished out the ruined, chewed-up scrap that was all that remained of his scarf and looked at it ruefully.

Obaasan sparkled at him, twitching off a bit of dust that still clung to his shirt with a wrinkled hand; she was very well dressed and her lined face was vivacious and quite lively despite her obvious age. "It was nothing, my dear; we were right there and we saw you choking, and Noyen had this little pair of scissors in his pocket-- in case of loose threads, you know, or that sort of thing. Isn't that right, Noyen?"

"Yes, Madam. One never knows when a sewing kit might be needed."

The security guards were examining the escalator controls at the top; ignoring them, the elderly woman continued. "And we couldn't just leave you there, hm?" She looked him over thoughtfully. "You need a cup of tea," she decided, "or perhaps a bit of brandy. Come to think of it, so do I, so let's be going before those dreary guards reach us, shall we?"

"....what?"

_"Darling," and her artfully made-up black eyes flashed impatience at him, "we can stay here and fill out a great deal of boring paperwork or," and she patted his arm, "you can accompany me to a nice little restaurant that I know of nearby. It's not every day, after all," she added with a mischievous little smile, "that a handsome young man flings himself at my feet. Or not lately, in any case."_

* * *

"So... what'd you do?"

"Took her and that Noyen guy out t'dinner," Hattori said practically. "On Oyaji's credit-card. I mean, wasn't like whoever'd shoved me down was still around, were they? And she damn neardragged me, Kudo, I swear."

Shinichi eyed him dubiously. "And she was _how_ old?"

"Hell, how would I know? Eighties, at least. Must've been pretty hot when she was younger, though, and..." He scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish. "She kept callin' me _darling_and _sweetheart_ and _dear boy._ Thought she was gonna pinch me on the ass when I left; turns out she's some sort of zaibatsu family head, name of Kikoman. You know? Like the soy sauce? Anyway, I..... Kudo? Kudo, why're you laughing?"

"No...No reason at all, Hattori," Shinichi managed, between chuckles that steadily grew stronger as the synchronicity of the situation boggled him. "Please tell me you gave her your card."

"I ain't stupid," Hattori grinned. "Made sure Noyen put it away safe and everything. I was thinkin' I could maybe use her...or her connections, at least."

Shinchi raised one eyebrow carefully. "I wouldn't try that too boldly, Heiji. She's more likely to twist _you_ around. And get unholy pissed off if she catches you trying to use her, anyway. She's actually..." He drifted into silence, thinking of the note-wrapped rose in his pocket.

"I met Kid because of her," he admitted after a moment, noting - but not focusing on - Haibara's startled eyes. Instead he held Heiji's as he continued, his tone reserved.

"He got mad at me for using him as part of my plan to protect Kikoman-sama's Amber Wing. He acted as the 'safe,' keeping the Wing away from her son while exposing the son as an attempted thief; but he found out that I'd been planning to lose to him from the start. Basically, that it was a fixed game from the start." Shinichi winced, remembering the clack of the card gun's hammer drawing back, the ice in Kaitou Kid's tone in Mouri's unlit hallway.

"He didn't take it well."

Heiji frowned, scratching his hairline. "I thought you'd been going to heists for a while," he said, carefully withholding implications or implicit criticisms from his words. Just surface meaning, that was all.

Shinichi shook his head lightly, touching the side of his thigh just a bit down from his hip. An itch, maybe? The small detective's face was pensive as he clarified.

"No, I wasn't clear. I've been going to _Kaitou Kid_ heists for a while now, but what I meant was after this one, I met _Kid_. He took the Kikoman case as a personal attack, and the next five or six heists were actually just the means to sending me a message about that. Which he ended up having to explain to me anyway, at the end of that week. We...ended up talking. And this whole..." He waved one hand, not trusting himself with words on this particular point, and Hattori nodded, understanding the gesture.

"So that's where ya got started with him," he said. "I guess it makes a little bit more sense. ...Maybe."

The boy hiked one shoulder up in a half-shrug. "A lot of things make more sense to me now. I wish-- there're things I'd like to tell you, things I think'd make a difference if you understood them, but--" He sighed. "Secrets. I can't betray Kid's confidences any more than," Shinichi hesitated, "any more than you'd betray _mine."_

Heiji was silent for a moment, eyes shuttered in thought; Shinichi poked at his rice, which had gone cold, and wondered what was going through the other detective's mind. "What's he like?" asked Heiji abruptly.

_Like?_ Shinichi very carefully laid his chopsticks down as he riffled through the first half-dozen or so answers that occurred to him. "...you never ask the easy ones, do you, Hattori? He's... unpredictable, except that he never takes the easy way out of anything. Terrifyingly intelligent. Totally ruthless when it comes to expecting _other people--_ --me-- to match wits with him, if they act like they think they can. Paranoid as hell, with good reason. He's-- so far outside the box, _any_ box..." Shinichi hesitated, staring down at the tray in front of him. "He hates being taken advantage of but he'll go to ridiculous lengths to help somebody out just because he thinks he should," he said at last; a memory welled up: broken crockery and a moment of vulnerability for them both. "And he understands what it's like to be isolated, almost too well."

Heiji studied him soberly. "Y'sure you're talking about him, Kudo? Or you?"

Shinichi shook his head; there really wasn't any kind of answer he could give to that.

Hattori was quiet for a moment. "...Okay then. So, uh, I didn't end up getting out to Kiti Kusa. But I did head up to Nagoya anyway, scouted the airport a little. It was too late t' really get anything done but I did talk to the guy at the security gate. Got a little bit of info 'bout who works when. I have a couple names, and I know one of 'em's been there for a few years and the other one has been there a good twenty, thirty years probably - guy I talked to was a newbie but I kind of read what he meant..." He stopped, looking sheepish. "Uh. Anyway, I got a _little_info. Figure I can go up tomorrow night, 'round two or so, when the old-timer's working, and get some more done."

Shinichi looked wistful; the expression turned him momentarily into the child he wasn't. "Wish I could go with you," he said a little sadly; he shifted, rubbing at the ache which seemed to be traveling up the side of his body. "Not going to happen for a few days, though, at least." Shinichi kicked irritably at the covers, making the tray on its wobbly legs rattle; he relaxed back against the pillows, face wan. Ai and Agasa, who'd been conferring just beyond the doorway in low voices, turned as one to look at Shinichi.

Ai shook her head, a warning expression on her face. "Push it, Kudo-kun, and you'll double your recuperation period. You need rest." She gave Heiji a significant stare, and he stood up hastily.

"Yeah, yeah, got it." He gave the covers a self-conscious pat. "Get some rest, willya? I gotta meet Oyaji for lunch." He made a sour face; "He's still harping on my joining the force the fast'n easy way. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, and it's really gettin' old." Ai cleared her throat meaningfully and Heiji held up his hands. "Right. Going! Seeya later, Kudo." He shuffled out of the room, moving past Ai with exaggerated care.

The blonde picked up the tray, looking over her patient carefully. "Rest, nutrients and more rest," she pronounced. "Well?"

Shinichi sighed. "I don't have to be _happy_ about it." He slumped back into his pillows, crossing his arms. "There's too much still to discover about this case. Heiji could be in the hospital if the timing had been a minute different or if they had less of a flair for the dramatic. And we still don't even know what these people _want_, much less who "they" are! As if two shadow organizations weren't bad enough, we now have a nice _simple_ case of corporate ethics and greed, on an international level," Shinichi ranted, his tone showing his disdain. "And now they're gunning for us. And I'm _still stuck here._"

"If you're stuck here," she pointed out, "they can't 'gun for you'. And if you're safe, you can recuperate. And when you've recuperated, you can get back to work. Simple enough, correct? There's really only one question left that requires an answer."

Tiredness washing over him, Shinichi paused in mid-bad-mood. "What?"

"I can sedate you to make you rest, or you can do it voluntarily. Which shall it be?"

Shinichi didn't even blink. "Sedate me. Preferably for long enough that when I wake up again, I will be able to walk straight out of bed and back onto the case."

That brought Ai up short, for once; she stopped in the doorway, mouth open. "....I was _joking,_ Kudo-kun. But you do need rest; allowing your muscles to atrophy even more won't speed up your healing." She vanished around the corner with his tray. Still lingering just outside the bedroom, the Professor shook his head.

"Shinichi-kun, I realize that you're impatient, but..." He took the chair that Heiji had vacated; it creaked as it accepted his considerable weight. "And there are other, hrrm, things to consider." The boy frowned, recalling what Heiji had said earlier.

"...Flashbacks."

"Yes. Not something we'd expected, but, well." The scientist sighed and leaned forward. "Shinichi," he said seriously, all humor gone from his bushy-eyebrowed face, "this is a serious matter. Neither Ai-chan nor myself had any idea that this would happen, I promise you." He studied the boy's face. "We've postulated that several things might set the reaction off-- extreme weariness, a drop in blood-sugar, injury-- your white-cell count is currently unstable and has been climbing; an increase beyond a significant point and..." He waggled his fingers in the air, bringing them from waist-height up towards his shoulder and above.

"How fast do you think it would be?" Shinichi frowned. "As bad as this last time?"

"We have no way to know, Shinichi," Agasa reiterated. "This wasn't at all something that we'd planned for. Even after you recover, it may not be safe to let you leave the house until we--"

Shinichi gave gave him a flat stare that stomped the end of that sentence into the ground. "Unless you want me to lose my sanity along with my health, I am going to _HAVE_ to get out of here. I can't put my life on hold just because--"

"--because there's a chance you'll transform in public? Shinichi-kun..." Agasa scowled beneath his moustache. "Have you considered what it would be like for you if you were, say, to transform while at Mouri-san's? In your sleep, for instance?"

The awful prospect of waking up on his futon, fully transformed and wearing the tattered shreds of his pajamas and _absolutely nothing else_ beneath Mouri's wrathful and homicidal gaze was enough to bring Shinichi's increasing frustration to a skidding halt. "Um. So. Are there any warning signs I could keep an eye out for?" he asked faintly, shrinking back against the pillows. There was a feeling in his gut, something near to trembling, that told him he was nearing the end of his resources and really would need to rest soon.

"I believe Ai-kun was explicitly clear on what our limitations are when it comes to this issue, Shinichi-kun. We don't know why your system is reacting more poorly to this transformation, even though it was better prepared, and we don't know how to stabilise it, or how long it will take if we simply wait for it, either. I'm sorry to have so much bad news for you, Shinichi-kun, but this is the cost of getting to see Ran in your real body. We didn't know you would have to pay it, but that's how it is."

Agasa stood, bracing his palms on his knees as he rose, and smoothed the blanket at Shinichi's hip with an apologetic expression. "You just have to bear it a little longer. ...I'll let you rest. Hattori-kun will surely be in before he leaves for the day. And Ran-chan will come over right after school. Ai-chan will be in the living room if you need anything. I'm going upstairs for a while."

_Wonderful._

Left alone at last in the quiet of a room he was getting increasingly tired of, Shinichi deflated among his covers, sliding down and pulling the sheet up to his chin. He stared down the expanse of his bed to where his toes made depressingly-small lumps beneath the blanket and tried to imagine them larger and further away, adult-sized again. It was both an easy thing and a difficult thing-- easy to recall both in sight and sensation, and difficult because it carried with it the memory of pain. Waiting-- wondering if he'd end the day in the same size he'd began it in-- it was like carrying a ticking time-bomb around inside his body.

And the worst of it?

He _wanted_ the change. Wanted the transformation, wanted the chance to turn back even for a little while. Restlessly Shinichi turned on his side, pulling the covers up to nose-level and closing his eyes as fatigue washed over him in a dizzying wave. It was a little like craving a drug (something that would make him cringe with irony if it wasn't so damn sad), and if it happened, he knew perfectly well he'd welcome the effects while they lasted.

...though not the cause. _That,_ he didn't want to think too hard about.

Huddling beneath the blankets, he allowed sleep to drag him down.

* * *

"Shinichi? Shiniiiichi, wake up." A gentle hand on his shoulder, a gentle voice, brought Shinichi back to a room lit low by electric lights. The window was dark and the clock confirmed the hour.

"Ran? Hey..." Wiping sleep from his eyes with one fist, Shinichi curled his other hand around Ran's, anchoring his pull against her strength to pull himself upright. "Everything okay?"

From her seat on the bed's edge beside him, Ran stroked Shinichi's bangs back from his eyes, smiling. "Everything's fine. I stayed here to do my homework after classes, and Hattori-kun came back from his research a few hours later, with some things about the case. Tousan tagged along, he said he wants to take me home." She put on a masculine tone. "'I haven't seen my daughter in--'" She laughed. "He just wants me to cook for him. Either way, I'll have to sleep at home tonight, just to pacify him. I didn't want to wake you just to tell you that, so I let you sleep through dinner."

"Dunno if I would have been hungry anyway," Shinichi yawned, stretching a little with Ran's support. "We did eat when you came home, anyway." He pulled a face. "...That was today, right?"

"It was," Ran reassured him. "And also today was Heiji telling us about getting eaten by the escalator, and Heiji talking to his father about the case, and Heiji bringing his father over to talk with you about what you've discovered so far, to share knowledge!"

Shinichi had about three seconds to process that before Ran was tugging him forward, pulling the blankets from his legs. "If you hurry you can get cleaned up before everyone gets settled in the living room."

It took a little longer than expected; sleep-drugged and very wobbly on his feet, Shinichi managed to get himself into some semblance of order, wrap himself in a bathrobe, find his long-abandoned glasses and his equally discarded Conan-Face before being helped down the hall to where a gabble of voices were making Agasa's house much louder than the norm. Leaning on Ran (she'd offered a little mischievously to carry him in; he'd declined with dignity), Shinichi-- _Conan_-- paused as the voices in the room abruptly paused and far too many eyes swung towards him.

Agasa, Mouri, Ai, Heiji... and 'Oni' Hattori Heizo himself, who had paused in mid-sentence to blink at Conan's shaky entrance. A look of relief flitted across the man's stern face, giving him the faintest resemblance to his son (or the other way around) for just a moment; Heiji really resembled his mother in most respects. "Good to see you, bozu," he rumbled gruffly, nodding as Conan was settled comfortably on the couch beside Ran; the boy nodded politely back, relieved that even in this company it wouldn't seem all that weird if he leaned against his 'guardian' for comfort.

Ran's hand smoothed his hair; he accepted a cup of something that probably wasn't... no; it wasn't coffee or even tea, it was hot milk, and he gave Ai a slightly betrayed look which she returned blandly. "Hi, Heiji-niisan," he chirped. "So what did you find out?"

"We know a lot of things," Heiji's father began, drawing the attention of all in the room. He was known for being brusque and all business, so his tone came as no surprise to his audience. With a small nod, his son deferred to him, handing over the lead of the conversation.

"We know we're dealing with an international arrangement," Heizo began, "And we have concrete evidence, from Heiji's research in Koto, that Hoshi Gyuniku has been receiving shipments at Chofu, instead of Narita, in a pattern which aligns with this most recent shipment." He shuffled through a small stack of papers, some with smaller notes paperclipped to them, brow drawing down in focus. "The body parts found within have been sorted in four ways. First, by length of time frozen. This method showed us that after being frozen in batches, the parts were scrambled and distributed between the cows. Secondly, by genetically matching like parts to like. This method showed which parts originally came from the same persons - and that except for the children, the victims were not family members of each other. Thirdly, by amount of tissue decay. This showed us that all the parts were frozen very soon after death, preventing most progression of rot and decay. Fourth, we sorted the parts by damage due to freezing. None of the parts showed significant evidence of repeated cell wall rupture - which means that they were likely frozen once, directly after death, and have remained frozen since that time."

Heizo turned his attention to Mouri, who cleared his throat and picked up the thread of explanation. "The four sets of data show that, within the sets of body parts which were taken from each person, decay before freezing and damage due to length of time frozen are comparable. This means that our victims' parts were all frozen together, which rules out the possibility of torture or dismemberment in stages. The selection of body parts also indicates a particular purpose." The Sleeping Detective (who was, at least for the moment, in one of his regrettably-rare serious moods) drew his brows together with a black look. "No torsos mean no major organs; a lack of hearts, livers, et cetera, and the removal of eyes from the few heads we've found mean..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"An organ farm. Isn't that right, Heiji-niisan? That's what you said." Conan's voice was still childish but as serious as the adult faces around him; Heizo blinked, his eyes widening briefly before he recovered-- he _had_ been around the boy a few times in the past, but it still wasn't all that easy for even a senior officer to accept the 'child's' clinical outlook. "And the feet and hands come mostly from really poor people, and the teeth too." He sat up a little, glancing inquiringly at Hattori. "And... you told me something about the tattoos..." Nudge, nudge, c'mon, Heiji, your turn.

The younger Hattori returned the look, deliberately reaching across and tousling the boy's hair (who resisted the impulse to bite. Just.) "That's right, bozu, the tattoos. Chirokawa-san figured 'em out first, he saw a gang connection; I followed up on it and... Oyaji? You know anybody in Guatemala?"

His father raised a heavy eyebrow. "The Mala gang connection, yes; I passed along what you told me and began an inquiry." Oni Heizo's eyes took on a gleam that past perpetrators had come to fear with a bone-deep dread. "We received a report early this morning via Interpol, actually-- your suspicions were right, the head in question belonged to a former gang-member who vanished while seeking work two months ago in Cobán. His girlfriend filed a missing person's report; we've verified that he'd been undergoing some fairly primitive tattoo-removal excisement as well over the past year, so--" Heizo made an abrupt motion with one hand that laid any question of identity to rest. "The other body parts, in general, belong to similar genotypes as far as the M.E.'s office has been able to determine... with the exception of one adult male."

Mouri grunted, picking up one of the papers he'd brought in with him. "'Mid-forties, Asian, very possibly Japanese per bone-structure and dental techniques used,' blah blah blah; they found his head and a couple of hands." He flipped the paper over, clearing his throat as he read aloud again. "'Extremities show little callus or intense muscular development. Minor indications of carpal-tunnel syndrome on the right wrist.' Paper-pusher of some sort, probably, who saw something he shouldn't've. Maybe even a tourist."

Conan scowled at that, then schooled his expression into something more innocent and inquisitive. "Ne, Ojisan, how long ago was he frozen?"

"Eh?"

"Well, if he wasn't frozen a long time, then maybe something went wrong? I mean, recently? And they killed him and froze him because they were in a hurry to hide him?" Conan pulled his bathrobe around him a little tighter; beside him, Ran shifted, her arm sliding down to rest on his thin shoulders. "So maybe he's just been reported missing, or not too long ago. It's something, isn't it?"

Across from him, _both_ of Heizo's eyebrows were up; he eyed the boy on the couch with disturbingly sharp, black eyes. "Hm. Back to Chirokawa-san again. S'pose I'll have to have a talk with the man; we haven't met yet."

"Call ahead," his son advised him, white teeth gleaming. "And be sure'n wear a clean shirt."

Heizo met his son's eyes, measured his seriousness, and harumphed. "Noted. If your suspicions are correct, bozu, then Missing Persons will have information on a Japanese citizen, middle forties, who matches the remnants that we have in our custody. He may become the link that takes us back to Hoshi Gyuniku."

"And Kiti Kusa!" Conan chirped, drawing a smack from Heiji and the intense attention of Heizo and Mouri both.

"What was that, boyo?" Mouri grumbled, one eyebrow hiked high. "What're you babbling about?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, I think he's just tired," Heiji interjected, ruffling Conan's hair with enough force to push his head down an inch or two. "Isn't that right, kid?"

"Petfood!" Conan replied. "Kiti Kusa makes petfood. Heiji-niichan was going to talk to the people there to ask if they know the people at the beef company."

Heizo swung his focus over to his son, and Heiji met it evenly. "Kid's right," he offered, in response to the unasked question. "I was going to ask around at Kiti Kusa, up near Chofu, but I got sidetracked and didn't get there today."

Heizo's eyes narrowed. "What were you hoping to find there? And why didn't you mention this to me?"

"No proof yet," Heiji grumbled. "But there's a theory - the kid helped think it up, actually." The barest of pauses passed while Conan and Ran recognized the double entendre, and then Heiji was continuing his explanation. "They gotta get rid of these parts somehow, right? We haven't had any reports of Guatemalan Mala bits showing up in the gutters. So where's it going? Somewhere that it wouldn't get questioned."

"The beef isn't nice beef," Conan explained, picking up the thread. "Ran-neechan and Kaasan always buy the nice beef, with all the marbled fat in it. But this beef was tough and not marbled at all."

"It was frozen, too," Heiji added. "An' before you tell me I'm pointing out the obvious, remember mosta the beef that comes into the country's chilled, not froze, cause sukiyaki and stuff makes better with chilled beef instead of frozen. But it's not been just this shipment, either."

Heizo nodded, beginning to see the shape of what his son was describing. "Fifteen years of shipments through Chofu," he murmured. "Your theory would state the purpose of the beef is...?"

"Beef _and_ its cargo," Heiji clarified. "That's where I think Kiti Kusa comes in, but I don't have proof yet. There's two petfood canneries up in Chofu, but my guesses take me to this one, based on the information I got from the company that repairs Hoshi Gyuniku's freezers and freezer trucks."

Heizo nodded. "We'll pursue that line of investigation further, using the power of the police department. Good work, Heiji." Heiji sat up straighter, fighting to hide how pleased the praise made him. Ran stepped in to move the conversation along, hiding her _own_ smile as she felt Conan tense under her hand, thrilled for Heiji's sake by Heizo's praise.

"What about the Guatemalan organ farm?" All eyes turned to her, even Conan's, and Ran simply squeezed Conan's shoulder lightly as she met her father's and Heizo's eyes. "How did the Japanese man come back to Japan in pieces? If he hasn't been...damaged, by not being frozen right away, then he would have had to be frozen _in_ Guatemala, wouldn't he? And so why did he go there? They wouldn't kidnap him and take him there just to kill him if he was troublesome to them, they would kill him right away, here, wouldn't they? So did he go to Guatemala on his own?"

"Guatemala isn't the biggest tourist trap for Japanese travelers," Heiji added. "But a lotta companies send guys to check on their supply chain's outsource locations, especially when they're supplies that you can't make in Japan."

The pause that followed was of mixed caliber. Ran and Heiji waited, Mouri seemed to have just reached a breakthrough, and Conan and Heizo's eyes narrowed. Heizo was the first to speak.

"That had occurred to us as well, Mouri-san," he said hesitantly. "And as we do not want to publicize the fact that we have sufficient information to make that leap, much less take steps toward confirming it, I hope you can understand that that detail, even more so than the rest of what we've discussed tonight, must be held in _strictest_ confidence." He glanced at Conan, measuring the boy; Conan looked back, expression serious.

"Regardless," Heizo continued finally, collecting his materials into a neat stack between both big hands, "from here, the investigation will be a joint effort between Japanese authorities and the resources of Interpol. Tonight's meeting has been helpful - we now know that all our knowledge is pooled, and the extra information that Heiji has discovered will guide my officers, and Chiaki-keibu's, as we proceed."

Clearing his throat, Heizo stood. Heiji, Mouri, and Agasa popped up from their seats as well, in respect. "From this point on, I have to ask that none of you investigate further into this case," Heizo instructed them. "We are entering a delicate period of the work, and the case will best be handled by my officers. This goes _double_ for you, Heiji," he added, aiming a strict glare in his son's direction. "One attempt on your life is enough."

"A-ah, hai, hai," Hattori stammered. "Not to worry, Oyaji."

With a few brusque goodbyes, and only after extracting expansive promises from both their offspring to be _careful, dammit,_, Heizo and Mouri left.

When the door was safely closed, everyone remaining held their peace for a few long seconds, waiting until the engine rumble in front of the house assured them that the detective and the inspector were well on their way. Then all heads pivoted toward Hattori. Ai said what everyone else was thinking.

"Only _one_ attempt on your life, Hattori-kun?"

Heiji sighed, pushing back his hat and scratching the head beneath it. "I didn't see whoever pushed me, not one damn glimpse. Can't _prove_ it wasn't some stupid thug just havin' his idea of a good time. And no, I don't think it was either, but-- and why do it, anyway? What would killin' me accomplish?"

"...aside from making this world a quieter place? _Distraction,"_ Ai responded dryly, arms crossed.

Conan-- Shinichi-- nodded, pushing himself a little more upright in the curve of Ran's arm. "The first attempt took place directly following our run-in with the news reporters; you have a famous father, also involved in the case and capable of bringing in elements of international law. That's the greatest danger right there, the fact that the pursuit of the culprits has the potential of passing Japanese borders and involving extradition; and therefore, the most dangerous person to our criminal or criminals would be your father."

Beside him, Ran bit her lip. "Killing you before he got involved with international contacts might... buy time for the criminals to get away. It does make sense." She shivered.

Across from her, though, Hattori Heiji was visibly swelling up in a storm of wrath equal to anything his famous father had ever presented. "My getting splattered all over the landscape under some goddamned car's wheels or strangled by a frickin' escalator was _**just a diversion?!?**_" He went on about this for several minutes, using certain choice words and phrases that he'd been apparently saving for just such an occasion; trading looks between them, his audience allowed the tirade to run its course before Agasa at last stepped in.

"Mah, mah, Hattori-kun, I'm sure they were intending for you to fall down the escalator and break your neck, not be strangled by it." He waved soothing hands in the air; Shinichi made a muffled noise and covered his eyes.

"--an' that's supposed to make me feel _BETTER?"_

"Errhm." The Professor blinked. "I'll, err, I'll just... go fetch us all something to drink, shall I?" Moving quickly for a man of his age and bulk, Agasa retreated into the kitchen.

Hattori glared at Agasa's back as he made his retreat, and Ai, nearest to him, snickered quietly as Hattori fought the urge to growl. "Why the rage, Hattori-kun? Shouldn't you be vindicated that your enemy in this case is clearly of an intellectual level sufficient to give you proper chase?"

"No," Hattori snarled, taking his nicely simmering sulk with him as he stole Agasa's armchair and curled up petulantly in it. "Cause it's not mine to chase anymore - you heard what my old man said. And don't think for a second that I want to just let it go, but think about what'd happen if I don't, and the crooks catch me catchin' them? Any evidence I could provide 'bout what I saw would at the best get to be registered as a civilian witness's testimony. And while the cops tried to catch up with me to see what I saw, the crooks'd be out the door with their cows and their passports. I can help best at this point by sitting the hell still, and that sucks."

"You have my sympathies," Shinichi offered, his tone dry as dust. "I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to sit around doing _nothing_ all day....ow! Oi, _Ran!_"

Smiling angelically, Ran tweaked Shinichi's ear again, immune to his glare. "All uses of sarcasm aside, I think the best thing to do would be to decide what we can do with you two now. If you're both off the case now, we need to figure out something to keep you busy so you don't go crazy. And Hattori-kun, you can't go home yet; going on the train for that long by yourself wouldn't be safe, I think, with your father still on his case. You're still a...um..." She pulled up short of saying it, but Hattori rolled his eyes anyway.

"Distraction, I know."

* * *

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_Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back with us next week for _**_Book Two, Chapter Twelve_****_: "arpeggio, Shoujo Tantei, yakitori"_**_  
_


	20. Arpeggio, Shoujo Tantei, yakitori

_Welcome back to Three Thieves, for our penultimate chapter of Book Two. Warnings this time around for deep angst and avian cannibalism. Advertisements for floral vows, gender equality, shmoop via takeout, and a whole lot of dishonest behavior by munchkins._

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_**Three Thieves**__: a story about crossing boundaries.  
__**Book Two, Chapter Twelve**__**: "arpeggio, Shoujo Tantei, yakitori"**  
by _ _**ysabet**__ and __**rednightengale**__.  
Crossposted to LJ communities __**threethieves, dc_yaoi**__, _ _**detective_conan**__, _ _**magic_kaitou**__, and _ _**manycases1truth**__._

* * *

The rest of the evening passed very quietly; exhausted by the activity and even the little exertion he'd managed, Shinichi ate a few mouthfuls, downed Ai's ever-present assortment of nutrient and vitamin pills and went back to bed without protest. He was vaguely aware of the others talking beyond his door, but the leaden fatigue and aches that dragged at his limbs pulled him under without a ripple, and when he surfaced again the house was dark and silent.

The clock told him that everyone had long since gone their respective ways to bed-- Heiji and Ran back to the Mouri residence, Agasa and Ai to their own rooms. Nothing disturbed the peace of the late hour, and as Shinichi reached slowly out to turn on his small bedside lamp, his own movements and the click of the switch sounded like muted thunder.

With that inconvenient derangement of time that a sick person so often gets, he felt strangely wakeful; everything ached, especially the long bones and joints of thigh and hip (which made sense, if his white-cell count was going weird on him-- the largest concentration of bone-marrow produced the largest quantity) and his skin felt twitchy, over-sensitized. Restless but unwilling to wake anyone, he looked around a little desperately for something to do.

There were still several books piled within reach; for a few moments he contemplated the usual cure for insomnia, reading until your eyes were tired enough to shut; but then Shinichi's glance strayed towards his laptop, charged and resting close enough to grab if he just stretched a bit... Cursing his own weakness and the unreliability of his muscles, it took the boy three attempts to get the thing in place; but as flipped the lid open, a shooting pain in his hip made him wince and rub the offending joint.

There was something in his pocket--

_Oh._

It had been there all evening, like a talisman. Like the coral-bells-and-clover charm in his wallet and the notes he'd stashed quietly away... and like the little datebook he'd shown to Ran not all that long ago, with certain days circled in red. Things of importance, things conveying messages-- Blindly he unrolled the narrow scroll of paper, fingertips sliding across text and caricatures as if their meaning would seep through his skin if he touched them enough. The grand finale of the orange rosebud (now browning with his body-heat and the pressure of being hauled around in a pocket) slipped out into Shinichi's lap at the end and lay there like the secret it was.

Kid hadn't asked for an answer; he hadn't even hinted at wanting one. It'd be so much easier not to answer, wouldn't it? There was a comfort in keeping silent; and yet the very existance of the letter seemed to demand a response.

Shinichi swallowed hard against the sudden dryness of his throat. How could he-- what...

...could he even say?

_I have Ran, I can't--_

__

If I could, I--

_She hasn't said a word. She went after him for me, did she realize, did she know...? She hasn't asked but she's GOT to-- even Heiji almost--_ His jumbled thoughts tripped over each other, tangling their feet and doing nothing but stumbling around in circles. _I can't screw this up, I have to get it __right__, oh God I can't, I won't, please don't let me have hurt Ran, she's already been hurt enough..._

_But so have I. And I promised I'd tell him the truth, wouldn't lie. I promised Ran the same thing. I __**promised**__._

_It's not a question of, of-- I don't have a problem with-- I just __don't__. I've never understood it before or seen the attraction, but... I've never looked the other way, either. Never thought about it a lot, but when I did, I... wondered. There was always Ran when there was anybody; but I guess if anyone understands that things change, it's me. The timing sure sucks, though, doesn't it? And I guess it's not, not a change so much as an explanation. An addition, not a subtraction. Nothing lost. Nothing lost._ The fleeting thought ran through Shinichi's mind that, in a way, he should've been grateful for the distractions of weakness and illness; otherwise, despite, well... everything... he'd probably be dying out of sheer embarrassment.

_God, Kid. The things you've put me through. The things __**I've**__ put you through. And Ran-- not an afterthought, never, not a second choice or an instead-of or, or anything else like that; a pivot-point, if anything. I can't lose her, I can't._

_...and maybe, just __maybe__, I won't have to._ His fingers slid across the line towards the last section, beyond the tiny filmstrip of Kid's transformation from Phantom Thief to man. Kid had given him his truth; Shinichi'd given Ran the same thing. And Ran... had always, even when she protested it, given him the truth too: the thing he'd valued the most. And last of all, Kid had promised to protect that gift, that bond.

So-- confronted with that strange, unasked-for generosity, what right did he have to keep his comfortable silence? Shinichi stared at the thin, curling strip of paper as he ran it absentmindedly through his fingers, over and over. He could just pick up a trace of rose-scent rising up from the warm, bruised petals in his lap, and unbidden the image of Kid's first caricature in the letter came to mind, the one that had made him smile.

Long minutes passed before the boy moved at last, and when he did there was a certainty in his actions that hadn't been there before: _this is what I'm going to do, this is how I'll do it, this is what will result from my actions._ The glow of his laptop spilled across the covers after a few seconds, one finger hastily muting the sound as it booted up. A few moments later he'd found the links he needed, and Shinichi clicked on the bookmark that took him to the Welcome Holmes website.

Two minutes later he sat staring at the pair of links he'd loaded into the simple private message; they glowed back at him, blue text on white, innocuous and innocent, and he wondered what Kid's reaction would've been if he'd only sent the first and not the second. Swallowing against the hard knot that had found a place somewhere in his throat, Shinichi hit the enter key before he could have second thoughts... and then sat back, wondering just what he had done.

_Guess I've taken a leaf from Kid's book-- how did he put it? 'Wildly, with insanity in the face of caution, in ways that cannot be taken back.' That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell, which is really an appropriate way to put it. After that... I'll need to talk to Ran. But not tonight._ Weariness and a sudden, strong craving for sleep dragged at his hands, fingers fumbling as they shut down the laptop and laid it aside; for some reason he found himself stowing the rosebud and its letter inside the laptop's hinged fold, fitting it narrowly within the thin space between the bottom of the screen and the top of the keys as if trying to press the thing inside a book. It was, Shinichi supposed, a better place to hide it than his pajama-pocket.

_And now,_ he thought silently to himself as he turned out the light, _we'll see what happens. Kid took a gamble on me; now it's my turn. Please, please, let me get this one right._

Shinichi slept.

* * *

One two three four one two three four one two three four...

Arpeggio.

Slim fingers slithered down the keys smoothly, fingertips drifting up from the glassy ivories with deliberate, thoughtless precision. The piano seemed to sigh on every beat - his left hand kept steady, slow rhythm, the weighted, contemplative chords coming to rest one at a time. Gently, his right joined in; the piano seemed to whimsically consider each note as his fingers sought the keys steadily. Deft touch, light touch, steady touch, and even as each played, his fingers lifted up again, on to the next note, the next heist, unfalteringly.

What would she say--

What would she think he'd say

The words fell one to a note, each a single tone, a single thought. No images accompanied them; his eyes were closed but he saw the keys, saw the blacks and whites. No greys. His wrist lifted, turned; sweeping his fingers along behind it, on to the next notes. They touched down like ghosts, soft touch with the hard line of his fingernails, clipped close, carefully pointing straight down, wrists strong, knuckles high. Perfect poise. His fingertips compressed to the keys; the tips of his nails drew within a hair's breadth of clicking against the ivory and muddying the sound; the note played, they were lifted again, away to the next, cleanly rising away from black and white together, catching a passing glimpse of the piano's face, no sheets of music in its rack, as they passed.

One two three four one two three four one two three

His hand walked the scales, thumb and pinkie spread, dancing across their surfaces like a waterbug, barely breaking the surface. His face -- his mask -- was a smooth, clear pond. Adding forte to some notes now, emphasis and insistence:

One two three one two three two three two three what--

would--

she say--

Now for the 'waltz.' His fingers came down like water over rocks, up and down and up and down, a staircase drawn in clear, ringing tones. He brought his wondering mind back in to center, spiraling down, as his right hand made its way, one two three one two three, back toward his left.

One chord for every beat, shifting notches to the left and right, his left played the bass line that anchored the piece. It thought in circles, paced soft tracks in the floor, returned to its beginning to play the sequence over again. His right went gallivanting back up the keyboard, notes ringing purer and clearer the closer his fingertips neared the cloud line. He could feel the wind on his cheeks. It was cold.

One two three one two three one two three.

One two three four one two three four one two three four.

His right hand and left spoke to each other as he played, a casual conversation at a remove. Know yet? / Never will / Hear that? / Hold still. He opened his eyes, tipping his head back to the ceiling; the wide, broad back of the piano, her big curves luscious and dark against the blond planks of the floor, reflected back at him. Hn. They hadn't remembered to remove the mirrors, then. He'd thought the other one had. He looked back to his keys before the sweep of his gaze brought his own face into view.

Slow arpeggio, walk down the chord, rest. Continue. His right hand returned from its adventures in the high scales, climbing back down, lilting toward the steady chords of his left. Anchor and explorer. Lodestone and ore. Polar opposites...matched set.

"Aoko. I'm Kaitou Kid."

Aoko's eyes widened a little, her double-fisted grip cinching tighter on her mop handle. "You're not funny, Kaito," she growled, angling her elbows out and up for more swinging power. "You can't distract me that easily."

"What if it was true?" he challenged her, midair in a flip above her head. He landed lightly, the toes of one rubber-soled school shoe lightly spanning the foremost edge of a trash bin.

"It's not," she replied, flipping the mop end for end for a quick jab. He landed atop the handle, one foot in front of the other, an impossible balance beam. Aoko straightened out of her attacking crouch, petulantly bracing the head of the mop against her hip, both hands throttling it at its midpoint. She shook it lightly; Kaito held his balance on it easily, swaying like a sapling in the wind.

"What if it was?"

"It's not," Aoko clarified. She glanced behind herself quickly - the space was clear - and took a quick double step backwards, yanking the broom handle out from beneath Kaito's feet faster than he could adjust. He pushed off; the tip of the handle clacked against the floor as his weight pushed it down. Aoko dropped with it rather than be doubled over, which would expose her back; from a crouch, mop held up to guard, she watched Kaito land, heels neatly together on the classroom tile.

He stared her down. "What if it was?"

"No. Kaitou Kid is different than you. That's all there is to it," she growled at him. "Now are you going to fight me or not?"

"I never fight you, Aoko," Kaito said. (One two three four one two three four.) "You never catch me for long enough to make me."

* * *

He sat on the piano bench beside him, facing away from the keys. His left shoulder pressed his left shoulder; he folded his hands in his lap while and listened to the steady chords, heavy, one to a beat, slipping into being like little lead teardrops into a pond. He couldn't see the right hand that brought high, clear tearbells out of the broad curves of the grand piano; he imagined the fingers, slim, pale, tapered, dextrous. Each note was struck deliberately, a soft hammer and a tight-wound cord of metal wire, the sinew of the piano humming on every one.

"It's not her fault," the piano player offered eventually, his voice fitting soft and measured between the chords from his left hand.

"It's mine?"

"Don't think so." One two three, one two three, two three, two three, two three, two three. The notes laddered their way down, straddling each other in a patterned syncopation. "I think it's something her eyes can't see."

"Her heart."

"That too."

He sighed, tipping his head to the side. It fit neatly into the curve of neck and shoulder just under the other's ear. "I should have showed her?"

"Maybe not."

"I wanted to."

"I know."

_* * *_

_Tantei._

_Tantei._

_Wake up, Tantei._

Kid's eyes opened on the darkened ceiling of Kaito's bedroom. They were in bed. Proper pajamas, no uniform bits laying about, nobody - and nothing - in the bed or bedroom, as far as Kid could see, that shouldn't have been there.

He laid back down, gingerly settling himself head and shoulders into the oversized pillow. The back of one hand lifted to his brow, wiping away sweat-tacky bangs.

"Tantei"? It was nonsensical, but it was there. He'd dreamed of Shinichi - truly Shinichi, as he ought to be - leaning over him tenderly, shaking him awake.

Calling him "detective."

Kid stared unseeing to the ceiling. In the back of the head, Kaito stumbled from slumber, took stock of the situation, and brought his attention to the fore, touching Kid's shoulder in a gentle request for attention.

_"Let me drive, Kid. Play the song for us again. I don't think I'll sleep without i_t."

Mm. Kid slipped places with Kaito in the space of a breath, taking his seat at the piano in their darkened mirror room. The lid tapped quietly against its stops as he slid it back, baring the keys to the weak moonlight.

In bed, Kaito rolled onto his side, bunching the downy pillow up under his head.

Kid stretched his hands a little to warm them, and played.

* * *

Convalescence can bring out the very worst in a person. The sweetest-tempered of souls can turn into a surly, snappish, loathsome toad—it comes from a combination of cabin-fever, general malaise and discomfort, and after a while the sufferer becomes as deathly sick of themselves as their keepers do.

The progress of Shinichi's convalescence could be charted by the state of ruin that the Professor's spare room was gradually falling into. It had gone from utter neatness to acquiring a few stacks of books and a laptop; that had been followed by discarded newspapers on the bedside chair, the half-eaten remains of snacks and the occasional empty juice-glass. By the time Friday afternoon had rolled around, the bedcovers had been yanked loose from the foot and were in a convoluted and possibly non-Euclidean tangle.

Shinichi was _bored._ Horribly, horribly bored. Too wobbly yet to spend much time out of bed, too well to want to be there at all; he'd never been a good patient and his diminution hadn't changed that in the least. He wanted to be up and moving so badly he could taste it, and Ai had threatened twice to slip mood-altering drugs in among the huge doses of vitamins he was still taking.

(It didn't help, either, that he'd woken up with his heart in his mouth, _perfectly aware_ of the answer he'd sent to Kid only a few hours before. Or that he'd checked for a response no less than eleven times through the day. Or that he didn't exactly know what he was hoping for, or how to react to whatever he got, or… anything. Anything at all. With Ran, he'd at least had a clue or two to go by; but— not this time. This was where logic failed and instinct took over, and all he could hope for (and oh God, he hoped) was that he'd done the right thing.)

And so it was with extreme gratitude that Shinichi heard Heiji's familiar drawl speaking to someone as Agasa's front door closed. Marking his place in _The Complete Annotated Father Brown_, he sat up a little straighter against the pillows, trying to figure out who the other voices belonged to.

"—think so too, Hattori-niisan?"

That was... _Oh. Uh-oh. Well, Kudo, you knew they'd show up sooner or later; and anyway, it'll be good to see them. Better find your glasses in a hurry._

"Well, I think ya got a sound theory there, but y'oughta ask Ku--Conan what he thinks of the whole situation. He's the one in charge, right?" Hattori's smile was audible even from across the house, and Shinichi felt equally motivated to either laugh along with the Osaka detective....or strangle him with his own ballcap.

"He's the head Detective Boy, yeah!" A chorus of two agreeable shouts, both from higher voices than the misleadingly full baritone which Shinichi recognized easily as Genta's, told him that the whole crew was in attendance. _Like I expected otherwise. They're joined at the hips._

"Genta? Mitsuhiko? Ayumi?" Shinichi put on his Conan-voice, calling weakly to his friends; the response was as instantaneous as he'd expected.

"Conan-kuuuuun!" They shouted his name like a battle cry as the three of them thundered into his small sickroom. The bed shook a little as Genta pulled up short against its foot end; Mitsuhiko and Ayumi clamored at Conan's elbow, truly stricken expressions seeking reassurance in his.

"Conan-kun, are you really alright?"

"Ai-chan said that you were--"

"--took the case anyway, because we put Ayumi in charge while you were--"

"Genta-kun took all the--"

"--fair, Mitsuhiko, I told you it--"

"--is worried, how will you _ever_ catch up, and--"

"--since SUMMER, and--"

"--hasn't been sick _that_ long, don't be stupid--"

"I'm not stupid!"

"--and the kitten hasn't been seen for three days and--"

"You could _perhaps_ let him get a word in edgewise."

The trio's frantic, high-decibel chatter stumbled to a halt. Shinichi let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled thinly at Ai, just arrived in the doorway with a nonplussed Heiji behind her. He turned his smile on the kids, each in turn - Mitsuhiko's intense focus, Genta's determined concentration, Ayumi's huge, wibbly eyes.

"It's good to see you guys too."

Three faces beamed at him, and the familiar mixture of exasperation and wry gratitude washed over Shinichi, as comfortable and close-fitting by now as a winter sweater that itches a bit, yes, but is also very warm. Sometimes in his more morbid moments he wondered how long he would have survived without the friendship and camaraderie they'd imposed on him—if his appearance had been a bit older, say early teens, Shinichi's intelligence and mannerisms wouldn't have received anywhere near the acceptance he'd gotten. Adolescents (particularly in the group-minded Japanese school system) were notorious for mocking and ridiculing what didn't fit in; he'd been through it once, and a second time… would have been unbearable. Possibly even unlivable, in a very literal sense.

It was a depressing thought, and he shook it off, rolling his eyes as he accepted a packet of homework to catch up on from Ayumi, who in her position as Temporary Head Detective Boy_("GIRL,"_ she'd said darkly) had begun a high-speed delivery of the facts of their current case. It seemed that the Shonen Tantei had been specializing in pet retrieval lately.

"—found it in some bushes and it couldn't hardly eat yet so Satomi-kun's been giving it some of his baby sister's bottle when his kaasan wasn't looking, and three days ago—QUIT it, Mitsuhiko-kun, let me talk!—three days ago it vanished, and he's looked everywhere and he left us a note in Genta-kun's shoes and we talked to him and we're going to look this afternoon." She finished on a note of triumph, face pink, and then added sadly, "but you can't come with us 'cause you're sick. How much longer're you going to be sick, Conan-kun?"

He squirmed uncomfortably; "I wish I knew," he said, and beyond the three young faces Ai's flickered with something very much like guilt before smoothing out into her normal calm. "But you guys can keep me updated, can't you? I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen you here before now, really."

Genta scowled, bottom lip sticking out mulishly. "Agasa-hakase said we couldn't, not 'til you were feeling better." He peered at Conan's pale face; "You've got great big black bags under your eyes, Conan-kun. You need to eat more unagi, it's good for you! I could bring you some—" Visions of eel-procuration adventures danced gleefully in his eyes.

"Doesn't Conan-kun hate unagi?" asked Ai mildly from behind the group; "He always gives his to you, doesn't he, Genta-kun?"

"WellYEAH, but this time I'd only eat a LITTLE so he could—"

"Genta-kun, that's just really a great big—"

"STOOOOOPPIIIIT." Ayumi planted her hands on her hips, fuming; she looked severely at Ai. "Don't be mean, Ai-chan! And Genta-kun, you can only bring Conan-kun some unagi if he promises to eat it all. And Mitsuhiko-kun, YOU shush and listen up. We still need to find that kitten, and there's the other case too!" Both boys subsided, animosity dropping to the level of surreptitious elbow-poking. Ai, surprisingly, only shrugged slightly and inclined her head, something that made Heiji put up an eyebrow.

"So—this kitten…" A few questions and answers later, it had been established that a) the foundling had been kept in an open box less than three meters from where it had initially appeared; that b) yes, a mama-cat and kittens of approximately the same age were living in the garden-shed of another classmate only two houses away; and c) the mama-cat, her kittens and the missing foundling were all ginger-striped. Q.E.D., an expedition was planned for that afternoon to escort Satomi-kun over to visit said mama-cat and her offspring in order to possibly identify the missing feline. As Satomi-kun's little sister had painstakingly painted all the kitten's tiny claws with pink nail-polish the day prior to its disappearance (a possible cause), identification would prove no problem.

"And what's this about another case?"

Ayumi frowned, small hands gripping the edge of Conan's bed anxiously. "We've been working on it for two _weeks,_" she began, "And we can't figure it out, and Yoshitsa-kun is worried sick, and--"

Shinichi put up a hand to soothe her, and Ayumi's quickly rising tone settled down into something less frantic. "Ayumi, tell me from the beginning: What's the case about?"

At Ayumi's elbow, Mitsuhiko cut in. "Yoshitsa-kun's father is missing! He went on a business trip and her mama said that he would be back soon, but she watches the way her mama makes dinner and her hands shake, and Yoshitsa-kun is worried that he's been gone longer than he was supposed to be. And she said her mama won't let her phone him like he said she could, because he won't wake up til after her bedtime, and she wants to stay up late to wait for him to wake up, but her mama won't let her either."

Genta piped up from the end of the bed, frowning with worry. "Once she thought she saw her mama wipe her cheek like she was crying but Yoshitsa-kun says her mama _never_ cries."

Ayumi nodded firmly. "And we don't have any clues, we even went over to Yoshitsa-kun's house and her mama made us donburi and it was really good, but we didn't see anything suspicious. And we couldn't get near his job because there was a policeman there, and then Takagi-keiji and Sato-keiji came out of the door too, and so we're worried that he's in trouble and got arrested and we don't know what to tell Yoshitsa-kun at all. We haven't told her about the detectives yet."

"So we want you to solve it!" Genta declared, drawing an immediate glare from Mitsuhiko.

"Conan's _sick_, Genta, he can't solve it all by himself."

Ayumi frowned at the both of them, then turned imploring eyes on Conan. "But can you _help_ us solve it?"

Conan grimaced; this had all the possibilities of a very sordid story and a very old one— bored businessman, prosaic wife, inconvenient offspring and the lure of escape. Then again, how many times had he seen the obvious turn out to be smoke and mirrors? "I can try," he hazarded. He pushed the scatter of books aside and pulled his laptop back into place, booting it up. "You remember the thing I was working on a few weeks ago? The data-sheet?"

Mitsuhiko looked interested. "The list of questions? We could get Yoshitsa-kun to fill it out— she could get some of it from her mom, couldn't she?" He craned his head sideways, trying to get a glimpse of the screen; Conan's laptop was a source of quite a bit of envy for the gadget-crazy boy.

"Questions?" Heiji had stepped forward to the other side of the bed and was, comically, leaning forward in a dead mirror-image of Mitsuhiko. "What kind of questions?"

Conan read the list off: "A—Person was last seen where? B—Person was last seen when? C—"

Heiji blinked. "Who by, what resources did he have, what resources were available, transportation, what did they take with them… pretty good basic deal, 'specially if you're doin' stuff at a distance." He glanced up at the trio. "You think you kids can get all this?"

The Shonen Tantei looked at each other. "We can," answered Ayumi importantly. She drew herself up to her small height, a confident smile on her face. "Yoshitsa-kun said we could come over tonight if we had anymore questions." The girl fingered her badge, displayed proudly by her collar. "We're _good_ at what we do."

"Then you can take care of this." Conan had been loading the file onto a flash-drive; he passed it over—Mitsuhiko's hand snapped out, snagging it before any of the other three could move; the boy dove past the others in the room, heading towards the computer equipment in the other room. "Go ask the Professor to print you out a handful of these, will you?" He leaned back against the pillows, one hand rubbing at the side of his head. He yawned. "Sorry, guys. Still a little worn out."

Hattori reached out, laying a brown hand backwise against the boy's forehead; one eyebrow went up. "Kinda warm, Ku—Conan. More damn fever?" He grimaced, bringing his hands together in a sharp clap. "Okay, idea. I need somethin' to do, you need t'rest, these guys've got an ongoing investigation…"

Ayumi and Genta blinked. "You want to come with us, Hattori-niisan?" Genta hazarded. "You could—we could make you an honorary Detective Boy—"

"GIRL."

"Ayumi-chan, he's not a girl. I'M not a girl. We can't be the, the..." Genta blanched. "...the _Shoujo_ Tantei."

She stuck out her bottom lip. "I," she announced, "am not a boy. I'm a GIRL. And right now I'm the Head Detective, right? So that makes us the Shoujo Tantei until Conan's back. So _there."_She turned to Heiji. "I'll get you a badge from Agasa-hakase, he's got some extras. C'mon, Ai-chan," she said with dignity, and stomped out of the room. Ai gave the remaining three males in the room an amused look before following.

Genta sighed. "Girls," he said gloomily, "are really, really weird. Get better fast, okay, Conan-kun?" He dragged along behind Ai, leaving Heiji and Conan alone.

The two looked at each other. With an exaggerated eyebrow-waggle and an audible useage of capitals, Conan deadpanned: "He's A Teenaged Detective With A Knack For Kendo And A Crappy Sense Of Self-Preservation; They're A Trio Of Precocious Preadolescents With An Understanding Of Correct Police Procedure. Together, They Fight Crime!"

Hattori's one-handed response was non-verbal but completely understandable; the boy laughed, fighting back another yawn and closing his laptop. "Have fun, Hattori."

* * *

Shinichi woke to the sound of gentle tapping. Some part of his mind laughed mockingly at him as he followed his first impulse, looking not to the room's door, but up toward its small window. But Shinichi was vindicated - a bird sat tapping the glass lightly with its beak. Shinichi scrambled up to open the window, letting it in, accompanied by a burst of frigid air that made him slam the window shut again, curling up beneath his thick stack of blankets to stop his shivering. From within this cocoon, Shinichi examined his visitor.

He couldn't precisely call it a pigeon, but the bird sitting on his knees was unlike any dove he'd seen from Kid yet. Along with the chevrons of charcoal grey across its wings and its dull rose throat, the dove's most notable feature was the fact that it was, well...grey. Nearly black on its points, at head and knees. Shinichi didn't know _that_ much about birds, but he was pretty sure that doves were only supposed to come in pale colors. And this one was definitely not pale. But it behaved like a trained dove, not a common pigeon, and it was calmly wearing a message tube.

Shinichi's thoughts jerked back to the last communication he'd had with Kid - the message he'd sent, with links to blue roses and almond flowers. He had no idea at all how Kid would react to something like that - to any of this, really. And he had a gut feeling - a fault of his detective's intuition, perhaps - that Kid was making things up as he went. _That makes two of us._

With an understandable amount of trepidation, Shinichi coaxed the dove closer, opened the message capsule, and unrolled the small slip of paper.

_Care for a late lunch? I deliver._

_-kk_

His immediate, overpowering impulse was to hide beneath the bedcovers or quite possibly the bed itself; that was swiftly quashed by _What are you, five?_ followed by the mental equivalent of a head-desk. _Right. Murderers with guns and knives? Easy. A little social interaction with a... whatever... and you flail. You're both reasonable adults, right?_ The problem with thatstatement, of course, was that one of them was anything but reasonable and the other was anything but adult. To all appearances, anyway; take that a little further and figure in Kid's exacting logic regarding heists and Shinichi's actual age, and it all flipped around like one of those trick drawings where you saw either two human faces or a beautiful vase but never both at the same time.

...ergh. He was stalling, and doing a bad job of it at that.

_Brazen it out, Kudo. If he can make things up as he goes, then so can you._ Agasa had gone out to run errands, the Shoun-- _Shoujo_ Tantei, Ai and their erstwhile addition had gone kitten-hunting and then, supposedly, to visit Yoshitsa-kun's home. Ran wouldn't be over until after she'd cooked dinner for her father, so... Shinichi actually had the place to himself for a few hours. Weird; he hadn't actually been alone, really _alone_ in quite a while. Absentmindedly he stroked the dark grey dove; it seemed to like it, ducking its rounded head beneath his fingers and shoving at them demandingly.

"What d'you think, bird?" Shinichi murmured softly. The dove merely cocked one shining black eye at his fingers and muttered deep in its throat, riffling its banded wings slightly to keep its balance on the covers. "Yes? No? He's crazy? _I'm_ crazy?" It settled its wings calmly, butting against his hand again.

_Birds of a feather..._ Despite the recent weirdness, it'd be good to see Kid again-- really good. And there was a pencil in the bedside table's drawer.

A few minutes later the gray dove was on its way, bearing a reverse-sided message that said _Sure, your turn to buy. -- KS_ Closing the window, Shinichi settled himself back beneath the covers and tried to pretend that his shakey nerves owed more to weakness and the cold than to anything else.

Less than ten minutes later, the front door clicked open. Shinichi sat bolt upright in bed, heart hammering, as Professor Agasa's alarm system alerted the household: _"Please disarm system now. Disarm within ten...nine...eight..."_ Just as he had decided to bolt - well, stumble as quickly as possible - toward the front door to aid the intruder (if it was Kid) or subdue them (if otherwise), the system beeped pleasantly and announced, _"System disarmed."_

Moments later, Kid - wearing a face Shinichi didn't recognize, but smiling at him from eyes that he _definitely_ did - peeked around the doorframe of Shinichi's sickroom. The strong smell of takeout yakitori wafted toward Shinichi from the bag in Kid's hand. "Good afternoon, chibitantei."

He knew his eyes had grown comically wide, but-- taking in the white delivery-service jumpsuit, cap and logo and all-- Shinichi felt an embarrassingly Conanish giggle welling up in his throat; he stifled it with some difficulty. "Afternoon... you weren't kidding about the delivery, were you? _Please_ tell me some poor deliveryman's not unconscious in a closet somewhere." Whatever was in the bag smelled AMAZING, and his stomach saluted the aroma with a gurgle loud enough to inform them both that it didn't give a damn about deliverymen, unconscious or otherwise.

"Then I won't tell you," Kid replied smoothly, holding his glee in check as he entered the room. Folding one leg beneath him, Kid perched on the edge of Shinichi's bed. "Heyo, Mokutan," he added, greeting the dove on Shinichi's knees with a grin. "You beat me here! You win."

Shinichi looked from Kid to the dove and back again. "How - he --" He looked at the window - yup, still firmly latched. "I thought I--"

Kid laughed, a giddy sound that belonged on rooftops. "Oh, your _face!_ Moku, should we tell him?" The dove fluffed his feathers, settling in for a nap on Shinichi's knee and tucking his beak under one wing. Kid nodded in response, savoring Shinichi's expression. "Okay, if you think so." Then, to the thoroughly baffled detective -- "Moku came to find me with your note, then hid inside the bag when I came in. You were so busy gawking at me, you didn't even see him pop out." Kid pulled the handles of the bag of food wide, revealing a small fleece cushion on top of one of the takeout boxes. "It's just so warm in there, Moku doesn't even care that it smells like his jiichan."

One small eyebrow went up. "So if we fed him some of the leftovers, would that be cannibalism?" wondered Shinichi aloud. "Whatever; it smells _good._ Thank you," he said, a smile growing with every second; and if the words felt a little awkward, then so was the smile that accompanied them...

...but only a little. Less than he would have believed.

The take-out containers made a kind of picnic, balanced on some of the more disreputable books across Shinichi's bedspread; still halfway cocooned in his blankets, Shinichi accepted a pair of chopsticks and gestured with them at Kid's face. "Can you eat like that? In disguise, I mean?" The jumpsuited figure perched on the edge of his bed had discarded his cap by now, but looking at him was almost like seeing a double image-- Shinichi _knew_ what he looked like and the face in his mind's eye overlaid the one beaming at him, with only the eyes linking the two. Well, and the grin.

"If I couldn't, what good would my disguises be?" Kid's smile was entirely sincere. It was deeply heartening to see Shinichi actively investigate the practicalities of Kid's disguise equipment -- to see him, in short, engage in the thief's everyday life. "My disguises have to function _as_ my face, not instead of my face; verisimilitude is of utmost importance to me." To demonstrate, he worked his face through several ludicrous expressions, raising and lowering his brows, drawing in his cheeks in a ridiculous fishmouth, squinting and opening his eyes wide, grinning and stretching his jaw. "See? Second skin."

It was fascinating; he could _see_ the muscles of jaw and throat working beneath the thin layer of the mask. It was also funny as hell, and this time the snicker escaped; Shinichi smothered it behind his chopsticks with only partial success as he took a container of yakitori, careful not to upset the sleeping bird perched on his knee. His stomach growled again as he slid the lid off of the wide, shallow box, fragrant steam escaping to wreathe the air in inviting, curling wisps. "Think this's the first time I've really been hungry in a while," he murmured, and took a bite, glancing apologetically at the dove. "Sorry, Moku. It's me or the chickens."

Kid considered this for a minute. "Have you eaten well since you made the change?" he asked. "I'd think it'd take a lot of energy -- speaking purely in caloric terms, of course. I've already seen what it does to you in terms of pain. But is there an energy crash afterward?"

_Oh yeah-- better tell him about my little problem. Big problem? I need a warning-label that reads 'Size Of Actual Contents May Vary',_ thought Shinichi wryly, wondering just how to go about it without causing too much trauma. "Not well, no; just haven't been hungry. And..." he hesitated for a second, stirring his chicken a bit before picking up another bite. "It looks like I may have a few, um, size issues in my future. You know how colds tend to hang around long after you thought they were gone and pop back in unexpectedly? Like that." He chewed and swallowed, trying to make light of the whole thing. "Only without the sniffles and with a need for two sizes of clothes on hand."

"Don't worry," he added quietly after a moment. "Haibara's not too concerned, so long as I keep taking her damned supplements. I'm not exactly looking forward to the process, but--" He shrugged, still looking down at his yakitori. "I wanted you to know."

_I needed to tell you_ hung in the air behind the last phrase, all but audible. Both thief and detective let the silence hang, Shinichi focused on his food, Kid staring into space, mulling things over. There was a lot he _could_ say in response to Shinichi's words - or his implications - but Shinichi had sent blue roses, not red ones. Besides which, there was a lot more running between them than merely Kid's crush.

When he reached a decision, it was with a decisive thump of one hand against the other.

"I'll stay close, then," Kid informed his friend. "You're going to need someone to help."

Shinichi let out a breath he was only marginally aware of having held. "Yeah," he said softly. "I will. Thanks." He looked up then, smiling again, sketching a small-to-large shape in the air with a piece of chicken. "I promise I'll let you know if I feel any sudden growth-spurts coming on. Doesn't seem fair, though-- you seem to be doing all the helping. Who helps you out?" The boy took another bite. "It's not like your life's all wine and roses--"

Shinichi froze in mid-sentence, eyes suddenly wide, their deep blue seeming to darken even as a tale-tell flush stained his skin. "Not fair," he muttered again, and sighed, poking at the yakitori with his chopsticks. "I need to get out of this damn bed. Can't do a thing while I'm stuck here, not for you or Ran or anyone."

"...except not act my age. The younger one, I mean. Sorry," Shinichi added, a little shamefaced.

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself," Kid offered, the light bounce of his tone hinting at tightly-leashed laughter beneath its surface. "You really weren't acting at _all_ like a sulky child until the last thirty seconds or so." He beamed brightly at the little detective. Perched on the edge of the bed and over his food as he was, Kid's posture meant he and Shinichi were on a level, and so it was with a shit-eating grin and earnest blue eyes that Kid dared his companion to take offense at his phrasing.

But almost before they'd become fixed in place, the smile slid slowly from his face, and the mania from his eyes, leaving in their stead a simple, straightforward expression of regard with which Kid studied the other's features. After yet another brief moment, a small spark of the smile returned, lighting the thief's never-still eyes with warmth. "Thank you for asking, though, Shinichi," Kid said slowly, enunciating the detective's given name deliberately. "I must confess I have one aide, but I don't make much use of him these days. He's old, see, and I'm much more suited than he to long hours."

Still smarting slightly from the teasing (although enjoying it as well-- it was like hearing a familiar tongue after being too long in a foreign country), the boy watched the other's expressions change and change again. Even through the mask they were remarkable, fluid and mercurial. "Your 'keeper'," he reflected, and grinned back a little. "Now, why do I have the feeling he'd have a rough time of it even if he was half his age? It can't be an easy thing, playing stage-assistant to the infamous 1412. But..." Shinichi paused. "What I meant was... you seem to be-- oh, hell. What I'm trying to say is, if you need help, if I can give it-- don't be afraid to ask me, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

He busied himself with his yakitori again for a few moments, and when he spoke again his voice was preoccupied. "Everyone seems to be so concerned with helping me lately-- Ai, Agasa, Ran, Hattori, the kids... you. I'd like to balance the scales a little, not-- y'know, not from being in debt, but just... aaagh. Is any of this making sense to you, or should I just shut up now?" he asked, raising a frustrated eyebrow.

Kid slowly, deliberately, raised both eyebrows to his hairline, the corners of his lips twisted to hold back his grin. A sensation not unlike a flock of doves taking flight, battering wind with short, sudden pushes in all directions, began to overtake his heart, filling his lungs with the unsteady breath that encouraged giggles. To hold these back, Kid drew in a steadying gulp of air and displayed it as a gasp of shock. One hand raised to flutter at his chest and throat, the perfect picture of perturbed propriety.

"Kudo Shinichi! Kudo Shinichi, _Tantei,_ did you just propose to _help_ an international jewel thief? To _aid and abet_ the brilliant, diverse, and dazzling schemes which, guaranteed by the very nature of the individual designing them, are and will continue to be rather extraordinarily, lusciously illegal? To abscond your detective's sense of lawmanship and tie it up in a corner closet for a weekend?" He paused for half a beat, watching Shinichi's horrified expression fully take shape, and unpinned the sides of his smile; the trademark Kaitou Kid grin, as manic as it was patently insane, sprang instantly into place across his features. "Hmm." He appeared to consider his own words, radiating glee and a warm satisfaction even through his mock frown. He tapped one finger to his chin, stereotypically 'pensive.' "...Perhaps that was going too far?"

There was an awful pause.

"......If I had a bar of soap," remarked Shinichi when it had ended, "I'd be washing your mouth out with it _right now._ But I guess," he added reflectively, "if you put it _that_ way..."

"Yes. I guess I did." He dropped his face into his hands. "I am so going to Detective's Hell someday, aren't I?"

Kid squeed. "Delicious." He popped a piece of yakitori into his mouth, chewed briskly, and swallowed. "Well! Now that that's decided. You are correct that my life is not, as you put it, wine and roses. Nor is it easy for Jii-chan to keep up with his young master 1412. But I'm a solitary sort of professional. You have to be in my line of work, and I enjoy it besides. There's only room for one on my glider."

Shinichi eyed him cautiously. "I did promise not to go easy on you at heists. But... before or after isn't _during,_ anymore than working out how a murder was done is the same thing as committing one myself-- horrible analogy, I know." He couldn't help himself; Shinichi dredged up as much of an air of dignity as his small frame and current pajama-clad appearance would allow, sitting up straight and raising his chin. His eyes sparkled, deep and blue. "But I _am_ well-versed in your modus operandi, history and abilities as much or more as anyone is, I'm perfectly capable of extrapolating the same sort of attempts and contrivances as you've managed to date, and," (he stared Kid in the eye, challenge and confidence radiating) "I've come the closest to catching you. Of _anyone."_

He folded his arms, fighting back the grin that kept trying to escape.

Kid matched Shinichi grin for grin, wide enough to show the little tips of his dogteeth, and ponderously wagged one finger at him. "_Closest_, but still not quite close _enough_, Tantei," he sighed. "And to your credit, some times you _have_ reached within what seems hairs' breadths of my cape, _ever_ so close..." He pulled off one glove and slowly extended that hand toward Shinichi, turning and folding the wrist and fingers, equally slowly, as he did. Each flick of his fingers threatened to produce a trick or illusion; each one didn't. And after a sequence of three or four of these, Kid's bare fingertips hovered a scant six inches from Shinichi's nose. "And yet," Kid murmured, everything of challenge and daring poured into his voice's low volume, "Neeeever quite can reach, can you?"

Shinichi studied the fingertips... and, very slowly, grinned. _"Not yet,"_ he said-- and moved.

--not to grab the hand that, with his weakened state, would almost certainly be too fast for him; but with his chopsticks, popping them nimbly into Kid's own box of yakitori, stealing a piece out and dropping it into his mouth. He chewed, laid his chopsticks down across his lap, and swallowed. "Delicious," he informed the startled thief.

And _then_ he reached for Kid's hand.

Kid's hand closed around Shinichi's before he'd even thought about it; he was so startled out of his supremely confident position on top of their game of banter and challenge that, hand linked with Shinichi's much smaller one, Kid still found himself looking instead at his yakitori box where, yes, one piece was missing. He looked back up at Shinichi with an unguarded expression. "I don't know whether I'm more impressed that you got that far within my guard without me blocking, or that you _took_ my _yakitori!_" Their hands, still linked, hovered between them -- completely ignored by Kid.

And by Shinichi as well. "You can have some of mine," he offered cheerfully. "You bought this time, anyway."

However, before Kid could either accept or refuse, there was a faint flutter of wings. Moku, who had been sitting with his head tucked beneath one wing all this time, had woken at Shinichi's abrupt movements. Shaking his feathers into place, the bird quite deliberately hopped up onto the edge of Shinichi's yakitori-box, reached in, pecked out a fragment, took it up onto Shinichi's elbow and then sidled up and across to sit on their linked fingers while he enjoyed his treat in peace.

Witnessing this act of near-cannibalism, Shinichi's eyes grew wide, and he clapped his free hand over his mouth in order to keep from startling the dove with his laughter.

Kid watched his dove wryly. "Mokutan, you have the most _atrocious_ timing."

"Hey, he's YOUR dove."

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean?" Kid challenged the detective, tugging on Shinichi's hand for emphasis. Mokutan, distrusting the stability of his perch, took his yakitori over to a quieter corner of the bed. "_You're_ the one who sets off fireworks from rooftops! I should think timing choices like _that_ make you more than liable to be labeled a hypocrite if you scold me or my dove any further."

Crumbs dropped onto the bedspread as Moku continued to nibble his bit of chicken. "Worked, didn't it?" Shinichi answered the thief, eyes dancing. "Glass houses, stones, pot calling kettle, et cetera." He tugged right back, punctuating the last few syllables with one tug for each; the impromptu punctuation was slightly spoiled by a huge yawn that intruded slightly at the end.

Kid's grip on Shinichi's hand shifted, curling around it to hold, instead of gripping with mind to fight. "Sick tantei need their rest," he said, before releasing Shinichi's hand, replacing his glove, and briskly wrapping up the leftovers of their meal. "And good little kaitou should leave them to it." As Shinichi opened his mouth to protest, Kid held up one finger with a quiet smile. "The more the tantei rests, the sooner he can get out of the bed and back to the real world, where kaitou run amok and need to be corralled."

Shinichi snorted quietly, but allowed himself to slide back down the pillows and into the embrace of the covers. "The 'real world'. Which real world is this? The one where normal things happen, or the one I've been living in lately?" He considered the question for a second and then answered himself aloud: "Truthfully? All things considered, I think I prefer the latter. It may fit the definition for 'clinically insane', but it's the more interesting of the two."

_Much more interesting, Kid. Thank you._

Gathering the flat boxes of leftover yakitori together, Kid placed the stack on the bedside table, topped with a little slip of receipt paper. He gathered together the empty skewers, dropping those and the dirty napkins into the trash can; with everything neatly arranged, Kid returned to Shinichi's bedside and took the edge of the covers gently in both hands. He smoothed them out and arranged them across Shinichi's shoulders, covering the boy nearly up to his chin. "Wait right here," he grinned, before snagging Shinichi's water glass from the bedside table and ducking into the bathroom just outside the door.

In a moment he was back, wiping small drops of water off the outside of the filled glass. "This should keep you until Mouri-san and the rest return home." Kid set the glass on the table, far enough from the edge that it couldn't easily be knocked, and retrieved his delivery boy's hat from the bed near Shinichi's feet. "Well then." He settled the cap onto his head, tugging firmly in back to bring it down over the considerable resistance of his wild hair. From beneath the brim, his eyes caught the sunlight from the window and sparked brightly, satisfied and smug; he sketched a short bow, characteristic grin in place. "Good afternoon to you, sir, and please do patronize our delivery service again! Come on, Moku."

From within the warm comfort of his bed, Shinichi grinned right back; if it went any wider, his face was going to unzip. "I'll certainly consider it in the future; the service is _excellent._ And good afternoon to you too."

Kid held down his smirk - mostly - as he tipped his hat and slipped out of the room, Mokutan primly riding his shoulder. From the front door, Shinichi could hear a brisk _bip bip bipbip bip bip bip bipbip beeeeep_ as Kid flawlessly set the silent alarm, followed by _bip bip bip bip beeeep_ and a pleasant woman's voice announcing, _"System Armed. Exit now."_ as the thief set the audible alarm as well. Then, the front door clicked quietly open, and quietly shut. As silence spread in his wake, the boy sighed and closed his eyes: exhilarated, suddenly quite exhausted, and, just as suddenly, simply _happy._

* * *

x

x

_**NOTE: As ff dot net doesn't allow linking, here are the two links that Shinichi sent to Kid in his reply:  
**__www dot physorg dot com slash news175244442 dot html  
__www dot paintingmania dot com slash branches-almond-blossom-6_2867 dot html_

…_**..and here are their meanings:  
**__slash slash en dot wikipedia dot org slash wiki slash Blue_rose  
__www dot arenaflowers dot com slash facts slash flowers slash flower_meanings slash almonds_flowers_

_We hope you enjoyed the show! Please join us again next week for ****__Book Two, Chapter Thirteen: "heroine, retrieval, nightmare". _ Have a good week, all! ---The Management


	21. Heroine, retrieval, nightmare

_Welcome and salutations. This is Chapter Thirteen, Book Two, of Three Thieves. It is the last chapter of the second book and it, hopefully, will entertain you all sufficiently to carry you over for a few weeks. Because of a family emergency, Ysabet will not be able to post the first chapter of Book Three in my absence while I'm away at work next week._

__

This means that, barring any further unforseen circumstances, Three Thieves Book Three will start on April 9th. We apologize for the short notice of this one-week hiatus and hope that your understanding will be expansive. When we return, it will be with little omakes and side-stories. Make sure to watch the Three Thieves LJ community directly for these treats, as they may not be crossposted.

With that said, we can begin. With no further ado...

#

* * *

_**Three Thieves:**__ a story about crossing boundaries.  
__Book Two, Chapter Thirteen__: "Heroine, retrieval, nightmare"  
by _ _**ysabet**__ and _ _**nightengale**__.  
Crossposted to _ _**dc_yaoi**__, _ _**detective_conan**__, _ _**magic_kaitou**__, and _ _**manycases1truth**__.  
_

_Happy._

Well. Not so much, an hour or two later.

He wasn't exactly morose; Or even _un_happy, just... rueful, perhaps. Wryly amused. Contemplative. Resigned. Guiltily aware that the fictional persona of Sherlock Holmes would be eyeing him disapprovingly over his violin and asking him quite pointedly just how much of a damn fool he planned on becoming. Quite a lot of one, apparently.

_But Holmes did plenty of illegal acts; carrying a firearm without a permit (not that they had them in Victorian England, so okay, maybe not that one), breaking and entering, nonmedical use of an opiate; impersonating various public, private and nonexistant persons; travelling under an assumed name; faking his own death..._

Agasa had come back some time earlier, half-waking Shinichi when he'd peeked in around the doorjamb. Through his lashes the boy'd watched the portly scientist do a quick visual check and then pause, sniffing the air curiously before pulling the door quietly closed behind him. Not surprising; the room did still smell like yakitori.

_So... illegal acts. Let's consider your sins, Kudo Shinichi, starting with impersonating a minor; living under said assumed name with the aid of forged papers; occasionally drugging a nonconsenting adult with a sedative; presenting evidence in official police investigations under assumed names; unauthorized use of surveillance devices/phonetaps; concealing and downright theft of evidence..._

The front door opened; Hattori Heiji's voice came in along with his footsteps, accompanied by the thunder of three other sets all in Size Preadolescent, plus those of one lighter and more sedate pair. Why was it that little kids' footsteps were so much louder than those of much bigger feet?

_...aiding and abetting minors in disturbing the scene of a crime... endangerment of said minors... and let's not forget consorting with known felons. Consorting's a good word. I like 'consorting'._ Shinichi pulled the blankets a little higher, pushing back a few thoughts he'd had along that line. Fat lot of good they'd do him at the moment, after all.

Hattori was saying something about Ran; he sounded a little ragged and just a touch desperate. Somewhere a little further away, Haibara was asking Agasa a question in her Very Suspicious Voice-- it seemed to concern 'chicken' and 'have you been' and 'really, Professor?' Shinichi winced guiltily, burrowing beneath his covers.

_Back to the subject. So you've been breaking the law since you got shrunk, hm? One for the books, Kudo-- solving mysteries in self-defense? Did it ever occur to you that you've been a much more effective detective since your reduction than you ever were in your teenaged form? People listened to you, but then you were just a 'very intelligent young man', like the newspapers said; now you're a prodigy._

_Not that that'll help you __one damn bit__ if you get caught abetting Kid in his illegal operations. Why DID you volunteer, anyway?_

_...because it felt right. Because you wanted to, badly. Because some little scale in the back of your mind weighed the idea and said Do This. God alone knows what he'll ask you to do, but... You did it because you knew it'd scandalize and delight him. You __did__._

Shinichi groaned softly and rolled over in bed, tucking the blankets higher around his ears until all that was visible was his cowlick against the pillow. _Does it help or does it make it worse that Tousan and Kaasan would totally approve if they knew?_

The thunder of little feet - and one pair of big ones - neared Shinchi's room, but he didn't move an inch. _Who wears their glasses under the covers anyway?_ he grumbled, as the bed rocked with the impact of three small - but momentous - bodies. Stuck in his funk as he was, it took a few moments for what the Shoujo Tantei were babbling at him to make sense. And when it did, Shinichi bolted up from under the covers. His head protested the sudden movement, so it was with one hand pressed to his temples, one eye squinted open and focused on Ayumi, that Shinichi demanded:

"_What_ did you say?"

"_Haibara,_" Genta cut in, bouncing up and down for attention. "She saved the day! And it was really weird and I don't know if I ever want her to do that again, but it was really cool when she did it, I guess, cause he believed us!"

Ayumi nodded vehemently. "She did, she did! He was suspicious and we had our papers but we didn't want to show him them, cause he'd take our evidence, and Yoshitsu-kun wasn't any help, he just stood there like a brick, and his momma listened to the man and wanted to know too, and--"

Shinichi blinked slowly, sliding pieces of the story together with difficulty. "Woah, woah, guys, okay, from the beginning. Who's 'he'?"

"That was the man who came to Yoshitsu-kun's place," Ayumi explained clearly, her excitement calmed significantly by Conan's all-business tone. "He told Yoshitsu-kun's kaasan things, but we couldn't hear because his kaasan stuck us in Yoshitsu-kun's bedroom while they talked."

Genta nodded firmly. "Yoshitsu-kun, too! _None_ of us could listen. And Yoshitsu-kun's kaasan looked upset when he left. And then Ayumi followed Yoshitsu-kun into the kitchen to give his kaasan a hug."

"That wasn't why he caught us!" Ayumi protested, crossing her arms petulantly. "_Your_ tummy was the one that grumbled so loud!"

"But it smelled so _gooooood,_" Genta crooned. "Unagiiii..."

"There wasn't any unagi there, _Genta,_" Mitsuhiko snapped, making every head in the room spin to focus on him. From his position leaning against the doorframe, Hattori shot a quick glance over at Shinichi, reassuring him that nothing _fatal_ had happened, as Mitsuhiko's little fists clenched tight, frustration rising slowly in his face.

"Mitsuhiko, what's wrong?" Shinichi was beginning to get the general picture, but the last bit of information would have to come from either Haibara or Mitsuhiko - and he knew his odds of the former. _Not quite blood from a stone; still, getting Mitsuhiko to talk will be easier._ "Why're you upset?"

"No reason," Mitsuhiko gritted out, face turned down. Ayumi was right on his shoulder though, tugging his sleeve. "Leave me alone, Ayumi! If you and Genta hadn't gotten us caught, Haibara wouldn't have had to -- to --"

_Truly_ fascinated, as people tend to be around car wrecks, Shinichi shot a glance toward the doorway, where - predictably - a familiar towheaded scientist stood to silently observe the scene. And by the looks of it, Haibara was _pissed._

_So that's how it is,_ Shinichi realized, ruthlessly smothering his urge to snicker. As his friend, Mitsuhiko didn't need that from him. ...But Haibara would be getting a double dose of it as soon as the others cleared out.

Instead of pressing Mitsuhiko further, Shinichi glanced up to Hattori with a plastic, curious expression. "Hattori...niisan, where were you while everything was happening?"

"Outside," Hattori answered with a shrug. "I was out picking somethin' up from the conbini for Yoshitsu-san, since she'd said we could all stay for dinner. I came back just in time to run smack into the guy as he was leaving. He looked cranky - all done up in a suit and shades, too."

"What made him so cranky, I wonder," Shinichi mused. "Did he want to see your question sheets?"

"Yeah," Genta nodded, frowning. "And he wanted to keep them all and not give them back. He said we shouldn't meddle."

Ayumi nodded, thoughtfully tapping one finger to her lip as she recalled details. "And he was very angry even before he caught us, but I don't know why. He kept stopping himself from yelling at Yoshitsu-kun or his kaasan. Like he knew it wasn't their fault."

Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "It?"

Ayumi shrugged. "Whatever he was mad about. He didn't want to leave us alone once he caught us, either. We thought he'd never leave, and take our sheets with him too!"

_Here it is,_ Shinichi thought, his glee at the expected explanation tempered with caution. What could have inspired a visit like this man had made to Yoshitsu-san? _Maybe it wasn't him cheating, but her,_ Shinichi mused, revising his earlier theory. _The visitor could be a jilted lover, or someone's brother._

"So what did you do to get him to leave, anyway?" Hattori asked, startling Genta and Mitsuhiko. Ai's scowl darkened, and Ayumi glanced worriedly over at her friend before answering Hattori.

"Ai-chan did it," she explained. "It was amazing! We were stuck in the living room, and the mean man was demanding our sheets back, and then Ai-chan came back from the bedroom..."

* * *

"I'm _telling_ you kids, gimme those sheets now! You're gonna be sorry if you don't."

The Shoujo Tantei exchanged quick, worried glances between them. Conan had taught them to never let evidence get destroyed, and even if they didn't know _why_ he wanted the papers, they all could be sure the man wasn't going to use them the way they were supposed to be. Between Yoshitsu-kun and the man, Ayumi puffed up like a little guard kitten, tightening her tug-of-war grip on the stack of evidence papers and opening her mouth to yell back at him - even though he was much bigger, much meaner, and much louder than her and the boys put together. Yoshitsu-kun's kaasan was leaning against the kitchen doorjamb, her eyes big and scared, and Ayumi told herself to be brave. If only Conan could save them...

The scene was interrupted by a high, shrill voice from the hallway. "Ojii-san," the voice said, even more high and fragile than Ayumi's. Everyone's heads pivoted slowly to fix on the source of the voice. While the Shoujo Tantei boggled, the man stared down his newest opponent, a tiny child with neat blond hair and a....labcoat?

"Ojii-san, those are for my big mystery! Please don't take them, I took a long time making up where the prince went and what the knights have to do to get him back!" Her eyes were big, watery, and smoothest, clearest blue; one little hand reached out and grabbed the man's side of the stack of papers, pulling it from his startled, unresisting grip - and from Ayumi's as well - and folding the stack close to her chest. "This is important science stuff! The knights need to know all this stuff so they know when to time travel to."

The Shoujo Tantei blinked. The man blinked. Haibara Ai stared him down with her big, wibbly gaze.

"'Big mystery,'" he repeated incredulously. "'Important science stuff'? You're writing a _story?"_

The little blonde in the labcoat's bottom lip trembled. "It's a VERY GOOD story," she assured him in her high, chirpy voice; the chirps wavered, and a crystal tear welled up in each blue eyes. "Please don't take it, Ojii-san! I still have to color all the pictures in and I'm out of red crayons!" The last word dissolved into a sob as the tears spilled over and ran down the child's pale cheeks; she began to cry in earnest--

--very loudly-- VERY, VERY loudly--

--and the man in the gray suit backed away involuntarily. Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko, however, stared at their classmate in utter horror. From outside, a knock came on the door accompanied by Hattori Heiji's muffled voice; swearing beneath his breath, the angry man spun on his heel, jerking the door open and pushing past the startled Osakajin. His footsteps rapidly receded down the hallway as Hattori slowly shut the door.

"Uh... What just happened here?" he asked slowly.

"Nothing important," said Ai calmly; wiping away the tears that had coursed down her face with a tissue, she nodded at the detective and then at the other children. "Isn't that right?"

"..........." Four huge sets of eyes stared back.

"Hn. Now, where were we... Hattori-niisan, you brought the leeks, correct?" Ai turned to Yoshitsu-kun's mother, folding her tissue into a meticulously precise square and tucking it into her pocket as she looked up at the utterly shell-shocked woman. "May I assist with preparation of dinner, Yoshitsu-san?"

* * *

"And _that_ was when Yoshitsu-san kicked us out and said we should go home." Ayumi drooped where she stood as she told the last of the story, looking hopefully up at Conan with tired eyes. "And we haven't had dinner yet, and Mitsuhiko wouldn't say a word to any of us and he still isn't talking to Haibara, and--"

Ayumi was interrupted at this point by Mitsuhiko storming stompily out of the room, chin tucked down. He pressed himself to the far side of the doorway as he passed through it, so that not even his sleeve brushed Ai's. The scientist watched him go, sighed, and crossed the room to claim its only chair.

Shinichi looked from Ai to Ayumi and Genta, to Hattori. He blinked, processing all he'd been told. Obviously, there was the initial, _ludicrous_ mental image of Ai _breaking down sobbing_ over _red crayons._ There was an associated stab of pride in her survival instinct - just as ruthlessly tenacious and unlimited as his own. And there was a larger, deeper concern, which could most quickly be answered by reading those data sheets, _right this instant._ Something was truly rotten in this scenario, and he itched to discover what it was.

"Why don't you see if the Professor can fix you all a snack to tide you over until you head home?" This suggestion was accepted with varying degrees of reluctance and enthusiasm, and as the two straggled out of the room Shinichi gave Ai a Look. "Red Crayons?"

She raised her chin defiantly. "It _worked,_ Kudo-kun," the blonde snapped back very quietly. "And if I counted the times I've seen you be cloyingly, childishly, tooth-rottingly--"

The detective waved a conceding hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Sometimes you have to become one with the cuteness. Whatever. The datasheets, please?"

The datasheets provided little more than basic information, the who-what-where of a case; it wasn't until Shinichi got about halfway down the first sheet (thank God Ai'd done the writing, her penmanship was definitely preferable to Ayumi's, Genta's or Mitsuhiko's, or to Heiji's for that matter) that he caught something that made him frown. "Wait, _where_ was he seen last? In a karaoke bar with a fellow employee... directly following a business-trip? Where to?"

Heiji pointed to a bulleted section a little further down the page. "Outta the country. Look at the top part again, Kudo. His son said he'd bring him back a souvenir've some sort. They gave his luggage back to his wife."

"Anything missing?"

"Clothes, pair of shoes, wallet... what you'd expect, pretty much." Hattori gave his friend a headshake. "Kudo? Those little kids? They're SHARKS. I did everything I could think of t'shake 'em off; they can smell blood in the water, and damned if they didn't do a pretty good little investigation for amateurs. I don't know how surprised they're gonna be when we tell 'em what really happened."

"Amateurs? They're not, exactly." Ai shrugged, still with a bit of temper showing in her eyes. "As far as it goes, they're almost dismayingly experienced in proper investigative procedure... for gradeschoolers. One gets used to it after a while."

"Mmm," Shinichi agreed absently, reading back over the list of carefully printed information. "There's something here that doesn't feel right to me; I can't tell what yet, but something's just not _right_ with this." He milled the information through his mind again, driving away the unimportant chaff and seeking the meaning inside the data points. _Mid-forties. Japanese. Of good health and average weight._ What was he missing?

"Lookit the top part _closer,_" Hattori advised, walking closer and taking a seat on Shinichi's bed near the boy's feet. "Current employer an' job description."

Shinichi scanned up the page, looking for the relevant entry; when he found it, the mental _thud_ of a case finally coming together felt less satisfying than usual, counterpointed as it was by the queasiness in his stomach.

_Current Employer: Hoshi Gyūniku shipping company.  
Job Title: Accounts & Receiving Manager_

"What was an accounts manager doing on a business trip in South America?" he asked quietly. Neither Ai nor Hattori answered him, mostly because they both knew they didn't have to. Shinichi pushed his bangs back from his brow, sweat clinging to his palm as he pulled it away. "I don't imagine his wife actually saw him in that bar...But why would she question the word of her husband's boss, either?"

"That's why they wanted the sheets, Kudo," Hattori explained. "They didn't want anybody looking in--"

Shinichi nodded, interrupting. "Yeah... yeah. Even little kids can ask the right sort of questions...even by accident." He looked to the sheets in his hands, gaze unfocused, before shaking himself a little and drawing his attention up to Ai. "That's why you put on such a show."

"If seeing the data itself hadn't been enough to convince me, the man's manner certainly would have been," Ai explained coolly. "I'm more than acquainted with the attitudes of people with guns, power, and a security breach."

"Well, you did good. Hopefully it'll throw him off for long enough that we can get this to my dad and get a breakthrough out of it," Hattori said, his tone resolved. "Getting it to him is gonna be the tricky part; I bet they'll take another whack on me if I try. Kudo's still sick. Maybe you an' the Professor could take it, Ai?"

Haibara blinked, momentarily arrested. "With your assistance," she said cautiously. "Rather than waiting for him to come to us again, could we not scan the information and email it directly to him? If he's been under surveillance himself-- something that shouldn't be left out of our considerations-- it'd be best if he not approach the Professor's home again."

The blonde hugged her arms to herself, eyes shuttered. "Surveillance... is not something I like to consider," she muttered.

Hattori shifted uneasily on the end of the bed, snagging Shinichi's blanket-covered foot absentmindedly. "You think Oyaji's being watched?" He waggled the foot in agitation.

"Wouldn't surprise me." Shinichi's toes wriggled in a rather bizarre approximation of a nod. "And when were we targeted? Right after your father took over with the reporters, right? No," he said thoughtfully, "I think Haibara's right; he's probably under watch. I doubt they'd go after him directly, though, it'd make too much of a splash."

"Amusin' comparison," Hattori offered dryly. "Last time they didn't much seem t'care about splashing."

Haibara raised an eyebrow. "Awful Osakan puns aside, that does not solve the problem of transmitting our information to Hattori senior."

"There's always fax." Three heads swiveled toward the doorway -- Agasa stood framed in it, hands folded behind his back. "I believe I could protect it - the data, that is - from being hacked on its way to your father's office, Hattori-kun. And that would make for the least delay before he has it in hand."

Hattori and Shinichi shared a glance, then both groaned. Hattori covered his face with one hand. "I'm feelin' really stupid right about now."

From her chair, Ai cleared her throat daintily. "I would reassure you that it would pass, but..."

Shinichi glanced sidelong at her, quickly enough that he caught the small smile she was working to hide. "Oi oi oi, Haibara. You didn't think of it either."

"Untrue. I simply didn't think the Professor had the technology to encrypt the transmission thoroughly enough." She glanced to Agasa for response, but he dismissed the thought cheerily.

"No offense taken, Ai-kun, it's true that I don't do much work with telecommunications. But I do think I've got a way to pull this off."

Hattori sighed. "Sounds good. In the meantime... I got somethin' I need to take care of." He stood up, stretching, and rummaged around in his backpack for a few minutes before pulling out a notebook and a pen.

* * *

A little later...

In the upper story of the Professor's house there was a bay window-seat where the wall bulged out above the eccentric slant of the roof. It was in a seldom-used second study that held old technical volumes, boxes of outdated patents and Volkswagon repair manuals with greasy thumbprints in the margins; the striped cushions were sun-faded and stiff with lack of use but still serviceable enough. Dusty shelves to either side, dog-eared with a combination of professional digests from various universities, held old photo-albums and (if you looked in the right places) decade-old manga volumes labeled 'KUDO' in crooked kana.

It had made a perfectly good place to settle back and read or nap or just buy a little time in which to think, once upon a time, for a certain small boy when his parents and Agasa-hakase had been busy with one thing or another; most of the books had been uninteresting to young Kudo Shinichi but he'd managed to haul a considerable amount of his own personal reading-material up to the quiet spot. The seat, which opened up like a treasure chest, had been a good place to hide snacks and True Crime magazines; and the windowseat, dusty or not, had been a _great_ place for a bored gradeschooler to kick back and ignore the rest of the world.

And now it held one Hattori Heiji, Great Teenaged Detective Of The West, native to Osaka, mangler of proper Japanese and son of the feared 'Oni' Hattori Heizo. Who was, actually, quite busy contemplating life as he knew it.

Sprawled across the window-seat, socked toes braced on the moulding edge that ran along where wall met bookcase, he rubbed a sneeze away from his nose with the pen he still held as he stared moodily out through the darkening evening down at Agasa's winter-brown lawn where a cold rain was beginning to soak the grass. Wadded-up balls of paper and several of his diminutive fellow detective's old magazines lay discarded on the seat beside him, faded red marker littering the pages where a juvenile Kudo had made corrections and rude comments. Heiji'd snickered his way from cover to cover when he'd found them, adding a few more here and there and violently disagreeing in scribbled diagrams with several. He'd needed the distraction. The Osakajin had a lot to think about and, while he'd been doing his best to steer around certain uncomfortable topics like a skier on a tree-bedecked hillside, he knew well enough that eventually they'd smack him right in the face if he didn't deal with them sooner or later.

Life As Hattori Heiji Saw It was, if you didn't mind the analogy, comparable to a river and a really big dog. You could wander along the banks and sniff around for something interesting to roll in if the water was boring or too much of a bother to wade through; or you could watch the ducks swimming busily along the top about their own pursuits. If something disturbed the flow (even something hidden) it tended to become visible sooner or later, and then you could worry it and tug at it and drag it out by your teeth until it lay exposed on a sandbar; and if it was big and finny and had its own set of teeth, you could bark your head off at it until somebody paid attention—or charge at it yourself and let the fur fly.

He rather liked doing the latter. It was _fun,_ most of the time, especially if Kudo'd gotten his chibified self involved. Sometimes, though, you screwed up; and when you did, you got a mouthful of mud and you ended up blunting your teeth on the wrong damn thing. Mistakes were their own punishment.

…and so was this.

From among the litter of magazines and discards he fished out his latest effort, scanning over the scribbled kanji with a grimace:

_1412, Great Phantom Thief Yada Yada, whatever you want to call yourself—_

I don't pretend to understand what kind of relationship you and Kudo've worked out, and I screwed up big time by trying to find out in an underhanded way. For that I apologize, much as I don't want to. I've already said that to Kudo and Neechan, and now I'm saying the same thing to you. It was stupid and if I hadn't been so damn worried I wouldn't have pulled something like that—you played fair with us and I cheated, and I guess I deserve worse than I got.

Kudo seems to think that this little detail'll get taken care of by you sometime in my near future. Great. I remember some of your better pranks. Am I gonna need wading-boots or a gas-mask next time I go out in public? Whatever, bring it. But no more tricks from me, no more subterfuge or anything else. It's not my style and if you're worth half as much as Kudo seems to think, you don't deserve it. So—anyway. I'm sorry.

_Kudo says he trusts you, says you're worth a risk. I trust him. Just keep in mind: you __ever__ give him reason to regret trusting you, not all the fancy disappearing tricks in the world'll keep you safe from me. Okay? So long as we got that straight._

_Hattori Heiji_

It'd have to do. Seven tries were six too many, and Kudo said he could get the letter to the thief—Hattori wasn't going to ask how, though he had a pretty good idea what with all the goddamn doves and things that'd been hanging around lately. He shifted restlessly on the dusty cushions, raising a small momentary cloud. Outside the rain was beginning to beat down harder, and he could see an umbrella-toting figure hurrying up the walk to Agasa's gate—Ran, at a guess. Neechan was in a hurry tonight; probably missing Kudo, what with school and all. It was kind of cute, in an awful and really wrong way.

Hattori folded the letter, stretching his long legs with a groan as he stood and headed towards the small library's door and the stairs beyond. Behind him, faded magazines fluttered in his wake before folding back to stillness again.

He'd reached the first floor landing and the doorway to the living room before he noticed the hushed voices and tense atmosphere in the room beyond. But Ai and Ran looked up when he came in, and Shinichi, following their lead, waved Hattori over.

"Hey, Neechan. What's up, Kudo?"

Shinichi, propped up in a swathe of blankets on the couch beside Ran, shook his head slowly. "Nothing's on fire, don't worry." Beside him, Ran snickered, and her arm - laid somewhat shyly across the seatback behind Shinichi's head - curled slightly closer to his shoulders.

"Shinichi's not happy that you and he are going to have to leave the investigation," Ran explained. Shinichi shot her a look, which Ran returned without flinching. "_Are_ going to have to, not maybe," she repeated. "It's in Hattori's tousan's hands now."

"I don't like leaving an investigation unfinished," Shinichi grumbled. "It doesn't feel right."

"I do understand why this would bother you so much, Kudo-kun," Ai added soberly. Then she smirked and, utterly deadpan, continued: "You won't be able to do your ridiculous finger-pointing routine. Painful, I know."

Shinichi puffed up in indignation. "_Haibara,_ you-- Oi, Ran, stoppit." Shinichi's attention swung from the little scientist to his girlfriend, who was smothering her laughter in one hand. On the other end of the sitting area, perched on one of the big armchairs, Hattori was snickering too. Shinichi looked from one to the other of them in frustration, puffing up much like small birds tended to when they were denied their food. "Hattori! Ran! You guys!"

"Sorry, Shinichi, but it's just--" Ran dissolved into giggles, not that her explanation, had she finished it, would have done much to soothe her diminuitive friend. Shinichi crossed his arms petulantly, glaring at all and sundry.

"You're all a bunch of jerks," he sulked. "I'm not talking to you."

"Yes you are, Shini~chi," Ran giggled, leaning over to drop a kiss on the top of his head. Already reddish from frustration, Shinichi blushed scarlet at this, scowled deeply, and pulled his blanket up to cover his head and nose. Baleful blue eyes, absent of his Conan-glasses, glared out at the room from a small opening in the blanket.

Settling down on the couch and propping his legs clear across the coffeetable, Heiji nudged the blanket-wrapped lump with a foot and grinned. "Looks cute, doesn't he? Like a little chibi-Yoda from _Star Wars."_ Pitching his voice to a squeaky falsetto, he intoned: "Explainin' to you Only One Truth I will; the Force is STRONG with you, Young Tantei." Snagging the aforementioned glasses from beside his feet, he wedged them onto his face and plastered an eager, intense expression on his face that would have done justice to the most avid fanboy. Off went the hat; Heiji cleared his throat and held up a finger _a lá Shinichi._ "ONE," he intoned, still squeaking. "Of the culprit's motives, greed and anger they were-- lead you to the Dark Side they will! TWO--" (a second finger joined the first, spearing the air) "--his methods elaborate an' sneaky were-- fearful of the law he should be! Duct-tape, a live armadillo, two plant-pots anna piece of string he used! Mmmmmm_hmmMMMmm,_ so he did!"

By now Ran was convulsed in laughter, gasping and holding her sides; next to her the blanketed detective was frozen in an attitude of complete and total rejection. **"!!!!!"**

"THREE! Colonel Mustard-han in the library it was! With the candlestick! Only One Truth there is! Let the Wookie win!"

Blue eyes glared in outrage from beneath the folds of blanket. "Oh. My. God. Hattori, I'm going to have to **kill** you now. With the candlestick."

"Y'can hide my body in a frozen cow," suggested his fellow detective cheerfully, dropping the squeakiness. "They'll never find it there."

"Funny," Shinichi grumbled, "You might actually have a point. What kind of odds is there for us finding this in the first place? It must be the devil's own luck that dropped those cows in front of us."

"Devil's own?" Hattori snorted. "Like I toldja, I'm used to bodies getting dropped on me, but it's you who's the magnet for freak incidents. I don't think we coulda duplicated this case if we worked together t'try to." The detective raked one hand through his hair; when he replaced his hat over that, it was with the bill forward. "I get a headache just talkin' about it, honestly, but I wanna see this through. Problem is..." Hattori sighed. "I'm no cop. No Inspector. An' you're a kid, as far as the world's concerned. I mean, hell...I can't even go hand off our info to my dad for fear they're gonna whack me t'distract him from the case."

"We're all liabilities to him now," Ran murmured. She shifted one hand carefully toward the general area of Shinchi's lap; he raised one hand under the blanket and grasped it lightly.

"It's okay, Ran." The boy sounded tired, but within his tone of resignation, there was calmness. "There's other things we can do, besides just chasing the case. Hattori-san will follow Hoshi Gyūniku to its rotten core. We can take care of the smaller things for now." A silence followed this, which Shinichi broke with a soft nod.

"I'll call Ayumi."

* * *

The call (fielded by Ayumi's mother and passed along with a gentle chide that it was 'almost bedtime for you both, don't stay on too long') wasn't very long; Shinichi didn't really have the option of telling the little girl bluntly that the person their classmate had asked them to find had been murdered, dismembered and probably sold in bits via the black market. That kind of horror wasn't for a gradeschooler, no matter how bright or experienced. So he put on his best Conan-voice and just asked her to show up after school with the others-- he'd gotten some information, and no, he'd rather tell them when he saw them.

So he had a reprieve 'til the next afternoon; curled up on the couch with his blanket tucked back around him and Ran comfortably warm against his left side, Shinichi half-watched the old black-and-white foreign movie that Heiji'd dredged up from somewhere and dozed. His sleepy thoughts circled around, pinging like half-hearted pinballs on one concern or another as they followed the slope down towards true sleep: the anonymous victims in the cows case, the not-so-anonymous Japanese businessman, the attempts on his and Hattori's lives, the discoveries that had followed... and the irksome knowledge that yes, this time they couldn't follow it through to its end.

He hated it. But it was logical, and if there was a sharp delineation between what his instincts said he _ought_ to be doing and what he _could_ do, then... logic won out. That was kind of the point in detective work, wasn't it? Logic ruled the roost.

_Of course,_ Shinichi thought drowsily as on the TV Humphrey Bogart drawled in subtitled English about gin-joints and meetings, _if that was always true, I wouldn't know Kid. Life'd be simpler, but... I wouldn't trade for that, not for a second. 'Simple' is over-rated._

_Wonder what he's doing tonight?_ It was on that thought, accompanied by the notes of Sam's gentle piano, that Shinichi drifted asleep...

...and it was a hard, angry rapping on the door that brought him very unceremoniously awake. Beside him, Ran had tensed up; Hattori snorted awake in the chair to their right, twisting around to glare at the door. "Whassat?"

"It's midnight," Ran said nervously, drawing her arm tighter around Shinichi. "Nobody should be bothering us at this hour."

The knocking repeated, harder this time; Agasa's sturdy front door rattled in its frame and Ran's breath caught in her throat. "Shinichi--"

"Hide, Ran." The boy in her arms was already pushing free. As Hattori vaulted out of his chair, edging toward the entryway with his guard fully raised, Shinichi snatched up his watch, fastening it without a second thought, and darted forward to the genkan to retrieve one of his shoes. He was already slipping it on as Hattori, a heavy cane in one hand, reached hesitantly forward and threw the door bolt open. And as it opened, before he could even draw his hand back, the bamboo spine of a handheld fan rapped sharply down on his wrist. Hattori yanked it back, cussing, as the door swung fully open. Shinichi stood, his single sneaker throwing sparks across Agasa's floorboards, watch raised, opened, and levelled at the throat of the intruders.

The moment stretched, all of them staring down the others. When it broke, it was with the polite, dulcet greeting of the middle-aged woman framed in Agasa's doorway.

"Konban wa."

Hattori all but fell over, and Shinichi did, sinking down to the floorboards with a thud. Ran rushed out from behind the couch to gather him into her arms, staring in confusion at a perfectly poised, beautifully attired Hattori Shizuka -- who was staring expectantly, one eyebrow raised, at her son.

"K-kaasan?" Hattori managed. "What are you--?"

"Don't forget about _meeee_, Hei~ji!" Toyama Kazuha peeked head and shoulders out from behind of Shizuka, a threatening scowl across her features. "You think you can just run _away_ for two weeks and not even _call_ me even _once_?" She stomped toward Hattori, arms akimbo; the Osakajin detective scampered quickly away from her, until Agasa's living room chair stopped his retreat. Kazuha - completely forgetting to even take her shoes off - kept going after him until they were chest-to-chest, Hattori trying to squirm away as Kazuha attacked, scolding finger and tongue wagging.

"I can't believe you! And you didn't even let me know you were _attacked,_ I found out from the _**television**_, and your poor kaasan and I were so--"

Nearer the doorway, Shinichi turned a wary eye on Shizuka from within Ran's embrace. "W-what're you doing here, Obaasan?"

"It has come to my attention that my son is no longer safe in Mouri-tantei's company. Toyama-kun and I have come to retrieve him. Oh, good evening, Mouri-kun."

"K-konban wa, Hattori-san," Ran managed, adjusting Shinichi in her arms. With a whispered apology to him, she stood, carrying him like the sick child he appeared to be. "You should have called ahead. You terrified us."

"It was not my intent. I apologize," Shizuka said, nodding softly. "Are Hei-kun's things all here?"

"No, he was staying in Tousan's room," Ran answered. "Should...I get his things?"

"We can pick them up on our way back," Shizuka answered practically, stepping into the living room with a measuring glance.

Ran looked around with her, cautious. The television was just playing the movie's end credits, and other than that, there didn't seem to be anything incriminating about the situation. Or at least she hoped there wasn't - Shizuka was a very smart woman, and she didn't need any extra help in guessing Shinichi's secret; she was already more than well equipped to do so, if her imagination led her in that direction. Searching for a change of topic, Ran was saved by the introduction of a sleepy, cautious Agasa to the scene.

"Ran-chan? Hattori-kun? What's going on here?"

"Professor, this's my kaasan," Hattori managed, trying to twist free of Kazuha's attention. The determined girl simply grabbed the his collar and yanked him back again, growling.

"Don't you try to get out of this, Heiji, you're in _so much trouble,_ and your kaasan and I drove _all day_ to get here, and you're not gonna go _ANYWHERE_ without me for a long time, and you just _wait_ til I tell--"

"I would be surprised if he went anywhere at all for a while, with or without escort," Shizuka commented lightly. Her words didn't have to carry much volume - they still had their intended effect, and Hattori shivered involuntarily. "I suspect he'll be a good son and stay close to his poor old mother for quite some time, after this. After all," Shizuka continued, her tone of voice cooler than the concern that was hidden under her words, "He _did_ get himself nearly killed twice in a row. I don't imagine he's thought much about how deeply worried he's made his dear kaasan for these last two weeks."

Hattori didn't so much wince as shrivel away from his mother's gaze at that, guilt pressing on him like a raincloud. "I'll get my things," he muttered, beginning to shuffle away. Kazuha pawed at his elbow. "Wait, Hattori, I'll come help."

"No you won't," he countered, turning around to put one finger against her forehead and push back lightly. "You're still in your street shoes." Kazuha looked down, yelped, and skittered back into the genkan with a blush across her face.

"Sorry, hakase!" She bowed in Agasa's direction, ponytail flipping forward.

"It's alright," the scientist stammered, waving his hand to mollify her. "Ran-chan can help Hattori-kun get his things together."

"Back here, Hattori-kun," Ran interjected, already halfway through the living room toward the doorway in the back side wall. Hattori trotted after her, waving impatiently at Kazuha to dissuade her following him.

"We'll be right back, Kazuha, kaasan."

The door of the small room snapped shut behind Hattori, Ran, and Conan - still carried in Ran's arms - and left Professor Agasa, Kazuha, and Hattori Shizuka alone in the genkan of the house. The Professor shuffled one foot, clearing his throat awkwardly in the face of Shizuka's level, exceedingly unimpressed stare.

"Ahm, well, then."

* * *

"_Hattori,_ what were you thinking? Ran, put me down."

"Shinichi, you're too weak. Sit here."

"Dammit, Ran. _Hattori!_"

"I know, I know. I kept meanin' to check in with 'em and then I'd just think of okaa's face and _euuugh,_ I just didn't wanna deal with that."

"_This is better?_" Hattori winced.

"Yea, yea, yea. Just...gimme something to do so we keep makin' noise in here."

The three teens - shrunken or no - bustled around in the small room, making just enough noise to believably mask their hushed, hissing conversation.

"Hattori-kun, are you going to be okay? What if they try to attack you while you're traveling...?" Ran pressed her lips together tight, resisting the urge to worry one between her teeth.

"If kaasan and Kazuha got here okay, I think we can get back okay," Hattori grumbled, collecting a couple pens and a notepad from Shinichi's bedside table. "'Sides, it's easier to go by car than train. More options."

"You let me _know_ if anything happens, Heiji," Shinichi demanded, young voice deeper with gravity. "I don't like this."

"Leavin' in the middle of the night? No warning? This's how they always do it in chase flicks," Hattori laughed quietly. "I'll be okay, Kudo. Just..." He pulled a thin, folded piece of paper - a letter - from his pocket. "You know where t'send this."

Shinichi nodded. "I'll take care of it."

Hattori stood back from the pair of them - Ran standing beside Shinichi's bed, and the boy in a half-crouch on the foot end of the bed, clearly fighting his own will to allow Hattori to leave. The Osakan detective nodded and pulled his hat on, bill forwards. "G'night."

"Goodnight, Hattori," Ran said softly, smiling a little. "Make sure to make up with Kazuha, okay?"

Hattori grinned through a wince. "Y'always ask the hard stuff, Neechan."

"_HEIJI!_"

All three in the small medical room winced. "Comin', Kazuha, keep your shirt on," Hattori yelled over his shoulder, then turned back to his friends for another moment. "You stay safe. Nothin' stupid, okay?"

Shinichi just smirked. "Says _you_."

With a snicker, Hattori ducked out the door, shutting it carefully behind him; the rattle of Kazuha latching onto him as soon as he was within range and the polite, firm murmur of his mother's voice played counterpoint to each other and to Agasa's parting well-wishes. Once the front door had shut behind them, much more gently than it had been opened, and the audible _beep beep bip_ of the Professor resetting his alarms assured them that Hattori Shizuka and Kazuha were _not_ coming back in, Shinichi and Ran both let out a big breath and looked at each other.

"So _now_ what?"

* * *

'Now what'.... was, according to pretty much everybody else concerned, not a whole hell of a lot.

The case was in other (admittedly capable) hands and under control. Heiji was _also_ in a similar situation, like it or not; and so long as none of the perpetrators managed to get in a potshot or tried vehicular homicide again, he and Shinichi were pretty much settled. And that was that.

Which didn't bode well for either one's temper, of course, or their frustration levels. Emails full of the latter flew back and forth with alarming frequency before the two detectives accepted their fate on the sidelines, and if said fate was a bitter pill to swallow, well-- Shinichi, at least, had some experience in that area. Not that he liked it, of course. He'd talked to Ayumi and the other kids, explaining as gently as possible that their case was now in the hands of the police; they'd been upset. Perhaps it was the lingering frustration left over from that talk that finally pushed the boy past his limits and led him to consider something that, admittedly, was not the best of ideas. As it was, it was less than three days after Hattori Heiji had been forcibly removed from Professor Agasa's residence that Shinichi's patience-- and his resolve to be a good little convalescent and behave-- at last broke.

The digital clock at his bedside had blinked the eleventh hour at him some time earlier; he hadn't been able to sleep, he'd had a surfeit of rest and was thoroughly, completely, utterly _sick_ of the walls around him, his bed, the medications that Haibara and Agasa'd been requiring him to take and pretty much everything, including his own boredom and the restless funk that comes with being halfway healed but not quite there.

This hadn't escaped his friends' notice, of course.

After even _Ayumi_ had pronounced Shinichi as 'acting like a big baby, why do boys DO that, Ran-neechan?' and Ran herself had given up lifting Shinichi's bad mood in disgust, he'd been left to sulk it off in his room. Ai had, oddly enough, given him a faintly approving look; he rather suspected that the influx of extra bodies in Agasa's normally-quiet house had been cramping her style and that she was ready to see them out the door, pronto.

_Well, fine. I'm sick and tired of playing guinea-pig anyway, and she keeps looking at me like I'm some sort of experiment that's about to reach critical mass,_ he groused to himself as he slipped out of bed and listened at his door. Ran had gone home earlier, Agasa'd headed for bed, Ai'd vanished into the basement and all was silent. Still. Peaceful.

Perfect.

Because if he didn't get out of there really really soon he was going to go completely, utterly, certifiably bugnuts, and not in an entertainingly Kid-like way either. _And speaking of which..._Shinichi tugged his warmest bathrobe tight around him and eased himself soundlessly through the door and in the direction of the tunnel leading from the Professor's house to the Kudo estate. _...speaking of which, I wonder what he's up to? Maybe if I emailed him we could, dunno, have lunch again or something. I'd-- kind of like to see him. No cases, nothing to work on, I've read and RE-read my stash of books, I'm developing a damned Playstation callus on my thumbs and I. Want. OUT. Even gradeschool's looking good right now, which means there's either something severely wrong with my psyche or my brain's going the way of my body._

Hence tonight's little field-trip.

And besides which, Shinichi was feeling a lot better anyway. _Yes,_ there were still the weird shooting pains in his largest joints and _yes,_ Haibara and the Professor were concerned about them and the way his white-cell count was still bouncing like a rubber ball all over his physiological landscape; but he had a lot more energy now and he hadn't run a fever in nearly a week. He probably needed the exercise.

The tunnel's uneven flooring radiated cold right up through the soles of his house-scuffs. Shivering a little, lightweight footsteps padding softly along through the dark, Shinichi pressed the latch that opened the concealed entrance to his family's home... and paused as a faint wave of dizziness swept over him, dredging a memory out of somewhere deep: icy roughness beneath his cheek, someone swearing softly as he was gathered up and carried, bitingly-chill draft moving past fever-warm skin--

_I never did thank Kid for bringing me back._ Shinichi pressed the hidden latch and the door swung open. _Got to remember to do that next time I see him._

A sudden, sharp pain in his left knee and hip made him stumble as the warmer air of his home gusted across the boy's face, carrying scents of books, dust and the ghosts of coffee; he hissed, massaging the offending joints as the door closed behind him. _Coffee; not a bad idea. So it keeps me up? I'm already up and I don't feel like sleeping anyway._ Fifteen minutes later the Krups was gurgling through a filter, the house's air had taken on a much friendlier scent, and Shinichi was ensconced on the couch with a stack of fresh reading material and a steaming mug. It had amused him to find several new additions to the kitchen: two open bags of coffee in the freezer (Mundo Novo Arabica and something esoteric called 'Pixcaya Huehuetenango'), a bag of chips of a brand he didn't recognize and a brand-new container of green tea ice-cream. The formerly dusty sink was scrubbed and the washcloths hanging neatly over the faucet; peering over the edge of the counter, the boy had thought about elves and grinned to himself as he'd poured the coffee and settled down, wrapped in a rather ratty couch-throw, to entertain himself.

But--

Despite the caffeine, the comfort and warmth of his home ground and the novelty of a bit of excercise had their eventual effect. Eyes slowly drooped and slid closed, Shinichi's copy of Judge Dee At Work slipped through his fingers and onto the floor, and he slept.

* * *

Sunlight was filtering through the blinds when he awoke, prying at his eyelids with gleaming golden fingers. Shinichi stirred, blinking sleepily at the windows. _...Shit, did I-- I've been here all night? The Professor and Ai are gonna kill me--_

And he turned his head and saw the gun.

_"H-Haibara?"_ he whispered, staring in shock past the black mouth of the barrel at her face. She was eerily calm, her blue-gray eyes faintly smiling.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "It seems that my past cruelty is still a part of me." As Shinichi stared blankly, mouthing _What?_ she shook her head, that unblinking gaze unwavering. "Don't you understand? They've found me. Yes, the men in black, my former coworkers; they've found me. Don't you remember, Shinichi? That case in Haido City, at the hotel?"

He did. Horror froze his limbs, stilled any incipient movement where he lay; a sharp jolt of agony spiked through him, radiating from the heart outwards. That had been the one with the Black Organization member, the one she'd called Pisco--

"I never thought there could be another agent there," said Haibara Ai-- _Sherry--_ softly. "Never in my wildest nightmares. But there was, and they worked out that I shrank, and this morning they found me." She breathed out, barely a sigh; the barrel of the gun never moved. And still she smiled. It was the kind of smile that accompanied madness and despair like a friend, following them through the depths and emerging on the other side where there was nothing left but the calm of still, still waters.

"I thought they'd kill me, you see. But they want me back, Shinichi; they want me to finish the research, develop the Apotoxin, pick up where I and Pisco left off."

"...and you came to kill me? Because I know about the Organization?" he whispered, pulse racing. _Ai, no. No please. Don't betray me, don't don't don't, not after all this, not me not Ran not everyone, Ai please __**no--**_ Pain again, ripping at his breathing, worse than before.

"Of course," Sherry said rationally, horrifically complacent at his understanding. "They know about you. It was a condition of my return. And... the others..." (her steady, dead gaze never left his) "...your parents, your friends, Hattori... they'll all be taken care of tomorrow. But," she offered as if in consolation, "I can save the Professor, you know. They're holding him hostage. It's all I can do."

_But you can't do anything. You're helpless. I'm sorry. It's all I can do. It's all I can do. It's all I can do and you can't do __**anything**__--_

"You should thank me, you know. You'll be first, Shinichi; you won't see them when they die."

Her finger tightened on the trigger--

_and the gunshot was lost in the roaring in his ears as he tried to move tried to move tried to move tried to move tried to_

--and fell out of the dream and off of the couch in a tangle of bathrobe and book and blanket.

There were no blinds, no sunlight, no Ai. Just quiet, and agony.

On his hands and knees on the floor, Shinichi couldn't even gasp. The pain took his breath away as thoroughly as a blow to the chest. His ribcage seemed to crumple inwards, lungs stabbed with shards of bone or pain, it didn't matter which; bile rose in his throat as he convulsed around his core, biting his lip to keep from biting his tongue. Within seconds, the pain had doubled, and a few moments later it doubled again; Shinichi's eyes rolled back as he passed out, his body conceding quick, overwhelmed victory to the panic of his searing nerves and muscles.

* * *

When he woke again, eyelashes crusted to his cheeks and throat raw, the first thing he noticed - beside the fact that he was still in pain - was how cold it was. The blanket, where was the blanket -- with shaking hands, Shinichi groped blindly about for the soft, warm cloth. When his fingertips finally brushed against it, at the extent of his arm's reach, Shinichi pushed off the floor with his other hand, leaning toward his goal in order to grasp it.

Around then, he noticed the height issue.

Dragging the blanket quickly back to himself, Shinichi freed one hand and rubbed his eyes open. The first thing he saw was his big knobby knees, followed by his hand -- his broad, strong, teenager's hand. His heart leapt so hard that he _felt_ the impact when it slammed into his ribcage, then ricocheted somewhere in the direction of his collarbones.

_Flashbacks,_ he thought, stunned. _Heiji and Ai said something about flashbacks...relapses...oh, god._ Shaky though he was, the detective pushed himself to his knees, then gained his feet, wobbling only slightly on legs that felt like stilts. He glanced around the room, taking in the situation. It was still dark outside; this transformation must have been much quicker than the last. Room dimly lit, book there, bathrobe over there, one arm torn. House still smelled strongly of coffee, was warmer than before, and there was a soft buzz in the background, but it didn't sound important. _God, I have to get back. I have to tell Ra--_

In the hallway between the kitchen and the library, which was lit quite a lot more than it had been when Shinichi fell asleep as Conan only a few hours before, Shinichi skidded to a stop, his face an open book of shock, and stared down the day's _third_ unexpected - and complicated - visitor. No, make that third _and fourth;_ the second of the pair was coming out of the kitchen even as Shinichi and the first stared at each other in confusion (on her part), consternation (on his), and shock (on both parts).

"Shinichi, darling, do you want to borrow one of your father's bathrobes?" Kudo Yukiko was the first to collect herself, smiling sweetly at her inexplicably grown-up-again son. "I don't want you to catch a chill like that."

Shinichi looked at his mother, looked past her shoulder at his rather bemused-looking father, then down at himself. _Well, if your bathrobe's over __there__, and you're over __here,__ it only makes sense._ Shinichi scowled darkly at that logical corner of his brain, which sounded distressingly similar to the voice of a certain thief he knew, and darted up the staircase toward the bedrooms and clothing.

In the hallway, Yukiko turned to watch her son leave, leaning against her husband at her back.

"You know, he looks just like you did when you were that age," she commented fondly, her voice caught somewhere between an appreciative woman's and an approving mother's. "...But he gets his cute little tush from me."

* * *

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_Book Three starts in April. Thank you for reading and goodnight. _


	22. Visitation, impulse, explanation

_Hello again, and welcome to Book Three-- yes, that's ____Book Freaking Three__-- of Three Thieves. It's been a long haul, hasn't it? If you've stayed with us all this way (and I guess you have, why else would you be reading this?) then thank you for your patience, perseverance and other things beginning with the letter 'p'._

__

Time for a little warning/advertising/information. This story, while most distinctly NOT a shipping-based story, DOES contain and places great importance on the relationships therein; and beginning here and now, the emphasis will get much stronger. Book One was mostly about building friendships and the growth of same; Book Two extrapolated upon this and went into all that stuff about the damn cows. And Book Three... well; you'll see. But be warned: if you don't care for a lot of character-growth and relationship-based ficcage, then Three Thieves may not be the place for you.

On the other hand, if you DO like that sort of thing..... ^__^

Once again: if you think you know what we're doing, don't put any money on it. If you think you know where we're going, don't try to get there first 'cause you may get lost on the way. We hope you like the progression of events; we hope you let us know what you think of them, no matter what happens.

_On with the show!............ ____The Management_

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**Three Thieves: A story about crossing boundaries**  
_**Book Three, Chapter One**__**: "visitation, impulse, explanation"  
by **_ _**nightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
Crossposted to these communities: **_ _**dc_yaoi**__** , **_ _**detective_conan**__** , **_ _**magic_kaitou**__** and **_ _**manycases1truth**__**  
**__(Music: '_Shoudou_' (Impulse), by B'z)  
_

"...so no, not permanent. I wish."

It was still a little before dawn and Kudo Shinichi was, more or less, explaining the facts of life to his parents. HIS life, anyway.

Their precipitous arrival had explained itself in the form of airline-tags on the luggage in the hallway and Yuusaku's grumbles about appallingly high cab fare, rescheduled flights and an author's convention in Tokyo in a week's time. His pretty blonde wife had tweaked his mustache and tsked; after all, wasn't it wonderful that the house was aired out and their son was there to greet them, and look, he'd even bought his tousan's favorite ice-cream, wasn't that thoughtful?

"Though really, Shinichi, you shouldn't go wandering around in the buff," she informed her son cheerfully. "Not that I have any problems with nudity in the right time and place, but what if Ran-chan were to stop by? Unless of course you _want_ her to see you-- Does she know, by the way?"

Shinichi blinked, a little dazed by his mother's whirlwind conversational style; he'd forgotten just how quickly she could change directions. "Um. Know?"

A manicured fingernail flicked his forehead, _thwip!_ "About THIS, baka. About how my little Shin-chan," and Yukiko's eyes sparkled with glee, "is all grown up now, at least for the moment. Does she? We could call her."

"......Kaasan, it's 4:20 in the morning. _Not_ a good idea."

"Oh, you're no fun."

"Kaasan, I came over here to get some space out of that damnable exam room, passed out, woke up with a nightmare and a heart attack - no, really, I mean that literally - passed out again, woke up like this, and ran into you guys. I haven't had a _chance_ to call Ran yet, and I don't really know if I _want_ to right away, because Ai will stick some needle up my _ass_ again - no, I _don't_ mean that literally - and I'll be right back where I started, in that damn exam room, with a case of cabin fever bigger than my own damn head."

Yuusaku raised one eyebrow in amusement. "Frustrated, son?"

Shinichi sighed gustily, an irritated huff that went along well with the rough tug he gave his hair. "Juuuust a bit. It's just - I've been cooped up in that room for three weeks or maybe it's been a month now, I've lost track completely. I just had to give up a case _well_ before its completion, every inch of me hurts and I feel like I'm burning up and I'm _happy_ that I can feel that, because it means the pain hasn't yet gotten so bad as to surpass my ability to remain conscious, and even though I'm happy to be back in my body - I don't know when it'll snap back, now I_really_ can't leave the house, and..."

He stopped, belatedly realizing that his parents weren't listening anymore -- both were instead focused intensely, almost rapturously, on something over his head. "...What is it? Is something wrong with my hair?"

"Shinichi, you should probably turn around now," Yuusaku said slowly, without moving his gaze.

Shinichi was sitting in his favorite armchair in the library, wrapped up in his father's old bathrobe and a blanket. The glass window wall was to his back, curtains thrown open, moonlight streaming in over his shoulders and lining his sweat-sticky hair in silver. His parents sat on the couch in front of him and to his left; they didn't directly face the windows, but they could easily see them -- and the upper level balcony accessible only by the bookshelves' rolling ladder.

Well. Only accessible that way if you were coming from the _inside_.

The shiver that tickled its way down Shinichi's back, more like a finger's track than a phantom breath of air, told him what he'd see a moment before it came into view. Silhouetted in the moonlight, crouched on the rail of the balcony like a gargoyle in white gabardine and wool, Kaitou Kid sat calmly watching the Kudo family with a gentle smile on his lips. One leg, hanging down over the rail, swung gently; on the other knee, folded up against his chest, Kid rested his cheek casually. His monocle was a silver mirror, impenetrable, but the shadows around his uncovered eye seemed less than solid. His hands were empty. "Good evening, Tantei."

_...Visitor Number Five. Okay. What do I do now?_ Shinichi's mind flailed for a second and then settled, very simply and sharply, on a single essential fact: he was currently in a room with three people who he didn't need to hide anything from, and the best he could do was make sure that nobody got it into his head that he needed protecting from any one of them.

With that in mind, he let out a long breath and smiled up at the most recent visitor to the Kudo home-- a small smile, but a real one. _Glad to see you,_ it said, and _It's okay._ One eyebrow went up, inviting the thief to share the ridiculousness of the situation. "Hey," he said. "Um, Tousan? Kaasan? It's all right, he's.... well. _Not_ harmless. Sort of anything _but_harmless. But... he's welcome here." Shinichi cast about a little desperately for a moment and then settled on the prosaic matter of introductions. "Kid? This's my father, Kudo Yuusaku, and my mom, Kudo Yukiko." He looked at his parents; they were somewhat owl-eyed, still silent. "And this is the Kaitou Kid. But I guess you kind of figured that out." Shinichi swallowed a bubble of laughter that kept trying to rise up in his throat; it felt a lot better than the pain that still lingered, and he welcomed it.

"I seem to have misplaced my invitation," Kid purred smoothly, descending from the balcony gracefully, lithe, and too quickly to be sure that he was following all the rules of gravity as he did so. His glossy shoes clicked down on the strip of hardwood floor that fronted the bookcases, where the rolling ladder's wheels could coast smoothly - then padded silently onto the carpet, heading for Shinichi's chair, attention on the Kudo parents. "My apologies, then, for failing to announce my presence. I didn't realize there would be such a storied audience tonight. Kudo Yuusaku, author of the _Night Baron_ series of novels - and Kudo Yukiko, whom I believe studied the artistry of disguise in New York to expand her illustrious acting career?"

Kid's hand had come to rest on the back of Shinichi's head a fraction of a second before the words fell from his lips; therefore, it was easy enough for him to smooth Shinichi's hair down, turning the stroking motion into a disguise for the sudden jolt that they sent through the detective.

"And _you_ weren't supposed to be back yet," he added, rapping Shinichi's skull with one gloved knuckle. "I thought I told you not to do this again." Sweeping his cape out under his right arm, Kid delicately lifted the fabric of his left pant leg as he took a perch on the arm of Shinichi's armchair. The mincing gestures relieved stress on his clothing, surely, but everyone in the room knew that his uniform was made of sterner stuff than that. The net reaction, of course, was for Shinichi to bite his lip in an effort to stave off hysterical laughter (and not spoil his friend's performance) while his mother's eyes slowly glazed over in stars, lingering perhaps a bit too long on the smooth, tailored, eye catching lines of Kid's white pants where they smoothly curved from his hip to thigh.

"_Thank_ you for visiting us tonight, Kaitou Kid," Yukiko trilled, hands folded in her lap in a clear effort to contain her eagerness. "You're welcome in our home any time."

Yuusaku's hand gripped the arm of the sofa tightly enough that his knuckles showed white; that and his widened eyes were the only betrayals of his intense focus. His face, so very similar in appearance to his son's, was composed and even warm. "I take it you're familiar with Shinichi's, ah... little problem, then?" If he found any awkwardness in the moment, he allowed it to smooth over unrecognized and unwanted and went on as if he spoke to Phantom Thieves in his library every day. "We weren't aware of the most recent developments until we arrived less than an hour ago," he added. His and his wife's gaze shifted to their son, and Shinichi fought an urge to squirm.

_'Little problem'. Not funny, Tousan._ But it was, actually. The younger Kudo looked up at his friend; "Everybody's a comedian," he snarked, still trying to keep the snickers back. "And it wasn't like I had much choice about 'doing this again'... it just happened." The white-gloved hand rested warm on his hair; it was oddly comforting.

"Somehow that's not comforting, Tantei-san," Kid murmured. "I leave you alone for two weeks..."

"One," Shinichi corrected him.

"It's seemed longer. Ten days?" Kid mused, before Shinichi's mother cut in over them both.

"Did you have something to do tonight, Kid-san? I wouldn't want us to get in the way of your work..." Yuusaku shot his wife a scolding glance, but she ignored it; meanwhile, Kid laughed.

"Goodness, I don't think I've been _invited_ to steal anything since..." His smile turned familiar. "Well, there _was_ that one incident involving the Amber Wing; perhaps you've heard of it? The one owned by the Kikoman zaiba--"

"_They've heard,_ Kid," Shinichi groused. "Thank you for rubbing it in my face again."

Kid blinked, leaning over to peer at Shinichi. "Rubbing what?" Exasperated, Shinichi swatted at the thief; of course he didn't connect, and Kid's laughter filled the little pause before he answered Yukiko.

"I was visiting simply to see Shinichi. I saw that the light was on."

_That_ little statement earned Kid a second thoughtful pause as the implications sank in with the elder Kudos and they played connect-the-dots; the picture that resulted included multiple visits to their son by the thief, a previously unsuspected and possibly extended period of acquaintanceship between the two and, lastly, the quite obvious air of easy familiarity between the two-- this was neither an antagonistic nor a distant relationship as might have been expected between detective and quarry. Oddly enough, the realization seemed to have an adverse effect on Yuusaku; in the moment of silence his hand tightened visibly on the arm of the couch and his face had lost a little of its color. He opened his mouth to reply and then stopped, the humor draining from his eyes.

Shinichi blinked at his father in some alarm. "Tousan?" he said tentatively; the figure perched beside him was very still, waiting.

But his father merely shook his head. "It's nothing, Shinichi." The older man's gaze held a trace of sadness where it dwelt on the white-clad thief. On the couch beside him, Yukiko raised one eyebrow at her husband, perplexed... and then something, some realization crept into her eyes and her face changed-- and then changed again, shifting mercurially back into an aspect of brightness with a speed that would do a phantom thief proud.

"Well!" she said cheerfully, beaming. "It's late, we need rest, and I'm sure you two have things to catch up on, right, Shin-chan? Of course you do. Are you going to be alright, darling? Good, then we'll just slip next door and leave Agasa-hakase a note so he won't call out the dogs when he finds you missing-- What? Of _course_ you'll sleep in your own bed tonight, that tunnel's much too cold for you in your current state." She bustled to her feet, tugging her husband up (and, incidentally, away from Kid's vicinity, giving him plenty of room and visibility.) "We'll be a little while; don't feel you have to hurry. So lovely to meet you, Kid-san, please feel free to drop in _any_ time at all!"

"But-- Kaasan--"

"Make sure he stays wrapped up warmly, Kid-san! Shin-chan, tie up your bathrobe, it's slipping." With that admonishment, Yukiko dragged Shinichi's father down the small hallway that contained the hidden passage's door; there was a faint click, an almost silent hiss of sliding wood, and the very final sound of the panel closing.

Silence. Shinichi looked up at Kid. "...well, _that_ was weird."

* * *

In the cold passage between the houses, Yukiko gently turned her husband around to face her, stopping halfway. "Yuusaku? Love?" One hand rose to touch his cheek.

"It wasn't him, 'Kiko." Kudo Yuusaku closed his eyes, lines of pain creasing the corners. "So much like him, so much, but... it _wasn't._ He'd be my age. I thought, just for a moment--"

"I know." Her arms went around him and Yukiko hugged her husband tightly. "Shhhhhh, shhhhh... I know."

* * *

Within the house, a minor disagreement was going on.

"Why should I have been?" Kid, now standing in the moonlight near Shinichi's chair, removed his monocle and top hat and levelled a querying expression at Shinichi. "Your reaction told me there was no need to worry. Besides, if your parents can be trusted with your secret -- and with any knowledge of their reputations, which I am quite familiar with -- it's a very fair assumption that they are not burdened with an overabundance of lawfulness."

"God, Kid, what if it hadn't been them? Or if they'd been followed, or--"

"If they'd been followed, don't you think _you_ would have had more to worry about than me, _koko-sei_ tantei? Mister _high school_ detective? You ran upstairs by yourself, and I'll bet you didn't even check the hall and room for intruders before you flicked the light on." Shinichi puffed up, ready to take offense, but Kid closed the distance between them and crouched down next to the detective's knee, looking up at his friend. "I know because I saw the light in this room go on, and I know you. You weren't on edge, heck, you didn't have any guard up tonight - not even when your parents were looking over your shoulder at something you couldn't even see. They're here, your body's back, and you're in your own home. You just trusted whatever it was wouldn't hurt you."

"What if it hadn't been me, Shinichi? You're _grown_ right now. You're asking me to worry about myself before you even think about your own safety?"

"This is pointless, Kid," Shinichi sighed, drawing one knee up to his chest within the big blanket, heel braced against the arm of the chair near the thief. "You're not Org, it was just you, my parents weren't followed, and all this paranoia can just take a backseat for a minute, okay?"

Kid smiled, raking one hand through his hair with an exasperated, chiding noise. "Tsk, tantei, just because you're tired and sore and freezing doesn't mean you can let your guard down." He rose to his knees and reached forward with both gloved hands. Each thumb passed within a breath's space from Shinichi's cheeks, wrists turning smoothly until the thief's fingertips were all lightly poised on the back of the detective's neck. He hesitated for a moment, his smile flickering like a kaleidoscope's waver just before the picture changed, and then closed his grip on the edge of the blanket wrapped around Shinichi's shoulders. Sliding his grip down its edge, Kid snugged the blanket around Shinichi's neck and body, doubling its layers over his chest. One gloved hand gently smoothed the soft cloth across Shinichi's chest, tugging wrinkles out of it, as his other hand drew the second side over the first.

"There." Kid's smile, close, was small and warm. "Your Kaasan did say to keep you wrapped up warmly."

...which, at this point, pretty much did Shinichi's brain in. It was the late hour, he'd tell himself later, plus the strain of his unexpected change and the shock of Visitors Three through Five. He wasn't thinking clearly at that point, of course; and that was why he felt his face heat, why the thought of _That's exactly what Ran would do, isn't it? Just like that_ crossed his mind, and why he had no inclination whatsoever of pulling back, not even in embarrassment. It was a very strange sensation: uncomfortably new and more than a little intimidating, and at the same time remarkably (even shockingly) comfortable, warmth in all its essence.

(And later he'd ask himself why he'd felt no guilt, either. There were a lot of possible answers, and every one led to another question, and that question led to Ran.)

But in the meantime, a smile hovered around Shinichi's lips. "Yeah, she did. Thanks." He looked at the eyes that were, for once, below his own; they were very blue. "You know, this is the first time since the Clock Tower that we've been in the same room and I've been my right size and not either in disguise or curled up in a ball." The smile turned into a real grin. "And you were aware, right, that my kaasan was _totally_ checking you out?"

"Mmm, was she?" Kid feigned unconcern. His hands - which seemed to dislike stillness - kept busy with smoothing and folding the corners and lines of the blanket that covered Shinichi, and his gaze followed them. "I didn't really notice," he said plainly, a moment before his sharp sapphire gaze snapped up to capture Shinichi's own. "I was too busy checking you out."

".........!!" The expression 'beet red' had, for the most part, always been something that Shinichi considered to be an exaggeration. Apparently not. _I, okay, I can handle this-- I can, uh... no I can't. Yes I can..._ "You were? I mean, uh--" Swallowing the nerves that were trying to strangle him, he tilted his head and stared straight at Kid. This was still his friend; they were still the same people they'd been a moment before.

He dropped his gaze to somewhere around his knees and Kid's tie. "I'm... still getting used to this," he said quietly, the smile in his voice now as well. "But-- um. I think it'll be easier than I thought." Shinichi glanced back up, back at dark blue eyes that still looked straight at his. "Kaasan's got good taste."

"She's not my type," Kid snickered. "Even though she's quite attractive for her age." He sat back on his heels, putting more space between his face and Shinichi's, and smiled impishly. "If I was going to be selfish, I'd kiss you right now. But that wasn't what I promised you I'd do, and it would be so much less fun than waiting for _you_ to kiss _me._"

Ignoring Shinichi's expression, which had grown more flushed and alarmed with every word, Kid continued quickly, his tone soothing. "I already promised you what I'd do: I gave you my heist note already. I wasn't sure if you'd like it...and if you will, well." Kid smiled, showing just the littlest bit of ruefulness. "If you will, that would make my task sweeter, at the least." He shook his head a little. "It'll be a difficult heist, and I don't have a clue how long it will take. I'll have to carefully juggle _both_ of my objectives, but it's far from impossible." The thief straightened, squaring his shoulders, and gave Shinichi an expression composed halfway of his universally known heist cockiness, half of the tenderness and vulnerability they'd shared in dark, silent moments where the only word between them was _warm._

"Do you think I can do it, Tantei?"

Shinichi studied him seriously, Game Face in place, blue eyes to blue eyes for a few seconds. "Do I?" he murmured, something light and strange rising up in his throat; it felt like laughter, but it was also very familiar, and it tasted like the first time he'd let himself really look at Mouri Ran as something other than a childhood friend. "It all depends, doesn't it? I mean, let's see-- you_are_ pretty good at what you do, aren't you? But so am I. And aren't I supposed to be the detective and you the thief?" The gravity in his eyes could only last so long; it sparked and ignited the smile back into place, slow and a little shy. "You'll just have to put some effort into it, I guess."

And then he blinked. "...wait. 'Both of your objectives'?"

Kid's grin slid bouncily over into manic territory, familiar ground for him. "For this heist, it won't be enough to steal what I want and give it back later. I have to steal it without taking it away; make _it_--" (Here he paused, an emphasis on the pronoun that indicated he could just as easily use a more personal one) "--mine, and leave it in the hands that already have held it. I will give and thieve at the same time; I will multiply my target's breadth from one focus...." Kid rose up on his knees again, leaning in close, closer, until his quiet breath washed over Shinichi's neck and ear. Not an inch of their bodies touched, but the heat from Shinichi's flushed skin warmed Kid's. His voice was the barest whisper.

"...From one focus, to two." There was a moment of stillness, where only Shinichi's indrawn breath made sound; then the moonlight was suddenly reflecting off of Kid's monocle in Shinichi's peripheral vision, and a plastic _clack_ broke the spell. The fog capsule hit the floor with a hiss.

"Goodnight, Tant--"

_Impulse._ It was impulse that made Shinichi react, impulse that made his hands whip out and snatch at thin-- or thick, in this case-- air, impulse that made his fingers close over cloth and skin; the same impulse that made him reach for the heart of a crime or the moment of resolution, a spare second of action, two seconds, three. And in the blindness that closed over everything, his hand slid up along a curve of neck above a collar, a cheekbone, a soft tangle of warm hair; he felt something (a hat?) fall past, felt the charm of Kid's monocle swing against his fingers, and felt the touch of warm lips beneath his own.

Just for a second. Two seconds. Three.

And then a hand scooped up something from the floor, a fleeting edge of silk cape whipped through the air (close enough to grab, just maybe, or maybe not) and there was no-one in the fog but Shinichi.

* * *

_I cannot believe I did that. I __**kissed**__ him. I just--_

His room-- Shinichi's own room, the one he'd slept in from the age of three-- was dark and quiet. All around him he could hear the creaking of the house, nails and screws holding steady as the walls flexed around them in the last hour before dawn; the tiny noises made it sound like the building was talking to itself in tiny startled whispers. If a person could understand the language of architecture, if the walls had tongues as well as ears, what would Shinichi's home be saying? _That you're an idiot, maybe? Lost your mind? You chased a thief until he turned around and caught you? Because you're well and truly out of your depth, Kudo, and damned if you don't seem perfectly happy to be drowning._

He lay curled into himself beneath a heap of covers, the whole length of his teenaged body aching with the building flood of fever that had come with the change. Or maybe that was just the flush of heat that still beat in his face, keeping time with his pulse. He licked his lips; if he let himself (and he did, he had, the moment'd been on continuous playback ever since) Shinichi could still feel--

_(softer than he'd thought, like Ran's but different, shocked into stillness and then pressing forward, breath of warm air meeting his own breath)_

_I just reached out and I-- God. Wow. Okay, 'wow' sounds really immature, but... I've been wanting to, wondering if I could even let myself, ever since--_

Different and the same. Kid's hair had been springy between his fingers; into the loop of mental instant-replay Shinichi threaded that sensation. It sank in seamlessly, and as he curled up tighter into the darkness presaging sleep, he had a curious, brief tactile illusion: the touch of Ran's silken hair sliding through his fingertips in concert with Kid's, the two textures simultaneous and complimentary.

_--ever since the first time I tried to second-guess myself, that night up on the roof. __Not__ precisely immature, then, any more than kissing Ran is. Especially right now, like this. And I got past his guard, even though... he let me. I shouldn't feel smug about that, should I? Because if he __hadn't__ let me, I don't know if I could have. Would have. Might have, though. __Wanted__ to; and there's a little honesty._

__

Yeah. I did.

He...

I... want to try that again. And I'm about to turn back, I can FEEL it. I want to...

I want to know what he's thinking. I want to... I don't know. I mean, I-- yeah, but I don't--

Yes I do.

.......

_I've got to talk to Ran. Can't hurt her, can't leave her in the dark anymore, but she __**knows**__, doesn't she? Does she? She was there when I talked to him that night Heiji burst in, I all but put up a goddamn billboard._ Shinichi shivered, arms wrapped around himself. _Why don't I feel guilty? Is it because she went and got him for me? Ran..._

_Kudo, you're fucking __greedy__, that's what you are, you know that? You want them both. But there's so much to want, and I've been... I haven't let myself think about anything like that in so long. And what the hell, I'm eighteen._

Eyes tight-shut, he huddled down deeper and pulled the bedclothes nearly over his head. This fever wasn't like the one he'd ran during his convalescence; it had its own particular feel, a building conflagration rather than the sullen bonfire that had burned for days on end. In a gratuitous-horror kind of way, Shinichi welcomed it; this change'd felt-- tenuous, somehow, and if he had to transform back it'd be better to get it over with all at once in a flash of fire, not stretched out for hours and hours. Maybe he'd be lucky. Maybe he'd sleep through it. Maybe he'd even dream-- good dreams, not nightmares this time.

...he had a lot of material to work with now, didn't he? _Ran. Kid. __**Both**__ of them. I must be out of my so-called mind._ Through the pounding in his head a thread of wry, affectionate humor made Shinichi smile a little, just a little, just once more. Being chibi-sized again was going to be _much_ more frustrating than usual, and in ways that were damn well going to give him some interesting dreams.

Not now, though.

Outside Shinichi's window, the sky gradually lightened. He tried to sleep; shivering in his cocoon of blankets, a heavy numbness like a thunderstorm descended over his thoughts and his body. Pain flashed through in bursts, lightning striking inside his spine and in the dark places behind his eyes. Teeth chattering, Shinichi rode it out, rode it out, tried to reach past it to unconsciousness as the lurid red agony built and built and

_oh god here I g--_

* * *

Around dawn, Kid bolted awake. Flat on his back in Kuroba's bed, Kaitou Kid stared at the ceiling and listened to his pulse thudding in his ears. His heart hammered against his chest; the roof of his mouth and his throat felt dry, as though he'd been gasping for air while still asleep; his whole body was flushed and alert. His lips felt the imagined -- no, _remembered_ -- pressure of a kiss.

Just the thought of it sent him flying again, breath hitching, a grin breaking across his face like sunrise, like lightning. He felt lightheaded - he felt like flying. Just like taking the glider out, up, as high as he could go. Like discovering how fast and far down he could dive; how sudden and adrenaline-drunk he could pull out of that dive. He closed his eyes, dizzied by the whiteness of the ceiling above him, and behind his closed eyelids, the whole moment played back. Shinichi's hitching breath, the scent of the gas capsule and the sticky sweat on Shinichi's skin; the way his friend the moon gleamed as her light slid across his monocle. The touch of Shinichi's hand on his neck...his cheek...in his hair, oh, god, in his hair --

Kid bit his lip, pushing himself upright in bed. His eyes, now open, stared unseeing at the blankets where they stretched over his bent knees. He'd challenged the detective...he'd explained his plan. His patience. And Shinichi had cut straight through all the mincing, all the coaxing and gradual progress that Kid had planned for him, and had...

_Calm down, Kid,_ the thief reminded himself, wiping one palm across his neck and throat to clear them of sweat. _It was just a kiss._

The thought backfired on him. _But I want more,_ Kid mentally groaned, falling back into his lush, cloudlike pillows. _I, oh Benten, I __**want**__ him, I want him, I want him._

_"One thing at a time,"_ a calm voice cut in, and the suddenness of it startled Kid - and his fervent yearning - into momentary stillness.

"Kaito?" The thief closed his eyes, and in his mind's eye saw the room around him exactly as it was, with one addition. Kuroba Kaito smoothed out the blankets on the bed's edge and took a seat there, folding one ankle under his other leg. The knee that stuck out bumped gently against Kid's hip.

"Kid," Kaito greeted his counterpart. "You're looking..." The magician looked his friend over, top to bottom. "...Exceptionally enthusiastic."

Kid blinked, took stock, and realized Kaito's implication. "Geh, pervert magician, why're you looking at that?"

Kaito smirked. "Well, I like to keep track of what you're doing with the merchandise."

"Oh, for--" Kid, embarrassed and laughing simultaneously, rolled onto his side to face the magician. The drape of the blankets disguised his quickly-fading problem. "Can you blame me? He's_fine!_ Kaito, did you _see_ him last night? Benten take me, he's gorgeous. And by her name, he just turned _around_ when he realized I was there, he didn't even -- and his _mouth...!_"

Kaito snickered, waving a hand at Kid to shush him. "Jeez. I thought you also liked him for his mind?"

Kid's expression grew serious for a moment. "Magician, I know - I _know_ - I will never find his equal. Maybe not even in myself. Trust me - I have not forgotten about his mind. Far from it."

"But his mouth is more interesting right now?" Kaito snorted. "I know how that is. Go on, wax poetic about your Detective. It's all lost on me, but it's entertaining to watch you lose yourself in indulgence for once."

Kid shook off the beginnings of another reverie to aim a quizzical expression at his counterpart. "Lost on you? Even _Tantei_ can't move you? Your heart is stone, my friend."

The magician chuckled. "I prefer the fairer sex. I'll grant you this, at least: that Kudo is among the fairest of the unfair sex." Both conversants grinned at the wordplay. "Still, need I point out to you where his deficiency lies with regard to my interests?"

Kid laughed. "Well, I think you ought to."

"Need I say with overmuch emphasis, Thief, that it is in the _breast division_ Kudo is deficient."

Recognizing the reference, Kid grinned like a Cheshire and played along. "Ah, I see, the breast division."

Kaito sat up straighter, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, his ass I like. I _like_ his ass. An ideal ass for the role. That's what I said when I saw him leave. 'An ideal ass for the role.' I have nothing to counter his ass. The trouble is, neither has he! It's in his _breast_ that he is unbalanced."

Kid feigned upset. "You mean... it's deficient?"

Kaito smiled. "_You_ don't think so, do you? ....Oh, there you go again." He rolled his eyes, reaching forward to smack his counterpart lightly across the skull. "Come on, focus, Fool. So, he likes you, he likes you not, he likes you." The magician spread his hands, small down feathers falling from his fingers like little white petals. "I've plucked your daisy for you, as if he didn't show you his intentions well enough last night."

"You're awfully confident," Kid sighed, reaching for his pillow and wrapping himself around its squishable bulk.

"I know what you felt," Kaito answered simply. "I can remember it as vividly as you can."

Kid groaned, burying his face in the pillow to muffle the sound. "Don't _remind_ me, I'll need a cold shower in a minute."

"Well, maybe this will help: He's probably little again."

Kid's eyes popped open, and he sat bolt upright to stare at the Magician. "How would you know that?"

"By paying attention to what _you_ noticed, but didn't take note of, last night." Kaito spread one hand demonstratively, explaining himself with a detective's organized attention to detail. "He was covered in sweat - fresh sweat, more than he could have produced merely due to embarrassment. His body temperature was similarly raised, and his breathing - before your flirting made him start _panting_ for God's sake - was shallow and labored. Even while you were talking with his parents, he wasn't feeling well, but his happiness at seeing you and them did much to hide it. And he hadn't planned this transformation, as he told you. I doubt it would have lasted long, seeing as even the intentional one didn't stick as long as it should have."

Kid slumped. "I should have used tongue." The magician immediately began sporfling in laughter, and the thief waved one hand at him with a slight bit of flail built in. "I _should_ have!"

"Next time, thief," Kaito managed, through his laughter. "Next time."

"There'll be a bit to do before that," Kid mused, drifting quickly from playfulness into earnesty. "Mouri-san."

Kaito nodded, swallowing the last of his giggles. "Yes. At least you can say you weren't actively trying to steal him from her."

Kid shook his head, falling back onto his pillows with his hands crossed behind his head. "No, I definitely made that clear last night. I won't take him if she can't hold him at the same time. I don't have that right." He sighed, smiling at the ceiling, and touched his lips gently with his own fingertips. They were rougher and harder than the yielding warmth of the kiss Shinichi had given him; scarred and calloused where Shinichi's lips had been soft, a little chapped, but oh so inviting. But they reminded him of the pressure of the detective's kiss: not shy at all. Bold, impulsive, maybe even eager. Definitely sure.

"I'll write him," Kid murmured, closing his eyes softly. "I'll send Keeta as soon as I wake up."

"Going back to bed?" Kaito stretched out on the bed beside him, propping his head in one hand.

"I am," Kid mumbled, turning onto his side to face the illusory closeness of his counterpart's illusory body. Despite this, Kid still felt the warmth of Kaito's radiant heat as their shoulders drew close, hands folded side-by-side on the comforter between their bodies. "Today, I sleep in. I'm ahead of my planned schedule, after all. I have time to indulge a little." _And of all mornings, I deserve it on this one,_ the thief added silently.

Kaito smiled in agreement. "You'll be attending school in my place this week, I hope you know that."

Kid frowned slightly, knowing the magician's reasons for the demand, but his good mood quickly mellowed the expression. "With pleasure," he promised. Though he knew the substitution was the least he could do for his friend, who was so earnestly celebrating his joy with him despite his own resultant sorrow, Kid would have offered anyway, or simply performed the substitution without being asked. That was just how they worked together, acting on the things unsaid between them, and said unbetween them.

With true daylight creeping in through the half-drawn draperies, the room was striped in warm sunlight; with a patch of this laying across his calves, Kid drifted off to sleep, thinking mostly of Shinichi. But in close company were thoughts of the fairer sex; specifically, those women, one apiece, who were most important to the most important men who still breathed in Kid's world. Ran and Aoko...Kid's jubilation would have costs, and he would pay them in earnest.

_I'll write him about Mouri-san,_ Kid resolved. _Just as soon as I wake up from these dreams._

* * *

For the second time in one night's memory, sunlight feathered across Shinichi's face; it stroked rather than pried this time, laying painted bars of warmth across cheeks and chin and eyelids. He stirred, eyebrows drawing together in a wince as every muscle protested all at once and loudly.

Something _crunched._ And crunched again, and again; there was a faint _ting!_ of metal against something hard.

The boy in the bed shifted, eyes still closed; beneath the covers he streeeeetched, turning a little onto his side as another series of crunching sounds broke the silence. His nostrils twitched...

...and slowly, Shinichi's sleep-blurred blue eyes opened in Edogawa Conan's face. He blinked at the figure that sat cross-legged on the foot of his bed just beyond his own toes, bowl and spoon in hands. "K--" He coughed.

"Good morning, Shin-chan," sang his mother, taking another bite of her cereal, spoon scraping the bottom.

"--Kaasan?"

"If you want some, there's a little left in the box downstairs, but I think I used the last of the milk. Oh, but there's coffee!" Uncrossing her pajama-clad legs, his mother (who looked more like some college-student at a sleepover just at the moment, all long blonde braids and fleecy bright pink socks) reached out and tapped his ankle gently. "Are you hungry?" Wide blue eyes a shade lighter than his own looked at him soulfully. "Growing boys need their breakfast."

Shinichi scowled; the sight of his own small hands clenching the edges of the covers had already confirmed what he'd suspected. "I... yeah. I guess." The scowl relaxed a little as his stomach growled emphatically. "Huh; I really am," he said in surprise.

"Good." Kudo Yukiko slid off the bed, bowl and spoon in hand. "I'll tell your father to make you some toast and eggs and then we can pick up Ran. And then we--"

.....there she went again, the Great Unstoppable (as Shinichi's father called her), managing the world for everybody whether they liked it or n-- _Wait._ The sheets bunched between his fingers. "'Pick up Ran'? Kaasan, it's a school day, she's..." Yukiko's son's voice trailed off as his mother beamed at him from the doorway. "You arranged it already, didn't you?"

Yukiko tapped her spoon on the doorjamb as she turned the knob; the scent of coffee wafted invitingly in, and Shinichi's stomach growled again insistantly. "Well, of _course._ And after all it isalmost noon, Shin-chan. We're picking her up at one, so on your feet and out of bed." Halfway out of the room, she tilted her blonde head slightly to one side, looking worried for the first time since her son had woken. "You can manage to shower and dress on your own, can't you, darling? You're all right? If you're not, I can always--"

_Awp! Nonono--_ "I'm FINE, Kaasan," he hastened to assure her, awful mental images of being scrubbed, rinsed, dressed and carted away in his mother's arms like the gradeschooler he'd once been running through his personal mental theater. "Just fine. You, ahh-- go fix some more coffee. Please?"

"Oh. Well, if you're sure...?"

"Positive."

* * *

Fifteen hurried, wobbly-legged minutes later, Shinichi straightened the collar of his Conan-sized sweater before the bathroom's full-length mirror, his mind on things that had very little to do with what he was actually seeing.

In his mind...

In the mirror of his mind he wasn't seven-almost-eight, wasn't childishly round-faced, wasn't a little boy. In the mirror he was tall and strong, broad-shouldered but with a runner's lithe build. And the hands that tugged the sweater straight were spare and long-fingered, lingering as they mimicked the actions of another pair of hands, smoothing his sweater into place. In the mirror, in his mind's eye, he wasn't alone.

Within his own small fingers he could feel the ghosts of larger ones, slipping up, catching, holding as a cloverleaf-charm swung close. Touching. Shinichi's slow movements came to a halt as memory added other bright moments in like a painter's brush: Ran's gentle fingertips tracing his cheekbone and lips, Kid's clever ones meeting on the back of his neck.

On his side of the mirror, Shinichi swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a long moment before he opened them again to acknowledge the boy before him.

"Shin-chan?" came his mother's voice from below. _"Shiiiiiiiin-_chaaaan, if you don't get down here we won't leave you any coffee--"

"Coming, Kaasan."

The bathroom door swung shut; and then the mirror held nothing but memories.

* * *

Though his daydreams in the mirror had only yielded him frustration and regret (albeit via a sensual detour of what-ifs), Shinichi's lightly simmering crankiness evaporated at the sight of his girlfriend's face. Ran, glowingly happy to have escaped school a few hours early, met the Kudos at the school gate with a warm smile, which all three returned to her with interest. "Kudo-san, it's so good to see you again," she exclaimed, making Yuusaku chuckle. "Your return was just so sudden, I imagine everyone's going to be shocked you're back."

"Not for long," Yukiko cautioned Ran, as the four of them began walking away from Teitan High toward their destination. The air was still winter-chilled, but the sun was warm and strong, counterpointing the bite of the breeze against their cheeks. Heavily bundled with little deadline in mind, they all walked slowly because they could. "Yuusaku has an authors' convention to attend in a week. We thought we'd come back early to see everyone, and to see the little detective who's been keeping you company while our horrid son has been gallivanting around on his cases."

Ran smiled, looking down the length of her own arm. On the other end of it, small hand gripping her own tightly, Shinichi smiled back, an adult's rueful humor showing through his child's eyes. Even wrapped in a warm mitten as it was, Ran could still clearly feel the heat of his palm against her own. She'd barely had time to get her hand cold, really - straight out of school and straight into Shinichi's grip. And his parents hadn't commented on it at all; even as she'd greeted them, Shinichi had moved from his mother's side to Ran's to take her hand, natural as anything.

Ran felt a light flush warm her cheeks. It would be easy enough to blame on the cold; she could keep to herself its cause, the memories of just how Shinichi had gained that confidence. It was the sort of confidence that let him clearly display to the world, even when the world was composed of just the ten-odd people who could still recognize him as himself, that his priorities and his thoughts lay always with Ran. And they did, she truly knew it, and had been certain of it ever since that day...since Shinichi's return. His "red sweater visit," she privately called it.

Tucking the memory safely away in the same way that Shinichi's red sweater was tucked under her futon blankets, where its scent and texture warmed her hopes and her patience every night, Ran squeezed Shinichi's hand in affection and turned her attention to the conversation around her.

"...the most interesting visitor last night, but it was after Conan-kun had gone to bed." Yukiko rattled onward, some sort of motherly, gleeful wishing that her dear Shinichi was still obedient like that, going straight to bed after a long day, who knows what he was getting into these days. "For all I know, last night he was covertly meeting with _thieves_ and brigands! Conducting secret espionage, or _communicating_ with the underground!"

"Oi oi oi," 'Conan' interrupted, dropping his feigned little boy voice in irritation. "It's not like that."

Yuusaku laughed. The expression in his eyes was somewhat shuttered away, but his smile was genuine. "No, it's the _over_ground, isn't it?" He waggled his eyebrows at his son, just as Shinichi always used to do at Ran. As 'Conan' rolled his eyes, the girl began giggling uncontrollably, and in a moment the Kudos had to stop, turning back half a pace to stare at Ran, standing still in the middle of the sidewalk and smothering her giggles in both mittens. At her knee, Shinichi watched her with bemused affection.

"Ran-neechan," he said, his tone a strange - or humorous - mismatch to the form of address, "You're going to get hiccups, laughing so hard in the cold air."

"I'm fine, Conan-kun, it's just what Kudo-san sai-- _hic!_ -- said about _hic!_ Shini-- _hic!_ -- oh, damn_hic!_"

Yukiko's bell-clear laughter mixed well with Yuusaku's words; as she helped Ran stand and breathe deeply to soothe her hiccups, her husband gestured further down the street with a smile.

"The ice cream shop is just up ahead. Think you can make it there without dissolving into amusement, Mouri-chan? I think some hot chocolate would settle those hiccups."

"Do they have coffee too?" Shinichi asked, expression quizzical. "I really hope they have coffee."

"You had two cups already, Shi--Conan-kun." On Ran's right side, Yukiko tsked disapprovingly. "Really, I don't know what your kaasan was thinking, letting such a little boy get addicted to such awful stuff."

"Maaa, I have no idea," 'Conan' answered back innocently, regripping Ran's left hand as he did. "She always was the impulsive type."

"Yuusaku! Did you _hear_ that? This little boy is so _mean_ to his poor lovely not-old-at-all kaasan!" Yukiko's husband wisely opted not to take sides, studying the clouds above and ignoring his wife's entreaty. Foiled, Yukiko turned to Ran. "Ran-chan, don't you think he's being awfully mean? Hidoi, hidoi, _too_ cruel, this little ochibi."

Ran looked from Yukiko's big puppy dog eyes (_So that's where Shinichi gets it,_ she thought) to the very dryly unimpressed expression on Shinichi's face, then over to Yuusaku, who gave her a big fat _Don't look at me!_ grin. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh for heaven's s--_hic!_--sake." Shaking free of both Kudos, Ran skipped ahead a few steps, then turned to look over her shoulder at Yukiko and Shinichi. "The shop's just _hic!_ up ahead, so let's go get some hot chocolate, okay?"

"Hai, Ran-neechan," Shinichi trilled, suddenly switching on the Conan-charm full force and making Ran blink in abrupt confusion. He ran forward three steps to her two and caught her hand up again, smiling, as a young couple passed in the opposite direction. With a small smirk, Shinichi watched the confusion clear from Ran's expression, and then dropped the act to speak quietly with her. His parents' faux bickering (well, really, his mother's faux whining) behind them gave him relative assurance that they would choose not to hear whatever he had to impart to Ran.

"Tousan wasn't kidding," Shinichi said briefly, holding down both the smirk and the blush that wanted to rise as he brought to mind the previous night's events. "I have a lot to tell you."

The tone of Shinichi's voice, childish though it was, held whole tomes of information. Whether he was little or large, Ran knew how to read Shinichi's voice, and she knew that he knew it. As seemed to be the case more and more frequently, the truth - the only truth - lay just below the surface of what had actually been said. Ran's expression opened up a little, intrigued caution giving way to the beginnings of understanding, and she gripped his hand tighter through both their thick mittens.

"Okay," she said simply.

_I guess it's starting, then. I helped, though, so...I can do this. I trust him._

* * *

_Asia Pulse_ and its treats lay a block or so up the sidewalk; and Shinichi's small hand tightened on Ran's fingers as they threaded through the thin mid-afternoon pedestrian traffic. "I didn't expect Kid to show up last night," came his voice very softly from beside her. "Didn't expect a lot of things that happened, actually. For one thing..." The waist-high voice hesitated, "...you know that theory Haibara had about 'flashbacks'? She was right."

"--ow! Ow! Ran, FINGERS, you're crushing--"

Cradling the abused digits remorsefully in her own, Ran looked down at Shinichi worriedly. "But-- you're not... Oh. Oh, Shinichi. How long did it last?"

He sighed; behind him, Yuusaku and Yukiko were going on about visiting old friends while they were in town, renting a car (his mother wanted a motorcycle, naturally), normal things. "Not long enough, or I would've called you this morning. I had a nightmare and I woke up feeling like somebody'd kicked me in the chest; guess it'd already started." The quick look Shinichi shot Ran was rueful but not without humor, and there was a very un-Conanish smile there too. "First thing I thought of when I woke up, _first_ thing, was that I needed to call you. But it was almost four in the morning and my parents showed up, and I had to explain why I wasn't... and then..."

Crushed or not, small or not, the clasp that tightened around Ran's own was not Conan's either.

"Ran? Do you remember what I was saying, that night Heiji broke in on you and me and Kid?"

She was silent; Conan counted his steps like heartbeats, six, ten, a dozen. "I remember... what you said, and what you almost said." The words were matter-of-fact. "Maybe better than you do, Shinichi. I've been wondering what would happen, and when I'd find out." Ran's voice dropped a little, softer and very careful. "I've been wondering when you'd tell me."

She didn't sound angry; she didn't sound apprehensive or betrayed, she sounded... a little like she had that day when Shinichi'd told her everything. And it left him shaken, stumbling for a second as his feet tried to stop while his body kept going; did she trust him _that_ much? How could she, after everything? _Okay, I am not going to angst,_ he told himself firmly. _This isn't going to be that kind of conversation. I said I wouldn't keep her in the dark anymore and I meant it; doesn't mean I'm going to let my personal paranoia take over, right? Get a grip, Kudo._"There wasn't a lot to tell-- not yet," Shinichi answered with a hint of sheepishness, and he looked up apprehensively. "...Ran? There still isn't. I mean it's not-- not-- I didn't--"

Six more steps in silence; her hand was warm around his, and their breaths frosted the chilly air in puffs of white. "Shinichi, I don't..." Ran took a breath, smooth, steady; he recognized the calming technique from her karate. "I don't own you, Shinichi. I don't own you, and you're not mine to control."

"Ran, what--"

"Let me finish, please," she murmured, squeezing his hand reassuringly. Stretched above his head as it was, his arm was beginning to go numb, but Shinichi ignored the trivial pins and needles and focused on Ran's words.

"You aren't. I know you love me, I _do_, and I love you too, Shinichi." Flushing a bit at that - neither of them were experienced with saying it so straightforwardly - Ran pushed on, steps quickening somewhat. "Loving you is about accepting you for who you are. Holmes freak and all." She smiled, and despite himself, Shinichi did too.

Ran continued, choosing her words carefully. The little hand in hers gripped her fingers so nervously, so tightly, as though he was afraid; internally, Ran sighed. It was _she_ who had reason to fear. She resisted the urge to grip his hand more tightly; this whole conversation was about not hurting him, wasn't it?

"I already have accepted that I can't tie you down. I accepted that a long time ago, while I got used to waiting for you to come home from your endless case. Now I know that you were here all along, but I still had to let you go, in my own heart. Even though I loved you, even then. And learning that, accepting that about you - that your mysteries will always be so important to you - was important. I love you more, now that I'm not jealous of your mysteries for taking your attention away from me."

Shinichi's eyes widened, mouth going a little slack. "Ran, you..." She looked down at him, squeezing her eyes shut in a tight smile, and continued before he could finish the thought.

"I don't own you, and I don't even think I own your heart. I have a place in it, but there's room for other places and people to fill it, too, isn't there?"

_I won't cry. I won't cry. I promised myself. You can do this, Ran. __**Don't cry.**_

He was staring up at her anxiously and a little desperately. "Ran, this isn't a you-or-him, it's... a you-_and_-him. He said it himself: he wouldn't-- God, this is embarrassing, but it's important, I don't care-- he... you come first. He's not trying to, to... take me away." Face reddening, Shinichi dropped his gaze to the sidewalk. "I love you too. What you just said makes that more important than ever. And I'd give this up first before I let that fall apart, Ran, I promise." Shinichi swallowed hard, and his voice was thick and halting when he spoke next. "I didn't even know until a little while ago that I-- had the capacity for something like this; I still don't understand, there's so much I'm still figuring out. But I won't lose you, unless... you push me away."

Behind them, Yuusaku and Yukiko's voices were silent; around them, the sparse sidewalk crowd seemed a distant thing, unimportant and unreal. "If you do," he said softly, miserably, "I'll have lost half my world. Nothing can replace that, nothing, nobody, and never will... and he _knows_ that, he sees it. But, do you, Ran? Do you?"

"Baka Shinichi," Ran said, face upturned toward the sky so he couldn't quite see her expression. Her throat was tight, but she forced words through it anyway, blinking hard to push the tears out of the corners of her eyes and clear her vision. "I never said I was going to give up."

_Oh my God. She listened. She didn't shove me away and leave._ "Good," said Shinichi almost fiercely. "Because you already won. I **mean** it, Ran, I'd do anything to keep from losing you." He took in a deep breath, hard enough to make his steps falter. "Do you have any idea how terrified I was about talking to you about this? Scared out of my goddamn _mind;_ I thought you'd hate me or, or push me away, or-- and now I just kind of wish I was smaller than I am, just this once."

That got Ran's attention, and she looked down at her friend..._so much more than a friend_...at Shinichi with a legitimately puzzled expression. "...What?"

"Smaller. Younger. Because," and his eyes were shining when they met hers, "because then you could pick me up. I wouldn't mind. That way I could put my arms around you, and it's the only way I can when I'm like--"

Ran had already swooped in, and before the sentence was finished, Shinichi found himself sitting on Ran's hip, both her arms around him to support his weight. She was beaming at him through thick streams of tears.

"What was that, 'Conan-kun'?" she asked, freeing one hand to brush his hair away from his forehead. "I think we can make an exception today. Your leg hurts, doesn't it? I'll carry you." Leaning in close, Ran pressed her lips to Shinichi's brow in the space she'd cleared, then smoothed his bangs back into place. Her eyes spoke volumes, but her voice stayed low, and she wasn't seeing 'Conan' when she spoke again. "There. All better."

Face still pressed close to hers, he nodded and wiped carefully at her face with his sleeve... before doing the same to his; he needed it. "All better," he whispered, and held her as tightly as his small frame could manage.

* * *

___#_

___**bows** Thanks again for reading! Check with us next week for Book Three, Chapter Two: "father, tea cups, introduction". ____And thank you for your patience during the recent brief hiatus. Sometimes Real Life interferes in ways which we would very much like to avoid._


	23. Father, tea cups, introduction

___Good evening, everyone! Oh, we have a lovely treat or two for you tonight. Those of our readers who've welcomed the presence of Kudo Yuusaku and Kudo Yukiko should enjoy this chapter quite a bit; they play starring roles (Yukiko demanded her own dressing-room, of course; Yuusaku just wanted a library), and you'll be able to see a bit of their past come to life. History, mystery and a first-hand account of a fateful meeting; we hope you're all pleased. ____We____ are._

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And then there's Kuroba Kaito and Aoko; they too get their moments. You didn't think we'd forgotten about them, did you? Just you wait. :D

___So sit back, take a load off your feet and relax. It's been a long day, hasn't it? Time to take a break. We'll be serving tea and some lovely snacks shortly. Enjoy!.............. The Management_

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___**Three Thieves: A story about crossing boundaries**____  
__**Book Three, Chapter Two**__**: "father, tea cups, introduction"  
**____By _ _**nightengale**____ and _ _**ysabet**____  
Crossposted to these LJ communities:_ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

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A little-known fact about Kuroba Kaito was that he was a pushover. Specifically, a pushover toward one particular girl. And when Nakamori Aoko asked, he complied. Whiningly, with humor and irreverent jokes, and more than a few slight of hand tricks, but he complied nonetheless. And all the fluffery and show was disguise for the simple fact that he never had to ask her "how high;" every time, he just leaped for the moon.

In Kuroba's clothes and shoes, mixed in with his friends and answering to his teachers, Kaitou Kid didn't have to try very hard to generate the nervous energy that Kaito was well known for. Still riding Cloud Nine for his own private reasons, Kid played Kuroba's part through an otherwise unremarkable school day morning and lunch, helping with classroom chores and conversing with Hakuba and Aoko, ignoring Akako. Only the witch knew anything was amiss, but then, he never could keep anything from her, and not for lack of trying.

Kid was two minutes from freedom, intending to cut evening classes in favor of a disguise, a cup of coffee at the Poirot Cafe, and some private letter-writing time, when Aoko snagged him by the back of Kuroba's gakuran.

"Kaiiiiiiitoooooo, don't you run out before I can talk to you!" Aoko threatened, tugging on his collar for emphasis. Kid, a good space taller than the girl, choked somewhat.

"Aoko, leggo, you're strangling me," he complained, twisting free with lithe agility. "What's so important it can't wait til tomorrow, anyway?"

"Mikuru-chan went home sick today, but she actually _is_ sick! She was going to just skip afternoon classes to fill in an early shift at her you-know-what, but now she can't even get there for her normal one this evening! She has to go or they'll fire her. And obviously she can't ask for a doctor's note from the school nurse or she'll get in trouble _that_ way too. You have to help!"

"Yukishima has a part-time job?" Kid wondered, barely drawing breath after the last word before Aoko was on him, pouncing his mouth with both hands.

"SHHHH! Sheesh! I told you that already. And don't say it so loud or she'll be in trouble." Having reached the shoe-change lockers, Kid and Aoko split paths, one to each side of a bank of lockers. Rattles from the other aisle accompanied Aoko's voice as she continued the conversation at a volume high enough for Kid to still hear, and Kid easily envisioned her face as she spoke.

"You have to help her out. Hakuba-san has work and I can't miss class or I'll fail the test next week," she explained breezily. "And don't you even tell me that you're going home to study too, or something else ridiculous, you magic freak. Cause I know you're just heading home to play around 'cause you're bored. You weren't going to study anyway, so go help her out. They already know that I'm sending you."

"Oh, thanks for letting me exercise free will," Kid-as-Kaito drawled. In his street shoes, school scuffs neatly tucked away, he walked around the far end of the locker bank to glare at Kaito's most precious person. "So where am I going, anyway?"

Aoko's smile was fiercely satisfied. "Oh, I _knew_ you'd do it. It's a little ways from here, you should take your bike if you wanna be on time. You're gonna work from now til evening, Sawa-san will tell you when you can leave. If it's slow, he might let you go early. It's a little ice cream shop not too far from Teitan. _Asia Pulse_."

* * *

"--and _BOOM!_ Beef from Heaven. Ice and concrete all over the place, frozen human remains, all that; and then we examined the seven known sites and--" A spoon was waved over the table, tracing the crime-scene curve as it would have appeared from the air; Kudo Yuusaku leaned across the ice cream café's table intently, listening as the boy opposite he and his wife explained as quietly as enthusiasm would allow about his and Hattori's most recent case, with the occasional comment from Ran. The elder Kudo's gaze was fixed on his son's face, and anyone who knew him well enough would recognize his stamping-down-into-memory look; it usually presaged a future _Night Baron_ plotline.

His wife, however, was paying very little attention to Shinichi's diatribe; she'd seen the two when they'd looked back down the sidewalks, and a little mopping-up hadn't nearly been enough to hide the tear-tracks. Those worried her, both the ones on Ran's face (much more visible) and the faint traces on Conan's (barely there, but her Mother's Radar picked them up like glowing runway-lights.) "Ran-chan?"

"--spent the next few days until-- yes, Kudo-san?" Ran blinked reddened eyes at her inquisitively.

"Restroom? I don't want to go alone," she explained quite seriously to the two males at their table, "and you _know_ we women have to go in groups of two or more. Come along, won't you?" Yukiko smiled sweetly, catching the younger woman's wrist and towing her up from her seat; they left together, Ran glancing back over one shoulder reasurringly at Conan as she went. Bemused, the pair's husband and boyfriend watched them go.

"Tousan? Do women get easier to understand with time?"

"Not even slightly. If anything, they get worse."

"Great."

* * *

"...and if he's done anything to make you upset I'll be _terribly cross with him._" Yukiko took a deep breath. "He's not too old for a spanking, especially in the current circumstances, and I know I'm being a horribly nosy, pushy, inquisitive mother, but I will NOT tolerate Shinichi doing anything that--"

"No, no! Kudo-san, it wasn't like that. We just," (Ran dabbed at her eyes with a wet tissue) "just needed to... clear some things up. That's all. Really, I promise." She gave the other woman a watery smile, a little tenous but real. "See? I'm fine, and Shinichi's fine now too."

Yukiko frowned. "If you're sure, Ran-chan...? I'd be glad to talk whatever it is over with you, if you wanted a shoulder to cry on. I've got two of them, darling, and you _know_ you're welcome to either one anytime." She raised one lovely eyebrow. "I do have quite a lot of experience with pigheaded males, and I doubt anything you'd say would surprise me."

Ran visibly backtracked, flushing an amazing red at the thought of discussing... _that_... with Shinichi's parent. _Oh my goodness. Oh my GOD. I-- don't think so._ "I, um no, that's, I'm fine, just_FINE,_" she floundered, pushing open the restroom door hurriedly; a uniform-clad attendant with a mop emerged from the men's room opposite, glancing up as they exited. "I mean, it's all taken care of, and I'm sure we've got other things to be thinking about today than Shinichi's and my little..."

The attendant stopped dead in his tracks, his rich blue eyes meeting Ran's.

"...discussion..."

* * *

About one full second into the staredown, Kaitou Kid realized he should probably turn off his Poker Face and greet Mouri-san and Kudo-san properly.

Two seconds later, he was still working on that.

"K--" Ran pulled up short after the first sound of his name, and Kid realized that she'd probably only been told the civilian name that went along with his face once, at the park. And with no good reason to remember it...

"Mouri-san, wonderful to see you again," he said, digging a spare smile out of some forgotten drawer in his mind dedicated to emergency rations, step one in a smooth save. "Kudo-san, I presume? Mouri-san has described you in illustrious detail. My name is Kuroba."

"Kuroba...san," Ran said slowly, clearly on autopilot, "Conan-kun and Kudo-san's husband are here too. Would you like to come say hello, or do you have...something...to do?"

The effort was not lost on Kid; grateful for Ran's awkward attempt at sitrep, he smiled at both women and gestured vaguely with his mop. "Sorry, things to be doing, I'm still on the clock, so I'll have to decli--" He stopped, looking down dumbly at Kudo-san's hand on his wrist. Her smile was iron.

"No, really, you should come say hello. I don't think you've seen Conan-kun in at least twelve hours, do you?"

Kid's Poker Face snapped back into place with a vengeance; internally, he reeled. _No, no, he wouldn't have. He wouldn't have. He didn't. Get ahold of yourself, Kid, he didn't tell them._

_...Did he?_

Externally, he was still doing damage control. "Oh, I imagine it's been a little longer than that," Kid was breezily saying, extracting his wrist from Yukiko's grip with careful force. "Though it's so funny how the days seem to fly by."

"Indeed," Yukiko agreed, relocating her hold on Kid by slipping an arm through his, forcing him to release the mop and bucket and play cordial, or cause a fuss by shoving her away. "You can go through whole decades overnight, it seems sometimes. Doesn't that happen all the time?"

"No, I don't believe I've felt that, Kudo-san," Kid smiled. His heart felt like a granite rock dropped in the ocean: deeper, darker, colder with every passing nanosecond. "Really, you must excuse me--"

Beside them, Ran was still looking shell-shocked, but concern was fighting for ground within her expression, and winning. Kid could only imagine what sort of number this whole situation was doing on her - and judging by the sliver of conversation he'd overheard, he could already be blamed for those tears on her cheeks. How many more would be there by the end of this horrible chance meeting? _Shinichi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I promised you I wouldn't hurt her._

Yukiko smoothed some of Ran's hair back from her face with her free hand, winking reassuringly at her. "Come on, Ran, don't you think we should at least introduce Kuroba-san to my husband? Yuusaku will be very happy to meet him."

_I don't think he will be,_ Kid moaned silently. Stoic, his headmate the Magician observed the proceedings through Kid's eyes in a somewhat dazed echo of Kid's blindsided shock. _Either I followed them here, or I set things up, or I eavesdropped, or something equally likely and believable and if this were __any other day__ I would be guilty of one of those, probably all. The __one__day that I didn't actually try to set this up...the one day that I wanted __space__ from both of them...for all our sakes... Oh, Benten and broken mirrors damn me, this isn't going to look good for me no matter what, and I still don't know how Kudo-san __**knows**__. And facing Shinichi...in front of Ran...dressed like __this__...!_ Somehow, the more trivial concerns managed to eclipse the multitude of severe ones, and as Yukiko towed Kid toward their table, his overwhelming dread gave way to a somewhat unhinged giddiness.

_Well, I got one good kiss out of it. Let's see the house of cards fall to pieces._

_I wish it'd take me with it._

* * *

"--Guatemala's out of our reach, but not out of Hattori Heizo's _oh. My. God."_

Yuusaku blinked. "His-- Hattori Heizo's what?" He watched with concern as his miniaturized son turned dead white, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Are you alright, Sh-- ah, Conan-kun?" The boy opposite him shook his head dazedly, hands flat on the table in front of him and gaze utterly focussed just past his father's shoulder.

In an echo of the night before, Yuusaku turned around... and found himself staring at the past.

Or almost; more like a prelude to the past, perhaps a half-dozen or even ten years prior to what and who he'd known, a younger, remarkably pale version of someone he'd once called 'friend' and whom his wife had called 'teacher'. The eyes were the same..._almost,_ that remarkable blue of the deepest lake; the build, his movements, the way his chin was raised to face the moment... _almost._ Almost, not quite, but so close that Yuusaku felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Look who I found, darling-- it's Kuroba-sensei's son, of all people! Who'd ever believe that we'd meet him here of all places?" caroled his wife, a delighted smile on her face. _And,_ Yuusaku thought rather numbly, _a pair of throwing-knives in her eyes. This is-- is--_

Across the table, Conan's face had slowly gone from sheet-pale to a slowly deepening pink. "K...uroba-san," he said faintly. "What are you _doing_ here?" Wide with alarm, his eyes met Kid's, telegraphing shock and recognizing it in return. The anguish he saw there caused him to make an abortive movement, one hand reaching out for a scant moment.

Kid reacted to Shinichi's gesture with one of his own, just as impulsive; his free hand twitched forward, yearning to catch and hold Shinichi's, before Kid killed the impulse and brought both hands back to his sides, clenched into fists. Through his fear, elements of the conversation around him registered, and began to click into a sensible arrangement; somehow, his sense of self-preservation kept him engaged in conversation with the Kudos.

"I'm filling in for a friend," Kid answered Shinichi, helplessness showing in his eyes. "Total dumb luck that I'd be here today, while you're here."

He turned his gaze to Yukiko with an honest expression of polite confusion. "You mentioned...Kuroba-sensei?"

It was Yuusaku who answered, his numb voice betraying the difficulty that he, too, was having with the conversation. "My wife studied disguise in New York City when she was just beginning her acting career, and we both became good friends with her teacher...Kuroba Toichi."

"You look just like he did back then," Yukiko burbled, releasing Kid's arm and sliding back into her seat beside Yuusaku. "Well, maybe a little younger; we were all in our twenties when we met."

"I see," Kid said.

"He was a master of disguise," Yuusaku added, his voice faint. "The best in the business."

"Mmm, yes, he and Sharon were the best there was."

Kid was very still where he stood at the end of the table, almost forgetting about Ran at his elbow. He was focused entirely on Yuusaku's face; even Conan's distressed, pale expression barely registered. "Did you...know him well?"

"Very," Yuusaku said quietly. "Would you like to take a seat?"

"I...I think I will," Kid managed.

"Sit beside me," Ran offered, startling all the others. "I can put Conan-kun on my lap, to make room. ...If that's okay."

Kid gathered himself quickly, nodding agreement and muttering something in vague thanks as Ran slipped into the booth and gathered Shinichi onto her lap. Kid slid in beside them, his movements careful and stiff.

_They seem comfortably familiar with each other,_ he observed numbly, feeling as though he stood at a great distance from his surroundings. _Maybe their discussion brought them closer instead of pushing them apart._ But he couldn't seem to care about it; for as fervently upset as he had been less than five minutes prior, afraid of the damage his involvement might have wrought in Ran and Shinichi's bond, now concerns like love and attraction seemed as trivial and ephemeral as soap bubbles.

_My father. He knew my father._

* * *

_He looks like he's in shock. It's so easy to forget what the basis for his life, his mission, everything, really is-- a dead father._ Shinichi'd looked up Kuroba Toichi's history; his son (or sons) had been eight years old when the master magician had died. _Imagine that happening to Mitsuhiko or Ayumi or Genta; imagine it happening to me when I was really eight. How do you get over that kind of trauma? Answer: you don't 'get over it', you deal with it the best you can. He-- they-- did._ That was the practical way to look at it; but Shinichi's heart winced away in pain at the idea of the grieving, lost child his friend had once been.

_Still is, really. Look at him, Kudo; listen to him._

"We met through mutual friends in the entertainment business," said Yuusaku quietly, his gaze reflective. "You were perhaps two or three, I think; he was already a well-known name on the stage, a couple of my books were being produced as plays, Yukiko'd heard of him as one of the finest appearance artists around... I suppose we simply fell in together and kept in contact even after my wife's lessons in New York were over and we'd returned to Japan; we were good friends for several years." He hesitated, eyes darkening. "We attended his funeral; I-- remember seeing you there. So much like him in so many ways..." Shinichi's father's voice trailed off.

"I spoke with your mother a few times more after that," added Yukiko, her voice soft. "I still send her a card at Shogatsu, did you know that? Such a strong, lovely woman; I've wished a time or two that maybe we could see each other again, just for old times' sakes. It's been too long." Still she watched Toichi's son, delicate fingertips tapping her spoon with a tiny chiming sound. "You do look so much like your father, but..." Yukiko tilted her head. "There's something about your eyes that reminds me of her."

With one hand braced on the seat beside him, a feeble search for steady ground, Kid looked between Yukiko's and Yuusaku's faces with a wisp of desperation showing through the Poker Face covering his own. "Kaasan is tired now," he said softly, sounding like nothing more than a small, scared child. "She misses him. And ever since..." He pulled up short, remembering barely in time that they were still in a public place, and his gaze dropped to the tabletop uneasily. "...Since then, she sees him in me even more. She..." He stopped, and the closing of his throat around his words was audible to everyone at the table.

"I would like to hear more about my parents. ...My father." Kid looked up again, his gaze making a slow circuit around the table, from Shinichi to Ran, Yukiko, and finally --

"_KUROBA!_ Get the hell off your ass and get over here! You're on the freaking clock!"

Kid froze, face going pale. "Coming," he called back, gaze locked with Yuusaku's. But he didn't move, couldn't move; hands on the tabletop, he trembled a little bit, and was otherwise still.

It was Ran who spoke, arms sliding protectively around the child in her lap. "Maybe you ought to plan on getting together again, then," she said quietly. "Someplace where you don't have to worry about interruptions, someplace..." She hesitated.

"...safe," finished Conan. He was silent, eyes flicking up towards his parents. "Someplace outdoors, someplace open, someplace--"

Yukiko blinked, then looked at her husband. "Yuusaku? Do you still have that friend at the Ghibli? Noriyama, wasn't it?" He blinked back but nodded cautiously. "The museum has a series of open rooftop gardens," she explained. "It'll be cold, but there's a perfectly lovely private one that the museum director uses now and then, all Zen and rocks and so forth, and I imagine he wouldn't mind if we borrowed it for a bit..." She chuckled. "He's a fan, you know. Tomorrow evening, perhaps?" Her earlier sharpness had eased off in the face of Kid's obvious anxiety. "There's a gazebo. Hmm?"

In answer, Kid looked to Shinichi. "Tell me when, Tantei," he whispered. "Keeta will find you." Then, with an enormous thrust of willpower, the thief pushed off the table, forcing himself to stand. Within rattling, cobwebbed mental spaces left empty and vacant for a decade, Kid stood lonely, cold, and resolute, and wrapped his cape tight around himself, shutting out - for now - the warmth and willingness that could undo him. Dust and fog skirted around his ankles, dragged by the passing of air stale from long enclosure.

_Tomorrow. They'll tell you everything tomorrow. You promised Aoko to work this shift. You can't leave now. You have to do this. You have to do this._

_Kaitou Kid, you __**will do this.**_

Kid's Poker Face came back in that moment, first a rough estimate, then smoothed into perfection. It was kind of like watching a high-resolution graphic come into quick focus: coarse pixels for a split second, the suggestion of an expression; in the next instant, Kid looked as he always did, elastic smile and mellifluous voice in bright, clear motion. The mask was absolute, unbreakable: Kid was shuttered away completely; even Kuroba Kaito was gone. Only the role of ice cream shop employee, anonymous and forgettable, remained in their place.

"It's been lovely speaking with you. Have a great afternoon, and come back to _Asia Pulse_ any time, okay? Thank you for being our customers."

Before anybody else could say anything, 'Conan-kun' spoke up brightly, cheerfully, perfectly audible to the rest of the shop's staff; his own mask slid into place with equally practiced ease. "Thank you, Kuroba-san! The ice cream was really good. Um, I got my hands messy; could you throw this away for me, please?" He held out a chocolate-smeared wad of napkins... and something else, folded small.

"Of course, chibi," Kid smiled, receiving the napkins and their secreted cargo in both hands with a smile. "Bye now."

Silently the party at the table watched him go, disappearing back behind the counter and in through the swinging kitchen doors, back straight. Behind him, Conan's-- Shinichi's-- small hands knotted into fists briefly before relaxing, side by side and flat on the table. He'd intended to send the scraps-- there were two, actually, one folded inside the other-- by a dove at the first opportunity, but this would work better.

Or so he hoped. The larger piece of paper was Heiji's apology, of course; the smaller... he'd doodled it silently in ballpoint pen during his last cup of coffee that morning, absentmindedly at first and then with purpose; a silly thing, and he'd almost thrown it away, but-- The bit of paper had no writing on it to betray ownership, just a trailing scrawl of four-leaf-clovers and coral bells one after the other, growing more detailed and clearer as they progressed.

What that said, he wasn't sure; but maybe it would help, and maybe... (Shinichi's hands twitched; one of Ran's covered them both) ...maybe the open rose he'd drawn at the very end would too, somehow.

* * *

The night was clear. Staring down into the lights of the city below, Kid perceived the sky around him in sharp contrast, like blackest ink. The smell of the city was smothered by altitude and cold air; its noise was distant and irrelevant. There was nothing to fill the space around Kid - not sound, not scent, not light - just the dark, ice cold rush of the sky against his skin, his face and throat.

His hands had shaken when he slid the knot of his tie into place, pressing softly against his pulse through his shirt collar, losing a staredown with himself in the mirror. Kuroba stood beside him in the mirror, wearing his own poker face, the one that Toichi had taught him, so long ago, before Kid himself had even _become_.

_"No matter where you are, Kaito..."_

High above the city, alone together in the winter night, the pair remembered the first moments that they'd stood together in one skin. In front of a mirror, necktie an unfamiliar constriction around his throat, Kuroba Kaito had placed his father's cape around his shoulders, fastening the strange clasps into place, and felt a shiver. He'd settled the top hat onto his hair and felt a discomfort between his ears, like a sudden drop in air pressure.

And when the monocle had settled into place, between his right eye and the world, the electric shock of _new-yet-old_ had zipped through, and then they stood together, both of them. Kid had barely been awake; Kuroba had barely known to look for any difference. But in the beams of helicopter searchlights on the rooftop, on their _first_ rooftop, Kid had come home. His first moments of self were spent in a head-first freefall from the rooftop, Kuroba yelling in wild panic inside his head, his own laugh loud and wild and unhinged as he fell, the sharp white reflection of his uniform following him in the windows of the buildings he passed.

The Ghibli museum's rooftop gardens were painfully bright. White halogen floodlights soaked the trees, shining through the leaves and fronds and making them glow an unnatural neon green. The flowers' exotic, varied colors were all but invisble through the aggressive brightness of the lamps; Kid had to shield his eyes as the wind drew him closer.

_"Remember..."_

Since that time, everything of the uniform had been replaced at one time or another. Two years of hard use would take its toll no matter how valuable the original garments. Even the monocle had been replaced: shattered more than three times, though Kid was losing track of the true number. Only one element of the uniform remained unchanged -- only one element had successfully been preserved and protected from his father's time through his own.

The enamel and silver clover charm, polished smooth, bright, and clean, tapped his cheek as he walked, as he flew, as he spun and dove and _existed._ It said, 'Son, I'm here beside you. I'm here.' Tonight, it was not a disguise element but a talisman, riding safe in his pocket. Its reflective glass - like every other eyecatching element on his person - would be hidden away this evening. In his surveillance blacks, on the wings of a compact glider made of black fiberglass struts and alcohol-soluble polyethylene membrane, Kid was no showman tonight, no thief, no performer; just a son bereaved of a father.

_"Remember..."_

He banked left, cutting out of one updraft and into another, spiraling his silent, invisible way around the building. Kuroba rode beside him, sharing the view, sharing the anticipation, sharing the fear.

_"Always keep a good Poker Face."_

* * *

"Why, WHY didn't you ever tell me you knew his father?"

"Because I couldn't. Would _you_ have?"

".....not without permission, no."

"Then you see."

"I-- yes."

"Good."

The email Shinichi'd sent had said simply _7pm, highest level of the Ghibli, look for pines. Kaasan's bringing dinner._ The urge to add more, much more, awkward and worried and full of things that couldn't quite be said had been so overpowering that in the end he'd simply tacked on a single line:

_Whatever secrets they know, they must know them for a good reason. And they've kept them safe, even from me._

Kuroba Toichi had been, by all accounts, a master at what he did; and the first Kaitou Kid had been as extraordinary as the second. Somehow Shinichi could not see his parents finding out due to Toichi's clumsiness or anything else unworthy of the man, the father of his friend. Therefore, however it had happened (and he hadn't asked, not yet, though _GOD_ he'd wanted to), it had to have either been by design, choice or accident.

Or by luck, just possibly.

Ran had stayed home with her father. Much as she _had_ wanted to be there, she'd wanted even less to tighten the emotional tripwires that Kid was so obviously having to deal with. Her own anxiety wouldn't have helped; they would need to talk sooner or later, but... not then. Not yet. Everything was still a little too raw and sharp-edged, and Ran was honest enough about her own emotions to not want to trigger any tripwires of her own.

So there they sat, the three of them, on the highest level of the Studio Ghibli's animation museum. The building was as eccentric as anything in Tokyo (which said a lot), all organic curves and futuristic, flowing lines; even an hour past closing it shone like a piece of Impressionist art. The gardens on the lower levels were bursting with exotica-- flowering trees in January, fountains set with brilliant, gemstone-bright tiles and peculiar bits of statuary that reflected the Studio's preoccupation with the imaginative and the bizarre. But where _they_ were...

..._I think they overdid the Zen,_ thought Shinichi, shifting a bit and tilting his head back to watch the sky.

There was no denying that the museum director's private garden was beautiful. Trees from below rose just above the rooftop's flanks, echoing the illusion that the garden (spare, rocky, and graced by a few jagged and twisting pines) extended beyond its edges. If it was ten meters across that was granting it a few; if it was older than a half-dozen years, that was a generous guess. But some well-paid architect had managed, using a handful of boulders, a little evergreen foliage, some careful tilework and a few strategically-placed stone lanterns, to produce a landscape that would not have been out of place at a Shogun's country house.

It was terribly peaceful. And the gazebo in one corner was blocked from the worst of the wind by a stand of winter bamboo, so it wasn't even very cold where the three Kudos sat. _But,_thought Shinichi as he watched the sky, _I wish we were in the Poirot Café instead. I keep expecting ninjas._

Thinking about ninjas was much preferable to doing the other things that kept coming to mind, like, oh... worrying himself into a panic, interrogating his father and mother, or pacing, or screaming in frustration. Interrogation wouldn't get him anywhere, and pacing would only put him flat on his ass; Shinichi'd had to spend the entire previous evening paying for the stresses that transformation and a day out had put on his weakened body, and his mother had flatly forbidden him to do anything more active the following day than movies and couch rest. Screaming wouldn't help either, though that didn't make him stop wanting to try it.

And panic only bred more panic, and that bred even _more._ Noooot helpful.

So instead he sat on a cushion wrapped in several layers of blankets and scanned Tokyo's orangish skyglow for... whatever he might happen to see, by design, choice or accident.

Or by luck, just possibly.

"Good evening, Tantei-san." The voice came from just to his right, in the shadows behind an upward-pointed flood beam.

_He uses that entrance a lot,_ Shinichi thought distantly, his concentration focused on getting his heart restarted at the right pace. _And there's the ninjas-- well, A ninja-- now._ "Evening," he said softly without turning around. "Tea?" Behind him, his parents looked at each other but said nothing as yet; he'd asked them to let him steer things, at least at first.

"Or coffee, or me," Kid murmured, low enough that he doubted anyone but Shinichi could have heard it over the wind-driven rustle and clatter of the bamboo stand behind him. Though it looked very like a zen garden, the rooftop idyll was not free of the sounds and chatter of the city below; garbled, but audible, the noise of people and machines filtered up to the garden, and Kid wished for the icy stillness that he could find two thousand feet above ground.

Putting that wish aside, Kid and Kuroba stepped closer, circling the gazebo to bring themself into view of the three seated there. Shinichi was nearest them, bundled in blankets on the bench to the right of his parents; Yukiko and Yuusaku were cuddled together, though they'd both sat up attentively at Kid's greeting. Kid walked until they could all see him without craning their necks around, and stopped. Kuroba stood with black-gloved hands tucked by the fingertips into his jean pockets. The light of the garden was unforgivingly bright -- their face was laid bare to them all. They nodded greeting to Yuusaku, then Kid focused on Shinichi.

"I'd love some green, if you have it." Kid extended one hand toward the bench, indicating the seat that Shinichi was partially filling with his legs and blankets. "May I?"

Nodding, the boy made room. Like a conjurer, Yukiko produced a straight-sided china teapot from the padded basket sitting behind her and her husband's own bench, pouring out four cups that filled the cold air with fragrant clouds of steam. The china was bone-white, painted with tiny flights of black birds like ink-drawings. "I've brought gyouza and curry-buns and a few other things," she said quietly, her voice for once as gentle and unobtrusive as she could make it. She was a consummate actress, after all; if the situation called for subtlety, Yukiko would be as subtle as-- as an ink-drawing.

The cups were passed around; Shinichi cradled his, warming his hands on the curves. "Did you have any trouble finding us?" he murmured, wishing he could read the still face. There was something different about how Kid looked tonight, something he'd seen before... where...?

_In the park, at the daytime heist. Just for a moment; I think that was it. I don't know what I'm seeing, but it's the same._

"No trouble," Kuroba said quietly. "Thank you, but I'm not in the mood for pleasantries." His gaze, which had drifted from his teacup to the garden around them, swung back to focus firmly on Yuusaku.

_If we're going to voluntarily unmask "the Kid," who better to show our face to than Shinichi and those in Shinichi's trust?_

__

If I wasn't safe in his hands, I won't be safe in theirs.

But we'd know already if that were the case.

_Have we ever told him __your__ name? I mean without hedging or implication._

__

Directly told him? No, I don't think so.

_Well then._

"Kudo-san. You knew my father. You knew Kuroba Toichi." Kid and Kuroba both held very still in the moment after that statement, as though waiting for Consequences. None came.

"Yes, I did," answered Kudo Yuusaku, cupping his hands with the same exact gesture that his son was using. "I knew him. And yes, I-- knew him in his profession, too," he added very softly. "The one where he performed-- he told me once-- with the whole world as his stage." The cup turned in his hands, black birds flying. "Would you like to hear how we met?"

The sons' eyes closed. They whispered. "Anything about him. Please."

Yukiko leaned against her husband, sipping from her own cup as he spoke; she'd heard the tale before, but only twice: the night Kuroba Toichi had granted permission for Yuusaku to tell her, and the bleak night following that same man's funeral. Saké had allowed both words and tears to flow freely that evening. Yuusaku'd never mentioned it since.

Now he stared down into his tea, eyes distant. "I... had known your father for perhaps two years, a little less-- we'd become close. Even when we didn't meet for months we'd call occasionally, send cards or letters-- he had a knack for finding the most ridiculous things to write about. He even taught me a bit about the history of magic." Yuusaku half-smiled. "No tricks, though; he told me that magicians swear an oath of secrecy." He swirled the tea, watching the clear liquid slide across the china.

"I was called in to consult on the matter of what was then called the 'theoretical criminal mind', what would one day be profiling; it wasn't that I had any actual skill in detection, not the live nuts-and-bolts of crime-solving--" he glanced at his son, who sat still as stone beside the other-- "but my writing had apparently drawn enough attention that... well. Never mind. In short, I was called in and eventually heard something about a certain phantom thief that had caught Interpol's attention."

"I was utterly fascinated, and I told Toichi all about what I'd heard-- laid out my grandiose ideas regarding the thief's personality and M.O., all my speculations and--" He shook his head. "I'm surprised he didn't laugh in my face. Instead, he listened; and as the weeks went by and I made no headway, he kept listening." Yuusaku took a sip, a faint smile still in place. "And all the while..."

"He did make me a promise, though; he said that if I ever made a breakthrough, figured out one irrefutably true, utterly provable facet of the thief's plans before the police did, he'd help me celebrate whether the culprit was captured or not."

The words came easier now, taut lines of stress smoothing out from Kudo Yuusaku's face as he remembered. "There was a note, a heist-notice; something about an emerald, I think it was, I don't recall that part; not important. The clues were distracting and elaborate, each one tying to very obscure references in ancient literature: the Epic of Gilgamesh, several of the more ancient Vedas, England's Domesday Book--" Old affection lent exasperation to the writer's voice. "I spent four nights without sleep working on that damned thing, trying to break it down into something understandable. I fell asleep with my face in my notes, finally, and when I woke up, I-- he'd-- God." Yuusaku ran one hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end almost exactly like Shinichi's; his wife smoothed it down automatically. "Somehow, don't ask me how, it all boiled down into a single obscure address on a rooftop in Singapore less than nine hours away in time." He smiled at the memory. "I barely made it. But when I got there, he-- the phantom thief-- was waiting for me, with tea."

Beside him, Yukiko sipped her own cup. "And you two drank together, and he gave you the pot and cups; I remember when you told me that."

"Yes, we did. He did." Yuusaku traced a tiny black bird with his thumbnail. "These."

Kid's gaze dropped to the cup in his hands. He'd been holding it carefully the whole time; a gem thief wouldn't do to drop the heist from a grip too loose or too tight; Kid had excellent hands for breakables. But he focused on the cup a little, hands trembling just enough to quiver the tea within. His gaze slid, eventually, to the boy at his side.

"Amusing," the thief murmured, voice hushed. "It's funny, I guess...That all sounds so familiar...so much like things I've done." He was silent for a long moment. "I suppose he would have little room to criticize us...for getting involved with a detective, after all."

The magician looked up to meet Yuusaku's steady gaze, eyes bright and intense. "Tell me more. Did he know my mother at that time? What happened next? What were his performances_really_ like - not the report, but the real thing, how did it feel, what was his act like?" As he queried the older man, Kuroba leaned forward in his seat, the lines of his body drawing tense and excited. From beneath Kuroba, Kid rose to the fore, surfacing within the magician's cobalt blue eyes with cunning sapphire tones and questions of his own to ask. "Did he have a favorite type of gemstone? When did he discover the legend of Pandora? I've tried, I've tried, but there's so much rumor - there's too much static and not enough message. I don't know what was true. Tell us everything, Kudo-san."

Beside him, his tea cooling in his cup, Shinichi felt his breath catch a little. 'Us'-- that was it, then; of _course_ both of Kuroba Toichi's sons (however that worked) would be present. It accounted for the difference he'd sensed. They, both of them, wanted so very badly to connect with what they'd lost; in the back of his mind Shinichi wondered what would have happened had the others' father lived.

Idle conjecture, nothing more. He turned the cup around in his hands, following the lines of birds. _'Kuroba'... one of the interpretations could be 'crow'._

"Everything?" Yuusaku shook his head a little. "That would be like trying to bale the Sea of Japan with a ricebowl. But as for what happened next-- You should understand: I was never a threat to him, not really. I worked with the police, yes, but not on his case. Although," and there was almost a hint of mischief in his voice, "I was the reason he ended up being called the 'Kaitou Kid'. But you probably know that story." He raised his cup to his lips, and though the tea had gone cold, Yuusaku smiled as he sipped from his cup.

"We'd meet now and then, almost always on rooftops or other high places. I don't know how many times-- years' worth, and... I'd talk to my friend Kuroba Toichi the magician about the thief they were now labeling '1412', but never about my meetings. Never to him nor to anyone else; not even," he turned a little to smile at Yukiko, "to my wife, not until one night when I was told, almost casually, to bring her along the next time."

Yukiko reached up, smoothing her husband's hair again; she allowed her arm to slide down across his back, neither intruding nor pulling away. When she took up the narrative, her light, compelling voice was contemplative.

"Your father," she began, "was one of the finest presences on the stage as a magician I've ever seen, if not _the_ finest. He could hold an audience like no one I've known since, and he had this trick with words... When he performed, it was as if he was doing so for you and you only, even if the audience held hundreds or even thousands-- it was the voice, the attention-- I don't know. But it was absolutely astonishing." Her eyes sparkled, a little subdued from their usual brilliancy but still vibrant and lit by fond memory. "Do you remember the first time he brought _you_ out on stage? You were just a very little boy, so small but all in a tuxedo to match his. We were in the audience-- we hadn't known him very long at that point, but he introduced you as his 'greatest magic trick'." Her voice dropped. "He loved you very much."

"I remember his hand on my shoulder," Kuroba said quietly, bowing his head in pain. "I remember him as _Tousan,_ I remember him teaching me Poker Face and not to pick on girls...which was funny, because I swear his eyes were saying, 'Pick on them all you want but run away faster next time.' But I don't know what... I was only eight when he..."

"It's hard to trust what we remember." Kid smoothly filled in, looking up to Yukiko's gentle gaze. "What _he_ remembers, I should say. I wasn't..." The thief was unable to finish that sentence, biting his lip and studying his hands, black-gloved, around the delicate white tea cup he still carefully held.

Yukiko considered him-- them-- in silence, understanding gradually dawning. If her eyes were a little troubled, she didn't let that get in the way. "Your father was 'Tousan' to you, 'Kuroba Toichi, Master Magician' to the world, and the 'Kaitou Kid' to a certain portion of his enemies. And," she added gently, "to his very good friends. Who can know every facet of a person? Not even the best actor can be anything more than an imitation. I would say," and her hand rose just a little as if she would have stroked Toichi's sons' hair if she'd dared, "that he'd be pleased to know that his offspring have moved beyond the role he created and made it their own."

One of Kid's eyebrows quirked up at that, the first explicit acknowledgment by any of the Kudos that the Thief and Magician were differentiable; the distinction gave strength to a soft smile that brought Kid's expression back from the pathless grief of a fatherless son, returning it to the much more familiar territory of trickster, riddler, and thief. With that true smile, sad but not lost, Kid regarded Yukiko steadily, then her husband and her son in turn.

"We do strive for originality," Kid said, his voice a clearly enunciated murmur. His gaze stuck on Shinichi, a number of difficult-to-label emotions passing through it. "I wonder what Tousan would think, to see his son fall in with such company." The thief snickered, cutting his glance across the gazebo to meet Yuusaku's. "I suppose he'd tell me I have inherited his good taste...or his boldness."

"Yes, well," murmured Yuusaku. "I doubt he'd fault your choice of friends." Shinichi's father regarded Kid thoughtfully. "Or," he added with a hint of a smile in his voice, "your logic in choosing them. Though I might be biased, of course."

Yukiko put an eyebrow up of her own, watching her son grow slightly pink. "And if he were here now, he'd probably want to play poker. Four-- five, rather-- players, plenty to go around..." She chuckled, shaking her head. "Actors, writers... Dear? If you had twenty of us in one room, you'd need at least thirty chairs; being prone towards thinking in more than one mind is rather a job-hazard for our sort. Except," the blonde added whimsically, "that Shinichi's outdone us all entirely in the More Than One Life department. Haven't you, Shin-chan?"

"I think it's cute," Kid quipped glibly, his tone indicating he wasn't quite serious....or was he? A full, healthy smirk spread across his features now, and Shinichi, blushing crimson, couldn't even hold it against him for being playful. ...Well. Much.

The detective in question's mother regarded the thief with a little smile; it was hard to keep Kudo Yukiko's spirits down for very long. "You should've seen him when we arrived the other night," she said cheerfully. "He'd just, _you_ know--" (using a gesture that was becoming all too familiar, she mimed a change in height) "--and he'd fallen off the couch and was lying on the floor without a stitch on. I SO wish I'd had a camera. He has the most darling little--"

_"KAASAN!"_ her son squawked. He covered his eyes.

"Well, you DO, Shin-chan."

"For the moment," Kid answered Yukiko, ostensibly ignoring Shinichi's embarrassment entirely, "I'm afraid I'll have to take your word on that, Kudo-san." Then, as though his implication hadn't been anything out of the ordinary at all, he shifted focus to the food which Yukiko was beginning to unfold from its packages. "Oh, would you like a hand with that?"

"I'm alright," Yukiko smiled, efficiently arranging gyouza, curry buns, and napkins into four dainty platefuls. "Here, this should get us started nicely."

"Thank you very much for the food," Kid said, receiving one plate with each hand and a little nod of his head. One he passed to Shinichi; the other he arranged on his lap with a distracted smile. "This is turning out to be quite the pleasant evening."

"Company that is welcomed is company that is fed," Yukiko said sagely, passing the third plate to Yuusaku and keeping the fourth for herself. "I find the way that the Greeks and Italians welcome guests very interesting. I like it."

Kid looked thoughtful, picking up a still-warm gyouza with his chopsticks. "I spent some time in Italy once; beautiful place, though I wouldn't recommend it in the middle of summer-- too hot. Very hospitable, though, and I loved the food. To sample an unfamiliar cuisine in its native surroundings is a delight." He tilted his head, surveying his benchmate from the side as the other swallowed. "Come to think of it, we met for Italian only a few months ago, didn't we, Tantei-kun?"

Shinichi eyed the thief over his plate, cheeks still flushed. "So we did. Interesting dinner, though it got cut off a bit short by that murder." He picked up another bite. "Jealous husband, affair, dead cook in the pasta," he explained to his parents, who nodded understandingly in tandem. This was Shin-chan; these things happened.

For a little while the conversation turned, if not precisely light-hearted, a little more at ease and suited to an evening meal in a garden. The moon had risen some time ago, a thin sliver like the rind of a well-nibbled cheese; and if her silver touch was defeated by the floodlights she was at least present, the sixth and most silent guest at the meal. The angle of the walls put her just beyond the gazebo; watching his friend's profile with the lunar crescent hanging like an ornament beside his face as he talked, Shinichi lost track of time-- and, apparently, the thread of the conversation.

"Wouldn't you think so, Shinichi?"

_Urk?_ "I'm sorry, Tousan, what was that?"

His father gave him a long-suffering look. "We were," he said patiently, "discussing the possibility of talking together further. It's getting late, you're still recovering, and tomorrow's a school day, isn't it? Speaking of which, are we going to need to falsify documents excusing you for another week, or will you be returning to your classes next week? Those little schoomates of yours have been getting quite worried, according to Agasa." The question regarding a note from little Conan's 'parents' was in an entirely unconcerned tone of voice, as if forgery and counterfeiting were a mere bagatelle.

"Oh, let me have a go at it," Kid requested earnestly. "It's so rare that I would have the opportunity to check my work directly against the original, after all. I'd love to see a note you've made which passed muster. Or, better yet, could we collaborate? After all, you won't be in the country for long," the thief pointed out. He glanced bemusedly at his friend. "And it's likely that Shinichi will need further documentation in the future. It'd be wise to catch any little errors in my versions before they're needed."

"Oi oi oi," Shinichi cut in, looking amused despite his unimpressed tone, "I can make a perfectly good counterfeit on my own, thanks very much. And besides, what sort of little errors are we talking about here?"

"A loop here, a serif mark there; the nuances of handwriting are really very fascinating when you spend enough time studying them," Kid explained. "And you know, little fidgety details concerning diction; would little Conan's tousan say, 'Please excuse Shinichi from kiddie school _on account of_ he spends too much time playing around with thieves and drugs,' or would he use '_due to the fact that_'?" Kid's faux halo was nearly visible, so innocent and pure was his inflection. "It's a very important distinction."

Across the gazebo, Yukiko was snickering, and Yuusaku's smile was mournfully fond. "You really are so much like him," he said softly. "It's like I'm seeing double. I... He would be proud. No, he_is_ proud. I'm sure of it."

In response, Kid soberly turned to face Yuusaku, posture formally stiff, and inclined his head and shoulders in a respectful bow. "Thank you for giving me new memories of him."

The author nodded, not so much in acceptance as in acknowledgement of some private thought; then he bowed back. "Thank you-- both-- for allowing me to add to mine," Yuusaku answered quietly. "And to see him once more, in you."

They packed up then, storing the precious teapot and cups in their padded container-- Yukiko'd had it made, she told their guests, after her husband had brought it home without a word of explanation after that first meeting-- and gathered up plates and napkins before sweeping the tiny gazebo clean of crumbs with a straw brush that stood in one corner. Around them the spare, clean-lined garden lay spotless and silent save for the distant sounds of the Mitaka district living its life all around them.

Yukiko tucked her son's coat around him securely as her husband gathered the blankets they'd brought; glancing speculatively out at the floodlit gardens beyond the rooftop's walls, however, an unspoken thought turned her face soulful (which, had her respective family members noticed, would have warned them; Yukiko never looked so innocent as when she'd come up with something unseemly.) As they unlocked the door that led inwards to the elevator, she turned to her husband. "Yuusaku? Why don't we go on ahead a bit? I'd love to see what the rest of the Ghibli's gardens look like at night, and dear Noriyama-san did say the guards'd been told that we had free reign." She slipped her arm into his, eyes sparkling. "It'll be _terribly_ romantic."

One of her husband's eyebrows rose slightly; "Oh?" Yuusaku smiled down at his wife. "Excellent idea, 'Kiko."

"So you say your goodbyes, Shin-chan, and we'll meet up with you at the front gate in a bit, hmm? Take your time," his mother murmured, her hand tightening. Shinichi eyed her a little askance, but nodded silently as the two stepped into the elevator, Yukiko waving a cheerful farewell to their guests for the evening. "Good night, my dears, and I do hope we'll see you soon." The doors slid closed.

"And that," Shinichi said dryly, "is the reason why I learned to knock on my dad's office door before opening it, _way_ before I hit puberty." Kid was startled into a gleeful cackle, one that the detective wryly appreciated causing. He slipped small, child-sized mittens on-- they were a faded blue, inexpertly-knitted and had narrow gray stripes at the cuffs. Shinichi reddened slightly for the third time that night (not that anyone was counting) as he saw Kid's inquisitive look; "Ran made 'em for me when I was eight, first time around," he explained, smoothing the fuzzy wool self-consciously.

Kid smiled, folding one black-gloved hand over the back of the bench as he adjusted position, getting more comfortable now that the elder Kudos had left. "That's either a lot of determination or a bit of skill," he commented respectfully. "When Kuroba was eight, he remembers struggling with various shuffles...arc shuffles especially." The thief rolled one shoulder, mixing the motion in with the rest of his fluidly encroaching sprawl across the bench, and tipped his head back to blow a big puff of breath, visibly backlit by the landscape lighting, into the air above his head. "They're really not hard at all as long as your hands are big enough for the deck."

"Mmm." Shinichi scooted back, pulling his short legs up beneath him to sit cross-legged with as much tucked as possible beneath his navy-blue coat. "I remember... arguing with Tousan about whether Watson was stupid or just not as bright as Holmes. And playing Frisbee a lot, for some reason-- oh, right, Ran got one from somewhere, I think it was." He leaned back as well, the mittens flat on the bench behind him. A little shyly (but only a little) he glanced at his friend's profile. "I've... is... he always..." Shinichi stopped abruptly. "I don't really know how to ask this; we-- your brother and me-- we only met that time in the park, really. And I was being Conan; he must know me, or about me at least, much better than I know him."

"Mmmm." Kid watched the sky, its perfect, deep black hue obscured by orangey bounce light and ambient glow from the city. "He knows everything about you. He notices some things I don't notice." Kid brought his gaze back down to earth, fixing on Shinichi's with a small, quiet smile. "Of course, I have a perfectly good excuse every time.

"We're not...terribly similar, actually. I'm more of a pain. And I don't have 'impossible' in my vocabulary. Can't disappoint Nakamori-keibu, of course."

Shinichi snorted; he couldn't help it. "'More of a pain'? Is that your opinion, or his?" _I'm betting Kuroba doesn't put much stock into 'impossible' either, considering the company he keeps. And he-- wait. He knows everythi..... ooh._ Just for a moment, a very specific three seconds of his life flashed through the forefront of Shinichi's memory. _Dammit, I am NOT GOING TO BLUSH AGAIN._

"Calling me a pain happens on my own impetus," Kid answered simply, looking skyward again. "I cause him a lot of trouble."

"And you're blushing again." As Shinichi sputtered and blushed deeper at that, Kid tipped his chin back further, making sure that his own flushed face was not clearly visible to his companion. It wouldn't do to give Shinichi equal material to tease him back, after all.

_You sure?_ Kuroba floated into 'view' in front of the pair, impishly standing directly in front of Shinichi. The magician studied the detective intently, peering in close. Insubstantial as he was - nonexistent, in truth, except within the confines of their shared headspace - Shinichi couldn't, and didn't, sense a thing. _I think he'd be a great one for creative teases. And you __do__ so like when--_

Mentally, Kid glared at Kuroba; physically, he kept his face upturned, away from Shinichi. With his eyes closed, he could see the stars better, and it soothed him. _"Don't pester him, okay?"_

_Oh, can't I?_ Around Kuroba's hands, small werelight flickers shifted around; Kid knew they were reflections from holographically-edged transparent playing cards; if Kuroba had been actually physically manipulating them in the strong, sharp light of the garden, the deck would have thrown "sparks" just like the illusion that he now projected. But the effect was still impressive, regardless, and Kid sighed barely audibly. _"At least wait til he asks to meet you."_

_Think he will?_ Kuroba smiled with his eyes.

Kid just cocked a brow at him. _"Is that a real question?"_

Beside him, Shinichi raised his own face to the chilly wind that curled through the garden, cooling his warm cheeks. "I never had a sibling," he said thoughtfully. "Kaasan, she-- well. After I was born, I don't think my parents were really interested in having a handful of children to raise; they had their careers. And..." He hesitated, eyes a little distant. "I think there might've been some problems; I know she had a lot of trouble carrying me. Maybe it was for the best, but, you know? I would've liked a brother or sister." The boy glanced sideways, one corner of his mouth quirking up just a little. "I don't suppose... It doesn't seem fair, he can see me but I can't see him; when I look at you, I see _you."_ Shinichi sat up, settled himself a little more neatly, and fixed his gaze on Kid. "If he doesn't mind, I'd like very much to meet him. Could I?"

Kid rolled his eyes. "Maa, maa, now I owe him a bet. Well, here you go." Kid closed his eyes, squared his shoulders, and breathed out slowly -- then, halfway through, cracked one eye open with a smile. "Mind the shiny, mm?" And he closed his eyes again.

The detective blinked, fighting down a rising eyebrow as expressions chased each other and changed on the other's face. _'The shiny'? WHAT shiny?_

After a moment, one blue eye cracked open - the right one - and a smirk rippled across the familiar face in tandem as the second eye followed suit. "Evening, Detective," Kuroba Kaito said, "Pick a card."

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_That's it for this evening! Join us next week when we present ____Chapter Three: "magician, rain-check, flight". __Have a good week, all! _


	24. Magician, raincheck, flight

**Three Thieves**

a series of novels in the Detective Conan/Magic Kaito fandom  
in parts, in sequence, gleefully presented for your enjoyment.  
by **ysabet** and **rednightengale**.  
Crossposted to these LJ communities: **dc_yaoi**, **manycases1truth**, **detective_conan**, **magic_kaitou**

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**Book Three, Chapter Three****:** _**"magician, rain-check, flight"**_  
theme song: "Fireflies," Owl City

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"Evening, Detective," Kuroba Kaito said. "Pick a card."

_...not what I expected... And this is a surprise--? Not. Oookay._ "Evening, Kuroba-san," Shinichi answered easily, intrigued. _Visible-- his eyes are different, expression and shade to some extent, but I noticed that in the park. They could be twins, except-- what am I missing here? Something. What?_ He surveyed the fanned deck of, yes, cards, that had apparently materialized in the other's hands, hesitated, and chose one to the far left, tapping it a little awkwardly with the tip of a mitten; then he reconsidered and slipped both mittens off again, sliding the card from the array very cautiously.

"Oh, I'd hoped you'd pick that one," Kuroba said lightly. He took the card back, shuffling it into the rest of the deck. With one hand over and one hand under, he squared the edges, then began a series of shuffles, progressing from one into the next seamlessly, eyes fixed not on his hands but on Shinichi. His manner was easy, relaxed, congenial; his posture and movements loose and relaxed. Yet there was a constant motion about him -- not as focusless as fidgeting, but constant, the bass line to his hands' rhythm. "So, I imagine you have more than a bit to ask me?"

The eyebrow went up anyway. "More than a bit, yes," he agreed, fascinated-- not only by the constant, almost hypnotic motion, but by the _difference_ between the one and the other, Kuroba and Kid. _That's it; this isn't Kid in disguise. This isn't Kid wearing someone else's face, it's someone else wearing his. Only the face belongs to them both..... what are those cards DOING?_ There seemed to be far more cards than shuffle, almost-- certainly more than one deck. "Ah-- okay, there's one thing that's been bothering me for months." Shinichi frowned slightly; the card-backs had been blue, hadn't they? They weren't any more. "'Mop'?"

Kuroba laughed, breaking the pattern he had been working on to start a high arc shuffle in front of his chest. His gaze traveled up to the apex of the cards' arc, keeping track of them, as he answered plainly. "A rather annoying girl at school. She's constantly chasing me around with a mop, trying to get me to prove that I'm not the Kaitou Kid. I keep _telling_ her that I'm not, but she hasn't believed me yet..."

"Really? Imagine that," Shinichi murmured, his eyes following the curve of the cards as the flowed like water, poured and obeyed their owner's will in apparent defiance of gravity. _Watch with your mind as well as your eyes, Kudo... Wait a second, they changed color again. In mid-air._ "Your turn, then," he said lightly. "Ask me a question, hm?"

Kuroba hmmmed for a moment. "Oh, hn, but I know everything already. Okay, well, name all the doves you've met so far." He let the arc of cards fall from their shuffle, settling neatly into the palm of his right hand, and spread them out into a fan, face-down, for Shinichi's perusal. "And pick three cards."

"Keeta, Moona and-- uh. Moki? Moku? Mokutan, the gray one." Flick, flick, flick; three cards (one blue-backed, one black-backed, and one featuring Miss February) were drawn from the suddenly-much-slimmer deck. "Everything, hm?"

"Mmm-hmm." Kuroba gathered the deck into his hands again, then unfolded himself from the bench and stood, facing the garden as he stretched first one leg then the other. In his snug-fitting black clothing, against the strong lighting in the bamboo and pines around them, he seemed almost like a mere silhouette. "Like the fact that you're staring at my ass. And that you forgot a dove." Kuroba looked back over his shoulder, grinning devil-may-care at Shinichi, all teeth.

Cursing his fair-skinned mother's legacy of an easy blush, the detective crossed his arms and gave the other a matter-of-fact stare even as he felt his face heat yet _again,_ goddammit. "Well, it's not like either of you could get much out of staring at mine," he replied, brazening it out. "There's not a lot to look at just at the moment. And those are all the names I ever heard... I think." The edges of the deck caught the light as Kuroba moved, glittering like jewels.

"Hmmm, here it is," Kuroba grinned, turning to face the detective. Half the deck in each of his hands, he fanned the cards out between his fingers, like throwing daggers or weapons. Their edges gleamed as the light caught them, making Shinichi blink; when he opened his eyes again, Kuroba was simply standing there, fistfuls of card _edges_ at his sides. The centers, Shinichi could now see, were transparent, clear and reflective as glass. One hip cocked to the side, an easy expression rested on Kuroba's face.

"Like I was saying, you forgot a dove. The pink one with bars on her wings. Don't worry, it'll come to you eventually."

Shinichi frowned, distracted by the peculiar, glimmering cards. Instinct told him to be wary of anything that shone, had edges and could act as a projectile; deeper, surer knowledge told him that this time instinct could go take a running leap. "...two doves," he said slowly. "Bracken, the one with the panda-spots; and-- I admit, I've forgotten the other's name. Extra treats next time," he promised.

Kuroba chuckled, flicking his wrists upward. The cards, one at a time and slowly at first, began to loop in small arcs over his wrists and palms, kind of like he was juggling them. "I appreciate the offer, but I'll pass. You can give the extra treats to my companion instead. He'd appreciate them more, magpie that he is." His voice was warm, relaxed, affectionate even. As the rings of cards at his hips sped up, wrists and hands working quickly, his eyes drifted shut, as though he was meditating, or sleepy. The juxtaposition of quick, precise action and dreamy relaxation was, to say the least, jarring.

"I... meant for the doves, actually," said Shinichi, eyes widening slightly. "But I'll keep that in mind." _Forget 'almost hypnotic', they ARE hypnotic. Not a motion wasted, perfect control._ He could see the way the hands flickered, could follow the movements and maybe even catch a glimpse of the timing and the tricks; but listening to a master pianist's performance didn't construe the ability to play a single note, and Shinichi could no more have reproduced Kuroba's skill than he could have sprouted wings and flown to the moon.

"He does love them quite dearly," Kuroba continued, bringing his hands up and together. Soon both hands, side by side and palm up, supported a whirlwhind of shining glass cards, twenty of them or so, moving far too fast for belief. As they flickered and turned, they seemed to catch the garden's light, gathering wisps of an ethereal, flame-like werelight around themselves like threads of cotton candy. But...Shinichi looked closer, squinting his eyes against the gleam. How did they carry that light with them as they crossed in front of the black lightblock of Kuroba's body? And what sort of refraction was necessary for tendrils of the light to be...um...wrapping around his wrists like that?

Kuroba was still talking, easily, with a lightness that implied he didn't feel his words were of much import. "But as much fondness as he has for those birds, he's pretty easily bribeable when it comes down to it. I wasn't kidding about him being a magpie of sorts, just not for...Oh, whoops. He says I shouldn't have said that." He sounded completely unrepentant, one eyebrow arching in amusement as he peeked open his left eye and grinned at Shinichi. "Would you like to know that I've gone and made the Kaitou Kid blush?"

Shinichi chuckled softly, his own laugh even if it was in a young boy's tenor. "I owe you one, then." Random thoughts regarding chocolate and coffee flitted through his mind; he put them aside for future consideration and concentrated on the flickering display in front of him. Whatever he was seeing, it _wasn't_ illusion, or not just; the thin shreds of light were very clearly curved, wreathed in a way that mere reflection could not be. "I have another question for you, however."

Kuroba glanced down at his cards, adjusting one hand by a centimeter or so, and then focused back on Shinichi casually, as though ignorant of the fact that the adjustment had sent two of the streams of cards under his hands in a twisting pattern, so that it seemed they were both wreathed in glassfire. "Mmm?"

"What's the difference between magic and prestidigitation?" asked Shinichi softly. The gazebo around them was lit dimly by constantly-moving rainbow sparks, ghostly summer fireflies in the midst of winter. "Where does the illusion end and the reality begin?"

Kuroba's smile grew wider, the most like Kid's that Shinichi had seen it that evening, and he pulled his hands slowly away from each other as he answered. Dragged around them like a cotton candy floss game of cat's cradle, the werelight streaks and sparks drew a pattern, and the cards followed the pattern. Palms open and upturned, hands still, Kuroba stood perfectly still as the glass cards traced a figure eight around his hands, over one, under the other, their glow lingering in Shinichi's eyes like flashbulb burn or the drag of taillights on late night highway.

"Detective, you know I can't tell you that. I'm a Magician."

"So you are." Shinichi nodded, acknowledging without question what he was seeing and refusing-- just this once-- to analyze, deduct or deduce. Everything, from physics to emotion, had its own logic; but not the same logic, nor was it necessary that it should be. And as the light whirled and danced around the other's unmoving hands, he added, very simply, the thought that had occurred to him earlier: "You don't have much use for the word 'impossible' either, do you?"

"It has its place." Kuroba pulled one hand out of the figure eight, placed it below it, and one after the other, the glass cards with shining edges piled themselves neatly into his palm like obedient ducklings. The light left them, sparking around his thumbs and wrists before it faded altogether, and Kuroba took one step forward to approach the bench again. He gestured for Shinichi to extend his hands; that done, Kuroba placed the deck of cards into the boy's hands: a simple stack of plexiglass rectangles with silver mylar paper fused to their edges. He folded himself into the seat he'd vacated, one knee folded to his chin, with a conspiratorial smile for his small companion. "But I do tend to forget about it when Kid needs the occasional assist with one thing or another."

"...that explains one or two things, I think. I'm rather glad to hear it." The boy regarded him back steadily, folding any interior shakiness up and storing it inside with the edge that long practice had brought; Kid was not the only one with a Poker Face. "I suspect he returns the favor now and then?"

"Mmm, here and there. I don't usually need large scale robberies on short notice, you know." Kuroba snickered. "Though it's convenient every once in a while for other things too."

That brought an answering chuckle, and Shinichi tucked his hands in his pockets; they had grown cold without his noticing. "Then... one more question before we go; it's getting late, I'm afraid." He tilted his head a little to one side, eyes crinkling in his young-boy's face. "I'm probably going to regret this, but-- how are you at poker?"

Kuroba stared, snorted, and then _laughed,_ loud and hearty. "I hope you don't have too much money to lose, Detective, because you will. You can reach me with the doves -- use Moona if you see her around, rather than Keeta; rose doves are too notable around a schoolground. And let your parents know that if they try to team up, I'll have even won their underthings before they get to leave the game."

"Oh," said Shinichi airily, "I wasn't thinking of them, though I'm sure they'll want to sit in on the game; actually," (and he grinned, a very juvenile shark) "I was thinking about Ran. She's very fond of cards." _And she's been beating the living crap out of me ever since I can remember, and she's always surprised at the hands she gets. She may not win but she'll give you a tough fight, Magician-sama. I think you'll both enjoy yourselves._ "But if you don't mind, I think we'll play for Pocky." He made an eloquent show of sadly patting down his coat-pockets. "It's not like they give us little kids much in the way of pocket-money, you know."

"Hmmmm, that's alright. Mind if I bring my own currency?" Kuroba grinned. He tucked one hand into his pocket and brought it back out again with wolverine claws of almond crunch Pocky held by the cracker end, one between each knuckle. The magician looked at the candy for a minute, glanced up at Shinichi knowingly, and smiled softly. "He wants me to stop hogging the spotlight," Kuroba chuckled. "Which I shall do. But first...who would our fourth be? Maybe that sour little woman?"

The detective pondered for a second or two. "You know, I haven't a clue as to whether or not Haibara has ever played poker before in..." He paused, an arrested expression widening his eyes. "...in her entire life. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing she'd've done at all. What a _wonderful_ idea." Shinichi grinned again, this time in anticipation. "It'll be a learning experience." That said, he allowed the grin to soften, looking down at the deck of transparent cards in his hands and running a fingertip along the edges before handing them back to their owner. "Tonight's certainly been one for me."

"I am," he added, "very glad to have had the chance to meet you again."

Kuroba pocketed the cards, nodding acknowledgment to Shinichi's admission. "I make an ok teacher when I'm trying not to be," he said. Then, closing his right eye in a prolonged wink, he squared his shoulders against the side of the bench and grinned at Shinichi. "Mind the crazy," he warned the detective, before closing his left eye and flickering down into the background.

The right eye opened next, a critical, offended expression in it even before that wakefulness spread to the rest of his features, drawing the pliable mouth down in a pouting mou. "Mind the crazy?" Kid, huffing offense, refolded himself into a more comfortable pose, legs crossed beneath him, elbows on his knees. Chin in his hands, he frowned across the small distance between himself and Shinichi. "He says that like it's news."

"I don't mind it," the detective assured him, mouth twitching as he fought back his previous grin. "I'd say you've raised it to an art form." The difference between the two, now that he'd gotten a proper look, was... remarkable; fascinating and unmistakable. Nothing like opposites, mirror-images or even the twins he'd originally thought of, really; they were more akin to what one'd get if one were to break down the word 'counterpart' into its elements.

"Mmm, probably," Kid muttered, examining the Pocky still held in his hand. Innocently, he looked from it to Shinichi, proffering it like a strange sort of bouquet. "Now where did this come from?"

"I wonder," muttered Shinichi, accepting a stick.

They sat and munched in silence for a few moments; considering the last bite of the chocolate-almond stick in his hands, the boy thought over the conversation he'd been part of (a great deal of which was going to take much late-night mulling over) and found himself focusing on one particular bit. "Bribes," he said out loud, half without meaning to, and shot a sideways grin at his companion. "So, what sort of bribe would affect the mighty Kaitou Kid, idol of millions and scourge of Police Inspectors everywhere?" The question was playful, if carrying an ulterior motive; Shinichi'd had it with blushing for the evening and considered it high time somebody else started. Granted, chances for success weren't all that high, but STILL. It was the principle of the thing.

"Mmm, the simplest things, really," Kid mused, unfolding one leg to let it dangle off the bench. He kicked it idly back and forth, sucking on his Pocky stick with pursed lips and a contemplative expression that gradually drifted up to study the invisible stars. "Since you're the only one other than Kuroba, his kaasan, and Jii-chan who hang around me much, you'd be surprised what kind of pushover I can be. There's things like backrubs and hand massages." With a one-eyed smirk, Kid looked down at his companion with an afterthought. "Kisses."

_Ooohh no. You're not going to get me turning red __that__ easily._ "Oh, really." Shinichi looked up, keeping his cool. He was calm, he was solid, he was an icicle. "Come to think of it, I still owe you the rest of that hand-massage, don't I? Not that I _am_ trying to bribe you or anything. What would I ask for?"

"Mmm, you do," Kid mused, turning his hand over to study both palm and back as he spoke. "But you don't want to do it tonight, on these hands. ...Wait til you're big again, your hands will be stronger anyway." Dissatsified with what he saw on his hands - though the gloves surely looked perfectly fine to Shinichi's eye - Kid buried both in his pockets, popping the last pocky into his mouth as he did.

"Oh, le le le, I should have asked." He folded in half forwards, leaning close to Shinichi with a smile on the corners of his lips, the center pressed together to lightly hold the chocolate end of the stick. Kid cocked his head to the side, much like a bird might; his speech was slightly muffled by the treat. "Here, did you want it?"

_You sneaky little bastard. That is SO not fair._ Trying to keep very firmly in mind that he was, physically, wearing a body that was absolutely not designed to deal with-- with-- the kinds of thoughts that his brain kept trying to generate-- Shinichi smiled back, with just a hint of teeth. "Thanks," he murmured-- and reached out, snapping half the length off and popping it into his mouth with a satisfied crunch. "I love almonds; they're my favorite. Now, about that hand-massage-- I did pretty well with the first half, didn't I? And I hate leaving things unfinished." He licked a bit of chocolate from one finger. "Well?"

Kid smiled, nodding acknowledgment, and nibbled the remainder of the pocky into his mouth without comment. His mind's eye played back a very different image than what he was seeing - leaner hands, sharper jawline, negligible height difference - but he batted the mental image away, focusing on the situation at hand. "As I said, Tantei, I'm ill-suited to take you up on that offer tonight. Maybe next time?"

Okay, now _that_ was cause for concern; allowing the smile to slide, Shinichi frowned. "Are you okay? Your hands, I mean; did you injure them somehow?" He knew very well the value Kid put to his dexterity, and there certainly hadn't seemed to be anything wrong with Kuroba's earlier, but... "Let me see."

Kid looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, but instead he just pulled his hands out of his pockets. Obediently, he slipped one glove off, then the other, his grip precise and firm as he tugged the supple black leather off, fingertips-first. The hands revealed in the strong light from the Ghibli's landscaping beams were sliced thoroughly around with the thinnest of cuts, even smaller than papercuts. More like the tracery from a very lightly applied scalpel, perhaps, or from the keenest of glass blades. The lines, none of which were openly bleeding or inflamed, curved around all the contours of the thief's hands, so faint and smooth that they almost seemed like red thread laid across the faintly-scarred skin, dismissable with a soft breath. There were easily a thousand of them.

"Magic is not free," Kid simply said.

Shinichi drew in a breath sharply, profoundly shocked; his own hands were cupping Kid's before he even realized he had moved. "Shit. _Shit._ Why didn't you say something? --wait, I think I have--" Still holding one of the thief's wounded hands with his own, he fumbled around in his pants pocket, pulling out a small plastic container much like those that were sold containing lip-balm. "The Professor has me rubbing this stuff-- you remember the cell-regenerative ointment? It's a derivative-- on my joints whenever I ache; supposedly it'll help me build bone-marrow or whatever, I don't know." Moving carefully, he scooted closer on the bench until he was able to lay Kid's hand on his narrow lap... and then hesitated. "Is-- this all right?" Shinichi asked hesitantly. "I don't like seeing you, either of you, hurt."

Kid held still, lest the friction with Shinichi's coat or pants work fiber into the cuts, or even simply rub against them, but his brow creased in worry. "I don't...know, actually, we've never tried to reroute a cost before. I..." He closed his mouth, rolled the words around into a different shape, and tried again.

"Kaito is paying a lot more than this to allow me the chance to...to court you." Kid looked displeased with the wording, but let it stand. "This seemed like a small cost to pay to let him show you his best performance." The thief paused, then made a ruefully amused face.

"...Of course, I made the decision beforehand, when it didn't hurt so damned much."

Still cradling the other's hand, Shinichi shook his head. "If you, either of you, had to pay for tonight with pain, then... this stuff won't take it away, not exactly; all it'll do is make sure you heal without infection and a little quicker than before. And if it helps, I know about paying for things." He did understand; if he hadn't chosen to follow his suspicions that evening a year past, he'd be preparing for University instead of sitting in a winter garden holding hands with a wounded thief. If he hadn't believed with all his heart that the truth belonged out in the sunlight, he wouldn't have been who he was.

And if he hadn't believed in taking chances... Shinichi touched one finger to the other's palm, barely brushing the skin. "Will you let me help?" he asked softly. "I can't do much else, but at least I can do this."

Kid smiled, touched. "Then this I will let you do." He lifted his hand to a convenient elevation for both of them, holding still, teeth pressed together, as Shinichi applied the ointment. "And Shinichi? It's just us here. Just us two. He's flattered that you always want to include him, but..." The thief's expression lit up, playful. "We've already discussed it, and he just doesn't swing that way. Sorry."

The careful, gentle fingers froze in their work, quivered-- and then Shinichi was shaking hard, head bowed over Kid's hand, soundless. For an alarming half-minute or so it wasn't evident that he was laughing, but when he looked up his expression was a mixture of amusement and utter embarrassment. He sputtered, lost the war against the rising tide of red across his cheekbones, and when he'd managed to get his hands back under control he continued with the ointment. "Him--? What about, about-- oh, I am SO not going to--" Shoulders still shaking, the boy ducked his head. "You think you've got yourself all figured out, you're dealing with the whole lifestyle-change just fine, and then WHAM! Along comes somebody who... makes you think, and..." Shinichi allowed his words to trickle to a halt; the look he gave Kid was half-defiant, half... it was hard to know what to call it: grateful? exasperated? Perhaps. But there was no resentment mixed in, and no fear.

His fingers were steady; and when he let go of Kid's right hand and took his left, he was smiling.

Kid grinned back, his chest swelling with a cosy, happy feeling despite the cold. _**Warm.**_ Closing his hand around Shinichi's, despite the tug and flinch of his abused skin, Kid leaned forward and gave the boy's forehead a kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes were serious, brooking no disagreement.

"Don't misinterpret that, Tantei-san. It's a mere substitute kiss for your substitute body." Then his expression snapped back to manic, rubber-band fast, and his voice popped up into the gleeful register.

"And I still wouldn't have asked permission for it, either!"

Startled but warmed through, Shinichi matched him with a grin. "No? Come to think of it, neither did I."

_And what the hell, it's a cold night; blushes are probably good for the circulation. Or somethi--did Kid just __squeak?__ I barely heard it, it could have just been my imagination... No, that was definitely him._

Shinichi was watching the blush as it rose in Kid's face, and the thief _knew_ he was, but he couldn't seem to stop the color from deepening. His face was the only bit of him uncovered, but the heat of his blush was spreading through his throat too, and Kid was very grateful that his hands had a good excuse to be busy at the moment, to keep them from fidgeting. It was ridiculous, really, the way that one little comment - after all the innuendo of the evening, most of which _he_ had started - could affect him, and _was_ affecting him, but the _way_ Shinichi had said that, so casually... Blushing or no, the detective...

...was proud of the kiss. Happy with it. And his grin had challenged Kid that he just might do it again.

_Oh, Benten, damn it all,_ the thief cursed vehemently, scrunching his eyes shut on a slow breath to get himself back under control, pushing the blush down through force of will. It would ruin his poker face, sure, but at this point it was shot anyway, and really, he didn't much care. He had to get the mental images under control, or else.

_The hand on the back of his neck to catch him...the smoke around them to hide him...the blue eyes that stayed open until the last second before their lips touched, to find him...the mouth that took his own, pressed to it in curiosity, daring, and - dare he hope? - desire..._

Kid opened his eyes again with a sheepish smile, his hand around Shinichi's relaxing the grip that had reflexively trapped the detective's small hands. "I didn't mind you not asking," he said, already bracing himself against the detective's unavoidable next question.

Mentally flashing a Victory sign to himself, Shinichi considered his next move very, very carefully. It wasn't... exactly... Accepting a kiss on the forehead was one thing while in his child's shape; but-- He'd just have to compromise, then, wouldn't he? He _was_ considered to be intelligent and versatile; time to apply his intellect to the problem. _...Ah._

"Really? Then you won't mind me giving you a rain-check for next time." And feeling a little foolish (but not foolish enough to stop himself), Shinichi brushed his own fingers across his lips, turned Kid's hand over, and placed them on his scored palm. "Keep it safe," he murmured.

Kid's breath caught; he clenched his fist tight around the kiss, smiling even as the cuts across his knuckles split open, welling up with soft rounded lines of blood, and his voice, paired with a fat grin, was shamelessly wheedling when he finally found it.

"...How soon can we change you back, again?"

"Not in charge, I'm afraid." Still flushing, Shinichi bit his lip at the welling droplets. "You keep hurting your hands when I'm around-- hold still," he scolded, tugging out the mittens from his pocket and dabbing at the cuts carefully. The soft, worn wool, washed many times over hard years of childish wear, soaked up the tiny beads of blood in dotted lines against the blue; carefully covering the splits with more ointment, Shinichi looked up into Kid's face as he finished. "And I promise I'll let you know when I do. I think Ai's got something in mind." He was silent, still smoothing Kid's abraded skin almost absent-mindedly.

"...I promised I'd let Ran know too," he added, wry humor in his voice. "And to think, this time last year my biggest concern was whether or not I could keep from dying of boredom at gradeschool."

Kid's expression softened, warmth in the crinkle of his eyes. "Ask, and Benten provides. Then dumps another hundred gallons of 'providing' on top just for good measure. I've found it's safer not to ask the Lady for anything minor, as she seems to prefer extraordinary gestures."

He slipped his supple leather gloves on carefully, the ointment smoothing the way a little, and the high quality of the kidskin gentling the process further. Still, the cuts burned, and the thief hissed quietly until the gloves were fully on.

"It is late, though, my little tantei. And your kaasan and tousan will likely become so bored with waiting that they will resort to drastic measures." His smile was more of a nervous grimace. "I don't think we want that."

Privately Shinichi suspected that they were necking on a bench somewhere, but no use pushing their luck; he nodded. "Yeah; I admit, I'm a little tired. I take it you'll be leaving from here?" he asked a little wistfully. They were high up, after all, and he very much doubted that Kid had traveled via taxi. The last thing he wanted to do was to cramp the thief's style, and with that in mind Shinichi slid off the bench, willing to give the other the privacy to leave as invisibly as he'd arrived. "And-- I know you'd wanted to talk to Tousan and Kaasan further; when will we see you again?"

"Oh, I'll let you know by dove. Won't be too long," Kid said, stretching out his shoulders as he stood. "Though...do you think they'd mind all that much if you didn't go home with them?"

_???_ The young detective blinked. "It's a long ways back to Beika from here," he said thoughtfully. "What did you have in mind?"

"Mmm, that's a good point. Maybe I should just leave you at the front door, you could meet up with them there." Airily, he stepped away from the bench, heading toward the bamboo grove through which he'd entered, hours and miles of emotion earlier in the evening. The landscaping lights, floods and spots interspersed, washed across his lithe body like reflections in dark water, and it occurred to Shinichi for the first time that evening that Kid wasn't wearing a single bulky winter garment on him.

"It wasn't anything special," the thief commented, looking over his shoulder impishly, challenge in his eyes. "Just wondering whether you've flown recently."

_Oh, you are SO on._ "Not since I chased you on that damn paraglider all those months ago," answered Shinichi promptly. "Remember?" He HAD mulled over the hang-glider many times; it was just the kind of gadget that appealed to him, and at such moments when even his ramped-up skateboard had failed to satisfy he'd wondered just how hard it was to steer one of the things.

And, of course, there was that dare in Kid's grin. Kudo Shinichi'd never been able to resist a dare, especially not when it was something he'd wanted to try for ages anyway. It was, he congratulated himself, a good thing that he wasn't afraid of heights. Or not any more than a reasonable person would be...

"Mmm, I remember," Kid said, turning halfway back to face his diminutive friend, a toothy smirk spread across his features. "Well?" Kid cocked his head in the direction of the bamboo, and what lay beyond it. "Come on, then. Have you ever used a partner harness before? I brought the recon glider, so it'll be able to hold you and me together. You're under twenty kilo, right?"

"I haven't, no, though I'm familiar with how they work," Shinichi said, intrigued. "And just a touch over, actually. Growth-spurt." Walking forward, he peered past the bamboo. "Finally, something I can do _because_ I'm small; that's a nice change." Interest well-sparked, he tried not to appear TOO eager as he glanced back at Kid. "This won't hurt your hands any further, will it? Because if it does, I'd rather not--"

Kid rolled his eyes, shook his head, and pushed on through the bamboo without looking back at Shinichi. "I would have had to get home anyway, right?"

In the corner of the rooftop garden where all the ugly electrical boxes, meters, and weatherproof fuse boxes were tucked, shielded from easy view by the bamboo thicket, sat a charcoal grey glider unlike any that Shinichi had seen the Kid use previously. Instead of the proportional, aesthetically pleasing shape and generally flat silhouette of his standard white one, this one was narrower at the point, then flared out to a ridiculously wide and ungainly looking wingspan. With a ridge like a roof's peak down its spine and visible grommets in its textured ripstop nylon canvas, the glider also boasted neat but clearly hand-made corner welds and more buckles and straps, all of them folded and bound tightly against the rails they were anchored to, than Shinichi could shake a stick at.

"This one's the _work_ glider. The other ones are just for weekends," Kid quipped, unable despite his humor to keep the note of pride out of his voice. Lifting the glider with one hand, he shifted it into the beam of the single floodlight located in this corner, turning slowly back and forth to show Shinichi all its sides. The underside of the glider was a matte, deep black, and the under half of the rails and struts that made up its structure had been spray-painted the same light-eating color. The top was lighter, mottled - reminiscent of commercially available camouflage fabrics, but designed for blending in to a very different backdrop than your average soldier. Kid ran his hands over it in the unselfconscious, habitual manner of any athlete with his equipment.

"It needs some work, the lashings at the corner points are getting a little old, it's been a whole month since I switched them out, and the apex point really needs one of the seams pulled in, it makes this tiny pocket of air that throws wiggle into the mix when I bank sharper than sixty degrees to the left..."

Shinichi'd ducked down to peer beneath the glider as Kid talked, making small appreciative noises in the back of his throat as he examined the way the struts hooked into and balanced each other. It was a very symmetrical, balanced piece of work, and at close hand reminded him of nothing so much as the skeleton of a _Pteranodon Longiceps_ that he'd seen in a New York museum years earlier. The shape was less elongated-- comparing it to Kid's usual white craft was very like comparing a pelican to a peregrine-- but it seemed much sturdier, built more for stealth than for a speedy getaway.

"One for everyday and one for best," he murmured, fighting down an entirely (or was it?) inappropriate thrill of excitement. Because, really? Outside of doves and uniform, this was the _first time_ Shinichi'd actually seen his friend's tools of the trade. And there was something in that, in the level of trust and the obvious enjoyment with which Kid was displaying the glider... that quite simply rattled him to the core. It was akin in a way to that evening when he'd shown his own tools, his bow-tie and watch-gun, to Ran.

Feeling as if he shouldn't, feeling a guilty delight as if he were getting away with something... Shinichi reached up and ran one small hand along a strut. It was solid, strong and freezing cold-- he'd forgotten to put on his mittens. Not that he cared... Intent, he tugged at the fabric, peered closely at how the harness clipped into the undercarriage, moved around to examine the way the strut-ends were triple-sewn into the edges, all the while committing every detail to memory. He _really_ had a thing for gadgets, good engineering, all of that sort of thing. It was probably a syndrome or psychosis or something, but who cared? "Leonardo da Vinci, eat your heart out. How did you learn to _do_ this? To fly, I mean?" Shinichi asked, eyes alight as he poked at a corner lashing, crouched half-beneath the glider.

"Hn?" Kid crouched down, lifting the corner of the glider so he could duck underneath it as well. Side by side with Shinichi in the shadow beneath the craft, Kid entertained a brief, random image of legitimately small children, maybe Shinichi's fan club, "playing fort" with the glider, and snickered before focusing on his answer.

"I actually... have always known how," he explained, reaching a foot in front of Shinichi's nose to slide a carabiner buckle about four inches down the strut it was lashed to. "The first moment that I was really truly aware of myself, I was on a rooftop staring into half a dozen helicopter searchlights and Nakamori's bellowing. I was on the rail, and the wind from the choppers was whipping my cape behind me like a sail. And then I just...stood up on my toes, and pivoted in place real slowly, to put my back to the edge...and just leaned back into the fall."

The thief's voice was soft as he retold this memory, one of his favorites. "It was kind of like falling into bed at the end of a long, satisfying day...the way every inch of you relishes the push of the soft pillows and blankets. The air sliced open for me, and I just fell, and fell, and Kuroba tells me I was cackling like a mad man.

"Appropriate, I guess," the thief snickered, grinning sidelong at Shinichi, "Since I _am_. Have been since the night I arrived."

The small detective appeared to give this statement totally serious consideration. "Mmmmmwell, your average everyday person is supposedly born 'sane' rather than 'mad'; but nobody tests for this until it's necessary, correct? So," (a small grin snuck out) "I'd say that the definitions both need a little work. And considering that I'm living in a chemically-altered state twenty-four/seven these days, I'm not going to be throwing stones any time soon." Shinichi paused, thinking, his hands still on a strut. "Funny; your first steps were in the air, not on the ground. No wonder you seem to love to fly so much."

That last had slipped out by accident, an observation born of witnessing Kid's escapes via man-made wings so many times; no-one who didn't enjoy the sensation of flight would leap into it so eagerly and unhesitatingly, without the least evidence of fear or uncertainty. And of course, there was the grin. You couldn't miss the grin. He'd even seen the _absolutely unhinged_ one that Sonoko'd witnessed in the airplane that time, via security-camera but still quite clear.

"Hmm, guess so," Kid mused, folding one leg beneath himself to sit more comfortably on the ground beside Shinichi. "But it's kind of hard to tell a bird that it flies because it likes to, isn't it? It flies because that's what it _is_."

_Until you clip its wings. Even then, though, it's still a bird._ Putting aside the sudden sharp stab that the thought had given him, Shinichi touched the carabiner that his friend had just shifted. "So? Ready to show me how this bird flies?" The thief rolled his eyes.

"That was very cheesy, Tantei-san. Cheesy, but amusing. "

* * *

Two figures sat together in a roofed nook near the Ghibli's entrance, well-sheltered from the wind and prying eyes by a stand of tall Italian Cypress. They were sharing a blanket, toes tucked beneath its furthest edges and arms around each other-- for warmth, of course, among other more delightful reasons. And while it was far too cold out for any of the more extravagant extracurricular activities that had popped up in Kudo Yukiko's fertile mind, there was no doubt that they WERE, at least, quite warm. A bit disheveled, but warm.

"Mmm." Reluctantly, Yukiko raised her head from her husband's shoulder and adjusted a few things here and there. "Kuso, I've popped a button-- oh, here it is. D'you suppose we need to go find Shin-chan, darling? He's been quite a while." She reached up and wiped away a bit of lipstick from her husband's neck.

He caught her fingers, kissing the tips. "Let's give him a little longer, shall we? I'm sure he and his friend had a lot to talk about." Yuusaku's face was relaxed, the lines of tension and stress that had creased it earlier almost entirely gone. He stroked his wife's blonde hair, tickling her cheek with one long curl; she swatted at him half-heartedly and then turned the swat into an embrace and the beginnings of another enthusiastic necking session.

There were footsteps nearby; they paused and then moved hastily away in some other direction. "Don't look now, but I think we scandalized another of the Ghibli's security guards," murmured Yukiko with a giggle. "It's a pity it's winter, or we could _really_ give them something to be scandalized over." One hand began to sneak under her husband's coat, very slowly.

He raised a warning eyebrow. "Getting arrested for public indecency during our first week back in Japan," he drawled, "might not be bad for reputations in your profession, 'Kiko, but in mine it tends to, uh, inhibit all sorts of... of... 'Kiko, this isn't the best time for, uh, for..." Yuusaku's eyes bulged slightly, and their blanket stirred in all sorts of interesting ways as he very firmly removed his wife's hand. "_Stop_ that."

She giggled again but subsided. "Oh well; Shin-chan'll probably be along any minute now anyway." Sighing, she sat up a little and looked back along the path that led up towards the complex of museum buildings. "I wonder what's taking him so long?"

* * *

Unlike the white gliders (main and backup) that he used most publicly, Kid's tough charcoal grey 'work' glider was built to carry baggage. The many buckles and straps -- some permanently fastened through low-profile brackets bonded to the frame, and some cinched in place with a pop rivet, able to slide up and down the length of the struts they wrapped around -- were arranged in groups. Through a variety of rigging patterns, Kid could carry anything from tarps and rigging to large packages of explosives to three outfit changes and a water balloon. Load shape and weight was limited, of course, and had to be balanced on each wing, to keep from interfering with the dynamics of air that held the glider aloft; a rigid, concave under-wing which unrolled across the bottom of the baggage on each side not only smoothed the wing's profile but extended past its trailing edge, where it functioned as an aileron. Connected via bicycle brake-style wire cables to the handlebars which Kid already used to steer, the modification let Kid use some of the functions of a fixed-wing craft without sacrificing much of the nature of the hang glider.

The harness that bore his weight was a complex affair, but Kid slipped into it easily and smoothly, fastening buckles across his shoulders, hips, and thighs. He left his chest straps loose for the moment, patting down the parts of the glider that he could still reach, and adjusting the way it rested across his body. Despite not yet being fully buckled to him, the craft didn't wobble or bobble against his back. Smooth and sure, the thief and his wings turned to focus on the small tantei, standing silent and mostly unacknowledged since Kid had begun the check and strap-in process.

"You'll be riding front seat," Kid grinned, holding his arms out for Shinichi. "But I can only crouch down a little now that I've got this on this far, so you're gonna have to help me out. I rigged your harness backwards, so you can look down instead of at my tie while we fly." He paused, a flicker of....something...crossing his face, and laughed brightly, clear and happy. "We! I really am insane. Alright, put the glasses away and come on up. Right leg first, step through the loops and then stand on my thigh while I get the buckles closed."

"Got it." He'd been watching, Shinichi had, as alert and intent on every detail of Kid's preparation as he'd ever been at the scene of a crime or on a soccer-field. One eyebrow rose slightly;_Tie?_ But he slipped his glasses into an inner coat-pocket, slipped his mittens back on and obediently moved forward and into the harness. The straps were a little awkward; he steadied himself, one hand on Kid's shoulder and the other on a strut as he settled himself into place, feet braced. The wind all evening had been fairly steady, nothing too strong or gusty; as black-gloved fingers secured his lightweight body against the thief's own, he swallowed hard and wondered how cold it would be at a higher altitude.

_...his body against the thief's own..._ Shinichi swallowed again. "Ready," he said, and his voice was, if a little higher in timber than usual, remarkably steady.

Once Shinichi was strapped in, Kid stood and flexed all over, shifting from one leg to the other to get the feel of the weight balance. It was unusual to have more core weight on the glider rather than wing weight, but it wouldn't be a problem once he got into the air. The wind was stiff enough, and he could leave the same direction he'd arrived, since just past the downdraft that had landed him here was another up, which would carry them..._there._ Kid plotted out the course they'd take - a preparation he rarely, if ever, made when it was just him in the harness - and stepped up onto the rail. The burden of an extra twenty-five kilo gave his legs a bit of a burn - he wasn't nearly as strong as he was agile - but he just raised one hand to the top of Shinchi's head, gauging how much mobility his own head and neck would have to look around, as he studied the city below them.

Glittering and dark, alive and chaotic, it was block after block of angular buildings with angular rooftops, angular sidewalks, angular streets. The building they stood on was the most eccentric in the area, all curves and terraces, providing the greenspace that the rest of the area lacked. But Kid wasn't about to mourn the loss of the trees; they didn't give him the strength beneath his wings, bearing him up as far as he could go and still breathe. No, that credit went to the pavement itself, the black and grey and tarred asphalt that formed the skin of the city.

_And I am its wishes,_ Kid affirmed silently. _I am the thing that goes glittery in the night._ He breathed out.

"Hup!"

And they fell.

* * *

All the air went out of Shinichi's lungs as the lights and darks of the landscape spread out flat beneath them shifted, slid upwards and became the sky. Eyes watering, he fought the urge to blink against the rush of their downwards plummet, trusting-- His hands kept a deathgrip on the straps, the straps bit into his hands; and he knew that not even half a second had passed, but still they fell--

* * *

Kid could feel the hammering of Shinichi's heart against his body, but the rabbit-fast patter was mere background noise to the rush of air in his ears and against his face. The glider shook against him, buffeted by the wind as they fell, but the Ghibli wasn't as tall as most of his mounts and Shinichi had less nerve than Kid -- or at least practice. So where Kid would have waited the full second before pulling up, he took it easy on Shinichi this time and, as soon as they were clear of the building, yanked hard on the glider, angling its nose out of the vertical column of their fall. Then again, tugging the aileron cables to catch the wind, hold it, and trust it, Kid turned his face and the glider's nose up toward the moon.

The glider snapped hard against them as it flattened out, and too belatedly Kid remembered he should have briefed Shinichi on how to brace against harness bruises. Too late for that, and the thief and detective sailed upward on a sharply increasing climb and a widening arc. Kid took advantage of the broad grounds around the Ghibli museum to gather some altitude; above the enclosed and heated underground parking deck, he spiraled them up like a corkscrew. Like bubbles through soda, the updraft shoved the pair higher and higher, all the way to its top. As the draft spread out and dissippated around them, its soft warmth a dramatic contrast to the rock-hard slap of cold air on their way down, Kid glanced down to make sure he still had a conscious detective with him, then banked right and just _sailed._

The air was thinning up here, not enough to make it hard to breathe, but enough to give a slight giddiness, a slight breathlessness. Kid glanced down at Shinichi again as they made a circuit two kilometers wide, just flying for the sake of flying.

_Probably doesn't need any help with the breathless part,_ Kid reflected fondly, free to concentrate on the pressure and muted impact of Shinichi's breath and heartbeat as they drifted, effortless, the city whipping by beneath them.

* * *

He'd always thought it would be silent.

That time on the parasail, chasing Kid for all he was worth, Shinichi'd been conscious more of the pursuit than anything else-- well, that, and trying not to smash into the tall buildings all around them. But he'd remembered the harsh smacks of wind against his ears, the way the gusts had blasted against him with entirely physical force, and... somehow he'd gotten it into his head that Kid's flight on his glider would be soundless, owl-silent, like feathers in the dark.

Not so.

The glider's struts creaked and groaned above them with almost human voices; and the thin membrane of its wings sang in the wind, a thin near-inaudible whisper that changed with every angle. It was a little, no, a _lot_ like being on a fast-moving sailboat, one of the very small ones where there was almost more sail than boat and you balanced barefoot on the tiller-line rather than on the deck itself. The glider was nearly more enthralling than the moving landscape beneath them; it felt and sounded alive.

A laugh built itself inside Shinichi's throat, shook his chest as it escaped; this was, this was...

Their flight took them in a wide-angled curve, banking just slightly as the warm-air updraft raised them like friendly hands and then tugged them sideways. Above and behind him Kid's arms moved slightly as he adjusted their ascent, playing with the wind.

* * *

Ten or fifteen minutes later, they came down on another rooftop, not the ground, and Shinichi's confusion was silenced by Kid's finger before it had chance to be voiced. Across the street and down a bit, the Ghibli museum's broad gates and brightly lit front gardens looked forbidding, harsh light and a lot of iron bars blocking the greenery off from those outside the walls.

"Tousan and Kaasan will be surprised that you beat them to the outdoors," Kid laughed quietly, unbuckling Shinichi gently and helping him gain his feet on the roof in front of the thief. He wobbled slightly, getting his 'land-legs' back, but regained his balance surprisingly fast. Still breathing hard, he stared mutely up at his friend and then out across the cityscape.

"Yes," he said at last when he'd regained his voice. "They will. I-- Kid? Thank you." The boy tried to put what he could into the two words, but there was a lot of feeling and not much room in which to express them. Hopefully it would be enough. Shaking off the sensation that he was still moving, he glanced around for a way down; but there was no stairwell column that could lead him from their perch to street level. He peeked over the edge - yup, three stories down.

"Always the practical tantei," Kid murmured, suddenly behind him. One of the thief's long arms reached past Shinichi's viewpoint, aiming at the ground; the _thunk_ of the anchor sinking into the ground had sounded almost before Shinichi realized what Kid was holding.

"A grappling hook. Where did you...No, nevermind. Nevermind!" Shinichi's laughter returned as Kid made a makeshift belay out of a disused bracket on the wall, wrapping the grapple's line around it to give himself extra leverage. With the cable looped around both hands, he played one against the other, tugging through the bracket, and drew the vertical length taut.

"The front buckles on your harness will work quite nicely on this cable," Kid suggested, humor in his eyes. "Hurry now, I've kept you far past your bedtime."

That earned him an eyeroll. "Yare, yare," he grumbled, "you and my Kaasan, I swear." He peered down at the angle of the grounded line, which was steep but not so much as to be a problem even for his short legs. "I'll make sure you get the harness back," he promised quietly, linking in the buckles in a way so that if he needed a little less force in his descent he could yank hard on one of the two as a makeshift brake. Pulling himself up onto the ledge and swinging his legs over, Shinichi hesitated, looking back at the thief. "Good night," he said softly. "Tonight was..."

_Tonight was special. Was amazing. Terrifying, educational, unforgettable._

"...really good."

Kid's eyes spoke his feelings for him, gleaming a gem-rich, happy blue at the detective perched on the roof's edge.

_Tonight was warm._

"We'll see you around, Tantei," he murmured. "Give Mouri-san our regards."

A nod, a careful slither over the edge... and the last Shinichi saw of Kid was that smile, reflected in the essence of blue. Then gravity took him and he spent the next few minutes in an intensive and very personal lesson on how to brake one's descent on a slanted line. It ended with the thud of his sneakers on the lawn where the grappling-hook had earthed itself twenty meters away or so, and as he shakily unfastened the harness, he turned to look back at the rooftop.

There was nothing there. But the matte-black hook at his feet abruptly jerked in place as if it were alive, its point and anchors retracting all on their own per some mysterious signal. (Was it radio-controlled? Kid had the _best_ gadgets, thought Shinichi in something very like envy.) It slithered off across the grass and asphalt for a few feet before becoming abruptly airborne, changing its angle, and being dragged off through the air in a rapidly climbing ascent, much like a giant fishing-lure.

The boy looked up quickly. The sky above him was empty, but a little ways away something dark flickered across the clouds before becoming lost in Tokyo's fitful, intermittent glare. Hands in his pockets, Shinichi watched the changing patterns of cityglow and stars for a little while before pulling his coat close around him and turning away.

* * *

_Knock-knock-knock._

"Oh, WHERE is he? _SHIIIIIIINNNN-chaaaaaaan!_ Yuusaku, send one of the guards to check the bathrooms!"

_Knock-knock-knock. KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!_

"'Kiko, they were all locked at closing time. He'll be along soon, he's not a child--"

"Of course he's a child! He'll always be my little boy, he's just, just _more_ so right now!" Deep breath. _"SHIIIIIIINNNN-chaaaaaaan, where AAAARRRRE yoooouuu?"_

"Oh, for God's sake--"_Knock-knock-knock-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-WHAMWHAMWHAM!!._

"--did you just hear something, Yuusaku?"

* * *

"Shinichi? How... did you..."

"Never mind. Can we _please_ just go n-- Kaasan! KAASAN! PUT ME DOWN! MMMPH!!"


	25. Black box, interrogation, liberties

Welcome back to Three Thieves. As of tonight's chapter, Three Thieves crosses the **250,000** word mark! Quite a milestone. Thank you to everyone who's been reading with us this far!

For those of you who aren't directly watching the **threethieves** community, please be sure to check it out to see our midweek updates, including the one I posted yesterday regarding some multimedia aspects of the story and also significant updates to the Table of Contents.

Tonight's chapter contains a bit of progress and a bit of _progress,_ if you take my meaning. Well, too many hors d'ouvres spoils the meal, so I'll just leave you to it. My apologies for posting a little late, but I - and we - hope you enjoy the show.

.

**Three Thieves**  
A series of novels by **ysabet** and **nightengale**, presented serially.  
**Book Three, Chapter Four****:** _"black box, interrogation, liberties"_  
Warnings: People who don't like needles or foul language should brace themselves a little bit. (It's not too bad, promise.) And those who like to see Certain Scientists, Certain Blondes With A Knack For Disguise, or a Combination Thereof should grab their popcorn. There's more, but that would be telling.  
_Theme Song: "Shove," Angels & Airwaves_

(Posted to these Livejournal communities: dc_yaoi, detective_conan, magic_kaitou and manycases1truth.)

_._

* * *

_The following afternoon..._

Haibara Ai, once Miyano Shiho (and, of course, Sherry, though she really preferred not to think of that name if at all possible) was glorying in that most treasured of things: blessed, blessed silence. It was like rain after a drought to her parched and thirsting soul, like balm to a wound, like... the lack of _too many damned people in her space._ It wasn't exactly that she didn't likepeople, it was just that their company tended to chafe. And after several weeks of non-stop Kudo Shinichi plus generous helpings of Mouri Ran, Hattori Heiji and even that irritating, unfathomable thief--

Occasionally she wondered if there was a female equivalent for the word 'curmudgeon.' If there wasn't, in her opinion there should have been.

The Professor was out having his Volkswagon serviced; both Ayumi and Mitsuhiko had come down with colds, Kudo was off being terrorized by his parents somewhere and she had the house all to herself for a change. And so, taking full advantage of her rare moment of peace, Ai was doing what could only be called _puttering._ Vivaldi played softly on the stereo system; jasmine tea scented the air, the LEDs in the small biomedical testing lab twinkled like bits of sunlight, and she even had her house-scuffs off and was padding around in her socks. _Such sybaritism,_ Ai thought to herself, smiling as she curled up in her favorite office-chair, feet tucked under and keyboard in her lap.

A series of very familiar DNA sequences lay in staccato patterning on the screen before her; she'd seen them often enough that she could very nearly chart his nucleotide bases by heart-- Kudo's, of course. Or at least the first and second patterns, the ones drawn from an unaltered hair sample prior to his transformation and from a blood-sample taken mere days after said change. The third sequence was the freshest: it had been submitted by Kudo following the experiment of several weeks past, and with any luck she'd have a fourth genome pattern to compare as soon as he returned to Agasa's.

Not that she was in any particular hurry at the moment, Ai thought, sipping her tea with slow, deliberate pleasure. It was so _good_ to have a little silence.

The project she'd been working on for the last few weeks, in the times when she wasn't giving Kudo his examinations, was nearing completion, and something about its development process had really clicked into place in her mind. She barely dared think it, but it _felt_ right, in the way that hinted she might actually have found a semipermanent solution. Not a fix, not an antidote, but a patch, one that seemed reliable enough to make her excited over it, in her own Ai-ish way. She knew what Kudo would think of that concept, _her_ being excited, but she truly was. For the first time in longer than she cared to think about, a chance to redeem her work with the original apotoxin glimmered on her own private horizon.

Tapping away at the keyboard, she parsed out her thoughts in neat, tidy little lines of conjecture and hypothesis, enjoying the process more than she had in quite some time; hope was such a potent catalyst. Item: Kudo's current baseline lay _thus._ Item: The desired end-result would present his baseline as _so._ Mousing over, she dragged the two sequences so that they overlapped, matching certain points and typing comments regarding the others to one side; her fingers flew faster as thought fed upon thought. Perhaps Kudo's present baseline-shift (which, not surprisingly, she did not share) had been a good thing in the long run; a mutable subject could be modified, a non-mutable one could not.

And Kudo Shinichi was _certainly_ mutable, mentally as well as physically. One of his finer points. She could rely on that adaptability, especially once she had--

A quiet rattle at the door interrupted her train of thought. Turning quickly to put her back against the wall, Ai slipped an epi-pen off of her worktable and edged into the partial cover of one of Agasa's armchairs. The rattle repeated, accompanied by the ratcheting sound of a key slipped into the lock and turned. _That narrows the field somewhat,_ Ai thought to herself. _Neither the Professor nor Kudo was expected to return this early. A change in plans? That's too easy._

The bolt clacked back and the door swung open, letting in cold air and the chatter of two adult voices, neither of which Ai recognized. One was female, light, highly affected. The other was male, and seemed familiar in some tangential way, but Ai couldn't get a good sense of it - the woman was talking so much more.

"--don't know what I'm going to _do_ with this little rapscallion, after all that he put us through trying to finally catch up with him. But we've got you now, don't we, Shinichi? Yes, we do."

Ai peeked out from behind the chair to see a rather alarming sight: a blonde, thin woman with intense eyes holding an unconscious Kudo under her arm, ruffling his hair with a dismissive gesture. With a sigh, the woman lifted her purse off her shoulder and set it down on a small table, glancing over her shoulder at the man following her into the house. He wore a long black coat and hat, with a pale scarf wrapped around his neck, the ends tucked neatly into his coat. "Catch up, won't you, darling?" the woman instructed him, I don't want him to wake up before we're ready. And goodness knows how much time we have until the Professor returns. Wouldn't be good for him to catch us like this, would we?" Then the woman turned again, lifting her free hand up to her throat, and began peeling off her face.

Ai ducked behind the chair again, abruptly unable to breathe clearly, eyes wide and seeing nothing in her panic. _Blonde. Thin. Excellent disguises. And she has Kudo. No wonder they came here...she's looking for me. She __knows!_ She had to get up and run. Or try to attack - there were plenty of fatal implements on her worktable, only a few feet to her left. She just had to move. And her little snubnose pistol was in the drawer right next to that! She just had to move. She just had to--

"Well hello there." Ai would have sworn her heart stopped as she slowly raised her head to meet the woman's unsettlingly cheerful smile at a distance of no more than ten inches. "You must be Ai-kun. We've heard _so_ much about you from Shinichi here." The woman, balanced in a crouch that put her directly at Ai's level, drew the scientist's attention to her burden by shaking it lightly. Under her arm, Shinichi - still completely passed out - wobbled a little bit, his head lolling. "We'd just love to pick your brain regarding him and his little problem."

Ai pressed herself against the back of the chair, hands clawing at the fabric as though to rip it so she could crawl inside. The blond woman tilted her pretty head on an angle, brow creasing._How does she do that,_ Ai wondered giddily, all reason leaving her as the woman's hand reached out toward her hair, closer and closer. _She looks so sincere. Even though I know...what she is...who she is...she looks so sincere. Akemi, I'm sorry..._

"What's wrong, Ai-kun?" the woman asked. "Don't you recognize me?"

"Yukiko." The man's voice snapped through the tension between the two women, breaking the spell; the blond woman craned her head back to look up at him with a disappointed frown on her face.

"Mouuu, Yuusaku, don't take that tone with me. What's wrong now?"

"You're terrifying her."

Kudo Yukiko glanced from Ai, to her husband, and back to Ai. With a sudden squeak she rocked back on her heels, sitting down hard and dragging her son into her lap as she did. One hand to her mouth, the actress actually had tiny tears in her eyes as her entire manner revolved.

"Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, Shin-chan had said you were shy but I didn't realize -- that is -- Oh dear, I can't imagine what you must have thought, a strange woman coming into your house unannounced like that. I must have startled you half to death."

Yuusaku crouched down beside his wife and extracted their son from her lap. Folding Shinichi's limp body into his arms like the baby he used to be, Yuusaku stood and addressed Ai with candor.

"He went off somewhere last night, after we met with the Kid. Seemed rather...exhilarated, like he'd been exercising maybe, when we found him again. Today he seemed fine while we were out around town, but he collapsed about half an hour ago, breathing hard. His temperature is very high. We were hoping you would know what to do with him."

Ai looked from Yuusaku to Yukiko and back. "I--" She couldn't think, couldn't move. The spectre of Vermouth's eyes, her proximity, her ice cold heart, still gripped her, and Ai started to shake as the realization that she _wasn't_ about to die slowly seeped into her awareness. A moment later, she'd fallen forward where she stood, her knees going out from under her.

Yukiko caught her with a startled cry. The epi-pen went flying, and Ai, tense and stiff as a board, heart hammering, found herself drawn against the busom of Shinichi's ebullient kaasan. The physical proximity was more upsetting than it was comforting, and Ai felt tears coming unbidden to her eyes.

_Don't cry, don't cry,_ she commanded herself, trying to marshal her everpresent self-control and resolve. _Oh, god, the Professor won't die,_ she realized, as the relieved side of her brain utterly ignored the survivalist side and collapsed into a crying, wobbly mess. _Akemi, she won't get me too. I'm so sorry. Akemi...Hakase..._

Yukiko tucked Ai into her arms without a second thought, pressing the girl's damp cheek against her chest just above her heart. "Oh, Yuusaku, I don't know what I did but I think I've put her into shock," she declared, sympathetic tears in her own eyes. "I didn't mean to!"

"It's alright, 'Kiko," Yuusaku said, soothing his wife with his voice since his arms were full. "Bring her over toward the couch. They're both going to need our help, now. Do you still have the Professor's number?"

"No, I don't -- I don't even know where I'd have put it," Yukiko said, distressed and a little frantic, as she gathered her legs beneath her and stood, Ai's frail weight a contrast to her son's youthful bulk. "I got rid of all the contact information for him and this house when Shin-chan changed, to try to make it harder for _them._ Now I don't know--"

"It will be okay," Yuusaku reassured her, even though he wasn't at all certain that he was telling the truth. In his arms, Shinchi was getting hotter by the second, and if what he had told them about his changes was applicable, Yuusaku and Yukiko would have even more problems on their hands in a few minutes. "Focus on getting Ai-chan revived. We need her help with Shinichi."

Yukiko settled Ai onto the couch on one end, draping the crying girl over a pillow and tugging a blanket close to cover her. "I'm going to get you a cool washcloth, Ai-chan, hold on one moment, okay?"

* * *

_"What's wrong, Ai-kun? Don't you recognize me?"_

He'd been walking, they'd been walking... somewhere; it'd been so weird, spending time with his parents after so long, and... Something Had Happened; he couldn't recall what. Even now, with fever drowning Shinichi's thoughts in blurred waves of heat, he was aware that things had gone wrong again. There'd been the thin winter sunlight filtering down, they'd been talking, and then it had all grown so damned hot, hot and dark and it hurt--

_"--half to death--"_

...but wait, then he'd been somewhere bright, somewhere grassy and they'd been all sprawled on a blanket, sandwiches in hand. And Kid had asked Ran very seriously if she believed in rabbits and she'd said...

_"We were hoping you would know what to do with him."_

...and the dream had merged seamlessly with reality: an awareness of pain somewhere far off in the distance like the shadow of a tall, tall building blending with Ran's soft giggle and the strange/familiar sensation of being carried. Kid's explanations of why they needed to find the Caterpillar _('Why caterpillars, I ask you?')_ had been as real as the jumbled sounds of traffic and his mother's voice; the hand that had brushed sweat from his forehead had been as tangible as the touch of his fingertips on Kid's palm, the way he'd rested his head on Ran's knee.

_I'm dreaming. Because Ai's crying. And Ai never cries. I can hear her doing what she never does. So I'm dreaming._ It made sense, but then so did the rabbits.

He was being moved, lifted, placed somewhere soft; beneath him the grass smelled like sunlight, Kid's white loafers lying topsy-turvy beside Ran's sandals and his own sneakers. Sheets and a blanket, familiar textures; the shadow of pain moved nearer, brushing his skin, and Shinichi shivered beneath the covers. He tried to understand what Kid was telling him, but the thief just shook his head and ran one gloved fingertip along Shinichi's jawline, as subtle and inviting as larceny.

_"--will be okay--"_

(It'll be okay, Shinichi, Ran told him, kissing the crown of his head, the nape of his neck. Stay here with us, Shinichi)

_"--hold on one moment, okay?"_

(Tantei, whispered Kid, warm breath against his lips, Shhhh, Tantei, it's okay. Stay here with us, Tantei)

_"--okay?"_

(It's alright, it's okay, it's enough, just for now. Stay here)

When the pain of his transformation hit home at last, Shinichi was, at least for that one moment, somewhere else.

* * *

He came to with all the snail-like, glacial speed of grass growing, perfectly aware that his world had again flipped over. There were muted sounds just beyond his closed eyelids, voices talking softly, the splash of a tap running somewhere that cut off abruptly as Shinichi turned his head to one side. He licked his lips; they were salty with sweat. In the back of his mind, grass and rabbits and Kid and Ran faded into a warm, sunlit distance.

He ached, but it was a bearable ache, not so bad this time. Except-- oh. His parents'd been there, they had to have seen-- "Kaasan?" Shinichi whispered without opening his eyes.

"Here, Shin-chan," came his mother's voice, close by on his left. "How're you feeling?"

"Pained," Shinichi whispered, his hoarse throat sticking to the words. "Where's Ran? And Tousan?"

"In the next room," Yukiko reassured him, stroking his bangs back from his forehead. Shinichi leaned his head into the touch, content to feel nothing but his mother's comfort.

"Good. I guess I'll be happy for this in a bit but right now...ugh..." He raised one fist weakly, attempting to scrub an irritant from his eye; his mother guided his hand down to his chest and reached up with a smooth fingertip to stroke the salt away.

"Actually," she said, sounding puzzlingly bemused, "You're still my little Shin-chan, just not...quite as little right now."

Shinichi cracked one eye open, regretting it instantly. Yukiko moved quickly to turn down the bedside lamp, seating herself between Shinichi's gaze and the lamp to block its glare. "What d'ya..." Stubbornly, he raised one hand to rake through his hair, though the arm that supported it felt weak as water. "What d'ya mean by..." Shinichi blinked, focused on his arm, holding it out for examination. It wasn't much longer than his "normal" child-size arms were, and the hands... "...that...doesn't look right."

With his kaasan's help, Shinichi pushed himself upright in bed, staring at his hands in mild shock. Thinner and longer than his eight-year-old hands, they- and the wrists, arms, and body they were attached to - were still much too immature for the eighteen years he expected. "_Kaaaaaasaaaaaan,_" Shinichi began warningly, a note of panic threading slowly into the sound, "What. Is. This."

"You're twelve, Shinichi." Mother and son looked up to see Yuusaku standing in the doorway of the sickroom, a steaming mug held in each hand. "Here. One for you and one for me. Yukiko, Ran-chan's got yours."

Shinichi accepted his drink - hot chocolate, it turned out - without complaint, awkwardly gripping it with hands both too small and too large for his expectations. He managed not to spill more than a couple drops on the blankets in his lap, which Yukiko dutifully dabbed at with a washcloth.

"Twelve? What...what went wrong?" Shinichi shook his head slowly, trying to collate data in his mind and coming up with a big fat _ERROR_. Nothing he'd done that day should have triggered the change - though the flight the previous night, and what that had done to his heart rate, might have had a bit to do with it, now that he thought about it. Still, only a half change? It made no sense based on his past changes, and frankly, it scared him. "Am I stuck?"

"We hope not." Shinichi looked down from his father's face to Haibara's. The scientist was just entering the room, armed with a hot mug of coffee and a tray laden with several sterile implements and a device Shinichi couldn't identify. "But, seeing as you've never _stopped_ at this age before, we have to assume that yes, you are temporarily stuck." She thumped the tray down on the table beside Yukiko. "However, I believe that I can fix both that...and, potentially, some other instabilities as well."

Shinichi stared. "Wait, _what_?"

"Some diabetics require a steady drip of insulin to maintain proper blood sugar levels and function properly," Ai said, with an academic air that encouraged Shinichi to be quiet, dammit, and listen to her extended explanation. "Individuals recovering from intense, invasive surgeries are often put on portable, constant dosages of painkillers to aid their recovery. I have developed a similar solution for your situation."

Ai moved to the small sink, washing up with steaming hot water and slipping on a pair of nitrile gloves while she talked. "Your body continually wants to revert to your eight-year-old age while it is grown, believing the eighteen-year-old age to be a symptom of an illness, or an invasive condition that needs to be removed. Convincing your body to accept its original age has thus far been unsuccessful, whether we used a single pill or a more prolonged intravenous system."

She moved to the table, arranging implements as she needed. Yukiko gave up her seat as Ai moved to Shinichi's bedside, laying him back in bed with a mere glance. She pulled the blankets down and his clothing up, baring the side of his abdomen, which she began to swab with cold alcohol. Shinichi hissed but laid still.

"If your body is insistent upon reversion as soon as the Apotoxin derivative has been passed through your system, the solution to prevent unscheduled reversions is to remove the Apotoxin derivative only once we want to allow the change. Thus, this." She indicated a small black box on the tray, about the size of a pager, with two wire-thin tubes leading from it. Each of them ended in a sharp silver needlepoint.

"Your own personal version of an insulin drip...Apotoxin-style."

Shinichi regarded the device with serious misgivings; it regarded him back, a coiled black snake with tiny silver fangs. "You want to..."

"Attach that to you, yes; one port samples and monitors your blood, matching the derivative levels while the other administers a continual, minuscule dosage as needed. I'm very pleased with it," said Ai, tapping the device almost fondly. "Don't worry, they'll be inserted only a little ways in; it'll be much safer to sink them into muscle tissue rather than veins. And with a controlled dosage," the scientist added matter-of-factly, "will come a controlled change. You do realize that this habit you've insisted on developing of random, uncontrolled transformations is extremely dangerous?"

Indignant, Shinichi had opened his mouth to TOTALLY deny having anything whatsoever to do with habits, random or uncontrolled or otherwise, when there was a muffled squeak from the doorway that made him look up. Mouri Ran stood there, one hand over her mouth, eyes absolutely _enormous._

_...why do I want to crawl under the nearest rug?_ Shinichi's ears burned. For some reason, teetering on the edge of puberty again was much, much more embarassing than being a preadolescent. It stung him in all sorts of tender places. "Errr... hi?"

Her wide, utterly astonished gaze tracked from Shinichi's face to Ai's and back; slowly Ran took in the room's relatively calm atmosphere, the worried-but-not-frantic expressions on the Kudos' faces, their son's sheepish, hunched-shoulder posture… Blinking rapidly and placing the cup of cocoa she'd carried in onto the nearest flat surface, the young woman turned to the diminutive scientist (who had been warily regarding her as if waiting for a bomb to go off.)

"Ai-chan? If this is your idea of a cure, I'd like my money back," she said politely.

Though she quickly muffled them as best she could, Yukiko's embarrassed snickers still drew the attention of everyone in the room. Shinichi, in particular, raised one critical eyebrow.

"_What_ was that, Kaasan?"

Despite her son's and her husband's disapproving looks, Yukiko dissolved into another peal of girlish laughter. "Shin-chan, you're just so...so..."

"Please don't," Ran interrupted, rubbing her temples tiredly. "He's not _cute_ like this, he's...he's..."

"Not going to be twelve much longer," Ai inserted, tone dry. Ran looked up through her fingers, and the scientist smiled thinly before turning her attention back to her work. A clear adhesive patch, extremely sticky, went onto Shinichi's skin just above his hipbone; another was placed a few inches above and center of that one, closer to the soft side of his tummy. Shinichi watched her work, holding his arm out of the way, without comment. "These will probably come right off as soon as you change...or they'll stay, and rip the skin as you grow. Hm." As the rest of the room stared in horror at her, and Yuusaku opened his mouth to protest, Ai smoothed the patches down, then lifted a scalpel from the bedside tray, shifted the two cables of her little device to her left hand, and made a small incision directly in the center of the patch.

As the pain from the cut slowly bloomed, numb at first and then suddenly burningly sharp, Shinichi barely had time to suck in a breath before she'd stabbed the first of the two metal fangs home, burying it under the skin at the first patch. Needless to say, it hurt like a bitch.

"Ow fuck ow fuck _ow_, Haibara, I'm gonna -- OW!" The scientist twisted the cable attached to the fang, wiggling it in further; Ran darted over to grasp and hold his hand, squeezing hard as he gritted his teeth and glared daggers at the diminuitive woman attacking him with sharp things. In the background, both his parents winced. "For crying out loud, warn me next time!"

Haibara gave him a baleful glare, then shrugged. "Alright. You're warned." Without fuss, she sliced into his skin in the center of the second patch, then stabbed the remaining fang under; the skin stretched over it in a little bump, and Haibara poked at this, wiggling the fang further into place with absolutely no regard to her patient's caterwauling.

"_Ow!_ Holy crap, Haibara, _owwwwww!_ That didn't even--" Giving up the protest, as Haibara wasn't listening, Shinichi held on tight to Ran's hand and watched as Haibara mopped up the blood running out of the incision points. She covered each with a gauze pad and tape, then arranged the pager against Shinichi's skin just below its fangs and taped it in place.

"I don't think I'll need to remind you to be circumspect about this device, Kudo," she said, laying the blooded scalpel and rolls of gauze and tape on the bedside tray. Snapping her gloves off, Haibara washed up in the sink, artfully oblivious to Shinichi's offended glare. On the other end of the room, Yukiko tried to pacify her son with a motherly, indulgent expression, and Yuusaku eyed Haibara critically, clearly uncertain that his son was in safe hands under her care.

Ran, however, was less indirect about her displeasure. Standing on the stool that let her reach the sink, Haibara pivoted in place and looked straight up to meet Mouri Ran's looming, glowering disapproval.

"Ai-chaaaaaaan," she growled warningly. "You shouldn't have--" Ai leaned to the side, looking past Ran's head at the clock on the wall, and Ran twitched in irritation. "_Ai-chan!_"

"Three...two...one...hm, that's a few seconds late." Ai looked from the clock to Shinichi, staring expectantly. Shinichi blinked back at her, startled out of his sulk by the obvious way that she expected him to _do something_. He patted down his chest and stomach, checked his hands, and glared back at her.

"What? Were you expecting me to sprout h---_aaaaaaugh!_" Shinichi convulsed in bed, folding over onto himself with a tortured expression and a pathetic moan. "Hai--Haibara..." Another scream cut him off, and this time as his body shook with pain, Ran was there to catch and hold him steady. Yukiko was right beside her, tucking herself onto the large amount of bed not currently taken up by her tiny, shivering, pained son.

"Shhh, shhh, Shinichi, shhh, I'm here," they murmured, voices laid over each other as they both sought to comfort him. Eyes wide, breath short and labored, Shinichi sought and found one of their hands - Yukiko's - and held it with an iron grip as he buried his face in Ran's lap and tried to hold back the next scream.

With eyes of an avenging Valkyrie, Yukiko loosed her anger on Ai.

"What did you _do_ to him? You didn't even tell him what this would do!"

"It will regularize him, of course," Ai explained snippily, drying her hands off and stepping down from her stool.

"Haibara-san, that's not what his mother was asking," Yuusaku cut in, clear displeasure filling his tone and expression. "Explain. Now."

Ai's expression, most easily described as "Tolerating fools," flickered into a more familiar softness for a moment as Shinichi's voice both cracked and broke, halfway through a moan. Ran had retrieved the washcloth from his bedside table, wiping sweat from his skin, and Yukiko tried to hold his legs stationary to protect the device taped to his side from being ripped free. With a sigh, Ai shook her head a little.

"I forgot that none of _you_ have witnessed the history Kudo and I have created with regards to this drug," she explained, sounding tired and like a bit of her earlier fight had suddenly drained out. "He's accepted much more risky and abrupt changes, with no preparation or even proof that they won't kill him, without hesitation. Often for your benefit, Mouri-san," the girl added. "The only thing that I've done that might offend him is that I denied him anesthetic before making the cuts. As for the drug itself...he has never turned it aside before, and would not again, I am certain of it.

"I simply forgot that you three have not seen him like this before. This device will hopefully prevent unplanned and abrupt changes in the future, but first it has to regularize him, and he is currently...several years off of regular, in either direction."

"He's growing," Yukiko interrupted, her arms and chest laid across Shinichi's lower legs to embrace him and try to hold him still. "I can already feel it, his legs are getting longer."

The diminutive scientist nodded, hands busy, pulling out and prepping several mid-sized IV bags from one of the undercounter refrigerators. Her eyes on her work, she loaded several hypodermics with fluids, laying them aside on a sterile tray. "Good. Keep him as calm as possible; he'll need these," she said, the medical equipment overlarge in her small fingers. At Yukiko's alarmed look she held one up. "High-impact nutrients, vitamin supplements, electrolyte stabilizers... and a few things of my own creation, all designed to bolster his growth and keep him from stressing his heart into shutdown. You do realize," Ai said as she tapped the plunger on one hypo, sending a tiny spray over the pad of the tray, "that with every transformation he runs the risk of complete organ shutdown? Brittle bones, marrow deficiencies--" She stopped as Shinichi thrashed. "Hold him!" One of the smaller hypodermics was quickly produced; the needle jabbed into Shinichi's sweating, lengthening arm, and Ran swallowed a gasp, her arms winding around the boy's broadening shoulders.

"Which one was that?" Yuusaku looked suddenly older, his hands opening and closing helplessly.

"Sedative. A strong one."

And a necessary one; lengthening limbs relaxed, though fine tremors ran the entire length of the sweating body. Ran stroked Shinichi's hair back, her own face white and shaking as the cranial bones shifted bizarrely beneath her fingers. Thin as a rail, bones reshaping themselves slowly beneath the covers and his mother's hold, the chemically-altered muscles gradually went slack as they assumed new, older contours. "He's so-- he looks anorexic," murmured his mother anxiously, blonde hair tumbling in her eyes as she stroked her son's sharp cheekbone with a shaky hand. "Should he look like that?"

Coolly Ai slid another needle into the veins of one knobby arm, reaching up to hook the IV to a nearby stand; she faltered for a moment, unable to reach the S-hook, and Yuusaku took the bag gently out of her hands and placed it there himself. For a surprised moment blue-gray eyes met steady bluer ones in a long look before she turned away. "Ah-- yes, right now he should. Bones are always first to change, then muscle tissue and organs. Marrow regenerates at a surprising speed, though initially there are unfilled hollows inside the heavier skeletal areas. The heart, oddly enough, changes very little during a lifetime. Blood, though, the cells reproduce themselves at a rate that defies all logic thus far, though I have a few theories." A second IV bag was handed to Yuusaku without comment; he hooked it onto a lower placement, watching silently as Ai fed the lines into a tandem drip and adjusted the flow. "There, almost done."

"But _why_ does he need all this? He did fine on his own before," wailed Yukiko, pulling herself upright and smoothing the covers protectively. "He was--"

"How long did he remain transformed?"

"Eh?" She blinked. "I-- Well, we found him around four a.m. and when I checked in on him at nine he'd already-- oh. Oh, I see. Then...?" She fixed her own intent gaze on the girl's. "Only a few hours. How long will this change last, then?" Yukiko looked down at her son's pale, sweating face, cradled half on Ran's lap. "I love having him around like he's been, he's so cute that way... but he needs to be himself. How long, Ai-chan?"

The informal usage of her adopted name made the scientist stiffen, eyes slightly outraged for a bare second before she put the matter aside with her usual detachment (although anyone who knew her would notice a distinct fraying around the edges.) "If my calculations are correct, sixty hours from inception to full reversal. Two and a half days." With almost possessive care, she reached out and straightened a fold of blanket. "He's really quite remarkable, you know," Ai murmured. "Two transformations in as many days..."

At the head of the bed, Ran had stiffened slightly. Looking down into Shinichi's face, her own had a preoccupied, almost haunted expression. "More than two days," she whispered. "That long--"

"Yes," said his mother softly. "That'll be nice for you both, won't it, Ran-chan?" She smoothed the covers across her son's chest once more, tilting her head slightly to watch Ran, a multitude of thoughts flickering behind her eyes.

Ran nodded absently, conclusions adding up quickly behind her eyes. "That will...be nice." She shook her head, trying to clear it, and carefully slid off the bed, laying Shinichi's head on his pillow as she went. "I need to--" Ran opened her mouth to continue the thought, snapped it shut again, and turned to the pile of clothing on the floor beside Shinichi's bedside table. Crouching, she pawed briefly though it, located her goal, and stepped out of the room, seemingly on autopilot. A small soccer-ball charm dangled from the phone in her fist as she left.

Yuusaku watched her go, an indescribable expression on his face, and turned his gaze on his unconscious son once Ran had left. Yukiko was reorganizing the arrangement on the bed; stretched out beside her son, she wrapped one arm around Shinichi's thin chest and dragged him close against herself with determined strength. Though he was now taller than her by a fair margin, Yukiko still seemed the bigger presence, her usually immaculate golden curls rubbed full of flyaways and pushed behind her ears to keep them out of her eyes. While Yuusaku had bent easily and without regret to the effects of a life well-lived, his 'Kiko seemed completely unchanged, as though aging were one of those pesky yet dismissable distractions in the same category as smudged lipliner. As she doted over their sleeping son, and Shinichi's cheeks slowly lost their deep shadows, gradually covering his bone with something more than just skin pulled tight, Yuusaku looked again to the doorway and the room beyond. Mouri-san would be on the phone with _him,_ unless Yuusaku missed his guess, and he could very nearly envision what she would be saying.

He was shaken from his reverie by his wife's gentle voice. "Not so strange, is it?"

Yuusaku looked across the room to Yukiko, and the understanding in her eyes welled pain up in his, strain lines creasing the skin around his eyes and brow. "We didn't tell him...to protect them both. And Shinichi still..."

"You loved Toichi while you had him," Yukiko said softly, lifting one hand from Shinichi's shoulder and reaching for her husband. Yuusaku crossed the room as summoned, taking a seat on the bed beside his son's knees. He linked hands with his wife, taking reassurance from her grip, but found his touch drawn to his son's features instead. Tracing the lines of Shinichi's brow and jaw, rubbing his shoulder gently where he was certain pain had gathered in wait for Shinichi's wakening, Yuusaku felt like he was seeing in quadruplicate. His own face of twenty years ago...his son's. Toichi's..._his_ son's. All so similar...all so close in ways that couldn't have been planned or chosen.

"I did love him, 'Kiko," Yuusaku said quietly, studying Shinichi's sleeping face as though to decode it. "And he would have loved me too, if he could. He told me..."

"I remember," Yukiko nodded, nearly whispering. "That she had captured his heart first." She smiled, reaching up to stroke Yuusaku's cheek tenderly. "I would have been honored to share you with him."

"I hope Mouri-san can learn from your big heart, 'Kiko," Yuusaku whispered, lifting his hand to cup his wife's, pressing her palm against his skin as distress creased his brow. "I hope she can let Shinichi follow his own heart."

"She's calling him, isn't she?" Yukiko said, bright optimism lifting her voice on a smile. "Well, there you go."

* * *

_Why are you..._

_Ran, you baka. You should be back in there with Shinichi. He can do this once he wakes up. You don't need to._

Phone in fist, fist pressed to her lips, lips drawn tight with distress and confusion, Ran paced a four-foot track of carpet at the front of Agasa's living room, well out of hearing range of the sickroom where Shinichi...her boyfriend...lay unconscious in his parents' care. Ai had exited the room shortly after Ran herself, but they didn't address each other, and the scientist soon left Ran to her privacy in the big room. And Ran kept pacing.

_It's not like....like..._

_No, it is. I __do__ owe him...we both do. He gave us a date night together...he supported Shinichi. Looked out for him. He..._

Ran shook her head, trying to sort out her thoughts. She wasn't blind -- never had been, but recently, she'd seen even more, noticed even more. Ever since she'd known to start looking, it had become glaringly clear to her that Shinichi and Kid...they...

_You already figured this out, Ran. Don't get scared now._

She knew in her heart, deep in her _soul_, that Shinichi loved her. That he would sacrifice and put himself through immense pain just to reach her. As Conan, he had thrown himself into danger over and over for her sake. His dedication was so much _not_ in question that it was almost funny. But...

She'd said it herself - she'd told him herself that she knew his heart had room for more than one. That it already _did_ hold more than just her. And she'd been honest with him then, when she told him it would be hard.

_It's not that I don't want Kid to see him,_ she reasoned, biting her lip as she stared at the little dark display of Shinichi's cellphone. _I want them to...I want them to see each other. They like being around each other. A lot. It's just..._

Ran closed her eyes. Over two days, Ai had said, over two days of Shinichi being _Shinichi._ And Yukiko-san's comment in the sickroom...well, it had very nearly made Ran blush, even as innocent as it sounded. And maybe that was her being silly...okay, it probably really was, but...

_He got to see Shinichi last time!_ Ran grumped to herself, flipping open the cellphone. The display, adorned with a childishly cheerful wallpaper, reminded her that she'd been out here, pacing a hole in Agasa's carpet, for fifteen minutes. And still hadn't called.

She pressed the Dial button, bringing up the recent history of calls. _Restricted. I should have figured._ Okay, plan B. Ran poked around until she found the text mail menu (_Really, how did Shinichi manage on such a simple phone? It didn't even have a full keyboard or custom ringtones or anything._) and scrolled through it, looking for clues. She found one in a series of saved text messages from... She blinked.

_That long ago? And he's still saved the texts? Shinichi no baka, do you even understand what you're feeling __yourself__?_

Ran brought up the phone number, opened a blank text message, and stared at the screen, thumbs hovering over the keypad.

_Do it, Ran. He's a gentleman. He won't take Shinichi all for himself._ One thumb moved toward the center of the keypad, beginning to type out kana.

_Do it. He would want to know, anyway. He's Shinichi's friend. He should know. He'll be worried._ Slowly, the characters formed together, one after the other, her brief message taking shape.

_Do it, Ran! Be brave. Shinichi loves me, right? He does. And I love him, and he needs my help right now. And...he loves Kid. And that's more than enough._

Squinting her eyes shut, holding the phone away from herself as though it might explode, Ran hit Send and didn't peek until the cheerful mailbox graphic had gone away.

_Kid, it's Ran. He's back. 2 days this time. It was so awful. And there's something new to tell you about his changes. Come see later._

Ran stared at the phone with a growing sense of dread, shoulders slumping. _...Damnit. If this means I don't get to...to...to be _alone _with Shinichi, I'm going to kick something. Maybe him._

* * *

"And now we're going to talk about you," announced Kudo Yukiko cheerfully.

If she had said _'And now we're going to wave live snakes around and dance in the nude_' or _'My live hand-grenade collection, let me show you it-- here, catch!'_ she might have been slightly more alarming to Ai; or possibly not, all things considered. Haibara did her best to hunch down in her chair and look unapproachable.

Shinichi was asleep, solidly and thoroughly wrapped in the arms of both anesthesia and Morpheus; he would be for a few hours longer, which seemed quite the waste of time to pretty much all the other parties in the room (Agasa had arrived back only a few moments before carrying bags of take-out Chinese for two, which they'd managed to stretch to four.) Ran had returned carrying Shinichi's phone and wearing an odd expression combining muleish determination, defiance and perhaps a little shock; when Yukiko had raised a blonde eyebrow in her direction, she'd blushed a fiery and truly memorable crimson and fled back to the tiny bedroom where Shinichi'd been moved to upon completion of his change.

And Ai...

The girl crossed her arms. "I see very little to talk about," she stated baldly, her best _Go Away Before I Injure You In Places You Can't Even Spell_ expression in place. "You know the bare facts and surely they're enough-- that," (and she began to tick them off on her fingers A Lá Kudo) "that I am a former employee of what your son labels the Black Organization; that I am responsible for the creation of the drug which I'm currently attempting to circumvent; that I escaped my erstwhile employers by ingesting that selfsame drug in a suicide attempt that backfired; that I--"

"Yes, yes, yes," said the other woman airily, one hand flapping its way through the air like a butterfly. "We _know_ all that, Ai-chan. Guilt, deeper guilt, sin and expiation, drama, exit stage left in either a coffin or gradeschooler's scuffs. No-one in Hollywood could make that plot float, no matter how much talent you threw at it... but never mind, dear. What I'd _**really**_ like to know, Ai-chan--" and the butterfly hand and its mate came to rest on both of Ai's, frozen halfway through a tickmark-gesture. They wrapped around the smaller hands, holding them tight. "--is what you plan to do for yourself."

Ai blinked. What?

Yukiko leaned forward; behind her, Yuusaku traded pained glances with Agasa, who offered him the last of the eggrolls. "You see, dear, it's a pesky thing but... after dealing with actors and producers and some of the most _amazingly_ deviant and shallow people on this planet, you'd never believe the way some of them go on-- after all this time, I've developed this terrible tendency to look for where the money's going. That is, when someone's really dreadfully intense about something, just how they're going to benefit from it. You see?" The pretty blonde cocked her head to one side, light-colored eyes sparkling down at her audience. "Perhaps it's a flaw of mine, but I simply don't believe in absolute altruism. The idea makes me squint, and that's so bad for the skin."

Said audience blinked again. "I-- altruism? Kudo-san, I thought I made myself quite clear; I'm trying to--"

"--make up for past misdeeds, of _course_ you are. But what's in it for you, mmm? Surely you don't plan on using your technique merely on Shinichi? Don't you want to try a little maturity for yourself? Or are you content to play with crayons and dolls again?"

Ai opened her mouth to slay the other with rebuttal and reasoned argument... and instead heard herself say quite clearly: "I--I've never played with a doll in my life--"

"Really? Oh dear. Still, second chances and all that." That amused, gentle (and, as Ai was beginning to suspect, _utterly dangerous_) gaze dwelt on her for a long moment, accompanied by a sympathetic smile. "So. You're certainly not trying anything like, oh, using my Shinichi as a guinea-pig for your own ends, are you?"

"Pardon...?" She started upright, half out of her chair.

The butterfly hands waved again, freeing her own; Ai tucked them in her labcoat's pockets as quickly as possible. "Trying out new prospects; waiting for a foolproof cure to prove itself effective and safe; encouraging Shin-chan to take the risks while you compile the data." Expressive fingers came to rest on Ai's shoulders, and Yukiko smiled down at her with bright interest. "How many times have _you_ changed back, dear? Once, wasn't it? Or so I've heard."

_That isn't fair. Someone has to monitor, someone has to be the control group-- it's as I told Mouri before, we don't want a Jekyll-Hyde situation! I can't (won't) risk my (safety) skills like that, I'm the only (self) possible chance Kudo has for a cure._ Something in her soul squirmed, though, before that cheerful spotlight gaze, and Ai felt her certainty withering.

Kudo Yukiko was, as her offspring and husband would both admit, an extremely bright woman despite her flighty appearance. Having spotted the most dangerous person in said offspring's vicinity, she had decided with her usual abrupt decisiveness that the situation Simply Would Not Do; and so she continued to smile sweetly down at the author of her only child's agony, her lovely face full of compassion and the utterly iron-hard, ruthless determination that her family had come to know and dread. "Well, never mind. I'm so delighted to understand that you'd never even consider such an atrocious method of returning to normal without risk to yourself." The hands on her shoulders tightened briefly, just a little squeeze. "And now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, Ai-chan... we'll start with your childhood."

Yukiko leaned forward, obviously quite prepared to take all night if necessary. "Tell me everything about yourself, dear. After all," she added softly, "you know everything there is to know about Shin-chan, don't you? Sauce for the goose, chibi-tensai; sauce for the gander....."

"...so let's begin." Gentle hands settled the girl back into her seat. "I'm listening."

Ai swallowed once, looked beyond Yukiko at Agasa's face; he shook his head.

No help there.

"..........I," she faltered, "I suppose... you know I had a sister--"

* * *

Kid stared at his phone.

Looked back out the window. Looked down to the phone.

_Well. Damn._

Problem A: Shinichi was back. And, inspired by the liquid elation that was the previous night's glider flight, Kid was for once feeling like he _didn't_ want to share. If the inherent problems in this tendency weren't _glaringly obvious enough already_, Kid was sure Kuroba could assist his memory recall with a very welcome juggling pin to the back of his skull, and Kid would hold still to let him get a second good smack in, too.

Problem B: Shinichi was back and Ran had felt the need to inform Kid of this in a breaking-news sort of way. Ran had felt that Kid deserved to know that promptly, perhaps? Or Shinichi had asked her to. No, then she would have mentioned he was okay or awake. Which she hadn't. So, Ran - probably independent of external prodding - had let Kid know, in a prompt manner, that Shinichi had returned. And what that meant about Ran's state of mind regarding Kid, the thief wasn't about to even _guess._

Problem C: Shinichi was back and it had hurt, a lot. Kid's patience with Shinichi's medicinally-inclined zookeeper was drawing shorter with every incident. He could only imagine what Ran had seen, and hoped for both her and Shinichi's sakes that it wasn't worse than the change Kid had witnessed from the branches of the tree outside Agasa's window.

Which brought him right back to Problem A. Shinichi was back. And in company of his parents, and Ran, and probably the chibi sourpuss too. And he was back.

Kid closed his eyes very carefully over the extensive mental images that his fertile imagination was producing, setting them delicately aside for later, when he didn't have real thinking to do, when he could afford to indulge himself. It didn't take much to get himself back on track; just a nod toward the obvious precondition of the detective's return: In order to _be_ back, Shinichi had suffered - and might still be suffering - _excruciating_ pain. ...There. That put things back into perspective.

Kid sighed, forehead tapping the window glass as he slouched against it, phone open and dark in his hand.

_This 'being unselfish' thing __**sucks**__,_ he sulked, looking up to meet Kuroba's eyes with a weak grin.

_"That's my Fool,"_ Kuroba smiled, pushing Kid's foot aside to make room for himself on the windowseat with the thief. _"Don't worry. She's trying hard too. I know she is."_

* * *

_Oh...kay. No response. Doesn't he __want__ to see Shinichi?_ Now that she'd gone and been so helpful and careful, trying to think of everybody-- Ran sighed, running one hand through her hair as she stared at the silent phone. Beside her on the bed, the fully matured version of her best friend slept the sleep of the exhausted.

_'Fully matured'... Ran, you sound like you're talking about some sort of vegetable._ Placing the phone down with a clack of exasperation, she tucked one leg up beneath her and glanced a little sideways. No vegetable there; even in unconsciousness, Shinichi's brows were drawn down a little as if in thought. "I hope you're not hurting," murmured his girlfriend, brushing the tiny crease in the center with a fingertip; the skin beneath her touch had cooled considerably, no longer fever-warm.

That tiny touch... Ran looked again at the unresponsive phone and then back at Shinichi, a little thread of mischief bubbling up from some hidden place between her exasperation and the impulse to be selfish. She ran her fingertip across the crease again, then down the bridge of the nose and to the tip. "...Shinichi?"

No response; but the thin worry-line seemed to ease just slightly.

The thread of mischief grew more involved, produced an idea or two, wove itself into whole cloth. "You'd better not be awake and pretending, Shinichi," murmured Ran, settling down more comfortably on the bed beside him, chin propped on her elbows. Well-- if Kid wasn't going to answer back right away (and who knew what he did in his spare time, anyway?) then maybe she ought to improvise. Surely Shinichi wouldn't mind. It'd pass the time while she waited for a callback.

Feeling herself blushing high around the cheekbones-- feeling as if her behavior lay strongly left of 'good' and barely to the right of 'mis'-- feeling like the Black Knight in her oh-so-disastrous play, actually-- Ran leaned in. _Just one kiss._ Her lips brushed his, featherlight and very nearly innocent; they were soft and smooth-- had there been the tiniest tremor of response?-- and maybe if she did it again he'd eventually wake up--

Or something.

Kisses are like potato-chips, or Pocky, or chocolate truffles. One's never enough. And it's very hard to remember to take them slow, one at a time.

Yukiko still had Ai pinned to her chair like a butterfly to a mounting mat, and Yuusaku and Agasa had their hands full attempting to mediate the encounter (or, well, keep Yukiko from ripping Ai's head off with the sweetest and most earnest of conversational ploys). And if Kid wasn't answering...that left just Ran and Shinichi to themselves. Plying herself closer to Shinichi, snuggling her curves close to share warmth (or something), Ran kissed him again, shifting her focus to his cheek...jaw....brow. She stroked his bangs back from his face, smiling at the features she knew and loved so well, and kissed the tip of his nose again...and the curve of his lower lip once more because it just looked so - well, so - _well._ It just needed one more kiss, Ran decided. And maybe another. And--

She pulled back abruptly, trying (in vain) to get her blush and her breathing back under control. Now _her_ skin was overhot, not quite fever-warm but definitely bright crimson. She shifted around a little, eventually settling her cheek at an awkward angle on Shinichi's shoulder, her arm laid gently across his chest. The kimono he wore was spread open under his throat, showing a vee of skin all the way down to his sternum, and Ran hesitantly ran light fingertips along that bared skin, holding back a shiver at its inviting warmth. Maybe she should...well, just one...it's not like he'd _mind_...

Ran leaned in, kissing Shinichi's breastbone tentatively. Salt from his sweat came away on her lips, salt and a stranger, more acidic flavor that, Ran reflected, probably had a lot to do with the fact that he hadn't gotten a shower since transforming. Successfully deterred, Ran settled down again, pillowing her cheek on the very corner of Shinichi's chest, as noninvasively as she could manage. He was _sleeping_ after all, and it really was better if she asked first, but...well, this much was okay, at least.

She traced absentminded patterns on his chest and stomach with her fingertips, butterfly-light, and when the urge took her, punctuated the spirals and lines with a kiss pressed to the round of his shoulder, through the cloth. He really did need his rest, Ran reasoned, scooting closer so her knees and ankles could tangle a little bit with Shinichi's. And she really shouldn't rush him to wake up, since he'd just had such a hard transformation, and the second one in two days! Her arm curled a little more possessively around his ribcage, palm curving against the deliciously defined curve of his bicep. And he really wouldn't be too happy with her if he woke up to find her being too forward with him. Ran lifted her head, stretching up to nuzzle Shinichi's hair and press a little kiss to the shell of his ear. So really, she was to be commended for being good and not taking liberties without permission!

_**BZZZZZZZZZT.**_

With a squeak, Ran leaped away from Shinichi, squirming away, alarmed and uncoordinated, from the cellphone that she'd left on the bed between their bodies. The phone continued buzzing, flashing its _Incoming Mail_ alert, and Ran gulped air in an effort to slow her panicked breathing. Her face was so red that she could feel the radiant heat against her hands, pressed against her mouth to muffle any further untimely squawks.

_The text. Kid must have answered,_ Ran realized slowly, her brain coming back online in half-increments. She glanced to Shinichi and his pulled-open kimono, then back to the phone. Numbly, she moved one hand to her own hip, rubbing the bone to chase away the tingles that the phone, pressed directly against her hip when it went off, had lit up all through her body like out-of-control sparklers. _Ohmygod._

The text, once she gathered herself enough to open the phone to check it, was pretty simple, and in its simplicity, cranked Ran's blush even higher.

_Hope things are fairly positive over there. Will come over once the elders clear out...or promptly if they don't mind the interruption. -Kid_

Ran spent a half-minute or so simply flailing mentally before her common-sense circuits cut in and dealt with the overload. _I, I... Okay. Okay. Deep breath._ Smoothing Shinichi's kimono shut before she could be tempted any further (and how her fingers had wanted to linger, just a little longer), she squared her shoulders and sat back, aware that she had a fine sheen of perspiration along her hairline and throat, in the hollow between her collarbones... Ran licked her lips. _Forget about Shinichi needing a shower-- I think __**I'm**__ the one who ought to take a shower, a cold one._

She sighed. If Kid was coming to see Shinichi, and if he was polite enough to let her choose when, then... she supposed she had to play by the same rules. It was only fair. Reluctantly she picked up the phone and began to text.

_He's sleeping right now and I'm pretty sure he's OK. Later is probably better, and maybe_

(Ran swallowed hard. But she'd had her chance, and--)

_ maybe you could wake him up. I think he'd like that._

(--and it really, really WAS only fair. Dammit.)

She sent the text.

* * *

_._

_Thank you for reading. Join us next week for "Parkour, three, magic word."_


	26. Parkour, three, magic word

_H____ello, and Happy Friday to you all!_

___Welcome again to Three Thieves. Tonight's chapter takes a major step forwards in the relationship area of our storyline, both in concept and in execution. We hope you enjoy the ride, keep your hands and feet inside the carriage at all times, and pat the employees on the butt on the way out. ^__^.............. The Management_

___._

**__****Three Thieves**  
**_A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid novels by red_**_**nightengale**_**_ and _** _**ysabet**__  
__**Book Three, Chapter Five**__**: "parkour, three, magic word"  
**__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

___

* * *

  
_  
The next three hours passed like _years._ Kid read, reread, and analyzed Ran's text backwards, forwards, and upside down, and still failed to make anything of it except the very clear, very unexpected implication that Ran had intended. And, realizing that, it left Kid with many more questions than he had answers.

Rather than get into a lengthy conversation by text - he didn't have unlimited, and he would bet Shinichi didn't either - Kid paced, chewed his lip, and spent a good amount of those three hours curled up on his bed working on meditative breathing exercises. Not that they helped a lot. In the end, he practiced every right-hand-dominant card trick he knew using his left hand to control the trick. About halfway through the list, he discovered that a very interesting permutation of Gemini Twins was possible by using the suggestion from Righting A Wrong; this kept him genuinely distracted for the bulk of the evening. And when enough time had passed that he could reasonably convince himself that Shinichi had had enough sleep...and when Ran texted back to let him know that yes, the interrogation of Haibara Ai had finally closed up for the evening...Kid suited up in his recon blacks and headed up to the highest point of the Kuroba mansion roof.

What most people didn't know about the Kaitou Kid would fill a book. Or two. One of the thicker chapters would have been dedicated to the myriad ways that Kid could get places _without_ his wings. And parkour was one of these.

After a thorough warm-up, breath fogging in the cold night air, Kid stretched every muscle he could one last time, every limb loosened as well as he could make it, and threw himself - wearing nothing more protective than his jeans, turtleneck, stocking hat, sturdy lightweight shoes, and tough, snug black gloves - off the peak of the greenhouse roof.

A story below, Kid landed in a crouch, knees absorbing the impact, and was moving forward again before his inertia had even fully dragged him down. A cat balance along this rail, then an intentional slip off the side, catching it with his hands, to lache off the bar itself. Landing from that swing, Kid gripped the ridge of the roof directly in front of him and edged out along it, eventually putting his feet over empty air as he shimmied sideways. Another drop, one eighty turn, and he was running again, leaping this gap, avoiding the other with a wallrun across the arch that connected the two buildings. The world turned sideways as he sped across the vertical surface with three sure footsteps, then reached up with one hand to anchor himself. On the crescent of pendulum momentum, he spun up to the roof's surface, kash vaulted to the next, and ate up the rest of his momentum in a drop down two stories. Some precision and one balance later, Kid was another story higher, and at an excellent point to launch a reverse vault, which he did, eyes fluttering closed for a split second in bliss. On he went, gaining speed, and the wind against his cheeks felt like the freshest cool spring. It was irregular breeze, changing direction as quickly as Kid himself did; vastly different than the wind of his glider, just as welcome.

Another lache, and - departing from the parkour founding principle of efficiency for a moment - an entirely decorative gymnastic spin around that bar, full-body extended, the end of which Kid turned into another leap. He landed half a story higher than he'd started, and trotted onward. As he proceeded, Kid grew more and more flamboyant with his moves, preferring cat balance across unreasonably narrow and unsteady edges rather than the sensible route of dropping and muscling up, or vaulting across, the divide. He would admit a fondness for thief vaults, though, simply for the name, and with a combination of one- and two-handed grabs, spinning into the air sometimes backwards, sometimes horizontally, Kid bounded from point to point as though a force stronger than gravity pulled him toward not the ground but the horizon. Holding his laughter in, envisioning the two pairs of honest blue eyes that waited for him, Kid exulted in the freedom of his body, of his skill, and of his favorite rule of personalized physics: _Gravity: optional._

* * *

She'd slipped out and had a quick bite to eat at one point; Ran was drowsily certain of that, but not a lot else just at the moment. Nothing beyond very basic thoughts of _warm_ and _secure_and _smells good,_ all stemming from the way she'd finally succumbed to the weariness of stress and curled back up against Shinichi's bed. Not so close, not this time, but halfway in the chair and halfway across his legs, cheek pillowed on the blanket-covered swell of a calf.

Someone had poked their head in the door too, an indefinite time earlier... Shinichi's mother, maybe? They'd made a little sound, almost a giggle; then they'd pulled the door quite firmly closed. _That's fine,_ she'd thought sleepily. Snuggling her face against her rather lumpy pillow, Ran had sighed deeply and drifted off.

When she floated back to awareness again, she was aware that something in the room had changed. It had a third occupant, for one.

He sat casually on the small bedside table, perched there for want of another chair, one knee hooked up and his foot resting flat and straight as a dancer's in front of him. Kid's dark hair was ruffled more than usual, damp with sweat; his head was tilted back, exertion turning the skin of his fineboned jawline pearly in the dim light. That same illumination caught his eyes and turned them lambent and lit from within by some peculiar trick of refraction, and as he tilted his head to regard Ran, Kid's long eyelashes threw thin, angular shadows across one cheek.

For a strange handful of seconds all they did is look at each other in silence: Kid with his intent, considering gaze and Ran with a mind just emerging from dreams, accepting and open. Slowly she allowed her eyes to trace him, outlining face and shoulders and black-gloved hands as if drawing them in the air with her sight; and abruptly, clearly and without any hint of constraint, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him as well.

The thought woke Ran up, though not enough to cause her to move. Instead, she just smiled a little, very shyly.

"How's the patient?" Kid murmured, silently lowering his folded leg and leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees and hands gripping his forearms. All in black, moving so precisely, it was almost like watching a mummer work. One eyebrow raised in light amusement, the blue eye below it gathering more light as the thief tipped his head. "Has he slept this whole time?"

_Or like one of the puppeteers who put on __Bunraku plays.__ All in black, only... there're no puppets here._ Ran nodded, barely moving her head; the warm blankets beneath her cheek rustled softly. "Ever since he changed. I thought he was going to wake up for a little bit, only--" One hand smoothed the covers over Shinichi's foot; now she did move, sliding her head a little ways down the bed to rest less possessively on the mattress rather than on her boyfriend's body itself. To her slowly clearing mind, it seemed the right thing to do. "--not yet, I guess. Ai gave him a pretty strong sedative, but that was hours ago."

There were things looming large in her thoughts, the kinds of things that common sense and social self-preservation usually drove a person to avoid like icebergs in an emotional sea. But.... "Kid? Do you... want me to leave?" She'd said that once before, hadn't she? In that self-same room, actually. And Ran'd been willing to, was willing to now; only she _really didn't want to go_and a very small voice behind her eyes was beginning to hint that possibly the reasons were more complicated than she'd thought.

"I will if you'd like." Deep breath; waking up fully. "I trust you with him; he needs you as, as much as he needs me."

There, she'd said it. And now she really _was_ awake.

The moonlight from the room's window lit Ran in one-quarter profile, tracing the curves of her cheek and brow, leaving well more than half her face in shadow. Despite the darkness, Kid could identify the shape and tilt of her eyes as she spoke, taking note of the way their expression danced on the edge of change. The blue gaze that met with his own was dark, navy deep in the poor lighting, and the bones surrounding those eyes were fine, delicately crafted with femininity and strength in equal shares.

From beneath the fall of her dark hair, swept forward over one shoulder for comfort as she had slept, the line and dip of Ran's shoulders and back extended from the bed's edge to her seat, a gently sloping path which gathered moonlight in its hollows and invited the eye to follow its downward flow from start to rounded end. Ran was a very fit and strong girl, Kid knew, having fought alongside her once, and having heard at some length the not-so-chibi tantei's praises of her virtues. But her true fortitude lay in her character, her dedication and faith. With no more than Shinichi's vote of confidence, Ran had accepted Kid into her life simply because he was an important feature in Shinichi's. More than simple tolerance, she'd defended him, communicated with him, gone out of her way to keep him in the loop, and entrusted Shinichi to his company on more than one occasion.

_It's almost like she already trusts me._ Kid frowned slightly, revising the thought. _She __does__ trust me. Even with the man she loves._

It was no effort at all to bring warm fondness to his eyes, transparent and without defenses, and he accompanied these with a smile as he tipped his head to one side in query.

"Mmm, Mouri-san, I appreciate your offer. But I think you've got it backwards. You called me here...and that act enough was sufficient generosity to last you the entire evening, if you should choose. Whether you leave or remain...and what I do next...are, quite frankly, your call."

Silence; not painful or even embarrassed, just... a little gap in time, oddly peaceful. There were so many ways she could answer, Ran thought in that moment of grace; but the one she chose seemed so simple, so obviously right and correct that all the others seemed to fall away like dead leaves.

"Then... wake him up."

Kid raised one eyebrow carefully, expression pliably blank; Ran didn't choose to elaborate, so, with a brief prayer to Benten, Kid dipped his head in a small nod and flowed off the bedside table like inky mercury. A light step brought him to the bedside; light touches guided Shinichi's head back to the center of his pillow, straightening and smoothing the arc of his neck. Kid stroked one hand across Shinichi's brow, brushing back his bangs, and for a moment lost himself in the structure and symmetry of the detective's peaceful features. But only for a moment, as a glance to his left to check Ran's expression left his own heart beating rather quickly.

_Wildly, and in ways that cannot be taken back,_ Kid reminded himself, smiling with a visible bit of trepidation at Shinichi's first love. _Well._

"Just one," he reassured Ran, concentration fading the smile from his face as he turned his attention to Shinichi. Ran's presence, though important, dimmed out for the moment, and - tucking his short, wild hair behind one ear in a very feminine gesture of nervousness - Kid bent at the waist and let his eyes flutter closed, pressing his mouth to Shinichi's in a kiss filled with all the thoroughness - and gentle tongue - that had been left out of their first one.

* * *

Ran waited for it all to become wrong, become painful, for what she was seeing to turn a knife of jealousy in her heart like a key snicking a lock closed; and it... didn't happen.

There'd been the moment when Kid had touched Shinichi, not pouncing or blocking her out or anything nearly that ungraceful (as if he would; she couldn't picture it). Instead, there'd been care in the way he'd touched him, smoothed his hair back so gently. _Care_... and care in the kiss, though not so much of _'careful'._ Which was almost a problem, though not at all like Ran might've expected if she'd ever, ever dreamed up a situation like this--

Their faces had almost mirrored each other as Kid's eyes had closed: nearly the same angles, with Shinichi's bed-head almost as wild as the other's natural springiness. Lips had met, touched, the one exploring, the other pliant and relaxed as a bottom lip was traced softly with a tongue-tip as if tasting for a response. Kid's black-gloved hand had slid up and behind Shinichi's head, cradling the shape but not pulling tight at all; there was no coercion in this, only question and unconscious compliance.

And then Shinichi woke up too, so slowly, eyes never opening. But Ran could _see_ him waking, and, heart pounding hard, could not look away.

His visible eye flickered, fine tremors in the lid that went no further. An indrawn breath, the way he tilted his head back-- first in barely-aware surprise, then in cooperation-- and as Kid leaned in to deepen the kiss, the small sound he made as his hands, which had been lying neatly on top of the covers, groped for something (anything) to hold onto. Kid had reacted to that, a tiny all-over shiver as he braced himself with his free hand on the bed and the majority of whatever was left of 'careful' went out the proverbial window. One kiss-- if you didn't stop, then it was all one kiss, wasn't it? Like Ran's had been earlier, touch blending into touch. The angle of their faces changed just slightly, two shades of dark hair mingling where they tilted against each other; Ran wanted to slide her fingers through both, see how they caught the light. Instead, she stayed still and just watched.

She wanted to see, _wanted to_ and (much to her shock) very badly. She wanted to be close enough to feel them breathing, catch the first moment when Shinichi's eyes opened and true wakefulness filtered back. Ran had always known that she was far more attuned to visual cues than most women; it stemmed from the karate, where sight was absolutely your most important sense. In general, the female portion of the species tended towards touch and the other senses, but... When Shinichi'd kissed _her,_ she hadn't been able to _see_ him do it. And in Ran's late-night fantasies where she clutched his red sweater and curled close in the dark, that had been the one thing missing.

Well, plus that little sound he'd just made, though she'd included the way his breathing was speeding up. But not how one hand had just fisted in Kid's shirt or the little hint of noise again, almost desperate as Kid kissed the corner of his mouth and slid down to find the point of his jawbone. Ran bit her own lip; she was, she decided, absolutely going to figure out a way to make Shinichi sound like that herself if it killed her.

But (she swallowed hard) maybe it'd have to be later. After that cold shower. And somewhere else, because they were at _Agasa-hakase's_ in a _sickroom_ and somebody had better keep that in mind before things got out of hand...

* * *

Shinichi was having a _**great**_ dream.

There'd been agony and alarmed voices, then there'd been a fall into a chasm of comforting blackness, and then there'd been dreams again just like earlier. Only the dreams had changed, becoming vague and unfocused as they'd shifted from activity to sensation: light touches, unconfined to anything specific-- moving sparks like fireflies, contrails of the most surreal pleasure, gentle and removed from anything as immediate as response. _Ran_ he'd thought from the middle of it all in a great, hazy fog of gratitude; he'd known it was her, always known, she'd been right there with him. The gap between feeling and reaction had almost been bridged a time or two; but then it had all subsided and he'd reluctantly let go to slide down into the dark again.

But-- dreaming another dream, blurred at first and then less so, details filling in like color flooding a black-and-white sketch. Sound: breathing, muted familiar voices talking softly; scents: filtering in, dim medicinal tang plus the warm dry aroma of sheets and bedding, a trace of Ran's shampoo (strong), and a breath of outside-scent, human male, close and then closer--

Someone was kissing him. Not-Ran.

And very thoroughly, less gently than he had when he'd-- The someone was nibbling his bottom lip with great concentration; Shinichi heard his own little gasp, swallowed up by the warm mouth that tasted his own so deeply and felt his body's response. The lightning-bolt knowledge of _KID HERE_ burned in his brain, present but so very unnecessary; and Ran was there too, had been all along, her presence just as vital and real _(god, Ran)_ and welcome as Kid's.

Which was why it _had_ to be a dream, of course. Shinichi's hand shifted, tightened, gripped higher up and pulled Kid in closer.

* * *

Kid knew he should probably stop. Shinichi was awake, and that'd been the deal - wake him up. He really should probably stop, pull back, give Shinichi room to breathe - give _himself_ room to breathe - and give Ran a chance to contribute, too.

Shinichi made that little sound again, nearly a whimper, but less helpless and more demanding than that, and with Kid's supporting hand behind his head for aid, pulled Kid's lip between his own to suck on it a little. _Kid_ whimpered, definitely just as helplessly as that term implied, and fought the urge to crumple down onto Shinichi, remove the distance between their bodies, and just overload them both with sensation. He held back, narrowly, because of Ran, because he knew she was watching, was there, had to be remembered.

Kid caressed Shinichi's profile, fingertips tracing his brow and the shell of his ear. He tasted Shinichi's tongue against his own, pushing, as the detective woke up enough to demand and need, and Kid felt something deep in himself shudder with raw _want_, nearly losing himself in the emotion for a few prolonged seconds. He pulled back quickly, like ripping himself free of a dream, heart pounding. Free of Shinichi's kiss, Kid could hear his own rough breath in the stillness of the room, echoed by Shinichi's, echoed by...hers? Startled, Kid glanced left, meeting Ran's eyes with his own dilated barely-blue gaze. She held his gaze, still, mouth slightly slack as though she was either about to say something or trying to collect her thoughts. Her breath was fainter than his own, than Shinichi's; steady but carrying clear friction. He'd just opened his mouth to speak, no idea what he might say, when Shinichi captured both of their attentions with a soft groan.

"Kid...?" he murmured, eyes finally blinking open hazily. One squinted shut again, wincing from the moonlight that shone across half his face; the other searched the extent of his field of vision, trying to orient himself. "I'm...dreaming."

It was stupid, how the simplest things could send him reeling, Kid reflected. Stupid, impractical, and very human. Heart swelling with affection merely because of Shinichi's sleepy, dream-tangled voice, Kid crouched down to bring himself to a level with the other two in the room. "Not a dream, Tantei," Kid murmured. "We're here." He swallowed, licked his lips, and smiled, cocky elation finally following the footsteps of inexperienced desire. "Here...let me help you." Kid scooped one arm around Shinichi's shoulders, braced the other on the bed; he lifted, Shinichi strained, and the detective sat up, one hand reaching automatically forward for a support that he hadn't expected to be there.

Upright in bed, Shinichi opened both his eyes, blinking sleep away, and stared at his hand, where Ran's had clasped and pulled, lending her strength to save his own new, tired muscles the effort. His gaze flicked up, following her arm to her face, and Ran smiled, a soft expression with a ton of spirit behind it. Crouched beside the bed, arm still around the detective to lend him support, their thief returned Ran's smile with an elated grin of his own.

"Hi, Shinichi," Ran said, after a little delay to let Shinichi's brain catch up with the situation. "Did you have good dreams?"

"...thought I still _was_ dreaming." His voice was roughened, both by sleep and the moment; and as his vision cleared Shinichi looked at Ran, then at Kid, then back at Ran, then back at Kid... "I knew it was-- both of you," he said a little haltingly. "In my sleep, I mean. Just didn't think I'd... you'd... I mean, when I-- _both of you..._here..." Language and logic finally giving out for the moment, Shinichi abandoned the effort and simply nodded, eyes so dark as to be nearly all pupil. His hair was tangled, his color was high on his cheekbones, and his collar was pulled askew. Letting go of Kid's shirt, he reached out almost involuntarily and ran his fingertips along Kid's face, just a whisper of a touch, before turning slightly and doing the same precise thing to Ran's.

"Yeah. Very good dreams." Shinichi leaned back against Kid's arm, his hand tightening in Ran's. "How long?"

"Not long." Kid smiled, pressing his cheek against Shinichi's shoulder like a loving cat, grinning the whole while. "I don't know about Mouri-san, but I only got a few minutes' work in before you woke up."

Ran flushed scarlet. "I -- ah, I hope you don't mind, Shinichi, you were just...and I hadn't seen you in so long, I, um."

As Kid snickered, Shinichi swallowed, darkened eyes flickering as his mind's eye entertained him with a compelling illustration of what she might have meant. "I, um. Don't...mind at all, Ran," he said, far too suffused with the aftereffects of Kid's kiss to bother with being embarrassed, but still a bit too far under the intoxication of sleep to be perfectly coherent. "...Really good way to wake up," he mumbled, shifting a little against Kid's arm, which wasn't quite enough support for full comfort.

"Hold on, meitantei," Kid murmured, rising from his crouch. Ran kept a tension on Shinichi's hand and arm, tethering him upright while Kid arranged himself on the edge of the bed behind Shinichi, nudging the pillow out of the way. Kid turned his shoulder flat against the wall, and Ran slowly extended her arm, letting Shinichi fall gently back against Kid's chest. With the thief's chin on his shoulder, Shinichi spent a moment not knowing what to do with his hands, which Kid solved by taking both of them in his hands temporarily.

"Mouri-san, there's plenty of room on the bed next to his knees," Kid suggested. "And it's softer than your chair."

"Thank you, Kid," Ran said, smoothing her skirt out as she settled in the suggested spot. The mattress was warm from Shinichi's body heat, and his thigh pressed gently against hers through the blankets, warmer still. Ran took Shinichi's hands back from Kid, squeezing them with a smile, and got a comically overwhelmed look back in return.

"I feel like a doll," Shinichi muttered, fingers tightening around Ran's. "Like I'm on strings."

"You were out for the whole evening," Ran said, concern crossing her moonlit features and leaving shadows in its wake as she remembered. "Ai sedated you a lot to try to save you from all the pain." Though she had more to say, Ran held it back, briefly worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

"Mouri-san mailed me to let me know you'd changed," Kid said, stroking Shinichi's hair back from his forehead. "I let you sleep for a while before I came over."

Ran glanced up from Shinichi's grip on her hand. "Ai says this one will last over two days." She sounded like she didn't know what to do with the hope that statement provoked. Shinichi felt a bit boggled by it himself - two whole days as himself? With both of them...

_If the God of Detectives wants to take this out on me later, I'll gladly pay,_ Shinichi vowed silently, holding Ran's gaze, feeling Kid's heartbeat thudding against his own spine. _I'll solve three cases a day for a month, I swear it, just...let me have this. Let us have this. Please. Just for two days._

"Ran, I..." He shook his head carefully, trying not to make himself feel even more woozy. "Can I..."

She looked at him steadily, reaching out to smooth his hair into place; her hand came to rest on his shoulder, fingertips brushing against Kid's black turtleneck. "You probably need to sleep a little longer," she said reluctantly. "And-- dream." Her eyes flickered up to Kid's; what she saw there was enough to reassure her, even though the flush of her cheeks deepened slightly. "Dream," she murmured again, and leaned in close.

A kiss, like the song says, is just a kiss; this one, though, inherited from their own gentler, inexperienced kisses the tenderness and awkwardness that had begun there and combined with what Ran had witnessed tonight. Delicate at first, then a little more intense, daring to open her lips and taste breath and the tentative shift and change of Shinichi's mouth on her own as he leaned into it. Vaguely Ran was aware of a hand stroking her hair, sliding fingers through the strands; as she allowed more of her body to rest against his, she did what she'd considered doing earlier in the evening but hadn't quite had the temerity to try: slipped sideways, kissing the small, private place below the ear before moving up and feathering lobe and curve with her lips as if with a fingertip. Down, then, the long slope of throat to shoulder-- not quite that far, she caught herself and brushed soft kisses against the tip of his chin, the corner of his mouth and back up to center. He tasted like salt, like something different than before, the faintest hint of otherness; and Ran wondered if it was Kid's kiss that she was tasting.

When she pulled away, Shinichi said nothing; just lay there, looking up at her with half-lidded eyes. "That was a goodnight kiss," she informed him softly.

"'m... s'posed to sleep _now?"_ he asked her, dazed.

Just behind his ear, Kid's breath flowed warm across his skin as the thief chuckled. "I feel similarly, tantei. I believe I had as much fun watching that as I did in kissing you myself."

"Oh--!!" Ran ducked, resting her fiery face on her own arm as it burned; but a giggle found its way out, and when she raised her head it was to grin at them both, caught between embarrassment and something almost too strong to be called happiness. "You're one to talk," she sputtered-- and then went even redder at the implications of her own words. "And you do need to sleep, Shinichi. Two changes in two days? And you'll change again--"

"--but not yet," he murmured, giddy and more than a little dizzy. It was like being in some small, private world, all warmth and immediacy; he could feel Kid's heartbeat just above and behind his own, and Ran still rested halfway against him. There were aches and what would probably be considerable discomforts waiting somewhere off in the distance for him to pay them proper attention, but just now he couldn't be bothered. The moment overwhelmed, blotting out everything else; and that was fine. Just then Shinichi welcomed being overwhelmed with every fiber in his being.

The tide of drowsiness kept trying to pull him under, though, aided by the singing in his blood; it wanted to drown him, drag him down into dreams and past them so that he could wake back up all over again. "Stay... here with me?" he heard himself ask sleepily, echoing his earlier dream.

"Of course, Shinichi," Ran said immediately. Kid hesitated, his expression holding something back; but as Ran opened her mouth to make excuses for him, talk away his responsibility, Kid raised one hand to still her and nodded faintly.

"I will as well," he murmured. "Though...I've never tried to share a bed with anyone before."

Ran glanced at the mattress with trepidation - a narrow twin. "Will, um. Will we all fit?" she asked, though logic told her there was no chance. In answer, an amused, unfamiliar flicker of expression crossed Kid's eyes, and he hid it by dipping his face into the shadow of Shinichi's neck and shoulder, pressing a kiss through the cloth there.

"I think we'll be just fine. Might you take the wall side, Mouri-san?"

The fit _was_ tight. It helped that Shinichi, what with one thing and another, was pretty much a boneless shape beneath the covers. Ran ended up with her forehead on his left clavicle and her arm thrown loosely across his chest; Kid's breath tickled her hair, and they all tried not to squirm. After a moment, Kid scooted back from them both a little, stretching down his spine like a cat, and curled back up against Shinichi's side in what looked like a much more comfortable arrangement. "You could stretch out a bit, Mouri-san, if you'd like. I think there's some room."

To her surprise, Ran realized, he was right; the wall wasn't uncomfortably pressing on her hips now and she had room to roll them flat, turning onto her stomach instead of her side. Very happy about the relief this would give her back, Ran snuggled in close again and almost missed the startled, questioning mumble from Shinichi, inarticulate enough that it almost passed for a sigh.

"Maybe, Tantei," Kid said, a smile lifting the corners of his words and lips. "You'll have to ask later."

_I'll ask him about it in the morning,_ Ran decided. _When he can enunciate._

As the heartbeat beneath her cheek slowed into sleep she whispered to Kid, "I'm glad I called you. I'm glad you came." And she was.

Even if she wasn't sure how she was going to get through the next few days without spontaneous combustion occurring at some point. Maybe it'd be fun.

* * *

_Warm. I'm warm, and there's... I'm at Agasa's. Did he-- Does he-- since when did he own a cat?_

The sleepy certainty that a feline had curled up to sleep on his chest was Shinichi's waking thought, spurred by the heavy, silky weight that weighed him down; that and the soft tickle of whiskers against his face, moving every time he breathed. He cracked an eyelid open.

_Oh..._

Not a cat, then; Ran's hair, thick and untidy in sleep, spilled across his chest to pool on the covers. Her sleeping face was hidden, but one arm was wrapped around Shinichi firmly, and sometime during the night the other had come up to grasp his collar, pulling his kimono open. Her boyfriend blinked slowly, assimilating this bit of information and adding it to the quite incredible memories that had begun to drift into focus.

_Ran's here; therefore she was here earlier, and what I'm remembering (OHMYGOD) from earlier probably happened, unless Haibara put hallucinogins in the antidote to amuse herself with. And if what I remember Ran doing (she really, I can't believe she really, that was just) actually happened, then what I remember with Kid actually happened too. Q.E.D. __Please__ let that have happened too, please... if it did, then he's here too._

Aware of breathing to one side, slowly Shinichi cracked open the other eye and turned his head.

_**Aauugh.**_ "Good _morning,_ Tantei," said Kid softly from less than a hand's width away, brilliant blue eyes crinkled in laughter. He was grinning, white teeth gleaming; his expression would have had Nakamori checking his gun, his pants, the floor and the ceiling above him in that order-- it took 'smug' to brave new levels, and it was aaaall for Shinichi.

Shinichi did his best not to splutter as he tried to gather his thoughts. "You...stayed?" _Way to state the obvious, genius,_ he thought. _Way to impress the guy._ That thought made him blink. Impress Kid? Was that really his goal? Though he was still holding Kid's gaze (where else did he have to look, with the guy that freaking close?), Shinichi felt a little color rising in his cheeks, and tried to think of a change of subject that wouldn't seem too...well, awkward. Kid beat him to it, and his grin didn't shift a single notch as he lifted one hand to brush hair clear of Shinichi's cheek and jaw - both his own, and Ran's.

"I did," the thief answered, tilting his head a little at Shinichi's expression. "Didn't you expect me to?" His hand lingered on the back of Ran's head, stroking lightly.

"Not really," Shinichi admitted. "Can you tone down that grin just a little? It's, ah, pretty intense close up."

Kid laughed, the sound clear and close. It was recognizable as a laugh of the same person who threw himself off rooftops for a living (and a hobby), but lacked that trademark cackle's insanity. For the moment, Kid just sounded amused. "For you, Meitantei, anything."

From somewhere around Shinichi's collarbone there came a sleepy grumble. "...noisy... G'back t'sleep..." The arm that was tucked across Shinichi's chest clutched a little tighter, managing to pull his kimono open just that much more. The other two in the bed regarded the tumble of brown hair for a moment.

"We could," said Shinichi thoughtfully; the grin _had_ toned itself down by several gigawatts, not dimming exactly but simply changing into something that kept the smug-factor intact without setting the sheets on fire. It was still awfully bright. --Of course, there WAS another way of dealing with it... His right arm was half-asleep, but he managed to bring it up and brush Kid's cheek very softly with the tingling fingertips. "Or we could wake up." Still a little hesitant (after all, even if he'd kissed Kid first it'd been under very different circumstances), Shinichi closed the small distance between them.

Delicately at first, but quickly fraying through 'suggestive' and straight into 'eager,' Kid returned Shinichi's kiss, opening his mouth to invite the detective in. Though they started out side by side, it didn't take long at all for Kid to twine one leg over and around Shinichi's, pressing himself close as an ivy vine. One hand on Shinichi's chest, palm spread and sliding slowly up toward his throat, Kid's fingers crossed over Ran's arm and ducked into the vee of Shinichi's kimono, so helpfully spread open. Where the previous night's care and caution had made the exchanges between the trio into things of delicate faith, the morning's sunlight shone on an unabashedly enthusiastic thief, who - while restricting his clinginess to his half of the detective pinned between himself and Mouri-san - was busy making absolutely clear his thoughts on waking up beside his most favorite tantei. And the little suckling noises their mouths made, wet lips slipping off of each other, soft sighs and hitching breath, were ensuring that _nobody_ in the bed would be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

And Shinichi? Was doing his best to cope. The previous night's fuzzy memories had escalated into fairly clear tactile imagery (it was really amazing, what your body remembered independent of your mind) and so had the sensation of being overwhelmed. He had just spent a year-plus of enforced Good Behavior, ruled as much by his body as his circumstances; he hadn't even had the resources to let off a little steam in private because, well, preadolescent bodies just didn't _work_ that way (and besides which, it would have freaked him out badly, adding a cherry and sprinkles to his already oversized Trauma Cake. He _Did Not Need That,_ No.) So... while his body was perfectly willing to make up for lost time, the rest of him was trying to catch up.

And against his collarbone, something silky and warm had just shifted.

But-- it was really, really hard to focus on anything except for what Kid was doing with and to his mouth and on the way Kid's hand was sliding inside Shinichi's kimono and down towards his navel and on how their legs had tangled and-- Shinichi's eyes went wide and he froze for a second of acute recognition, which in no way deterred the thief from continuing exactly what he was doing. It wasn't like he didn't have the same little problem, but (his mind ran around in circles) it usually WAS a problem and not an asset if you were a teenaged male, only right now it_wasn't_ a problem exactly unless they had to stop, except that--

There was a protracted, sleepy yawn.

"Quiet again," Ran murmured, rubbing her face against Shinichi's chest, eyes screwed shut. "That's good--Wait. If Kid's quiet, that prob'ly means he's..." With an effort, she propped herself up on her elbows, scrubbing sleep out of her eyes with her knuckles. "...up...to something..._ack._"

With wide eyes, Ran watched at very close range as Kid pressed Shinichi's tongue back, following it with his own; the thief's dark lashes fluttered against his skin as his focus deepened, and her boyfriend arched his neck and shoulders into the kiss, eyes shut in bliss. His mouth followed Kid's as Kid lifted free, breathing heavily, head tossed back as though surfacing from a deep pool. Lips glossy with Shinichi's kiss, Kid licked the corner of his mouth and angled his torso away from Shinichi's, gesturing to the detective's bared, flushed skin with an inviting hand and a very sated smile for Ran's benefit. "My apologies, Mouri-san, but I just had to start without you. Please, feel free to catch up."

Ran's eyes had gone very, very wide. They stared directly into Kid's, then traveled slowly to Shinichi's face... and then down to his chest, where they apparently became stuck. _"Ack,"_ she said again, though with a rather different inflection; there seemed to be a struggle going on somewhere inside her head. The hand holding Shinichi's collar opened out, fingers and palm slipping forward to splay flat on his warm skin, sliding further and further in. Ran watched her own hand move as if hypnotized, and he turned his head to regard her hazily.

"Uh. Ran? G'morning..." With the delightful and unaccustomed feeling of being the sandwich course at a picnic, Shinichi shifted slightly, reaching out to stroke her softly tangled hair. It was easy, so very easy, to slip his free arm around her and just lean forward a bit --

"Sh--" That had probably been his name; it hadn't sounded like a protest and from the way his ribs were suddenly being clutched tight (ow) it hadn't been one, either. Her mouth was warm against his, not as shy or careful as it had been the night before-- _definitely_ not as shy. Very definitely. After a few seconds, though, she stopped in the middle of kissing the column of his throat and let out a distressed noise.

"?? What?"

"Oh God," she muttered against his chest. "You're both _GUYS."_

"......umm, Ran, it's... kind of late to start getting upset about that n--"

"No, no, not THAT." She squeezed him tightly; his ribs creaked. "You're BOTH guys. That means _I_ have to be the Voice Of Reason here." There was a tremor in her voice that told Shinichi that, as dire as her tone was, she was fighting back giggles. And really, that sort of thing had only one proper response.

"--noooOOOEEEEGHK SHINICHI DON'T YOU DARE!! **EEEEEEAAAHHHAHAHAHANONONO--!!"** Ran was very ticklish.

Feet went flying; so did covers and a pillow, and a startled, laughing thief nearly got shoved bodily off the bed. The exertion was a little more than Shinichi could manage for more than a few minutes-- kissing was one thing, but trying to hold onto (and hold off) Ran's defensive and retaliative tactics was something else entirely. He ended up flat on his back, kimono drastically askew with Ran's hair in his mouth and his hands on her hips, feebly trying to fend off the evil, evil fingers that had reached both sets of short ribs and were threatening to remove his clothing's tie with their violence. He squirmed, gasping for breath and flailing with little effect. "Ran--!! RaaahaHAHAHAHohgod--!! S-Stoppitt, st-- Kid, h--" Gasp, gasp.

And there went the tie. Oops.

Everything froze at that point, while Ran carefully Did Not Look _at_ Shinichi, or _away from_ Shinichi, or _anywhere_, actually. She just kept her eyes on his, big and blue and rather intimidated. Shinichi carefully did the same, not sure how to release his hold on Ran's hips, or move her own hold on his waist, without actually _moving_. Because if either of them moved, even a little bit, his kimono was going to slide open that last important distance and he wasn't sure he really could live that one down, not really, because his little problem from earlier hadn't gone away entirely, just faded, and Ran was on _top_ of him and oh god, he did _**not**_ need that trouble. Or explanation.

"Um, Ran?" Shinichi tried to sound as laid-back as possible. It wasn't really working. "D'ya think you could...um...close your eyes? Really tight?"

"No need for that," Kid cut in, picking himself up off the floor with a bemused smile. Bending to reach, he snaked thin arms between Ran and Shinichi, tugging fabric into brisk compliance. A snug knot retied in Shinichi's sash, gently combing fingers lifting Ran's hair out of Shinichi's mouth, smoothing it behind her shoulder, Kid smiled lightly as he moved, and the energy humming off of him was palpable.

"...Oh my gosh," Ran exclaimed, very belatedly catching up with the situation (and finding in it a convenient thing to think about other than what Kid probably saw that she didn't oh should she have looked? Stop it, Ran!) as she sat back on her heels, freeing Shinichi to roll onto his side, check that everything was in place, and fiddle self-consciously with the few remaining blankets. "We kicked you off the bed!"

Kid laughed. "Only 'cause I let you," he grinned. "The view was better from this level anyway."

Shinichi and Ran shared a puzzled, wary look. "What...d'ya mean by that, Kid?" Shinichi asked, propping himself up on one elbow with a critical expression. "What were _you_ watching?"

Kid grinned, and both the others felt their short hairs rise because it was one of those, one of the Grins, and that never meant anything good. In answer to their unasked apprehension, Kid checked the wall clock, looked out the window into the sunshine, then swung the grin back around to catch both Ran and Shinichi in its beam. "Oh nothing," he said, before noise from outside the door made the other two jump.

* * *

"I don't care if they're undergoing _mitosis_ in there, I _am going into that room!_ The nerve of that-- How _dare_ he--"

It was fortunate that the entire group gathered around the locked door of Agasa's sickroom - namely, the elderly scientist and the Kudos, Yukiko and Yuusaku - were aware of Haibara Ai's...special condition. Otherwise, they would likely have invested in an emergency behavioral violence counseling session. Or perhaps a leash.

Professor Agasa watched Ai tread back and forth, rather like an angry cat with the way she was moving in tight, snappish motions, snarling invective against the object of her wrath, his progeny, his progenitors, his cousins, his dog, and his begonias. "Ai-chan," Agasa tried hesitantly, extending one hand toward the small scientist in a placating gesture. "If we ask him to--"

"No," Ai snapped, coming to a halt directly in front of the door, back toward Agasa and the others. "Reason will not work. Kudo-san, break down the door."

"A-ai-chan," Yukiko stammered, cut off quickly by her husband.

"Haibara-san, I'm certain that there is nothing amiss in that room. If Shinichi's condition had worsened to a worrisome level, Ran-san would certainly have--"

"Kudo-san, I'm only going to explain this one more time. Your son...and Mouri-san...have been willingly barricaded in this sickroom for nearly twelve full hours. I have not been able to monitor_one minute_ of Shinichi's waking condition after applying the device, and nearly a third of the full anticipated transformation time has already passed. And by the sounds of it, they have been violating his need for stationary bed rest and low cardiac activity! Do you have _any comprehension_ of how much damage this could do to the process, if I am not able to monitor his condition?"

"And I'd really like to get into that room," Agasa added, sheepish.

Yuusaku and Yukiko looked at each other blankly for a moment, then back at Ai. With an angelically clueless expression, Yukiko crouched down to Ai's level and extended one perfectly-manicured finger past Ai's ear toward the door.

"Ai-chan, maybe you misread the sign. Shinichi doesn't have handwriting like that!"

It wasn't a large sign; white paper, black ink, containing the words **"****ROOM CLOSED FOR EXAMINATION"** and a very specific signature. _And_ a Kid-caricature. And a small, gleefully-drawn heart. They all surveyed the object in question for a moment of silence. "Do you suppose," asked Yukiko of her husband, "that one could count that as a heist-note?"

"Hhhrrm," he muttered, rubbing his chin, eyes thoughtful. "It rather depends on what's being stolen, doesn't it?" He helped his wife back up to her full height. "One way to find out, of course; I'm rather shocked that none of us has tried it so far." They had shouted, shoved, pounded and attempted to open the door via Agasa's bunch of housekeys; granted, the majority of the noise had been from Ai and Agasa's end rather than the Kudos', but Yukiko had contributed her fair share of wheedling and cajoling. Now, bemused, the other three watched as the senior Kudo cleared his throat and... _knocked,_ very politely.

"Son? Ran-chan? And... guest? We have coffee," he offered in a calm, reasonable voice. "Very _good_ coffee, actually. And I took the bullets out of Haibara-san's snubnose myself." The scientist in question shot him a somewhat venomous glare but said nothing. "Would you care to join us for, ah, brunch? I'm sure there's enough for everybody."

".....cyanide for one, just a little cyanide, not for everybody, just..." came from just below waist-level; Yukiko placed a surprisingly heavy hand on each of Ai's shoulders and she subsided without another word, though her expression was just short of murderous. Above her head Yuusaku's eyes glinted with mischief... and with a fond memory; there had been one thing that had always worked on a certain other thief, all those years ago, and he chose to deploy that weapon now.

"Please?"

It _was_ supposed to be a magic word, after all.

Silence within the room, several long, considering seconds of it. Outside the room, the trio held still and Ai fumed. Within the room, a soft click, a rustle, a softly murmured protest, quickly silenced. Another rustle, a gasp, and a snicker. Footsteps on the tile, leading to the door. The lock clicked, handle turned, and the door swung inward.

Framed neatly in the doorway, a trim, unruffled black silhouette against all the clinical white of the room, Kid stood smiling for Yuusaku's benefit, eyes sparkling. "Coffee, and brunch, sounds lovely." As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the thief stepped out of the doorway, moving to the side near Yukiko (who beamed at him, ebullient). The rest of them, including Ai, stared in the doorway at the scene behind him.

The floor was covered, except for a few very small spaces, with blankets. Somehow, not even a corner of the blankets remained on the bed - and they were all separate from each other. As if that epic tangle weren't enough, Shinichi's kimono was neatly tied at the waist but otherwise wrinkled all to hell, and Ran's clothing looked rumpled, slept in, and otherwise unpresentable. The same could be said for her hair, and Shinichi's as well. Shinichi's skin was unevenly red in patches, with a stronger flush concentrated around his throat and collarbones. Ran had a similarly uneven redness on her neck. And both of them were clearly distracted, fingertips pressed to their lips and eyes a little wide.

Shinichi looked up, staring at Ran with palpable confusion; Ran goggled back for a moment, until someone in the hallway out of their field of vision (Yukiko elbowed him chidingly, and he beamed guilelessly back at her) cleared his throat, and both snapped their gazes up to meet Yuusaku's.

"Uh. Tousan...?"

"Good morning-- err, afternoon, Shinichi," his father greeted him mildly. "How're you feeling?"

The question shouldn't have been enough to cause the red patches to merge. "...Good. Perfectly fine. Absolutely perfectly. Err, fine," said the Detective of the East in a stunning display of the intelligence and erudition that had given him his reputation. He looked at his audience, looked down at his disarrayed clothing, looked over at Ran (who was attempting to shuffle behind him without moving her feet) and at the room. "....Coffee....??" he asked hopefully.

Agasa, his own cheeks stained pink, eyed the boy he had known from childhood with an uncertain stare. "Urhm. Perhaps a shower first?" he suggested; behind Shinichi, Ran's tousled hair and wide eyes popped up to peer over his shoulder. The professor added generously, "And there's another shower upstairs, Ran-chan, in the first hallway; you know where it is."

His voice trailed away into silence; Yuusaku felt abrupt movement at his side and glanced down just as Ai slipped from beneath his wife's grasp. "First," the scientist said firmly, "baselines. Vital signs, blood draw, a full write-up. _Then_ shower and coffee and--" she didn't quite glance back and behind at the smiling dark figure there, but her body twitched that way very slightly. "--and whatever else you choose to do with your time."

Pulling his kimono tie a little tighter, Shinichi nodded slowly. He turned to look back towards Ran, but she whispered something to him and his face cleared enough that when she slipped past, he followed and only paused when he came even with Ai. His eyes met Kid's, and the expression there made one corner of his mouth crook in an involuntary little grin. "Don't be too hard on them," Shinichi murmured, and then, slightly unsteady on his feet, allowed Haibara to lead him away towards the lab proper.

Kid grinned after Shinichi, warmth and quite a bit more in the quirk of his lips. As Ai pulled open the door between the main room and the lab, Kid extended one hand for her attention. "Oh, and Haibara-san?" The scientist froze, pent aggression running up her spine like a chill. Kid played oblivious. "Don't be jealous. I have plenty of kisses left for you, too."

The door slammed shut.

* * *

"Ow!"

"Hold still—and furthermore, I don't give a—I said, hold still, Kudo-kun—I don't give a damn if you decide to take up consorting with _llamas_ so long as you—left arm up, and don't whine this time—as you do not in any way compromise the integrity of the one and only secure haven that I have. I will—not—" (she gritted her teeth and picked up another vial) "—argue with you about this. I have _**no**_ other place to go, do you realize that? This is self-preservation I'm talking about here, and despite any realizations that I might have regarding past errors for which I need to atone, I won't sit idly by and watch my sole safehouse fall into ruin simply because you've, you've developed some sort of _unbelievably, incredibly_ ill-advised and fatuous attraction to that—"

"OW! Haibara, how much of my blood do you _need,_ for God's sake?"

The scientist paused in her furious diatribe, momentarily startled at the number of vials of dark red liquid which she'd just subtracted from her victim's veins. "Ah-- that will do, I suppose." She gave Shinichi a warning glare. "_For the moment."_

Basic vital signs had been taken, x-rays of the patch area had been shot, skin-scrapings at various sites had been collected, arterial blood had been drawn as well as venous, an EKG been run… Haibara had not yet volunteered any information as to the results or their implications, but the fact that she had lit into her Guinea Pig so severely after the first tests had been run spoke, if not volumes, then at least several reassuring paragraphs.

Preparing and placing several of the vials into the axial separator, Haibara set the machine to spinning and busied herself with cleaning up her workspace. "He really gets to you, doesn't he? Kid, I mean. Why?" asked the quiet voice from the exam table.

_Thud!_ went a tightly-balled wad of sterile paper sheeting into the trash. "Because," said the blonde between her teeth, "he is, unless my memory fails me, a wanted felon. He is in danger of the law, of chase and prosecution; and if he were in any way tied during his inevitable apprehension to yourself, Mouri-san, the Professor, your parents or myself, we would be endangered." She cast a jaundiced glance over one shoulder; the young detective was sitting on the end of the metal table, face remarkably sober and attentive. "His very presence has just increased our personal level of threat to nearly unsupportable levels, and I cannot tolerate that."

"You're wrong."

"And if you—what?"

Rubbing at what looked like a small bruise at the base of his throat, Kudo Shinichi shook his head. "Wrong. Haibara, my personal preferences aside—and anyway, _llamas?_-- never mind. Just listen, okay?" He drew a deep breath, smoothing his messy hair down; for the most part it refused to comply. "Kid makes a public display of his activities; he has nearly a decade of past heists available for study by profilers; he's well-known, has a fan-following… Haibara, there are websites out there devoted to deciphering his identity."

"…Kudo-kun, if that's supposed to reassure me, it's not working." Slamming several implements into their appropriate racks, she closed the lid of the autoclave and pushed the start-up button with a small, vicious finger.

"Haibara. Think. With all that, he _still hasn't been caught._ He's turned his paranoia into the perfect tool. If you wanted to find a way to safeguard yourself from discovery, who would you consult with but someone who's made a profession out of flaunting his assumed identity in the face of the public? NOT his anonymity—we've got aliases, Haibara; 'Conan-kun' and 'Ai-chan' can't just vanish at will."

Haibara swung around, giving the other a hard stare; behind her, the autoclave whirred into activity with a sound very much like a hive of bees. "Oh? And I suppose you've contracted this, this liaison between yourself and the thief and Mouri-san just to facilitate our supposed safety?"

The look he gave her back was still sober, but there was a warning spark at its core, flint scraping against steel. "Don't go there, Haibara; it's not your business. I'm just trying to make you understand that he's not a liability, he's not going to betray us, and that you don't need to be so goddamned antagonistic about him." Shinichi drew a deep breath. "You are, above all things, a logical woman, Haibara; and I'm watching this skew your logic."

_SKEW my--!!_ "I," announced Haibara Ai with icy, absolute hauture, "am under perfect control. I am rational, I am unimpaired, I am thinking clearly—"

"—which is why you just put your favorite pen into the autoclave, huh?" The hum of the machine cranked up a notch as the internal temperature rose far above 'clean' to 'decimate'. "And why you ordered Tousan to break down the door? We could hear you, you know."

The scientist closed her eyes; a tic appeared just below one of them. _Liar,_ whispered her conscience; _in the last twenty-four hours you've cried, sweated and nearly lost control of your bowels out of sheer terror. Is that clarity, Shiho? Rationality? I don't think so._

"Look," said Shinichi with an odd, muted gentleness, "Whatever your particular objections might be to my, um, choices in this matter—I mean—I don't want to get into a fight over… preferences. Or anything like that. But," and he raked his hand through his hair, upsetting any minor effects that might have been left from his previous smoothing, "please stop panicking about Kid, okay? In a purely practical sense, if we get taken down it'll drastically affect him; if he goes down, it'll affect us—we all know too much about each other, right? And he knowsthis." The young man sighed, a little smile lurking in his eyes despite his abstraction. "And in a purely _im_practical sense… betrayal's not his style, not of us and not of anybody associated with us. He may be crazy, but he's not that kind of crazy."

A pause; the autoclave and the axial separator sang teeth-jarring, techno duets together in the silence of the small lab. Beyond the closed door came a faint jumble of voices and the scent (Shinichi breathed in wistfully) of Very Good Coffee.

"I…" Haibara allowed the sense of what Shinichi had said to percolate in, poking at it in a methodical way. "…suppose there is merit in the thought of safety in numbers, or why else are the both of us here? As far as betrayal goes, you're quite correct; Rome falls with the Emperor, so to speak." It rankled, _Kid_ rankled, bothering her with his characteristic randomness—his personality was so very untidy, so (and this was the worst part) very unable to be predicted.

Of course… that could be useful, if worst came to worst. If she couldn't predict how the damnable thief would react, then it was unlikely that their foes would be able to either.

She dug her hands into her pockets, regarding Kudo where he perched on the end of the table, long legs dangling. It was so odd to see him like this, despite the growing frequency of the change; odd to see the strong, wide shoulders, odd to watch how the adult hands tightened on the table's paper-covered edge. They were so wide; she'd done that, she'd made them that way. He'd allowed that, taken the chance she'd offered with never a 'will you' or a 'yes I will'.

_Something to think about,_ whispered the quiet voice behind her thoughts. It sounded a little like Akemi's.

"Supposing that I were to accept that things are as you say," Haibara offered slowly, the waspishness draining out of her voice at that last thought. "What would be our next step?"

Kudo-kun gave her a long, thoughtful look. "Well," he said, "I suppose it'd be up to me. There's something I need to say to you, Haibara, and it's way past time." He slid off the table and crouched down to a more mutual level, looking the scientist directly in the eye before clearing his throat.

"It's like this, Haibara," he began.....

* * *

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___.....and if you think things are interesting now, just wait. There will be a little restructuring of the main website (www dot community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash) next week, and a rather different take on chapters. Please join us next Friday for _**_Book Three, Chapter Five: "very good coffee, pareo, guidelines"._**___ Take care, all!_


	27. Very good coffee, pareo, guidelines

Good evening, all! As promised, there are several things here for you tonight: the **original chapter below**(which contains some intimacy but no erotica) and an **omake, **which follows shortly after. There is, by the way, a less expurgated version of this chapter which contains erotica (sexual content, hopefully tasteful); you can find it here, though you'll have to fix the html: http colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 11800 dot html#cutid1**.** Please leave your comments for us here, though, okay? And thanks. ^__^ On with the show!

* * *

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**__****Three Thieves**  
**_A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid novels by _** _**nightengale**_**_ and _** _**ysabet**__  
__**Book Three, Chapter Six**__**: "very good coffee, pareo, guidelines"  
**__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**__  
_  
Kaitou Kid stretched his legs out in front of him, toes pointed up, heels pushed out to stretch his calves to their fullest extent, hips pulled straight and back curved, sliding down in his chair in the most deliciously delinquent posture ever. He tucked his mug of coffee up to his chin, both palms cradled around its warm curves, face bathed in the cloud of steam rising off the liquid's black surface. A long, satisfied sigh rippled out of him like wind through leaves, eyes sliding half-shut in bliss. The scent alone was enough to intoxicate him; the first sip he'd taken had reduced him to this boneless languor. There was a specific window of time in which good coffee could be drunk without bittering it, and Kid had approximately two minutes and twenty-seven seconds remaining in that timespan. He intended to indulge in every single one of them.

His hair, which always suffered bedhead even after Kuroba had taken a comb to it, was rucked up into messy twists that showed clear evidence that human hands had touched it, fingers raking the hair into chunks, twisting those into curls. Kid had, of course, chosen the sunniest chair in the room, and the back of his head rested against the seatback cushion right in the middle of a big sunbeam. The resulting dip in the cushion seemed almost like it was pulling the sunshine toward it, like mercury rolling across the chair's fabric toward the center of the dip, right where the top of Kid's spine rested. He took little sips of his coffee without moving much more than his wrists and lips, letting a little gasp of satisfaction out each time the scaldingly hot brew slipped down his throat. He was aware of the rest of the room only on his defensive and reactionary levels; as for cognition, Kid was for the moment, completely checked out.

And as for his audience...

Yukiko was watching him with the fascinated amusement of a kitten with a butterfly that it didn't really feel inclined to catch, just to watch; Yuusaku sat beside her, arm casually slung around her shoulders, his own cup balanced in two thumbs and forefingers and a wry little smile hiding behind the steam of his coffee. Agasa was lurking quietly in his own kitchen, his cup of decaf (probably) at his elbow along with something that was certainly neither low-fat nor particularly healthy. And Ran...

...was watching Kid from behind her own cup, steam-damp hair curling around her flushed cheeks. She was draped in a massively-oversized bathrobe borrowed from the back of the upstairs bathroom's door; the enormous sleeves were rolled up and she'd hitched the waist into a fold beneath the tie, but she still swam in the excess cloth. But her sleepy, contented gaze rested on Kid, and she shifted to settle back in her own chair with a sigh of satisfaction for her own coffee.

"I think I have something that'll fit you, Ran-chan," said Yukiko in what was her third thinly-veiled attempt to drag the young woman off for a talking-to. Ran nodded back politely but merely sipped her coffee. "It'll be much more comfortable than that robe," wheedled the blonde. "There's this lovely thing called a pareo, I brought a few back from Hawaii and you'd look so pretty in one-- a bit chilly for this time of year, I suppose, though. Like wearing a beach-towel." Waving this lure enticingly about, the actress looked hopefully at her son's girlfriend. "Hmm?"

"Thank you, but... maybe when Shinichi's ready," murmured Ran, utterly content to stay where she was for the moment. At the sound of an opening door she brightened, though, craning her head to looking past the others. "Oh--"

"You'd better not have pigged all the coffee," warned the party in question, hitching up his own bathrobe; his hair was also shower-damp, and tiny droplets sparkled on his forehead. "Ai asked us to save her a cup too." He wandered into the kitchen, and Agasa mutely passed him a mug with an inquiring eyebrow. "She's, ahh, planning on spending the day in her lab. And in the basement," Shinichi added a little sheepishly; Yukiko made a little moue of disappointment, and her son gave her a Look.

"Kid, the shower's free," Shinichi said, briskly changing the topic with an upbeat tone. "There should still be some hot water too, since I didn't...take...very...Kid, are you even listening to me?"

"Mmm, what was that, meitantei?" Kid purred, cracking one eye open over his coffee mug's lip to smile at the detective. "Sorry, I was just stretching out a bit. Didn't get a lot of room to sprawl in bed last night. You understand."

Across the sitting area from Kid, Ran squeaked and buried her face behind her coffee mug, blushing straight up to her hairline. Shinichi glanced over at her, swung a less-than-amused glare at Kid, and sighed, flopping into the open space beside his father on the couch. Yukiko was looking very interested indeed - Shinichi made a mental note to have a Talk with her about that, no matter how much Kid was asking for it - and his father...Shinichi chanced a quick glance to the side.

Yuusaku looked happier than Shinichi had seen him all week...weekend? How long had it been since his parents returned? Shinichi counted the days in his head. Only a few, then. Not nearly a whole week. But it felt so full that the time had slid sideways, stretching in his mind's eye into much more than it had actually been. Only two nights previous, he'd met with Kid and his parents on the roof of the Ghibli. And...had spoken with Kuroba. And flown with Kid. And not twenty four hours later, he had been carried home by his parents, already in the arms of his half-change. Then...the device, and...

Shinichi looked up from his coffee, finding and holding Ran's gaze. Then, had come the after. And it had been a lovely after, indeed. On top of which he still had a whole day, more or less, to spend in his real body.

"Really, Kid. Shower's free," Shinichi said again, poking the thief's outstretched leg with the toe of one house-scuff. "Think you oughta freshen up."

Kid smiled behind his mug, setting it on the coffee table with delicate precision. "But I'm so much prettier than you, tantei. Do you really want to invite competition you can't measure up to?" His tone was light, haughty, and Shinichi snorted in amused appreciation of the taunt.

"Then Ran will outshine you four times over," he returned, turning his attention completely to his coffee mug.

"Perhaps so, Tantei," Kid laughed, meeting Ran's eye with a smile. Fully aware Shinichi was ignoring him, Kid still stretched from head to toe as he stood, lithe and troublesome as a witch's cat, and stepped lightly around the chairs towards the stairs. "May I help myself to a towel, Hakase?" he asked, projecting his voice with gentle, clear volume toward the kitchen.

The portly scientist eyed the thief cautiously, but a certain portion of his apprehension had been diffused by the momentary banter; "Of course, Kid-san," he murmured. "Basket left of the sink, and if you'd like a robe, ehh—" He blinked. "I think, yes, there's at least one more of Shinichi's hanging behind the door. Navy plaid, I believe." There was a momentary silence as the entire room contemplated the thought of Kid in plaid, and Agasa took advantage of the pause to load up a plate and offer it wordlessly to Shinichi.

Nodding in thanks, Shinichi watched the thief saunter leisurely off towards the bathroom; after a moment he became aware that the silence had extended itself— that now he had an audience— and blinked, coming back to earth, ears reddening slightly. He hunched down behind his mug.

"He certainly knows how to make an exit," murmured Ran, still pink herself. She'd been watching him walk away too-- they both had, and they shared a mutual look of embarrassed appreciation. "Is everything all right, Shinichi? Did Ai say… that there was anything to worry about?"

He smiled at her through the steam, admiring the way that little disheveled tendrils of hair had wisped softly around her face. He'd kissed that face the night before, kissed it that morning (well, okay, that day. How had they managed to sleep so many hours away?) She'd kissed back with her eyes closed, exploratory and curious, so much bolder than before despite her lingering shyness—he had a sensitive place not two hours old on the side of his neck courtesy of that boldness. And Kid had breathed out such a tiny, appreciative sound against Shinichi's shoulder as Ran had—

Uh. Wait. What did she just ask me? Oh, RIGHT…

"What? No, no, you're fine! I mean, I'm fine! She, ah," (Shinichi wondered if his ears could actually catch on fire) "—she said that everything was on schedule, that my white-cell count was still slightly elevated but that it wasn't anything to worry about and that… I was…. um…" He looked a little desperately around the room. "…fine?"

"I'm sure she did," his mother purred. Ran made a very faint "Eeep!" and hid as completely behind her coffee as possible; Shinichi did the same, feeling terribly eighteen and not quite certain of how to handle it, being that he was rather out of practice.

For a little while the other three drank their coffee in companionable silence as Shinichi caught up with his growling stomach's demands. Agasa's pipes gurgled in the walls, and if he listened closely enough Shinichi thought he could hear fragmentary singing, echoey and random. "Kaasan?" he asked over his last bite of bacon and eggs, "What exactly did you do to Haibara last night?"

"W--" Kudo Yukiko's face was not the standard by which her son and husband measured her moods; this was just as well, because the expression of glowing innocence that found its way there could have accompanied official Pope-enforced beatitude. "Nothing too terrible, I promise. No, really, Shin-chan, I promise! We just... talked, that's all. About..."

"About...?"

"...about her past. And her family life. And what it was like to work for a soul-destroying, bloodthirsty organization with all the morals of a leech-infested sewer rat," explained Shinichi's kaasan with a sunny little smile. "She really needed to talk, I think; I'm sure she felt much better afterwards. And I learned absolutely TONS about her, darling!" Yukiko beamed at her offspring and his father. "Poor thing, she's really quite a gentle soul when you get to know her, should you live that long. I really believe that we should informally adopt her, she's never really had a mother's love and it shows just a teensy, tiny little bit, you know?" Her son covered his face with one hand.

Yuusaku frowned, giving the thought some serious consideration, or at least the appearance of such; at times he could be just as alarmingly offbeat as his wife (or as his son, for that matter.) "You know, 'Kiko, the last time you attempted to 'adopt' someone it didn't end well. Remember? In Hawaii, just after Shinichi turned twelve?"

"I do," said her son grimly. "We had the U.S. National Guard show up in our driveway."

"Not too many of them, Shin-chan," corrected his mother calmly. "And I did feed them lunch before they took that poor child away. I still feel badly about her, you know; I'm sure she didn't mean for her pet to cause all that trouble…"

"Kaasan, they couldn't even figure out what it w-- Oh, never mind. Anyway." Her son ran his fingers through his drying hair, standing it rather appropriately on end. "Professor? I—what I said about Ai spending the day off the map? I think she's in overload, just a little, and now I think I understand why somewhat better than I did." He shot his mother a dark look; she batted it away and returned him a saintly smile.

Clearing her throat (Ran had choked slightly over the previous exchange; she'd been in Hawaii with them during the National Guard incident), his girlfriend shook her head. "She's not very good with emotional things, you know," she explained to the elder Kudos; "I don't think she's ever really learned how to deal with them, and when you really push them on her she… can't manage all that well. Or I don't think so; I haven't known her as herself for all that long." Ran considered for a second, head tilted slightly to one side. "—but—she didn't act all that differently when she was still pretending to be a little girl around me, come to think of it. Hmm."

"Hmm…" echoed Yuusaku. He glanced sideways. "So what did you do to her, son?" From his place on a chair beside the kitchen entrance, Agasa-- who had been very quiet up to that point—hrmmned anxiously.

"I thanked her."

"…..?" said most of the room's occupants.

The Detective of the East dangled his empty coffee-mug from his fingers, swinging it slightly as he stared into space. The pipes in the walls had stopped gurgling, and the house was remarkably silent. "I know, I know—she got me into this fix, or at least made it possible for me to get myself into it; and I know about her past… though probably not as much as you do, Kaasan… but all this time she's been trying to reverse the effects, and all this time she's been absolutely terrified. I knew that abstractly and I knew it in practice; but it's… when you… see someone beginning to lose their faculties out of fear, it kind of drives it home. Maybe what she did totally screwed me over, but at least she's trying to fix it and not running away from the problem.

"And," Shinichi added softly, not looking at anyone, "I understand about being afraid.

"So I thanked her. I told her how much I appreciated what she's been doing for me all this time, what she's done for me now, what she just gave me; I told her I realized that some of it was for herself and that that was okay, but that I was," he hesitated, "glad that she was brave enough not to run. Or do something worse, or very final, to get away from her old employers." Shinichi met Agasa's eyes. "Like she did before, with the Apotoxin. I worry about that sometimes. I think maybe you do too.

"But now I guess I understand why she locked me out of the lab. Professor? Do you suppose you could take Ai her coffee?"

"Of course, Shin-chan," Agasa nodded, rising from his seat to immediately begin preparing Ai's mug. "Do you think she would like food, as well?"

Shinichi hummed in agreement, swallowed his mouthful of food, and nodded. "I think she'd love it." The phrasing tweaked a related memory for him, and it was with some confusion that he turned to his father.

"Tousan, that reminds me...how did you know how to, um, how Kid would respond to good coffee? We hadn't discussed it the other night..."

Yuusaku chuckled, patting Shinichi on the shoulder with a knowing look. "I knew Toichi well, you know. And there were a few things that could always get through to him, no matter how whimsical or difficult he was feeling that day." Shinichi snickered, recognizing 'difficult' all too well in his own relationship with Kid, and Yuusaku continued with a fond tone, nodding to Agasa as the older man quietly headed out of the room, food and coffee in both hands.

"Toichi was a coffee connoisseur. You couldn't get a single thing past him when it came to coffee...I swear he would have been able to tell me exactly how many seconds the coffee was overbrewed, if he cared to. He was much too polite for that, though; I always tried to bring the best coffee and he always thanked me so sincerely." Yuusaku paused, laughed, and wryly amended himself. "Well, as sincere as Kid ever is."

Shinichi smiled. "He's not the type to go very long without a joke," he agreed. "But...if they're both such coffee fiends...that doesn't make any sense. When we were working on the case, at our house, I played a prank on him by giving him instant instead. He drank it all day without even twitching."

Yukiko leaned forward, grinning at her son across her husband's lap. "You just explained it yourself. If he flinched, you would have won the prank."

"That's not true," Ran said, and all three Kudos turned to her curiously. "When we were cleaning up the mess after that, after Hattori had left, you explained that you'd spilled your coffee to draw Hattori's attention and keep him from noticing that Kid had been there. But when I arrived, you had coffee next to you, and Kid was using your laptop, and you had his. He switched seats on you somehow, didn't he?" Encouraged by Shinichi's sudden flush, Ran laughed, smug. "He did! He made you drink the instant too, didn't he?"

"I only kept giving it to him because I-- It was like a traffic accident!" Shinichi protested, squirming away from his father's nudging elbow. "I kept waiting for something horrific to happen. Like he'd explode or something."

"On the contrary, meitantei." All four heads swiveled around to the staircase, where Kid's ankles were just coming into view. He was, unexpectedly, redressed in his own clothes, or at least, Shinichi had to assume they were Kid's own clothes. The jeans he recognized, though the socks were probably new and borrowed; but the top gave him pause. Kid was wearing a... a... what was it, anyway? It was black, shaped like a turtleneck, but it had a slight sheen to it, like it was made of synthetic, elastic fibers, and it was very nearly painted on to him. Which meant that every curve of his shoulders...and chest...and stomach...were visible, if you peered close enough to be able to discern black curve from black shadow. It looked like an athletic garment, Shinichi realized belatedly, and it was probably the reason that Kid could wander around without anything more bulky than a turtleneck in the cold winter weather, like he had the other night on top of the Ghibli.

Belatedly, Shinichi realized that he was staring again, and Kid had seated himself in the chair facing the couch where Shinichi and his parents sat, Ran sitting to their right and Kid's left. And that Kid was still talking.

"...exertion of will made only slightly easier by the fact that your son overestimated how much sugar I like in my coffee, and sweetened it to the point that it was nearly bearable. I have to ask you, Kudo-san, what brew was that this morning, and could we possibly make another potful? It is truly wonderful."

"Coffee…" said Shinichi's mother vaguely; she blinked hard, and her husband raised an amused eyebrow as she pulled her attention back to the subject.

He answered for them both. "It is, isn't it? A friend back in Hawaii grows it on his estate; it's an experimental offshoot of Molokai Muleskinner—I think he's crossing it with Mundo Novo but I'm not absolutely sure. And I believe I'd like another cupful myself." Climbing to his feet, Yuusaku studied the thief for a moment before moving into the kitchen. "Your father," he said conversationally as he pulled a sealed bag from Agasa's refrigerator, "was very fond of Mundo Novo; the pure form can't be found any more, but he liked most of the Kauai varieties. I learned quite a lot from him." The beans rattled into the grinder; it cycled up, and for a few moments conversation (at least for him) was impossible.

However...

Poke, poke. Kid looked down at the finger that was hesitantly testing the fabric covering his bicep, then up at its owner with an eyebrow rising in amusement. "Is that what you wear in the winter when you--" A fascinated Mouri Ran leaned towards him from her chair, her other hand mimicking a flying object that could've been anything from a bat to a 747. "I remember thinking that you must get really cold, especially when you flew. It's really..." She took in the form-fitting sheen, groped for words, and then settled a little lamely for "...nice." She touched the sleeve again, fingers warm through the cloth, before leaning back in her own seat. "Smooth."

It was nice, very; supple and strong-looking, rather like its wearer. "Wonder if they make womens' versions?" said Shinichi from his couch as water gurgled into the Professor's coffeemaker. "You'd look nice in one too, Ran." The too was softly emphasized, and his dark blue eyes held the same slightly shy appreciation as hers had. There was a little constraint there, though not a lot; it was, well, difficult to be entirely unreserved and easy while your parents were right there in the room, even if you were eighteen.

Maybe especially if you were eighteen.

Shinichi shifted slightly; it was amazingly difficult to keep his mind away from the previous few hours. This, he told himself firmly, was ridiculous; his focus was shot, and he still had an entire rest-of-the-day to do something with! Where was that brain he was so obnoxiously proud of?

...not, he concluded a few minutes later, anywhere near his body, apparently. Watching the expression of bliss spread over Kid's face as he inhaled the steam from his freshly-brewed cup Was. Not. Helping. And from the look on Ran's face, she was in very nearly as bad a state. Couldn't they just, just... go... watch TV... or something... together? Without his parents or Agasa or Ai? Maybe for a little while? Shinichi might be a bit wobbly on his feet, but there was a television up in his room at his old home and the stairs wouldn't be all that much trouble; exercise was good for you, wasn't it--?

--and you'd better shut that thought down right now, Kudo, he thought with an internal sigh as his father passed along new cups to Ran and himself, settling back on the couch beside his son. Or you're going to embarrass yourself. Get a gr-- uh, okay, no. Have a little self-control, then, will you? It probably builds character.

His mother accepted a cup as well, smiling at Ran through the wafting vapors like a very stylish Cheshire Cat. "Speaking of clothing..." she wheedled again, "...I really do want to see you in a pareo, Ran-chan. I have just the perfect color and it's such nice silk, all clingy and soft-- don't you want to show one off?" She raised a blonde eyebrow, a little smirk angled towards Yuusaku. "They even make men's pareos, you know, and I'm sure I--"

"Ohhhh no," said her husband firmly. "I remember the last time you got me into one of those; I nearly broke my neck. No skirts, please. You two have fun." He sipped his coffee. "Though... there's some writing I need to do, and I imagine the Professor and Ai'd like a little peace and quiet for a while... so..." He looked inquiringly at his wife. "'Kiko?"

"I'll be along in a bit, dear. Head along ahead, alright? I'll meet you at our usual table." As Yuusaku rose, collecting coffee mugs and taking them into the kitchen, Yukiko turned a convincing (but surely contrived) puppydog face on Ran and Kid; the girl squirmed and the thief just raised one eyebrow. "Ran-chan?"

Ran looked uncomfortable, glancing briefly at Shinichi for a cue. "I appreciate the offer, Kudo-san, but--"

"Please, just humor me for a minute, alright, Ran-chan?" Yukiko's smile went from 'hopeful' to 'decided.' "I promise, they're quite easy to put on, it'll only take a moment. At the very least, play along to keep dear Shin-chan company? He has to try his on, I'm his kaasan. He can't say no to me."

Kid snickered and Shinichi bristled a little. "Don't you laugh," he warned the thief. Putting his hands up in surrender, Kid played along, ducking away from Shinichi's glare and grinning at Yukiko.

"I'll play," he said, shrugging one shoulder demonstratively. "Mouri-san?"

Ran sighed, looking torn. "As long as it won't take terribly long," she acceded. Yukiko beamed, her guileless expression a big warning flag to the others, who knew her all too well.

"Oh, it won't, dear. And don't worry. They're even easier to take off!"

* * *

"I, um." Ran peeked out from behind the closet door, arms crossed over what little bit of her body was visible. The dark blue, gauzy fabric wrapped over her shoulder was printed with large white tropical orchids, heavy blossoms drooping down along the line of her body. Her face was pink, expression slightly distressed, as she met Yukiko's anticipatory gaze. "I feel a little exposed."

Yukiko tittered. "Wait til you see the boys, darling," she said, tugging the door open a bit further. Reluctantly, Ran scooted forward, edging out of the closet into the Kudo spare bedroom proper. In the center of the room, a rather embarrassed Shinichi stood wrapped in....well, it looked like a classy, very flowy towel, actually. Ran held back a snicker. It'd probably look more beautiful and graceful if the detective wearing it didn't look quite so much like he wanted to melt of embarrassment on the spot. Slung around his waist just above his hips, and long enough to reach his knees, Shinichi's pareo was a darker blue even than Ran's, and patterned with a gently rising slope of ginko leaves.

Snaking out of the waistband of the pareo and up Shinichi's side about eight centimeters, the twin wires of Ai's black box device drew dark lines, taped to Shinichi's skin, that unbalanced the picture, reminding them all of the reason that Shinichi could stand on a level with them at all. But it was a small distraction, unimportant in the scale of he's here now and that's what matters, and Ran dismissed thoughts of needles and apotoxin to look over her boyfriend again, her cheeks pinking appreciatively.

It compliments his eyes, at least, Ran thought, rather flustered by Shinichi's bare chest and her own insubstantial garment. Her own pareo was feeling even more transparent by the second, and her self-consciousness skyrocketed when Kid stepped into the room from the hall, scratching his hair and looking shamefully, unfairly, astonishingly at ease in his own pareo. The image was even more ridiculously unjust for two reasons: first, Kid was still wearing his skintight black top. Secondly...

"Are those skulls?" Shinichi asked with no small amount of disbelief, his own embarrassment forgotten for the moment. Kid blinked, looked down, and lifted one flap of his pareo out to the side, examining the large, distinct print without compunction.

"And weird diamondy things on the edges," he confirmed. "The black matches my shirt."

Ran and Shinichi stared, then caught each other's eyes for a moment of shared, overwhelming pique. How dare he make that look good, they silently groused. This is so many shades of Not Fair.

Yukiko tilted her head to the side, surveying them all; her light blue eyes twinkled. "I really need to be getting along, Yuusaku'll be at the restaurant by now-- hmmm." She had that soulful look on her face again, and Shinichi clutched the edges of his pareo in apprehension. "Ran-chan, there's one more thing you need before I go, really." Grabbing the younger woman by one wrist, she towed her back towards the small downstairs spare bedroom in the Kudo home where the pareos'd been stored. Ran cast the other two a desperate look but allowed herself to be dragged away, orchids fluttering.

"I feel like I'm at an onsen," muttered Shinichi, picking at the knot and rolled twist that held his own pareo on. "Only, instead of a towel, I grabbed somebody's tablecloth instead. I remember seeing people on the beaches back in Hawai'i in these all the time, and I kept wondering why they didn't come off every time they moved." He eyed Kid's own smoothly-tied sarong thoughtfully, a hint of mischief surfacing like the fin of a shark. "I wonder how much of a tug it'd take?"

Kid raised an eyebrow, opening his mouth to reply; the words, however, were never to be heard, as a quite audible yelp from the dressing room made both heads whip around in that direction. Moments later Ran and Shinichi's mother emerged; Ran (who had an added element to her outfit, a gauzy, translucent shawl in a rich blue that draped over her bare shoulders and back, enfolding without really concealing a lot) was wide-eyed and a truly remarkable shade of crimson. Yukiko, however, looked quite pleased with herself.

"There," she murmured, turning Ran around in place with her hands like a doll; Ran allowed herself to be spun. "Doesn't that look lovely? Silk gauze... I bought it in, hmm, where was it...? The Honduras? Tahiti? Somewhere or other. But," she added generously, "it suits you much better than it ever suited me, Ran-chan, you look lovely. Doesn't she, you two?" Before anyone could respond there was a faint honking from outside the Kudo home's front gates. "Oh, that'll be the taxi! Off I go, and I'll be sure to pick you all up some dinner, hm? Jaaa, darlings, we'll be back in a few hours." Gathering up her things in her usual whirlwind, Yukiko was out the front door and down the walk before they knew it.

Silence. The impromptu Japanese-Hawaiian crosscultural group looked at each other, and Ran put her hands over her mouth to suppress the first of her giggles.

Kid cleared his throat quietly. "Does your kaasan tend to set you up in absurd situations on a regular basis, Tantei?"

"YES." Both Ran and Shinichi spoke at the same time. "Well, not as often as she used to, for obvious reasons. But-- she likes to play, a lot, and so long as she considers it harmless--" Shinichi shook his head, still clutching the waist of his pareo. "And she really, really loves to dress people up." There was a flush high on his cheekbones, rather a different one than he'd worn earlier-- this one extended out to the ears and gave the detective a particularly embarrassed-adolescent appearance; it was rather cute, all things considered. "Ran, d'you remember the rabbit-suit thing?"

The giggles escaped, and Ran leaned back against the doorjamb of the spare room, eyes dancing with amusement. "There was this little animal-rescue shelter," she explained, "and Kudo-san found out they were having hard times financially. She made a big donation, but then she asked if there was any other way she could help, and... they had a booth at one of the local festivals a week later and they asked her about maybe showing up to give them a little excitement and visibility-- a famous actress, all that-- and would she allow people to have their pictures taken with her and with fluffy kittens and everything? Maybe it'd make them donate more or adopt a few more animals, that sort of thing." Ran was examining the fabric of her shawl, appreciatively running the gauzy silk through her fingers. "This is so soft... Anyway--"

"...if she'd TOLD me what she had planned I would've volunteered," sulked Shinichi, arms crossed defensively. The chilly air of the Kudo house (or something) had given him goosebumps. His right hand, fingertips brushing his waist, touched the wires of his device and jerked quickly away, returning much more carefully, mindful not to disturb the bite of the device's little metal fangs.

Ran eyed him suspiciously. "Shinichi, you weren't even sixteen. No fifteen year-old willingly gets dressed up in a pink rabbit costume just because their kaasan asks them to." To Kid's increasingly wide-eyed look, she continued: "She didn't tell him what he was going to do or what the box she had with her was for, she just dragged him-- and me, she picked me up to help out-- along and then shoved him in a bathroom at the festival and told him to put on what was in the box. When he wouldn't, she marched right into the bathroom and stole his clothes, so... he spent the rest of the day getting his picture taken with Kaasan The Famous Actress, holding homeless kittens and puppies. Wearing a rabbit suit."

"...so really? We got off light," concluded the Detective of the East gloomily.

Kid snickered. Covered his mouth, attempting to regain sobriety. Snickered again. Got glared at by Shinichi, and gave up resisting his giggles. "I will have to ask Kudo-san to show me these photos," he said, grinning, as he perched on the edge of the smaller of the beds in the room, ankles crossed. "And I'm sure that a guest's request would trump her son's protests," he added smugly.

The spare bedroom, one of two of its kind in the Kudo mansion, was equipped with two beds: one twin, on which Kid perched; and one queen, which stood on the side of the room closer to Ran. Kid stretched his legs out in front of him toward the far wall, smoothing the pareo across his lap to remove wrinkles. The skin of his shins and calves had a healthy glow to them, and a smoothness that invited touching. Shinichi was watching, grumbling about bunny suits and blackmail, but it was Ran who, after sneaking a peek, squeaked in surprise and stepped closer, crouching down to examine the thief's legs at close range.

"Kid! How did you...oh my gosh! That's just so not fair. What brand do you use? You don't have any regrowth at all," she whined, poking one silky-smooth and strongly-muscled calf with one fingertip.

"Hmm? Oh, I make my own," Kid said lightly, straightening his knee to show off his perfectly hairless legs. "It's a lot more cost-effective than buying the small sets in stores."

Shinichi looked confused. "You... make your own razors?" The thief laughed.

"Oh, Benten no. I wax. Most of my body, actually. But I tend to just thin out my forearms, so they're not too thick for female roles, and not too thin for male roles."

Ran made thoughtful sounds, and the bits of Shinichi's brain which weren't still sulking over the whole Bunny Detective Of The East thing did a little shuffle and dance, presenting their opinions and suggestions regarding Kid's waxing methods and results and how they really needed to investigate further, just to be thorough. He sat down on the end of the queen bed, watching the other two, and wondered why control seemed to be so damned difficult to keep at the moment; you could only blame 'being eighteen' so many times... Maybe it was because he'd missed a year? Did a person's hormones accumulate, gang up on their owner all at once and take over like a rival Yakuza gang moving in? Or maybe it was the stimulus of the previous night? Or maybe--

--the other two were being awfully quiet. Maybe, he concluded, realizing that he'd been staring, it was just that his hormones were attentive little bastards and liked the material they had to work with?

The material in question, one half sitting on the bed and one half kneeling by the other's legs, neither of them touching the other - but only just barely - smiled at Shinichi. Kid leaned down to Ran's level, whispered something in her ear, and stood. And somehow the combination of shrinkwrap shirt and pareo skirt still didn't look out of place, even as the skirt swished with his steps as he approached Shinichi. Coming to a stop directly in front of the detective, Kid returned Shinichi's apprehensively hopeful look with a darkened smile of his own, bending at the waist and sliding one foot forward. The inside of Kid's knee pressed the outside of Shinichi's, Kid's head on a level and intimately close to his, and his eyes darkened a little as he spoke.

"I have been very good, all morning," he murmured, loudly enough that both Shinichi and Ran could hear him clearly in the quiet of the room. And without so much as a may-I, he angled his mouth forward, catching Shinichi's lips in a strong kiss. Ran swallowed audibly, watching them, as Kid continued pressing forward, bracing one hand on the bedspread as he forced Shinichi down onto his back, bending completely over the detective like a predator over its prey. He purred into the kiss, demanding hard and thorough response from Shinichi. His back leg slid forward to stand more comfortably, sliding between Shinichi's spread knees until the edge of the mattress stopped its progress, and his hands, fisted on the quilt beside each of Shinichi's ears, boxed him thoroughly in place.

He got the response he asked for in Shinichi's return kiss, in the fingers that slid into his hair and pulled their mouths tighter together and in the arch of the body beneath his, a physical expression of Oh thank god, finally that brought one foot up onto the mattress and turned capture into cooperation. The other hand found its way to the waist of the pareo and plucked at the fabric of Kid's shirt impatiently; Shinichi pulled back a little, gasping, and turned his head to look for Ran, who still knelt entirely too far away. His lips shaped her name, though no sound left them; and the hand that had found the hem of Kid's shirt at last let go long enough to reach out towards her invitingly as Kid buried his face behind Shinichi's, sucking and kissing and nipping at the column of his throat.

Ran swallowed a little hungry sound in her throat, eyes wide and breath short, as Shinichi's eyes, dark with greedy want, found hers. "I-- Shini...chi..." She caught herself hesitating, wondered in the name of all that was good why, and moved to Shinichi's side as fast as her gauzy, unfamiliar pareo would let her. Crouching against the side of the bed next to Shinichi's shoulder, Ran felt Shinichi's fingers thoroughly tangling themselves in her hair and fitted her mouth to his, soft and full, and Shinichi shivered and melted into her kiss as something Kid did with his mouth - or maybe it was the touch of her own lips, Ran wasn't actually sure - undid him. The sound he made stabbed straight through her, from her heart to her gut to something lower, and Ran's whole body tightened against the side of the bed, one hand sneaking inbetween the columns of Kid's arms to touch Shinichi's chest, fingertips light as thieves' touches...

Kid eased back just a little; she could feel both their hearts pounding to either side of her palm, the rhythms syncopated like drum-beats on back and front as she explored. When the hard planes of muscle and smooth skin gave way to the peak of a nipple, she let her entire hand slide across it in slow motion and Shinichi bit his own lip, hard. That demanded that she soothe it, of course, so she did... and as she took care of that little detail, she felt the body above Shinichi's shift and Ran drew back in turn, just enough to let Kid move in.

There was a hand, Shinichi's, fisted tight in her pareo; the gauze shawl slipped off entirely as she pressed a line of soft, sharp kisses along Shinichi's throat all the way down to his shoulder. The fabric slithered against her skin as it fell, and for a moment, sensitized and breathing hard, Ran thought that it was Kid's fingertips against her skin, now that the shawl was gone. Then she noticed the weight of fabric now resting against her calves, the way that not only her shoulders, but her entire back...and sides...and rear...and thighs...felt colder, skin prickling in the cool air of the room. Oh.

Realizing what had happened, Ran froze, the front edge of panic skirting around her thoughts. Shinichi paused, lips still against hers for a moment, and he tried to pull back, concern immediately rippling through his awareness and pulling him partially out of the haze. That was so far from what Ran wanted to happen that it made her decision for her; drawing one foot beneath her, Ran borrowed Kid's boldness and pressed close again; nothing separated her from the bedspread as she slid against the side of the bed and stretched upward, until her arm could fully curl around Shinichi's shoulder and neck on the far side, boxing Kid out for the moment. Her body pressed against Shinichi's near shoulder, smooth skin directly caressing Shinichi's with gliding ease, and the softness of her chest gave willingly against the pressure of her boyfriend's arm as he folded his hand up to touch her shoulder. Holding her breath, Ran mouthed Shinichi's lower lip and tried not to hyperventilate, waiting to see what Shinichi would do with this new, bold information.

His hand, which had been stroking Kid's hair and sliding down to caress the curve of ear and jawline, paused; he stopped in mid-kiss, took a very deep breath of the warm air between them and allowed his head to fall back abruptly onto the mattress. "Kid. Ran," Shinichi said thickly, forcing the words out. "We-- uhm. Guidelines." He swallowed. "Just what... we want, only that. If anybody's uncomfortable-- if you aren't, then..."

"You talk too much," whispered Ran. "He does, doesn't he?" Independent of what he'd just said, Shinichi's other hand had begun to walk cautiously along Ran's shoulder and downwards one fingertip at a time.

"Hmmm, guidelines." Kid smiled, humming against Shinichi's pulse point and the knuckle of Ran's thumb. "I like those better than rules. Hmm. Here's a guide," he continued softly, slowly crouching at the knees. He moved closer, skin on skin, a breath away from pressure and friction. "We want you, Mei-tan-tei-san," Kid said clearly, enunciating each syllable in a thick, plush voice that sounded nearly obscene, his breath short and clipped with the effort of restraining himself.

Kid's breath was heavy, carefully measured, but his hand moved restlessly, knotting fingers in Shinichi's hair and smoothing it out again. His eyes were dark, he knew, because everything was more visible, more sharp, like he was one millisecond beyond the push of calves and toes that tipped him over a roof's edge. The world rushed toward him at those moments, high-definition, far too much detail at once, and he took it all in, flawlessly, in the single heartbeat's space of time before the glider snapped open. Now, he took it all in in the same way, Shinichi's expression, the sweat on his skin, Ran's hair and breath, the way her gaze glanced toward his, then along his body, the softness of her skin, the way Shinichi's thin body was still lanky from the change, the tremor of Shinichi's belly as his breath came quick and his muscles quivered with restrained motion. He noted the muscle fatigue in his own body - the strain on the backs of his calves and thighs from bending over for so long, the tightness of his belly and lower parts, the tension in his neck and jaw from keeping his mind off of those tightnesses as much as was possible so that he could speak with Shinichi, wait on him, give him time. He breathed out, his face less than two hands' lengths away from Shinichi's and Ran's, and smiled.

Watching Kid - and trying hard (and failing) not to imagine what she couldn't see under Kid's forward-draped pareo - Ran licked her lips and summoned all the boldness she had at her command. The struggle between shyness and what she saw in her dreams, more frequent and more intoxicating in recent days, with Shinichi more and more present to fuel her imagination, was decided when Shinichi froze at Kid's touch, breath shallow and quick, eyes wide and so very dark. Ran ducked her head, fastening her lips to his throat, and sucked like she'd seen Kid do, not just suckling but actively trying to make a mark. Things were about to get very interesting, she knew, and something in her was soothed by claiming Shinichi this way - marking him ahead of time, so that however things fell out in the next few minutes, whatever happened - or didn't - she already had settled things with herself.

And, Ran blushed, hearing Shinichi's breath close against her ear as she licked, kissed, and sucked again, darkening the mark that was already blooming, I don't think I can get jealous of something that's so pretty, anyway.

"--Want me?" Shinichi shuddered; the words dissolved into a harsh gasp as the pressure and heat at the base of his throat translated itself into source (Ran) and action (she's Oh she's) and then transmuted itself into the dark, dark eyes directly above his own, the smile that promised everything and never, ever lied or held back, never had-- Shinichi threw away any last vestiges of control he had remaining, reached blindly to grip Kid's hip and pulled him hard against his own body, arching up once more.

Pressure, firm and angled almost-right, almost-right, a shock of heat and friction and so tantalizingly good-- but there was too much fabric between them; his fingers went to the knot of his own pareo. They were met by others who'd made it there first, two sets of others, and all three hands tugged and pulled until the distraction was completely out of the way. There was still fabric but it was so much better now as they moved, achingly slow. His hand was gripped then, slid palm-flat along silken curves until he cupped something warm and rounded and so very soft, sharp peak sliding between thumb and forefinger; but all the while, almost-right was rapidly becoming very-right. Kid kissed him fiercely, hot and sweet and absolutely perfect, while Ran gave a little cry against his throat and bit down.

Ran's hand fumbled with his at the small of Kid's back; he lost his grip and clutched at the loose black pareo while she tugged the shirt that didn't need to be there anymore up and off (it was as snug as it had looked, and it peeled away like a second skin.) Even as Shinichi's quick, hard pants kept time with Kid's, even as Ran shuddered and pressed against his roving, blind hand and guided it with her own, heartbeat thudding against his palm, there was very little hesitation left. Need, immediate and almost painful, yes, and a learning process of movement and timing that would only improve with practice; it came with the territory. But uncertainty, and hesitance? Not now.

"Tantei. Mouri-san," Kid managed, breath husky, his hand curling around Shinichi's cheek with a fond territoriality. "The - the bed is big enough for us all." Shinichi craned his head back to look.

"That...that would make sense," he gasped, shivering as Ran bent to kiss his belly. "Ran. Ran, let's - so you don't have to kneel. Let's, um."

Kid took matters into his own hands at this point, crawling up onto the bed and laying out at full length on his side, facing the other two. His skin, flushed warmly, seemed to have its own shine, a visually tactile quality that begged for hands upon it. Shinichi turned to pull Ran up with him and froze, momentarily caught by what he'd been aware of but hadn't really seen: Mouri Ran, totally nude, undressed, unclothed, et cetera. Naked. And that was a sight he'd let himself imagine more than a few times-- he'd even seen her like this at the onsen, not that long ago and a lifetime ago... only not like this, no: not flushed and sheened with a glow of sweat, not with her long hair falling over her beautiful breasts as she stared steadily back. Breath catching in his throat, Shinichi allowed himself a long, long moment to simply look at the girl he'd known for so long before pulling her up into a kiss and onto the mattress.

The two lay there before him, and Shinichi knelt half-between them both; not frozen in anxiety or shyness (it was really, really too late for that kind of thing at this point) or reluctance, just... seeing them both, allowing his eyes to linger where his hands wanted to go. It was almost too much, almost too overwhelming; Shinichi licked his lips. "You, both of you. I'm in-- trouble now, aren't I?" He laughed softly, low in his throat; his gaze slid along the mysterious curves and shadows of Ran's hips (hadn't there been, well, panties at some point? Gone now) across up to her intent face, across to Kid's little smile and down the length of his own eloquent body, as emphatic as a shout. He licked his lips again. "Lots of trouble."

Ran swallowed, heart beating in her throat. "Shinichi...there's...there's condoms. Under the mattress. They're...they're, um. Fresh?"

"Ran, did you..." His gaze swung over to Kid. "Did you?" The thief laughed, lifting one hand to stroke up Shinichi's bicep to his nape, where his strong, lean fingers began working the muscle there just because he could.

"I didn't, no. But if I don't miss my guess - Mouri-san, did Kudo-san...?"

Ran humphed, propping herself up on one elbow and glaring pointedly at Kid. "Yes, Shinichi's kaasan did...leave us some supplies." She flushed at that (not nearly as darkly as Shinichi himself was blushing), but pressed on anyway, focused on the more important point of irritation. "And for goodness sake, you could call me Ran by this point! I mean, look at us! I think this is past the point of formality."

Kid chuckled, releasing Shinichi's nape and reaching out to caress Ran's cheek ever so gently, knuckles sliding across her smooth skin to her throat. "But I respect you so very much, Mouri-san," he protested quietly, "Even if I am just as appreciative of our intimacy... as I am of that between myself and our tantei. Or, in fact, of that between yourself and him."

Ran licked her lips, glancing to Shinichi briefly. He was watching them attentively, his hands finally drifting out to brush over the angles and curves of their hips, ever so gently, one warm palm to each smooth body. He grinned, seeing the plan in Ran's eyes; with that blessing, she put it into action, abruptly levering herself across the space between herself and the thief to press a hard, told-you-so sort of kiss to his lips. She pulled back just enough to be able to see him clearly. "It's Ran," she repeated, all business.

Kid, eyes wide, touched his lips softly. "Ran," he murmured, sounding as startled as he looked.

"Good. You'd better remember that for later." Then her attention clicked back over to her boyfriend, and the moment in which her world narrowed to include only him was a visible, nearly tactile occurrence.

"Make love to me, Shinichi. Make love to me and let Kid make love to you."

"Yes," he whispered, mouth dry. The next few seconds were dedicated purely to scrambling the condoms out from under the mattress; Kid eventually found some under the opposite pillow, where the mattress was less weighted-down by their own bodies. He pushed himself right-side up, little foil packets in hand, and laid them on the bed beside Ran's waist. They all stared at the packets for a moment, until Shinichi squared his jaw and grabbed one.

"Ran, I can't...I can't believe that, God, that..." Shinichi struggled to find words as he tugged the packet open and slipped its contents free, slippery and a little sticky between his fingers. "I...God, it's been so long, and I almost...I had thought that I'd never get to...that we'd never...There's been so much in the way. So much, and you waited for me this whole time, you waited when I hadn't told you where I was, or any shred of truth, you waited for me, and then you forgave me, and you still..." He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, and looked down at her with overwhelming emotion in his eyes. "You waited, and finally, finally I told you the truth and...and then..."

Shinichi looked left, meeting Kid's sober, accepting blue gaze. "And then Kid happened," he murmured, his hands falling still as he felt the gravity of the thief's gaze pulling him under. He shook himself out of it, offering a sheepish smile for the thief in apology. Kid smiled, shaking his head a little: Don't worry. Shinichi turned his attention back to Ran, voice so laden with gratitude and guilt and love and fear and amazement that it snagged in his throat, coming out rough and vulnerable.

"And you still...Ran. Ran, I love you. With everything in me, I swear...God, I swear it."

Ran smiled, tiny tears in the corners of her eyes. "It's okay, Shinichi," she said. "I know. I know." One hand reached up, touching his cheek with her fingertips, then sliding down to press her palm against his chest, his belly. She stopped there, feeling Shinichi's quickening breath under her hand. She glanced down, then back to meet his eyes.

* * *

Beautiful. Kid watched the pair as they hesitatingly moved, just as new and imperfect at the process as Kid himself was, virgins all. Their hesitance, their lack of surety, were immaterial. Their love was what the thief watched, mesmerized, heart tight with the conviction he was in the presence of something rare, the kind of bond not often experienced or repeated. They both seemed so astonished, so falling-over-themselves grateful, that they were allowed to be in the other's heart, and now in the other's bed. They don't take it for granted, Kid thought, a weird sort of pride filling him at the thought. They know they're blessed.

Goddess Benzaiten, of fortune and seduction, of persuasion and knowledge, of water, speech, and music. Goddess Benzaiten, protect them. Bless them. Grant them luck and fortune and all the time they need. Give them knowledge against their enemies. Give them the words to speak truth to each other's souls. Give them cool flowing water, for strength and for healing when it's needed. Kid watched Ran and Shinichi move, seeing between them so much more than the simple act of sex, and in the privacy of his own heart, prayed for them.

* * *

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**Omake: Singapore (Gentleman's Agreement)**

_I must be completely out of my mind._

Singapore Harbor was, as always, as sultry as a steam-room. The temperatures never ranged above or below what you got on a humid Japanese summer's day, even in winter; dripping with sweat, filthy and smelling like the hold of the cargo-plane Kudo Yuusaku'd taken from Nha Trang, (and the rickety crate he'd flown in from Tai Pei, and the horrible but fast one that'd transported him from Shanghai) he'd just barely made it in time.

The journey had begun in his library with a pile of obscure literary references, a stack of scribbled pages and yellow sticky-notes and a maddening, maddening riddle from a certain International Criminal Number 1412. And Oh Right, a plea from the police... that had come first, hadn't it? Now, crouched waiting in the dark three stories above a noisome Singapore alley, the writer wondered if his fascination with his subject had finally driven him as insane as the thief himself. _Delusional, totally delusional. All I've got to go on is my own thin chain of logic and guesswork, and while I'm pretty sure I'm right (God, I hope I'm right) I won't know until--_

--until--

He checked his watch. Eleven minutes to go.

The clues had spelled out a message, one tortuous word at a time; and the message had been open to interpretation unless, UNLESS you picked up on a numeric sequence that had been quietly hiding in it from the very beginning. After that the message had turned around, flipped end over end like dominoes until a combination of too many hours without sleep and too many details had dragged sleep down over Yuusaku's mind like a blindfold. He'd awakened with ink from his own notes printing his cheek in reverse, blindingly certain of precisely what the cipher said.

...which brought him to this particular here and now, the appointed place and time, to meet with a gentleman thief.

Yuusaku sighed, slumping back against the fire-escape he'd picked for a vantage point; he wiped sweat from his eyes and wondered what the hell he'd do if he'd been wrong. He was just a writer, not a cop; he didn't want to be a cop, didn't have the terrier-like instinct to chase and bring down and gnaw. And then there was that little subversive streak, too, the one which every murder-myster writer needed-- But what he _did_ have was a knack to put himself in the other person's place, see with their eyes and borrow their worldview for a little while; it was a writer kind of thing, or so 'Kiko'd said, and not at all far from the way in which an actor thought. _Your stage is inside your head, that's all, darling, you have your actors and props and scenes all right there to play with,_ she'd told him once in a rare moment of seriousness. He supposed this was true.

_Eight minutes._

The rooftop above was just out of eyeshot; if he moved up only a few more steps, he'd be able to see the entire expanse. But somehow it... just didn't seem right; it wasn't _time_ yet. This wasn't an attempt by police at apprehension, it wasn't a heist or a public display. This was--

(he checked his watch yet again; four minutes)

--a gentleman's agreement.

The fire-escape was old; it creaked as Yuusaku shifted restlessly, and a small part of his mind catalogued the scene with a writer's eye: the distant visual/audio blare of neon and traffic, the humidity that hung unmoving in the air like a curse, the damp brickwork and fetid, puddled streets... It resembled a _film noir_ movie set, all black and white and dimly lit.

Two minutes. Yuusaku wished, just this once, that he smoked.

One minute.

_...maybe my watch is fast...?_

No.

.....and then it was **showtime.**

* * *

_A theme song would ruin the moment,_ Kuroba Toichi thought to himself with mild regret, feeling a smile grow on his face as his friend climbed the final few steps of the fire escape.

As Yuusaku rose into view, punctually alert, he guarded his eyes against the sudden brightness that reached him there. Strong light waste, presumably from a street-level bank of floodlights like those used by dock workers for their late-night labor, had been blocked from his below roof-level view by the breadth of the building and the rim of the roof. Once over the edge, the floodlights illuminated the figure on the far side of the roof in silhouette.

Perched on the roof's edge, the Kaitou Kid sat with one knee crossed over the other and his cape flared to either side of him, just short of translucent and glowing with gathered light. Hat and monocle sat in deep shadow, as did the rest of his features, facing away from the light, and Yuusaku held one hand up to guard his eyes against the intense glow as he walked carefully closer. He couldn't see anything of the phantom thief's expression, but he somehow knew he was being snickered at anyway.

"Konban wa," Yuusaku murmured, drawing closer. His heart beat hard, and he was vaguely aware of not thinking about anything, a sort of stunned radio silence that his writer's mind was very unfamiliar with. But it kept him from second-guessing himself, from hesitating, as he approached the Kid.

_A gentlemen's agreement._

Little details came into view, piecemeal; Yuusaku memorized each one. There was a traditional tea service laid out on a small tray, its carrying case set neatly off to the side, on a cloth at Kid's feet. A small teacup rested in the thief's gloved hand, his fingers arched gently and delicately around the small porcelain. And - as Yuusaku came to a stop a few feet in front of the tea service - the thief lifted his chin, sitting up more straightly, and Yuusaku saw his smile.

"Konban wa, Kudo-san," the Kid said. "You seem weary. Tea?"

Yuusaku, glorious satisfaction radiating through every inch of his tired, sweaty and sore body, nodded deeply and settled himself onto the ground on the opposite side of the tea service from the Kid.

"Please," he said, trying to be polite and not show his dogteeth as he grinned at the thief. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Thank you for coming," the Kid said, setting his cup carefully on the roof's rail beside him. He knelt in front of the service to pour a cup for Yuusaku, bright cape falling from the rail to the shadows of the dirty, wet rooftop. His knees rested on the edge of the cloth laid under the tea service. "I see you solved my puzzle."

"You gave me a good game," Yuusaku admitted wryly, raking his hand through his hair with a short sigh. "I thought I'd never get it."

"Well, I'm glad you did," the Kid said, setting the teapot down and lifting Yuusaku's cup in both hands. He looked up, offering the cup. "I don't like to lose bets, even the ones I make with myself."

Under the mirror of his monocle, reflecting Yuusaku's own eye back at him where the Kid's should have been, a broad, warm smile offered the thief's congratulations, and Yuusaku received them - and the cup - with relish.

* * *

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_Thanks again for being with us tonight; let us know what you think, hm? Next chapter,____ "beautiful, Spade, handshake" __picks up directly where this leaves off and will once again (surprise, surprise) follow the original-abridged-omake format. ^____^  
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	28. Beautiful, Spade, handshake

_Welcome again to Three Thieves! Tonight's chapter picks up directly from the end of our last chapter with no breaks. Bear in mind, this chapter is the abridged, slightly less erotic version; if you wish to read the original, copy-paste the following into your browser and fix the html to follow the link: http colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 12644 dot html. If you DO go there, please be sure to leave us a comment, hmm? And that means you lurkers out there in particular; yes, YOU! I'm pointing at YOU there, necking in the back of the theater where you think we can't see you! C'mon, say something? We'd really like to hear from you too._

_And now, on with the show!........... ysabet & rednightengale_

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_**Book Three, Chapter Seven, ABRIDGED**__**: "beautiful, spade, handshake"**_

_**(Music: "Melt With You", Modern English)**_

_**.**_

Breathing together. Someone was stroking his hair.

Muscles loose and warm, and the whole world was a slow haze of drowsy, glowing pleasure. Curled close, heartbeats gradually scaling down from thunder to a heavy, gentle rumble; Shinichi buried his face in Ran's hair, breathing deep.

She smelled like, like... something herbal, the shampoo she used; and her own scent, now musky and tinged with salt. She smelled like she tasted, like her breasts and the hollow of her throat and the inside of her elbow, like her gradually slowing breath.

And she smelled like him. God, she was so beautiful.

The hand stroked his hair again, very gently. His eyes opened, the universe expanding from the Ran-and-Shinichi-sized bubble that had enclosed them into something a bit larger, still all warm and golden: the bed, the room, Kid... smiling. Ran lay half on top of Shinichi, one leg crooked across both of his, clutching him like a teddybear; they'd rolled over at some point, he remembered, and she'd crouched over him with a sudden shuddering gasp, fingernails biting into his shoulders as she ground down. But now she was limp and loose-limbed, and what he could see of her face was as peaceful and relaxed as a sleeping child's.

Kid's eyes met his, and the glow there nearly equaled the one that he knew had to be in his own. It was his hand that slid through Shinichi's hair, smoothing it into place; he'd drawn himself up against the wall and curled around a pillow like a great, sleek cat, barely a foot above Shinichi's head. His cheek rested on his own outstretched arm; even as Shinichi's own gaze warmed, the thief's little smile bloomed open and generous as sunlight, and he ran one finger silently down Shinichi's cheek.

The hand moved down, sliding over Ran's hair as well and tangling in the strands. She stirred, murmured something unintelligible and let her breath out in a long sigh before subsiding against him again. "Beautiful," whispered Kid, and his eyes told Shinichi's that he meant more than Ran alone.

_Beautiful._ That was a good word for it, really; it hadn't been perfection-- they were human beings, made up of too many elbows and knees, and Ran's long hair had gotten caught and he'd seen her wince in the pain of the first few moments but... it had been _real_ and _theirs_, every moment of it. And yes, it had been very human and very beautiful.

His own hand came up, slipping through Ran's sweat-damp strands to meet Kid's; with his head tilted back, he could see the long, elegant lines of Kid's body and the way the light traveled in a soft sheen along the slope that ran from ribs to hip and down his outer thigh. Still wrapped in the afterglow of his time with Ran, Shinichi laced his fingers in Kid's; and then, moving carefully so as not to tug, he drew Kid's hand down to his lips and kissed each finger with slow, gentle thoroughness.

Tips, calloused from Kuroba's cards and juggling and Kid's own private war; tasting the sensitive skin between each and dropping down into the excruciatingly-delicate vee at the base, rising up again... The web between thumb and forefinger, carrying the beat of a pulse inside it like a hidden jewel; Shinichi pressed a kiss to Kid's palm, breathing gratitude and everything spilling over inside him into it. Everything-- what he was feeling for Ran, what she'd given him, the rising heat within that fed on Kid's scent and the way the fingers curled and arched beneath lips and tongue... Eyes closed against the intensity of the touch, he traced a line from the center down to the wrist and tasted Kid's sweat there as well, breathed in the strong, male richness of his body.

_Beautiful._ His eyes reopened and met Kid's, deepest blue and darkening fast, and he ran the tip of one finger across Kid's palm, drawing Kanji: his own name, _Shinichi._

Kid closed his fist over the name, claiming it, and pressed it to his chest, right on top of his heart. Fingers slowly unfolding, one knuckle at a time, Kid pressed the name to his heart as though it were liquid, the heel of his hand cupped as though to hold something precious, until finally his palm pressed flat against his chest and he moved, the arm beneath his head bracing him as he tipped forward to hover over Shinichi. Upside down to Shinichi's right-side-up, Kid studied the detective's darkening gaze with sobriety, his own pupils spreading as his heartbeat gained speed and emphasis.

"You're a puzzlebox, Shinichi," he whispered, and a genuine flush rose on his cheeks as his voice hitched with emotion despite the simplicity of his words. "I promised myself...I promised I'd never tell you. Promised myself I'd protect you two, be your watchful gargoyle. Only alive at night, sou ka? I..."

Shinichi raised his hand to touch the thief's face, tracing the clear, elegant features so like his own. His thumb tracked up to Kid's temple, pausing on the delicate skin around his eye. "Kid, is something wrong? You're worrying me."

The thief smiled, and Shinichi's heart nearly stopped when he realized that there were real, honest-to-God _tears_ in the corners of Kid's eyes. "Just the opposite, Tantei-san. I'm just wondering when I will wake up alone, and whether I'll ever reclaim this dream once I fall back asleep."

"Kid, you're scaring me," Shinichi said, truly alarmed. He rolled onto his side, gently laying Ran onto the mattress; she immediately stirred and began to wake, little distressed noises letting both the boys know what she thought about her new, colder spot. Meanwhile, mindful of the device taped to his side, Shinichi rolled onto his stomach, wincing a little as various muscles in his body, unused to being used and strained in quite the ways that sex could strain them, complained quietly. He ignored them, because none of them were the searing, stabbing pain that meant he had to leave (_not thinking about that,_ he shuddered, _not ready to go back. Not yet, not yet, not ever._), and touched Kid's cheek again, pushing himself closer.

"Kid. What's wrong? You don't sound like yourself."

"Confident? Coy?" Kid gave Shinichi a look completely stripped of pretense and performance. It wasn't Kuroba's face, not by a long shot, but Shinichi still had to stare hard to see the careless devil he loved so deeply within that expression. Kid looked lost, overwhelmed. For the first time, Shinichi wondered what it would be like to see Kid truly cry.

"Tantei...I love you. I don't think I've said it like that before...and to be honest, I prefer my notes...but..." He held his breath for a moment, gathering resolve or composure or both. His gaze, when he turned it back to Shinichi, was happy but heartbroken, all at once. "I'm afraid I have so little experience with love...much less love as true and undiluted and gripping as what I was so privileged to watch in you and Mouri--ah, in Ran..." He smiled, the humor returning, the comfortable shields clicking back into place one panel at a time.

"I feel drowned in it."

Sudden realization snapped through Shinichi's mind, a clarity of understanding, and then a relieved, indulgent smile took its place in his expression. "Kid. Do you have any idea..." Shinichi shook his head. "You couldn't. I've never told you." He pressed his lips together, holding back his next words while he rolled them around in his mind, sifting them into their simplest form. When he looked up to meet Kid's gaze, he was extremely gratified to see the thief suck in a sharp breath, arousal immediately apparent in his breath, in response to Shinichi's predatory, possessive, hungry eyes. The detective caught the thief by both hands, gripping tightly.

"I'll show you, Kid, and you show me. Show me what you didn't think you could have, and I'll show you what I'll give you. And we'll see which of us catches the other, mmm?"

"He loves you," Ran murmured from somewhere around Shinichi's knees, making Kid jump and Shinichi glance quickly down, his hand moving automatically to her shoulder, reassuring himself that she was there and safe. "He loves you so much, Kid. That's why I called for you. That's why...everything has happened like it has."

Kid looked from Ran to Shinichi, and back to Ran. "Mour--" He cleared his throat as she frowned. "Ah, Ran, it's just..." He circled one hand in the air, searching for words. "I never wanted to compete with you."

Shinichi snorted. "What am I, a piece of fatty tun---" He cut himself off as Kid froze, a shiver running up his spine. "Hah. Sorry. But I mean, do you think you'd be here if I didn't want you here?"

"That's not it," Kid said, more calm now that he'd regained his composure, but still determined to see the point through, even though his breath was still rough, and Shinichi's hands on his, rubbing steady circular patterns on his palms, were making it steadily rougher. "I'm...I was so confident that I could steal your heart, Tantei, without ever taking it from Ran's touch. And Ran, I was certain I could become part of Shinichi's life without hurting you. But now...seeing you two together...I'm afraid I would rather retreat than take the chance of hurti--mmmmph!"

Ran laughed as Shinichi, basically, tackled Kid against the wall, making his point with lips and hands and with all the determination he owned. "Well, finally..."

* * *

"T-tantei, t-tantei, tant--ah, ah, oh, Benten, Shinichi, pl-please..."

"Kid. Kid, stay with me. --C'mon, Kid. M'here."

* * *

Kid woke to the sound of soft voices.

"...had no idea that..."

"should have _seen_ yourselves, Shinichi, it was..."

"...jealous, both of you get to watch."

"Suppose you could too, if you wanted..."

"...think he would...?"

"Will have to tell him that when he wakes up."

"Mmm, no." Kid concentrated to the voice. Oh. That was Shinichi. Right beside him, head pillowed on Kid's chest, his voice resonating through the thief's lungs. "I'm not done with playing with him yet. You have to wait your turn, Ran."

"We have all day, don't we?"

"Until Kaasan comes in to watch, I suppose."

"Oh, god," Ran groaned. Kid chuckled, drawing both of their attention.

"I wish I could believe that was hyperbole," he muttered, licking dry lips to ease his speech. "Somehow I'm thinking it wasn't."

"Morning, sleeping beauty," Ran chirped, stroking his hair back from his forehead. From the other side, pressure increased; Shinichi was leaning in close, and Kid tipped his head toward the detective to receive his kiss gratefully.

Several minutes later, they pulled away, breathing lightly, and Kid's head felt a lot clearer as he finally cracked one eye open and regarded the other two carefully.

"I, ahm."

Shinichi just grinned. "Ran has a request, I have a request, and both of them have to do with whether you're up for another round yet."

Kid stared at him. "Are you seriously _questioning_ whether I would like to repeat that?" he asked, incredulous, with a general hand gesture that was meant to indicate the last....however-long it had been since Shinichi kissed him to shut him up. The gesture was aborted as his wrist ran into Ran's breast, pressing lightly, and Kid jerked his hand away with a slight flush.

"Oh, not again," Ran laughed, grabbing Kid's other hand, the one at a better angle, and cupping it around her breast. Kid kind of stared, then looked over his shoulder at Shinichi, who shrugged roundly.

"That was basically her part of the request," he explained, "Though I'd really like to see you two kiss, too."

With a funny thrill running through him, yet one more sensation that he could liken to the joy of jumping into twenty stories of open nighttime air, Kid turned a very smugly pleased grin on Ran, curling one leg over her hips as he did. "Well. Tantei-san did ask so nicely."

Ran snickered, looking over Kid's shoulder at Shinichi. "He did," she said, closing her eyes slowly, and pressed forward for the kiss.

'Tantei-san' sat back, watching them both with a little grin. Kid was, despite his smugness, still as cautious as a cat exploring a freshly-waxed floor; it was Ran who cupped his jaw, pulling him in closer and kissing him lightly, then firmly, then with a kind of gentle enthusiasm that was very much hers. Fingers sliding up into his tousled hair, she pulled back just a little, eyes still closed; she licked her lips as if to savor something sweet and when the kiss began again, it was Kid who initiated it this time--

It was, thought Shinichi in a conscious echo of Kid's own words from earlier, almost as much fun watching them as participating himself-- okay, maybe not _as_ much fun, no. But there was a lot to be said for it.

They pulled back at last, both of them breathing a little faster than they had at the beginning; and Kid turned his head against Ran's cheek to smile at Shinichi. "Well, Tantei?"

"_That,_" Shinichi declared, scooting closer to wrap himself tightly against Kid's free hip, "Is something I'm going to have to make you two repeat in the near future. Frequently, I think." He grinned, rubbing against Kid's hip in a way that made the thief shiver all over. "But I want my share first," he continued, voice dropping progressively. "Ran had some very good ideas about what kind of trouble you and I could get up to. And, well, they weren't entirely new ideas to me, either." He flushed lightly, not embarrassed so much as awkward.

"I warn you, you've just witnessed the entirety of my experience with how this works," Shinichi admitted, wearing a small, crookedly wry smile. Kid's eyes, dark with arousal and sympathetically amused at once, accompanied the thief's own sheepish smile.

"I'm afraid I cannot let you retain that advantage over me," he warned his detective, gratified as Shinichi's eyes changed as he caught on. "We're competitors, of course. And I'm a criminal. I'll never let myself be conquered by the law."

Shinichi smirked, pushing his chest against Kid's to roll the thief further onto his back, pressing their lips together in little biting kisses between words, hungry and aggressive all at once. "And I'm a detective. I'll never let a criminal get the better of me, no matter where my travels take me. I'll always rise to the top."

"But you'll always have me to look up to, Tantei," Kid countered, pushing up and away from Ran to press Shinichi back, hands gripping Shinichi's shoulders to pin them to the mattress, tongue fighting for entrance between Shinichi's tight-pressed lips. "I'll always be above you, higher than anything else but the moon."

"I don't think I'll have to reach as far as the moon," Shinichi said, bracing one elbow to keep his shoulder off the bed, carefully angling his legs, gathering tension in his muscles in preparation for his next move. "Phantom thieves are found in the highest echelon of the criminal underworld, but they duck and weave in hiding from the law. The law hides from - and bows before - no one."

"I think I can make you bow," Kid purred, rubbing demonstratively against Shinichi's hips with his own. Both detective and thief hissed in pleasure, their game of one-upmanship forgotten for a few seconds as a preliminary wash of warm pleasure rose and retreated, like a tide, across their bodies. They rocked together harder in the next moment, Shinichi's mouth going to Kid's neck to kiss and claim, while the thief purred wicked suggestion in his ear.

* * *

_"Spade?"_

Ran watched them make love.

_"Could you be Spade? Spade, from the neighboring Kingdom of Trump?"_

A lifetime ago, many months ago, was it still less than two years ago? Shinichi had swept onstage in Sonoko's presentation of the Princess of Heart play, masked and caped as the Black Knight Spade, the Montague to Princess Heart's Capulet. He had held her in his arms, hovered so close, so feather-close to kissing her. She still dreamed about that case, sometimes - the case, not the play, because it was in the revelation of the case that the revelation of Shinichi's identity had cut her to the bone, unseated her careful deductive work and her assumptions about Edogawa Conan, in a terrifying, bewildering elation that she hadn't been able to understand until much after the fact.

Ran had done research about the symbolism of card suits while helping Sonoko to write the script for her play. The Heart Kingdom was an easy placement, but picking the trump suit, Spades, instead of the more violent-sounding Clubs for the enemy country, was a brainwave of Ran's own creation. The Ace of Spades was the most powerful card in the deck, of course, and the suit was associated with swords by way of the Tarot. What better role for Trump Kingdom's prince, Spade, swordsman most powerful and gentleman most rare?

After the case, Ran had done more digging, seeking to settle her uneasy heart. The thought of Shinichi as Prince Spade, enemy by blood of Ran's own role as Princess Heart, had set off alarms in her head, and she sought to soothe them. What she'd found had done the opposite.

Spades, a directional symbol unlike diamonds, have different meanings depending on their reversal. With the point down, which Ran supposed could be likened to a posture with sheathed sword, the Ace of Spades represented a precious person that was not present, but who stood far away, at a distance. And with the point up, the Ace of Spades was called by another name, the "Death Card." Horrified by that association, Ran had in distress chosen the lesser of two evils, deciding that Shinichi's role as Spade merely echoed his constant distance from her, his absence from the life and routine they used to share.

But now...

Ran saw the symbol of spade in a new light as she watched Shinichi make love to the _other_ most important person in his life, knowing that his trust in her presence beside them, at his elbow, was as much a part of his ability to abandon himself to the act as was his passion for Kid. Upright, the Spade meant Death. But a deeper reading - and an understanding of the Tarot - brought a brighter picture. With every beginning, an end must have preceded it; with every death, new life. Every winter brought spring, but every spring had to eventually cede to summer, fall, and the cold freeze of winter. Cycles populated the methods and rhythms of life, and cycles made patterns from senseless loss. Ran thought that she could see the cycle now, played out before her.

The death of the normal life she and Shinichi had shared, high school, exams, and the occasional skirt-flip - had brought the birth of Shinichi's life in hiding. The death of that secret, revealed to not only herself but to Kid and others as well, brought Shinichi out of hiding into a network of love and support. And the death of the exclusive relationship between Ran and Shinichi - the one-on-one support that had made them so very much the summation of each other's worlds before Shinichi's shrink - had been a prerequisite of that new-grown web. Ai...Hattori...the Shounen Tantei...and Kid. All of them had entered Shinichi's life because of that first death, that first _change._

_And when you think of it as change, rather than death...a conclusion that is followed by a new beginning....it's hard not to welcome it,_ Ran realized.

Ran watched Kid and Shinichi subside into lassitude, too far gone to even unfold themselves into a more comfortable position. _Don't the French call it a 'little death'?_ she thought, smiling a little to see not that their whole expressions - not only Shinichi's, but even the normally-guarded Kid's - were smooth, free of stress and concern. She reached out gently, stroking sweaty hair back from the thief's forehead; he stirred only the littlest bit, nothing like the edgy, wary self-awareness that she'd seen him demonstrate on so many prior occasions. Ran touched Shinichi's brow next, tracing its curve with two fingertips. He stirred, murmuring a question that sounded like it was supposed to be a name, though whether hers or Kid's, Ran didn't know.

_Can't blame him. I would be pretty much the same if I got to feel like that._ Ran snuggled against the soft blankets beneath her, a luxurious shiver running across her body as memories feathered through her nerves, lighting them all up. _Except, I did. I...I had my own today, too. Well. More than one. Quite a few more than one._ Ran shivered again, remembering and already wanting more.

"There's so much more waiting for us after today," she murmured, resisting the urge to reach out and kiss any bit of the beautiful pair before her. It would wake them, and they were still drifting too high and untethered for her to bring them back down to earth so soon. She would let them dream, and breathe. It wasn't getting late yet, not by a long shot. And with so much_good_ and _new_ to prepare for, Ran decided, they'd have to make sure to pack quite a bit of death into their schedule before Yukiko and Yuusaku returned. Lots and lots of death, in many many little packages.

* * *

"......I think my hips are broken..."

"Ai-chan'll be upset; you haven't even worn out your warranty yet, Shinichi."

"Mmhmm. Don't care. Oh my god, _so_ don't care. Don't care if I never walk again."

"You'll have to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, then. Or in bed."

"Bed sounds good."

"Mmhmm..."

"...you keep doing that and we'll never get up. Where's shy, modest Ran-chan gone to? Oh wait, she must've gotten left behind with that _little tiny white bikini_ you wore when we went to the beach last summer, you know, the one with the ties--"

"I _like_ that swimsuit."

"Oh, me too. Just about made me pop a few of my seven-year-old rivets, though; Heiji laughed his ass off. He--"

".....gnnngh.....Tantei-san, Ran.... aren't we..." _(yaaaawn)_ "...s'posed to be, mmm, I don't know, all romantic and soulful on waking up together and... you know, you're absolutely right. My hips hurt. And my back. Ow."

"Try not to move at all, it's working for me. How long've you been awake?"

"Since you started groaning. Thought.... oh, thought you'd started something without me..... I don't want to get up."

"Me either."

"No.... maybe just another hour? --ow, Shinichi, you've got your elbow on my _hair,_ Shinichi--"

"Sorry, arm fell asleep. You're heavy."

"Am _not."_

"Are too--"

"I am NOT, you're justmmmhmmm...... oohh...."

"Not, as they say, playing cricket, Tantei-san, though I think she doesn't mind. Don't forget, she has two!"

"MMPHF. Mmm... Ran....."

"So, is she heavy? At the moment, I mean? Oh, never mind, I doubt you'd notice now anyway, Tantei. Kiss the other one now. Mmm, like that."

* * *

"--should we wake her up?"

"Let her sleep. I cause her enough sleepless nights as it is."

"Shhh; there, that's good, like that. And now you've got an entirely new reason to cause her unrest, a much better one. Ahh-- Sh-- Shinichi, you--"

"...Yeah?"

"...n-nothing; don't let me-- oh, nnngh, that's _exactly...._ don't let me--- in, interrupt you....."

* * *

"Do we have to?"

"Do you want your kaasan and tousan knocking on the door, demanding to know if we're still alive in here? I'm sure they've got a key. AND a camera."

"..............it's not locked. It's not even _closed._"

"But she has a point, you know; and there's only one exit. Perhaps a shower?"

"And laundry, and something that doesn't flap when you turn around--"

"But you looked so lovely, Ran; and orchids on your pareo, of course. I'd pull an orchid out of nowhere for you right now but, ahh, I seem to be a little worn out."

"Really? Imagine that..."

* * *

Showers were a good idea. So was laundry; so was moving slowly and carefully.

It was an embarrassing but unavoidable fact of life that sex uses muscles that nothing else does, save perhaps childbirth. All three were grimacing slightly and moving with care, especially Shinichi; his joints seemed to have developed extra ways to bend, and certain bits were distinctly on the sore side. Thankful for the fact that his parents' master suite upstairs had an extra-large European-style shower, he made a proposal that met with general approval and the three spent a certain amount of time scrubbing each other's hair. And backs, of course.

Kid sang in the shower, off-key but strangely tuneful. And the way he looked with soap-suds sliding down his shoulders and chest and his long, lean thighs, face upraised to the torrent and singing softly... almost derailed the shower idea entirely and made the other two forget their aching muscles, if the hot water hadn't run out at that point. Laughing and cursing, scrambling for the towels and dripping everywhere, they soaked the bathroom rug and padded down the hall to search for clothing in Shinichi's bedroom.

Which was very nearly another almost-bad/good-idea, really, but since the clock on the nightstand was blinking just short of six p.m.....

Kid was much of a size to Shinichi; the cableknit dark green sweater and black jeans that had been hanging in the closet for more than a year fit well enough, though Shinichi's own brown sweatshirt and jeans hung slightly loose on his thin frame. The washer buzzer went off just as they made it down the last few stairs; Ran vanished into the laundry room to transfer the damp sheets into the dryer (they'd hand-washed the black silk pareo at her insistence; it was currently drying on a hanger in Shinichi's room), leaving the other two to take care of such little details as empty foil packs, et cetera. That done, when Ran came out in her borrowed sweater and a pair of Yukiko's sweats, she found the detective and the thief sprawled together on the library's oversized couch, lazily watching a drama of some sort on the television. Or pretending to; Kid had one hand on Shinichi's hip and was tracing slow spirals there with his forefinger as if drawing a topographical map, the concentric lines spreading ever wider and threatening to dip down into some truly interesting territory. The landscape didn't seem to mind this at all, but Ran shook her head. "No hot water," she reminded them both as she curled up on a large floor cushion against the front of the couch. "Cold showers. COLD."

Shinichi stuck out his tongue. Ran leaned up and captured it, while Kid switched his cartological studies to her neck and shoulders.

For a little while they half-drowsed, the aftereffects of adrenalin and endorphins taking their toll. It was good to just curl around each other, to touch with the memory of urgency but not the drive (or at least not at the moment), to just _be_ for a little while. They spoke very little, and most of what they said had less to do with the warm, sated contentment that drugged their limbs and more to do with idle things. It was enough.

...until later, anyway.

In the meantime, Shinichi made popcorn.

* * *

The movie (whatever it'd been) had ended and something familiar and space-oddysseyish had started when they heard the voices outside the front door, loud ones: Yukiko's cheerful prattling, her husband's cordial baritone, and another voice that made Mouri Ran's eyes shoot almost impossibly wide as she slid from where she'd managed to wedge herself on the crowded couch and landed painfully on the floor.

By the time the door was open, though, the three teenagers blinked innocently up from their comfortable, absolutely fully-dressed, absolutely we've-been-this-way-for-HOURS-now places on the couch and two chairs that faced the TV. "Oh, Kaasan, Tousan, hi," said their son with creditable casualness. He held up a bowl. "Popcorn?"

His mother blinked at the three faces, only one of which was flushing guiltily. _"Thank_ you, Shin-chan, but actually we just ate..." She held up a bag, rustling it invitingly. "And we brought back something for all three of you, as promised. Did you have a nice time?" Behind her, Yuusaku cleared his throat. "--watching your movies?"

"...oh yes. Wonderful."

"Really? Whatever _did_ you watch?" Yukiko beamed at the three, and Ran twitched.

Kid cleared his throat, an affable version of his Poker Face settling in and making itself very much at home after its long absence. "The original _Star Wars_ trilogy, Kudo-san; or as much as we could fit in. I'm afraid I insisted." He sighed deeply, his gaze never straying from his friend's mother's, though he was quite acutely aware of the moustached detective who was just shuffling his way into a pair of house-scuffs behind both Kudos. "I'm such a fan, especially of trilogies," he explained seriously, "and when Mouri-san-- we met at the park a while back, you know-- called me and told me he was back in town for a little, I just had to come over." He smiled lazily. "And watch."

There was a gruff throat-clearing, and Mouri Kogoro loomed up beside Yukiko, a dubious scowl settling on his face like a thundercloud as he surveyed the living room's occupants. Some of his frown lightened as his daughter came into view, seated almost primly by herself on the couch; however, it darkened again as Shinichi shifted in his chair. "Boy," he said gruffly. "It's been a while since we saw you around here. What's this about a case? And--" he looked from Shinichi to Ran, the thundercloud beginning to growl and show flashes of lightning. "--where have _you_been all day, Ran?"

"Teacher's Workday," she said faintly, which was actually the truth. "And, and last night I... stayed over at Agasa-hakase's. To keep Conan-kun company, he's still s-so sick..." And _that_ was all true too, for a given value of 'true'.

"Hrrmm," said her father, brows beetled. "Agasa's, yes. He called me." His sharp eyes swung back to the other teenager in the room, the one with the thing for trilogies. "And who might you be?"

"Toichi's son, isn't it?" Yuusaku asked, stepping forward with a smile and a hand extended for Kid. "So good to see you again, Kaito." He hovered on the o sound for a bare second, stopping just short of turning it into the long o of _kaitou_. Kid noticed, of course, and his returned smile acknowledged the nonstandard form of address as a private allowance, just between them two.

"My apologies for not introducing myself before spending time with your daughter, Mouri-tantei," he said next, turning to offer a hand for Mouri with as much sincerity, if not more, than he had offered Yuusaku. As everyone in the room _except_ Mouri knew why that might be, only the detective was left flustered as Kid expectantly offered his hand, rather than a bow, until Mouri belatedly caught up to speed and offered his hand, trying to avoid snubbing the younger man. Suddenly feigning alarm, Kid clutched Mouri's hand with both hands and shook anxiously, his wide-eyed expression a perfect painting of social mis-step.

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, I didn't even think," he said, continuing to shake Mouri's hand with both of his own. "I spent so much time in America and Europe when I was young that I just -- oh, I am so sorry." He bowed over their clasped hands, without releasing the detective. Behind Mouri and well out of his field of vision, Yukiko smothered her titters in one palm, and Yuusaku was visibly torn between developing a headache and indulging a weird sort of pride. On the couch, Shinichi and Ran had to borrow Kid's Poker Face to keep their expressions limited to only the sort of confusion that would be socially acceptable, rather than the sort of confusion that wondered what Kid was up to and what they'd all be wearing when the explosions happened.

At the furthest opposite end of his arm that he could manage, Mouri cleared his throat uncomfortably and tugged experimentally, then more firmly, on his hand, trying to free it. "Ahm. Excuse me, uh, Kaito-kun..." He got nowhere, until Kid's head popped up, the thief standing up again with _another_ alarmed expression.

"Oh! Right. I'm -- um." Kid released Mouri's hand as if it burned him, dunking the detective in yet another layer of confusion. Kid stood with closed hands at his sides, very still as though trying very hard not to do anything _else_ stupid, while Mouri recovered.

His hand finally free, Mouri snatched it back with more paranoia than he could really justify. This boy seemed ...well, he didn't seem the right type to hang around with Ran-chan...much too forward. And he didn't seem like he could keep up very well with the detective boy, either. Confused but only showing half of it, Mouri straightened his jacket and cuffs, squaring his shoulders with a harummph.

"Well. I see how, ahm, that is. Did you like America?"

Kid _beamed,_ showing his teeth. "Oh, yes. So many beautiful things to see. And Europe has even more of them! I would love to go back, any time I could. I have, well." He looked embarrassed, a little sheepish expression entering his eyes that made Yukiko squeak. "I have this embarrassing fondness for _o miyage_, souvenirs, you see, and-- well, it's quite girlish of me. But I do love to collect shiny trinkets."

A loud snort from Shinichi's direction made Kid turn, offended, his hands in fists on his hips. "See?" He turned back to Mouri, his manner gradually mellowing out into something much closer to his normal, at-rest good humor. Hands folding behind his back, out of view of Mouri, Kid smiled at the detective with a sophisticated sociability completely at odds with his earlier clumsiness. Mouri seemed not to notice - or unwilling to question the gift - and smiled back.

"Ran-chan is very fond of souvenirs too," he said, "And I can't deny having a few collectibles of my own around the house. I have one of the very rare Yoko-chan talking alarm clocks...only ten of them were ever made!" As Mouri continued on this track, his entire audience except for Kid quickly losing interest, the thief's hands were fluttering in small, attention-getting motions at the small of his back. Ran and Shinichi's attentions were drawn to the motion, of course...and to the sparkle that the thief was rolling between his fingertips.

Shinichi could identify them by nature of owning his own pair. Ran could identify them because she'd fished them out from under the sofa countless times. They were Mouri's cufflinks, one of his middling-good pairs, set with blue and black enamel on silver. What he'd been doing wearing them _tonight_, neither of the two teens could guess, but whether he'd realize they were gone before they were returned was even more doubtful. Shinichi shot Ran a little Look; Ran returned it with interest; and both of them glanced back to the thief, just in time to see him bend his fingers - wrists bent at an insane angle so that the gesture remained both upright and hidden - into a little heart, the tips of his index fingers pressed together, thumbs touching above them. One cufflink was pinched under the curve of his knuckles on each side of the heart; the two chips of blue color, like the lake blue of his eyes, Shinichi's, or Ran's, were contained within the loop of his fingers.

This time, they didn't even have to look at each other. _We are in so, so much trouble._

* * *

**.**

**.**

**Three Thieves Omake: **_"Crystal Clear"_  
PG

"Ne, Hei~ji."

"What is it, Kazuha?" He leaned over the back of his computer chair, eyeing the girl laid across his bed. On her back, she tipped her head up to look at him; both of them upside-down, they saw each other right-side up.

"We should spar."

Heiji snorted. "I'd kick your ass, Kazuha."

"_Heiji,_" she protested, slapping the mattress for his attention. "I mean it! I've gotten really good at my aikido, and I want to see if I could beat you."

"Kendo and aikido are completely different," he said, one hand waving the thought away. "I'm way stronger than you."

"Aikido makes that not matter as much," Kazuha protested. "I've taken down lots of big guys, bigger than you, you skinny stick."

"Hey now, at least I'm not an ahou like you," Heiji countered, closing his eyes. The after-school afternoon sunlight across her face and throat was way too distracting. "You almost got yourself killed every time you've tried something like that."

"Like what?" Kazuha asked, crossing her arms behind her head. Her ponytail slipped across the sheets; he could hear it.

"Like when you kicked that guy's ass at the temple," Heiji said, cracking one eye open. He winced as soon as he saw her expression, smug and toothy.

Kazuha rolled onto her belly, propping her chin up with both hands and a big grin. "You sa~id it. You said I kicked his ass."

"Well you _did,_ ahou. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who won when one of the people's on the ground. But it was still stupid, you could have died."

"Says the guy who was running all over a _rooftop_ with a busted rib!" Kazuha countered. "Anyway, you said it, so I can give you this now."

"Huh?" Heiji asked, blinking both eyes open and shading them against the way the sunlight bounced off of the thing in Kazuha's hand. She held it out for him; the sunlight moved off of it, and Heiji reached his hand over his head to receive it.

"That chibi told me how you had to give up your other lucky crystal. So now you get a new one. Cause...well, cause."

Heiji stared at the little bead of glass between his fingers - faceted on one side, smooth on the other. A random off-shape, off-size glass crystal, less wide across than his fingernail. She'd probably gotten it online, or from a kids' capsule machine.

"Well, don't _stare_ at it so long." Kazuha smacked him across the back of the head, getting up from his bed with a huff. "It's just a stupid crystal so you can find your first love. It doesn't even look like the first one you had." She crossed her arms, her stance aggressive. "Anyway, I'm gonna go. I still want to spar you, Heiji, don't you forget about it!"

* * *

A few days later...

"Ne, Hei~ji. Guess what?"

".....what.....?"

"You don't look like any less of an ahou from up here."

"I--" He rolled over onto his hands and knees, laboriously climbing to his feet; the kendo armor hampered his movements-- it wasn't designed for crawling, and the shin-guards got in the way something fierce. "--am gonna _feed_ you this bokkun, you hear me?" She skipped back a step, nimble in her lighter, more comfortable gi and cotton pants. "And anyway, you know I'm not gonna hit you, so I still say this isn't an equal match." Eyes wary, he tracked her as he took his stance on the smooth wooden floor again.

Heiji _couldn't_ hit Kazuha; he just couldn't, not with his solid, heavy sword; every bit of his training and every piece of his heart said _You Will Not Do This,_ and that was that. The few times he'd actually gone up against an opponent outside a dojo and in earnest... Those'd been different, they'd been the bad guys and he'd been the hero and... just no.

(Tucked inside his collar in the little omamouri bag, the tiny crystal bead she'd given him clinked against the scrap of metal there as if to emphasize the 'no' ringing inside his mind as he shifted from foot to foot.)

…and besides which, Kazuha was pretty damn good. For an ahou. Not Neechan's level, no, but pretty damn good. Still-- She was eyeing him now, frowning. "Not an equal match? You're just afraid I'll kick your ass again."

"You did NOT kick my--"

"Sure looked like it from up here--"

"I tripped!"

"You _fell!_"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did n-- wait. Wait, this is stupid." Heiji traded glares with Kazuha. "I can't hit you, so it's not a fair match, right? And if you kick me or try a throw, you'll break something." He pulled off his _men_, the mask and headgear that went with his armor. Below the padded _tengumi_ that covered his forehead his green eyes gleamed. "And y'know, Kazuha, I've got an idea... Lemmee see your hands."

A little warily she held them out. "Why?" He took them in his own gloved hands, the palms and fingers smaller than his own but very strong. "Hm. Woman's size medium-- would've pegged you for a small." He let go and then went from the dojo to rummage around in the cabinets in the small equipment room. He returned a few moments later with an armload of gear. "Okay, these're _kote__,"_ he said, offering a set of long, padded gloves of leather and cloth. "Put these on." He began to shrug off his breastplate, carefully placing his _men_ on a nearby bench.

"Heeeeiiiiiji," Kazuha said warily, "you're not gonna try to teach me kendo, are you? 'Cause I don't think--"

"Yeah, y'can just call me Sensei," snarked her friend, muffled behind the towel he was using wipe his face with. "No way. But-- you got some training with a _bokken,_ right? Think you could manage a _shinai_ instead?"

One eyebrow went up slowly, first in incredulity and then in intrigue.

* * *

Forty sweaty, fumbling, trial-and-error minutes later.....

Kazuha wiped her forehead; she was dripping and her hairtie was at half-mast, but there was satisfaction in her eyes as she sagged against the dojo wall. "Want to go again?" she asked cheerfully, rubbing at a bruise on her shoulder. Heiji grinned back at her, passing over a bottle of water.

"Liked that, huh?" He carefully checked the ties on his shinai. "Our styles ain't anything like the same, but I figured it'd work." The bizarre match had drawn on both aikido and kendo moves; the lightweight swords had kept damage to a minimum, though both had landed blows that the other'd be feeling the next day. At Kazuha's tired but enthusiastic nod, he tugged off his _kote_ and wiped his hands on the towel he'd put by earlier. "You want some water first?"

For a little while the two friends sat on the bench, water-bottles in hand, cooling off in the quiet dojo. Outside, the day was filtering through the last hours of a Saturday afternoon; early spring birds were shouting at each other as they settled on rooftops and in branches. "'Zuha?"

"Hm?"

"Why'd you want to spar?"

At first he thought she'd refused to answer, what with the half-annoyed, half-embarrassed look he got in answer. But then Kazuha's bottom lip stuck out in that way it usually did just before she attempted to smack him on the back of the head, and she raised her chin, tapping her bottle of water against the edge of the bench. "'Cause… most of the time when I talk to you, it turns into an argument. And you run off, or you call Kudo, or you go and play with the chibi and get stuck in some stupid case where dead bodies or cows or _both_ fall on your head—"

"—waitaminute, that was NOT my f—"

"—or you fall overboard or get shot or hit on the head or set on fire—"

"—those only happened once, except the head thing. And when did I get set on fire?"

"—and anyway, I wanted to… I never get to…" _Thunk!_ went the bottom of Kazuha's water-bottle against the bench. "If the only time I ever get to talk to you it's gonna turn into an argument, I thought… maybe it might as well be a fun one. And you LIKE to spar. So do I. So…" The bottle thumped against the bench again.

"…oh."

"Yeah." She up-ended the bottle, swallowing half of it in one long gulp. Sweat sheened Kazuha's forehead and the hollow of her throat in tiny, glistening droplets like beads of crystal. Her hair was really coming down now, and Heiji watched her in silence, resisting the itch in his fingers that wanted to reach out and tug her yellow hair-tie completely loose.

She really _wasn't_ half bad, for an ahou.

"So."

A little apprehensively, a little defiantly, Kazuha glanced sideways at him. "What?"

"Same time tomorrow?"

"……."

"What?" He gave her back something of the same look she'd given him only a few minutes earlier, equal shares of annoyance and embarrassment—and, just maybe, a touch of fondness. Not that he'd ever admit it, but-- "I had fun too. So, same time tomorrow?"

"……yeah."

And the grin Heiji received back was as wide as the dojo, crystal clear.


	29. Bright red ink, popcorn, Aoko

_**Book Three, Chapter Eight**__**:**__ "Bright red ink, popcorn, Aoko"  
Theme music: "__Dark Blue,__" Jack's Mannequin.  
Warnings for rain, and what it brings with it._

* * *

.

Shinichi wondered: when had so much of his life begun to revolve around the scent of coffee?

The Krups was going in the kitchen, burbling away at a second pot and filling the comfortable sitting area to the side of the library with its fragrant, bittersweet aroma; and somehow, they'd all ended up chatting about... detective work, which made his head ache in ways that it had never ached before. Kid- 'Kaito', the kaitou (and _God_ wasn't that a can of worms right there) had been duly impressed to realize that he'd just met the Great Sleeping Detective; Mouri had responded to his enthusiasm with his usual expansiveness and off-handed comments concerning his own greatness, deductive skill, history of solved cases, blah blah blah...

"...though I have to admit," he rumbled over his cup, "that this most recent one has me momentarily stumped. _Momentarily,"_ he added, waving a reassuring hand in the air. "Nothing stumps the Great Kogoro for long!"

His daughter fought a visible urge to roll her eyes, and Shinichi bit the inside of his cheek. You didn't burst out into laughter at a guest's expense. "I'm sure we'll see you stumpless in the near future, sir," said 'Kaito' with all the sincerity in the world, his hands clasped around his own cup.

"Hah, of course. Of course." The Great Kogoro turned his gaze towards Shinichi, skewering him. "So where've YOU been, hrm? What's all this 'secret case' nonsense? You've had Ran fretting, not that she ought to fret over-"

Shinichi stopped in mid-sip. _Okay, I can do this, I worked it out, right?_ Clearing his voice, when he looked up at the older man his gaze held just the right mixture of irritation and reluctant respect. "I- well, it's... I suppose you'd call it a 'deep cover' case. I was contacted some time back by the authorities- I can't say which- about a need for a reliable contact in a high school, and... it's not like many investigators can pass for high school age, ne?" He grimaced. "So it's been more like a change of schools than anything, and... I can't give details past that. You know how it is."

_And that's the most vague bunch of utter crap on the planet. But it isn't threatening, it puts an emphasis on my age or lack thereof- yeah, right- it's obviously got parental approval, and it's feasible. Flimsy as wet cardboard, but feasible. And I think you'll swallow it._

"Hrrmrm." The dark eyes- Ran got her coloring mostly from her mother- frowned at him. "There've been rumors floating around that you were dead, boy," Mouri said, watching him with the same look that he gave Conan when he was getting underfoot and about to receive a thwap on the head. "What about that?"

Shinichi shrugged; his father cleared his throat a little warningly, and his son sighed. "I don't want to dissuade them," he said with very little enthusiasm. "I don't know how long I'll be at this, I don't know what'll happen later, and... the less anybody has to say about where I am or what I'm doing, the better." He raised an eyebrow at the Sleeping Detective. "You worked undercover when you were a cop from time to time, didn't you? And I'm not trained for this, so..." He let the words trail off, threading boredom and a little uncertainty into the last phrase._Nothing to worry about, just back for a few days, nothing you need to look into. Not worth the effort, right? Right._ Because Mouri Kogoro was not precisely a stupid man so much as a rather lazy one; and so long as he didn't discern a threat of any kind, he was very unlikely to poke his nose into places where it could be cut off.

Ran breathed a carefully muted sigh of relief; in the other chair, 'Kaito' merely breathed in the wisps of steam from his coffee with a blissful expression of contentment.

The talk turned to Yuusaku and Yukiko's recent travels, and to the stage; Mouri was delighted to find that his idol Yoko had shared a variety show with Yukiko at one point in the previous year _("SUCH a lovely voice, Mouri-san! And such a range!")_ and for a while he waxed enthusiastic regarding her talents, her beauty, her sparkling personality- at about the time that he'd hit on a detailed description of her own recent fledgling venture into acting (causing Yukiko's eyes to glaze over slightly) that the three younger members of the party excused themselves to go heat up the restaurant leftovers and move their own talk into the small breakfast-nook at the far end of the kitchen.

* * *

Solemnly, Kid poured a cup of the excellent coffee into Ran's cup with a consoling air. "He likes to talk, doesn't he? Your tousan, I mean."

Ran accepted the cup and closed her eyes, allowing the steam to bathe her face. "Tousan is- that is, he's..." She groaned. "I feel like I have _things_ written all over my forehead in bright red ink for him to read."

The microwave beeped. In the kitchen, Shinichi busied himself with plates and reheated tortellini; Yuusaku had a particular fondness for Italian, and his son wondered if _Italiano-Sama Bistro_had a new cook yet. "Things? Like?" he said, passing around the dishes. The voices of the older Kudos and their guest filtered thinly through the closed kitchen door.

"'Slept With People'. Or," and she blushed almost as red as the pasta-sauce, "'Not A Virgin Now'. -It's okay, you _know_ it's okay, it's just-"

Shinichi reached up and brushed Ran's hair aside from her forehead, studying it intently. "Hmmmm... yeah, I see a few things. This one" (and he tapped above her left eyebrow with a fingertip) "says 'Absolutely Beautiful'. And this one over here says- can you read it, Kid?" Blue eyes mischievous, he glanced at the other.

"Mmm, it's tiny, I can't see it from this far," Kid muttered, sliding closer, bending to peer exceptionally closely at the corner of Ran's right eye. Her blush rose higher under his scrutiny, and she was half a second from making apologies for her skin - Kid could _hear_ her formulating the excuse - when he distracted her with the touch of a gentle fingertip, soft and light as a kiss. His breath was warm on her cheek and ear.

"Irresistible," he murmured, abruptly giving her personal space back, plus extra, wearing a bright, broad smile and matching mischief in his eyes. "Though it might be related in theme to the little tiny "Delicious" that I noticed just underneath here..." Mouth quirking in a savory variation on his grin, he brushed the side of one palm across his own ribcage, just below the chest, palm upturned as though supporting a broad and rounded-

"Okay!" Ran squeaked, waving her hands at both of them (Shinichi had been laughing) with an even deeper blush rising all the way to her hairline. "Stop it, just - gah, Kid, don't let Tousan see you doing that," she stammered. "I get it, I get it."

"You sure?" Kid raised one brow in a perfectly provocative curve. "Because now I find myself wanting to play a wordsearch...it's been so long since I played one of those," he said, tone innocently musing, expression wickedly suggestive.

Shinichi cleared his throat. "My parents? Are in. The. _House._"

Kid pivoted on his heel and turned an absolutely uncrackable grin on Shinichi. The detective had his hand to his brow, rubbing his temples, before Kid had even begun to speak. "As is Ran's tousan!" Kid added brightly. "It's a very big hou-"

"_No._"

Kid's grin didn't even flicker, even though _both_ the others' glares were dialed rather substantially closer to the 'really not joking around anymore' end of the spectrum by this point.

"...We could leave the house?"

Shinichi blinked. That sounded like a _really good idea_ except- "Hm. It's dark out, it's late, we need some place where I won't be recognized- what's open late on a Friday night...?" It was such a cliché, but at the same time it was perfect. "Want to go to the movies again?" he suggested. "And this time all I'll have to do is wrap up against the weather, no latex or makeup or anything like that." He'd vaguely noticed earlier that it was raining outside the windows, but he'd been thinking of things that had very little to do with the weather at the time. Still, rain made for horrible surveilance, the Kudos were obviously and visibly home now and therefore sneaking away wasn't so necessary, and... movies. In the dark, with Kid and Ran.

"Movies sound good," said Ran thoughtfully. "Tousan wouldn't care so much since there are, well... three of us..." Her eyes met Shinichi's and then Kid's, and a spark of the same mischief made them crinkle. "Somebody needs to rewrite that old thing about 'two's company, three's a crowd', I guess, don't they? So- what'll we go see?"

"Does it matter?" Shinichi smoothed the hair back from her forehead again. He glanced at Kid with the same warm expression, and his hand followed through to brush Kid's hair back as well. "And maybe you can teach me how to play wordsearch, hm?" The thief captured his fingers, grinning, and kissed the tips.

"Oh, definitely, Tantei-san." Ran squeaked but notably made no protest whatsoever.

The tortellini didn't last long; neither did the explanation to the Kudos and their guest about the movies idea. Mouri bridled, though, his glare increasing tenfold as he fixed Shinichi with a look that said that the Shovel Speech was imminent... until he abruptly deflated, eyeing 'Kaito' cautiously. "You're going too? It'll be the three of you?" he asked with deep suspicion, and the word 'chaperone' hung almost visibly in the air. This seemed to lessen his anxiety considerably, which (all things considered) was enough to break _anyone's_ brain.

"Oh, definitely," Kid assured the detective, nodding solemnly. "I'll be with them the _whole time._" Mouri seemed to be waiting for further reassurance; Kid glanced left, then right, meeting each of his companions' gazes by turns, and then looked back at Mouri with a bombproof Poker Face in place. "I'll keep these two troublemakers out of any mischief."

Behind Mouri, Yukiko bit her lip until it turned white, silently holding back giggles, and Yuusaku stepped forward with an admirably straight face to address both his guest and 'Kaito'.

"I think it'll be fine, Mouri-san. Kaito's family are good friends of ours. I'll speak for his integrity. He'll keep them both safe."

Mouri harummphed, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's not _safe_ that I'm worried about, Ran can take care of herself. It's the _boy_ I don't trust." He aimed one last glare in Shinichi's direction. Shinichi, for his part, did his best to look harmless.

Ran interjected at this point, putting on her housewife voice. "Mou, Tou-saaaan," she grumbled, one brow rising critically, "Shinichi's not a criminal or anything, sheesh! It'll be fine. We're all going together."

"And I'll personally make sure she gets home safe," the actual, real-life criminal in their midst assured the former cop solemnly, eyes wide and sparkling with purest sincerity. "You can trust me; I'm _very_ trustworthy, Mouri-san. Aren't I?" he appealed to Yuusaku, who nodded with commendable seriousness; Yukiko closed her eyes. "So there we are. Movie starts at eleven, we'd better get moving- Kudo-kun, do you have a jacket I can borrow? It's absolutely pouring out there."

Leaving Ran reluctantly behind, the two headed up the stairs back to Shinichi's room. _"'Not a criminal or anything,'_ she says. _'Very trustworthy,'_ he says." Shoving open the sliding-door to his closet, the detective gave the thief an amused, slightly sulky look. "Spend ONE year hiding out in disguise and nobody trusts you anymore," he mock-complained, pulling out a black peacoat. "And what's with the dropping Ran off thing?"

"It's not like her father'd agree to a sleepover, Tantei," said Kid, shrugging his shoulders into the sleeves. "Mm, nice. Of course," he added, "they do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"I suppose..." It wrenched a little, realistic as it was, to think about separating; but so it went. Still sulking just a little, Shinichi dug out a heavy dark blue coat for himself as well as a knit cap and a pair of scarves, both in black. "Here, might as well wrap up too. I hope Kaasan's got something for Ran," he murmured, turning around to pass one over. "...Kid?" he asked a little hesitantly; there was a worry niggling at his mind, and it was best to get it out of the way now. "Can I ask you something?"

Kid responded to the hesitance in Shinichi's expression and bearing with earnesty of his own; reaching around Shinichi's neck to straighten the collar of his coat, palms smoothing across the planes of his shoulders. "Anything, Tantei. Is something the matter?"

Shinichi allowed his chin to drop, leaning forward just a little, just enough that their hair brushed together. "I- don't know. I mean, no, not now, but... In a little more than a day I'm going to turn back. Is that- going to make it harder? For us to talk, I mean, just- Aaagh; I don't know how to say this." In frustration he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm going to be back the way I was, you and Ran'll be the way you are, and... I guess I... just don't want there to be any regrets. That's all. Does that make sense?"

"I'm not...sure," Kid admitted, tipping his head and pressing forward, til their brows touched. He shifted, skin gently stroking skin, and rested his temple against Shinichi's; their pulses beat against each other in gentle counterpoint. Kid's voice dropped to a murmur, volume unnecessary at such close distance, and worry filtered into his tones as he spoke.

"Do you mean...regrets between you and me, Shinichi?"

The answer was quick, and even with the worry it was very definite. "Not like that, no. I don't regret a thing. I _can't._ But you and Ran both've got the hard part, you've got to see me the way I'm going to be, and-" He ground his teeth in frustration; it was hard to put this in words without sounding like some adolescent schoolgirl. "I- when I'm like _that,_ I can't- and I don't want that to hurt you or Ran, and I don't want it to be awkward. I want... things to keep going. I want to know you're there, not have to dodge bullets because I'm... because I can't-" Embarrassment and a wrenching hurt, not for the moment but for the future, made the words stumble and stagger to a halt. "I'm being an idiot," Shinichi muttered, "but-"

"Do you mean bullets..." Kid shook his head, discarding Shinichi's awkward phrasing and trying again. "Are you worrying about us too much, Tantei? It won't be easy for you, either. Harder, because you're right... Ran and I will have each other. And...if that's alright with you...and with her...I would like to continue getting to know her. As a friend, and as your precious person." He pulled back a bit, far enough that he could hold Shinichi's eyes with his own. Lake blue mirrored lake blue, and the distress in one gaze was shared by the other. "Shinichi, I..." Kid bit his tongue and swallowed. "I _love_ you. And in this...this will be hardest on you. So it's yours to decide. What can Ran and I do to make it easie-well. Less painful?"

Shinichi's eyes had widened as Kid spoke, and tension drained away in a sudden rush as they closed for a moment. When they opened again, there was a simple, wry look of happiness replacing the worry. "You just made it better, just by saying that. I didn't want this, whatever the hell we're doing, to be cemented by me being back to my old self because... well, I _won't_be, not nearly often enough. Knowing you and Ran'll be alright and that you'll have each other... it will make it easier. I know what I'll be coming back to." He laughed a little, pulling his hands out of his pockets and tugging at Kid's lapels. "And... guess what? I love you too." The words were just barely audible. "Surprise." The kiss that followed was brief and very gentle, full of relief.

"They'll wonder where we are," Kid murmured, as they pulled apart. "We should go." But another small kiss had to punctuate that, of course, before Kid stepped back from Shinichi, spreading the distance between them and popping the little bubble of sanctuary that had formed around them. He pulled the sensation that remained back into his heart as he went, a fluttering, weak-in-the-knees feeling of relief and joy which he tucked deep where it would warm his body and keep his skin alight with a tingling glee all evening.

As they walked down the stairs, Kid shoved his hands forcibly into the pockets of his coat, as that was the only way he could resist the urge to take Shinichi's hand and hold it, a gesture both stereotypical and conventionally bold all at once. _Girlish of me, indeed,_ the thief smiled to himself, savoring the warmth that held at bay his worry about Shinichi's change to come. The little smile remained on his lips as Shinichi and he returned to the sitting room where Ran, her father, and Shinichi's parents waited; he swallowed it quickly, embarrassed behind his Poker Face at that small misstep. Apparently, he was more distracted than he thought.

Yuusaku was speaking to Mouri, very firmly; his daughter, one of Yukiko's quilted down coats zipped neatly over her borrowed clothes, was listening beside her father apprehensively. As the two came down the stairs her head turned, and some of the apprehension leaked away.

"-sure that we can rely on your sense of professionalism to not mention to _anyone whatsoever_ that you've seen our son, not even the authorities. It's very important, both to the case and to his continued well-being. We wouldn't want to compromise the investigation with a misplaced word, would we?" Mouri Kogoro puffed up a little, pride and self-importance working together more strongly to keep Shinichi's secret than simple discretion ever would. "And of course Shinichi and Kaito'll see that your daughter makes it home safe and sound." An engine-sound from outside made his head turn. "And I believe that's your cab, isn't it?" He clapped the private detective on the shoulder, smiling as his wife found the man's umbrella and coat for him. "Take care, Mouri-san, and I hope we'll see each other again very soon, ne? It's good to keep these old connections up."

The other man, nerves soothed and no longer bristling at the writer's son, shrugged into his trenchcoat. "Sou, sou. Lunch some time next week, maybe? If I'm not off on a case, of course."

"Of course, Mouri-san. And you three, you'd better get going or you'll miss your movie. Umbrellas, here- oh well, you'll all just have to share one." Yuusaku herded the three teenagers along behind the detective. "Be careful, have fun, good _night."_ The door closed behind all four with a final click even as Shinichi yanked his hat on, muffled to the nose. "There. Thank God."

His wife came up behind him, lacing her arms around him and hugging her husband tight. "I know, I know, isn't it awful? Having to be so, so... _responsible._ Parenting is just so terribly exhausting, isn't it, darling?" She leaned against Yuusaku, her face pensive (at least for the moment.) "Do you think they'll be alright?"

"I think," said the writer firmly, "that right now that's their business. And that we've done everything we can, and I for one want to spend the rest of the evening thinking about entirely other things." He caught up his wife's hand, kissing the knuckles gently. "Don't you?"

She squeezed him. "Well, of course I do. I have fifteen pages of lines to learn for that screening a week from now, and don't you have to organize your notes for the panel on Monday? And write up your speech for the Conference opening? And there's the banquet, you're part of the welcome committee, and... all the rest of it." Sighing, Kudo Yukiko slipped her arms from around her husband's waist and turned to head up the stairs. "So you get busy, why don't you, and I'll go take a long, hot bath while I study my lines, hm? But don't stay up TOO late, love, or you'll get bags under your eyes." She blew him a kiss and scurried up the stairs.

"...Ahh. Right," said Yuusaku a little gloomily. With a sigh, he turned away towards the kitchen to brew a third pot of coffee.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Three for...ahm..."

"That one."

"Kiiiid, you have your _eyes closed_. Why are _you_ picking the movie?"

"He was about to throw a dart at the wall, too. I just sped the process up."

"Do you even know what you pointed at?"

"Nope. Why, does it really matt...errr, what's so funny, Tantei?"

"Ahah. Nothing. Nothing at all. Oh, god. Heeee."

"You should work on your 'Trust Me' voice, Tantei. Excuse me, ahm, what did we just buy tickets for?"

_*blink*_

"The movie? That I pointed at with my eyes closed? Which one did I point at?"

"MegaShark Versus the Continental Killer Tuna, sir."

"..."

"Kid? Kid, what's wrong? Shini-ah, uhm, oh, stop laughing at him! Look at him, he's white as a sheet! Stop _laughing,_ you!"

"I ca-ca-can't, oh god, ow, it hurts, bwahaha! Oh god, Kid, your _face!_"

"Excuse me, sir, could I exchange these tickets for three for another movie?"

"Sunday night retro screening tickets can't be exchanged, sir. They're the cheapest in the house."

"Then I'd like to buy three new tickets, please."

_*yawn*_ "What film, please."

"One with absolutely no fi-fi-ocean-borne creatures. Or monsters. Or seafood dinners. Or-"

"I get the idea, sir. Three for _A Walk to Remember."_

* * *

The movie wasn't new, it was subtitled rather than dubbed, and the hour was late; the theater was therefore only about a quarter full, which suited the three fine. They settled into the back row, Kid to the right, Shinichi in the middle ("For convienience," said Kid innocently) and Ran to the left. Popcorn and sodas in hand, they settled down with extremely little interest in the movie and quite a lot of giggling, which drew the occasional head-turn from the viewers many rows down. But the theater's slope was inordinately steep and the lighting in the back very dim, making visibility and recognition a non-issue.

"You know," whispered Shinichi to them both over the cover of passing popcorn back and forth, "this is the most stereotypical thing I've ever done in my _life._ Necking in the back of a movie theater-"

"Shin_ichi._ We haven't-" Ran gave him a Look, her blush invisible in the shadows.

"Not yet we haven't," murmured Kid, and put a piece of ice down Shinichi's sweater.

They giggled together like naughty children, whispered together like adolescents playing hooky from school; it was silly and amazingly, guiltily enjoyable, and when Kid slipped an arm around Shinichi and met Ran doing the same thing, they traded conspiratory grins in the dark. The one piece of ice multiplied into several, at least one of which made it dead-center into Ran's bra, causing a yelp; she muttered something incoherent and threatening and removed it herself despite earnest offers of help, and informed the other two that any more ice down her neck would meet with instant retaliation of the same kind, only in their laps. "And no, I _won't_ help you with it, you'll just have to manage on your own." Her eyes gleamed. "Or help each other out," Ran murmured almost primly.

"Well, there is that," Kid murmured back, climbing out of his seat and into Shinichi's. The projector light, just above their heads, cast a halo glow through the hair on the top of Kid's head, and Shinichi snorted at the effect.

"You are the _least_ angelic-mmmph!" Arms wrapped around Shinichi's neck, knees braced to either side of Shinichi's thighs, Kid effectively shut the detective up with a pushy kiss, which he eventually broke off for the _sole_ reason that there was abruptly a piece of ice down the back of his collar, and it was distracting as hell.

"Tantei," Kid grumbled under his breath, interrupted by a quiet titter from his left. "...Ran?"

"You were being greedy," she giggled. "I want a turn."

Kid's beaming grin caught the light as he lifted his mouth from Shinichi's and locked his attention onto Ran. Feeling vaguely like a deer in headlights, Ran held Kid's gaze as the thief clambered over the armrest between her seat and Shinichi's and settled into her lap. Since she was thinner than Shinichi, even despite his 'condition,' Kid was able to slide _right_ in, straddling her lap easily, until his knees hit the back of the seat and his wrists, crossed casually, came to rest on the seatback above her head. "Your turn, then, Mouri-chan," Kid whispered, teasing.

"It's _Ran,_" she growled, grabbing Kid with both hands and towing him down into a rough kiss, just as greedy as Ran had accused Shinichi of being.

This time, no ice cubes interrupted them. And when they finally came up for air - a good three scenes later, not that anyone was paying attention - they both looked to the side to find Shinichi watching them contentedly, chin propped on the heel of one hand, with a blissful smile on his face. "Never thought I'd like watching somebody else kiss you, Ran," he murmured softly. "I was always jealous, even when I would've rather died than admit it." He reached out and feathered his fingers through both their hair, just as he'd fantasized doing some time before: springy and soft, silky and fine. "Not now, though. Not at all. Not... at all. Though," he added with an attempt at innocence that fooled absolutely _no-one,_ "I wouldn't mind if somebody helped me out here with the popcorn. I mean, there's an awful lot left. Kid? Want to help?" And Shinichi very, VERY deliberately flicked a largish piece...

...right where the ice had gone down the front of Ran's vee-necked sweater only a little while earlier. It bounced in with surprising accuracy, and she yeeped. Kid snickered. "I'll fetch it," he volunteered brightly, and Ran made a startled noise a moment later for an entirely different reason. "Hm. Didn't realize you were wearing a t-shirt under your sweater, Ran," he teased, and the front of the knitted garment bunched interestingly as things came untucked beneath it.

Popcorn retrieval only took a moment. Kid helpfully tucked the t-shirt back in at the waist, causing much squirming on Ran's part; and all the while, Shinichi sat back with his chin still propped, fascinated. "I _will_ get you for that, Shinichi," warned his girlfriend, smoothing her hands over her flushed cheeks; the detective merely spread his hands wide in a 'go for it' gesture and continued to grin.

"Mmm... wonder what I should do with this?" asked Kid, examining the fluffy kernal in the dimness of the theater; onscreen, totally unnoticed, some sort of emotional and probably crucial scene was taking place. "Maaaybe I should keep it as a souvenir," he murmured, holding it up and catching the very edge of the projector's stream. "It's very shiny in its own way, considering the setting I removed it from. Or maybe I should-"

Two hands shot out, one from Shinichi and one from Ran, both determined to snatch the prize in question. _Flip!_ went the popcorn, straight up at least two meters over their heads; teeth snapped, and-

"Mhhine," said Kid, grinning, the kernel held perfectly between his teeth. Shinichi made an amused, exasperated noise and leaned forward quickly, both hands yanking Kid's collar. There was a momentary pause.

_"-ours,"_ said the detective with satisfaction, pulling back and crunching popcorn.

Ran covered her snickers behind one hand as the thief stared. "That's the second time you've stolen something I was going to eat! Are you trying to give me a complex?" Shinichi merely grinned.

* * *

The movie went well. That was not to say that it was a good movie, or a poor one; that it was interesting, or boring; Ran, Shinichi, and Kid really didn't _have_ an opinion on the actual film, but as for the process of attending a movie, spending time beside each other (and on each other) in the anonymity of public darkness - as for _that_ part, that went very well indeed.

They left the theater in the early hours of the morning, staying close to each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, and as Shinichi finished bundling up against the weather and recognition, Ran slipped her hand into his. On her other side, she took Kid's hand as well, squeezing tight. And they walked that way, masquerading as a trio of otherwise unremarkable friends, heading out of the theater complex towards home. Somewhere along the line, their order got shuffled, and Kid and Shinichi walked side-by-side, shoulders brushing. They couldn't get closer than that, though Shinichi knew it wasn't social convention, but only Kid's wariness of Shinichi's retaliation, that kept him from claiming the detective's hand for his own.

The street was busy, and the crowd grew more dense as they neared the train station that would take them back to the Kudo house. When they were less than twenty meters from the station escalator, a sharp female voice arced over the crowd noise, sending a shiver through Kid. Shinichi's attention turned to the thief as the call was repeated, comprehending the problem, and he reached one hand out for Ran's, squeezing tight and pulling her with him as he stepped back, putting anonymizing distance between them and their companion, who had fallen very still.

"_Kai-to!_" The call was much nearer this time, and a moment later, Nakamori Aoko pushed her way into view, tugging a double handful of shopping bags free of the crowd's press. Having caught her target, Aoko set her bags on the ground, both fists on her hips, and a frown on her face. "Kaito! I was waving at you three blocks ago, didn't you see me? Mikuru-chan said to tell you thank you for that time at the ice cream shop but I wanted to - Kaito, are you even listening?"

"I am," Kuroba Kaito said quietly, picking up Aoko's bags, half in each hand. His heartbeat sounded hollow in his own ears, catching his attention for an unfathomable reason. "You shouldn't put your bags down like that, someone will steal them. What are you even doing out at this hour? Your tousan's gonna be mad."

Aoko tsked. "Whatever, I could beat any old thief up, or you could. And he's busy working. And anyway, look who's talking. You aren't my kaa- oooh, lookit that, you did it again!" She leveled a finger at Kaito accusingly. "You were trying to distract me again. You do that every time we talk, anymore! Where have you _been,_ Kaito? Sensei says you're turning in all your work from home, but I don't even care about that, you've been absent so much recently and you're not at home when I come by and I _never_ get to see you except at school anymore because you're such an idiot, and even Koizumi is saying weird things about you, like _'You shouldn't wonder where he is, he told you already, Nakamori-san,'_ and I don't think I've gotten a straight answer out of you in a month. What the heck is going on? Kaito?"

"I've been really busy, Aoko," Kaito said, his voice steady. "And school's super boring. I just haven't felt like going. I've had better things to do." _And Jii-chan is good at coming up with reasons I'm 'not home'...though, most of the time, it's not been a complete lie. Kid's been home, but you wouldn't want to talk to him, would you?_

"Kai~to," Aoko growled. "More important than seeing all your friends? You never hang out with any of us outside of school!"

_I've had a lot of research to do recently, Aoko, would you like to hear about it?_ "You said it yourself, Aoko, I'm an annoying magic freak. You should be happy you haven't had to put up with my card tricks recently."

"I can cheat at the pick-a-card one already," Aoko countered, waving her hand dismissively. "You're not as great as you think you are. Kaito, are you mad at us or something?"

"I've never, ever been mad at you, Aoko," Kaito said quietly.

"What? Kaito, don't mumble."

"I said, why would I get mad at a silly girl like you?" Kaito shrugged, Aoko's bags rustling in his hands. "What all did you buy tonight, anyway? I'm sure you don't need all of this junk."

Aoko snatched the nearest few bags back with a hurt expression. "Well maybe I _don't,_" she snapped, hurt quickly morphing into anger. "I should just take it all back, then, if it's junk. I have all my receipts. Give it back, Kaito, I'll go take it back this minute, I bought it from an all night store anyway." She yanked on the handles of the bags he still held; stubborn as a mule, Kaito lifted them above her head, tightening his grip.

"Oh, you can't do that just yet, you have to show me," he said. "Show me what a silly girl spent all her money on."

"_No._" Aoko braced one foot on Kaito's hip and shoved, tugging with both hands; she fell backwards as the center bag ripped, handles tearing free of the paper, and the contents went clattering to the ground below. The muted crash of breaking glass accompanied a riotous explosion of diaphonous, colored silk scarves, falling toward the pavement. They fluttered lightly at first, slow enough that Kaito was able to catch and save a small handful of them, before fat drops of the rain that was just resuming smacked into the scarves and drove them down to the dirty, wet sidewalk. Several of them lay tangled and ruined among the remains of a small set of glass juggling balls, needle-thin slivers of glass inextricably crushed all through the fibers.

Aoko looked up to Kaito's face, defiant despite the tears that were starting to run down her cheeks, and the utterly lost expression she found there made her scream in frustration.

"You _baka_ magician! Do whatever you want, you stupid Kaito! God, I can't believe I even- you stupid magician, just - go on! Go on! I don't _care_ anymore, I really don't!" Leaving her bags on the ground in the rain behind her, Aoko ran off.

Kaito stood watching her go, one fist clutching the small handful of scarves he'd managed to catch. The rain soaked into their ends, sticking out between his fingers, and the fabric slowly darkened in color, spotting with water rings, as he stood motionless, with the remains of Aoko's gifts at his feet, catching and refracting the lurid neon of the shops and streetlights. His chest felt constricted, like someone was standing on it while he tried to breathe, and it felt (he wasn't sure) like there were bits missing inside of him, specifically where his heart normally was. _I can hide doves in there,_ he thought.

Eventually, without really thinking about it, Kaito raised the scarves to his face, wiping away the tears that were just beginning to gather in the corners of his eyes.

Quiet steps came up behind him, steps that stood out somehow in the pattering of raindrops and the sounds of people getting out of the weather in a hurry. They moved nearer and then stopped, neither too close nor (maybe) far enough away at all. "Ki-" said a hesitant voice that he both knew and yet had never heard before.

Pause.

_**"-oh."**_ There was a world of shock and recognition in that word. "...Kuroba-kun?"

Kudo Shinichi stood in the rain, clutching Mouri Ran's hand. Even muffled as he was in scarf and hat and upturned collar, the worried, steady eyes were still the same as those of the boy who'd watched a kaleidescope of rainbow-edged cards dance and wheel impossibly around the magician's hands not all that long before. If the face was unfamiliar, it was also familiar; if the voice was different, it was also the same. And right now there was nothing but concern there, and a desire to help.

Especially the latter; it practically breathed out of him, even if there was little he could do.

The girl beside him, face uncertain, looked from one to the other before reaching out hesitantly. "...what just happened here?" she asked. "That was- was that Nakamori-san? The Inspector's daughter?" The hand faltered, dropped, and a slow awareness that something was drastically different in the frozen figure before her began to raise question marks in Ran's eyes. "...What's wrong? You look... You're-"

Beside her, Shinichi shook his head quickly. "Ran, later; there're things you still don't know. But- Kuroba-kun? She hasn't gone very far, do you want us to-" The detective gestured at the bags and the scarves, now beginning to drip in Kaito's numb hands. "We'll take care of those," he said quietly. _"__Go after her__._ Do what you need to do; we'll be right here."

"I can't," Kuroba murmured, his lips barely moving. "I can't. She keeps trying to get closer to my secrets...even though...even though it would kill her to find out. She'll...she'll cope. I _have_been avoiding her...I _have_ been keeping her at arm's length. And still...still she..." His hand clenched tight around the scarves, Aoko's gift of concern, and pressed them to his lips; his eyes screwed shut in intense pain. "If I could just _tell_ her why it's better for her to just let me drift away...but I can't tell her, and she just won't let it lie..."

"She's crying. Over you."

Kuroba looked up sharply, at the same time as Shinichi's head whipped around. Both of them stared at Ran, who looked just as confused - more so - than either of them, but determined all the same.

"I don't understand a damn thing," she spat, "And I'm going to have _words_ with both of you for keeping secrets from me even still. But I can see you're crying, and I know she's crying too. And if you're both crying over each other, then you had better go fix that. And then come back here so I can yell at you two together."

Wide-eyed, Kuroba looked from Ran's expressive anger to Shinichi's need to _help_, finding support in each.

Shinichi closed his eyes for a moment, a thin line appearing between them as his expression tightened. "Kuroba... _**find**_ her. If she cares enough to cry over you, and if you care enough to do the same thing... Look," he said, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. "If somebody else made her that miserable, what wouldn't you do to try and fix it? Drifting away, that's no answer. 'She'll cope'? Do you _want_ her to just have to 'cope'?"

_"I_ 'coped,'" said Ran, less fiercely now but still with heat. "For more than a _year._ Maybe if I'd tried to push things, find out more, _listened_... I wouldn't have had to. Whatever's going on, whatever's making you both so miserable, just- just- aagh!" She waved her hands in the air. "TALK to her! You're not going to get anything fixed crying in the rain, and neither is she. Why are men so stupid?" She shoved the umbrella that she'd ended with in the confusion at Kaito; the rain was coming down heavier now, and as he took it she glared at him, eyes angry but also heartsick with worry. "Go on. We'll be waiting, and we won't leave even if it takes you all night." She picked up one of the sodden bags, then another, hair dripping.

Kaito looked from Shinichi to Ran, eyes wide and full of a dozen simultaneous emotions. "I...Kudo, I..." He bit back the rest of the words that wanted to follow, shaking his head once, hard. "I'll find her. Mouri-san, I'm...I'm sorry. Kudo, please explain it all."

And he ran.

* * *

_Explain it all? __Explain it all__? Kuroba, Kid, you both owe me for th- no. No debts, no owing. I've had it up to here with debts and guilt. I'm just going to tell her how things are, very carefully, and-_ Shinichi turned, the first tentative words beginning to form... and he saw Ran's face. The angry confusion had a lot of fear mixed in with it, and why not? She'd just seen somebody she thought she knew turn into somebody else. Hadn't they played that tune a few too many times? One more might be one too many.

So he swallowed his nerves and picked up the rest of the bags, feeling cold all through for other reasons than just the damp. "C'mon, there's a bench over there." When she didn't move, he met her eyes with his own, pleading. "Ran, please." Silently, she followed. It wasn't much of a shelter, just a bus-stop bench with the usual prefab metal sides and top, deserted at the early hour; but at least it funneled the rain away and might allow them to dry a bit, depending on how long Kuroba took to... do whatever he needed to do. Shoving the soggy bags beneath, he drew her down beside him and took Ran's hands in his own. "How angry are you?" Shinichi asked quietly.

"I- don't know. How angry do I need to be?"

Oh, those eyes; Shinichi closed his own, full of dread. They made him feel as small as, as a child who'd done something wrong. And he'd seen them so many new ways just lately, laughing and mischievous and wild with excitement, full of lassitude, drowsy and contented... Now they were guarded, waiting: expecting to be hurt, and when he opened his own again they were still waiting.

He couldn't _stand_ it. "There are," he said carefully, "two people inside Kid's- Kaito's- skull. From everything I've been told, it's a lot more complicated than a split personality, it's more... like..." Shinichi sighed. "I'm not sure how to explain this; hell, I don't really know if I have it right at all. But I think, I think," (and he emphasized the last word very deliberately) "that it's more like having siblings sharing a room. Maybe twins, maybe not; Kid told me that his first memory began on a rooftop during what I'm supposing was Kuroba's initial heist. My parents know about them too, and they didn't act all that surprised; it kind of made me wonder about his father, and about the original Kid." He squeezed her hands. "I didn't say anything to you before this because- and Ran, this isn't an excuse, it's just a reason- because it was something he needed to explain himself; I didn't have the right. And, well. It's not like we've been in the right kind of mood to talk about absent family, you know?"

She took this in silently, eyes dark with thought. "You called him 'Kuroba'. Kaito? That was him that I met in the park, then?" Ran's fingers clenched Shinichi's hard, their considerable strength tightening almost painfully. "He _did_ act differently; if I'd met them both at the same time- God, that's so strange- I would've thought that Kid was the older... brother? Shinichi, I just... don't..."

Even in his grip her fingers were still cold; he pulled them forward, wrapping his scarf around his and hers both and gathering them against the wool of his coat. "I don't understand it either. But I've met Kuroba a couple of times now, and he's very, very different from Kid. VERY different. Younger? Maybe; maybe he's just grown up in different ways, or for different reasons. I got the impression that there's a great deal of history between him and Nakamori-san, and..." Shinichi flushed. "Maybe we shouldn't have, uh, moved forward without- I don't know." He hesitated for a moment, trying to put what he'd been told in words. "I do know that he knows about me, and I'm assuming about you as well. H- Ran? Ran, what's wrong?"

She had flushed a deep, abrupt red, painfully so; the cause was easy enough to figure out, and her boyfriend felt his own cheeks burning. "I, ah... don't think he was, um, eavesdropping or anything," Shinichi muttered. "Or I hope not, because he isn't, uh, interested in exactly the same way. Or I don't think so; that's what Kid said." He shook his head. "Maybe it's more like a roommate spotting the sock on the doorknob and sleeping on the couch? Or something like that."

"-It had _better_ be."

They sat there in the rain, hands wrapped together in wool; overhead, rain drummed noisily on their impromptu shelter. "I'm glad I gave him the umbrella," whispered Ran apropos of nothing. "But if they both- if all three of them come back together, we're going to need a bigger one."

Shinichi blinked. "You believe me?"

Ran's eyes were still distressed, but the anger had faded. Not gone away entirely, no, but it had mostly been replaced by speculation and a tinge of wonder. Mostly. "...Shinichi, baka... If you wanted to lie to me, I already _know_ you can make up better ones than that." She sighed, leaning against him and dropping a kiss against the scratchy wool of his coat. "And I think you know what I'd do to you if you did; shrinking again'd be the least of your worries. But... if you think of any more of these little secrets, you'll tell me, okay?" Her fingers tightened again.

-tightened a LOT, actually. He yelped. "Okay! Okay! Promise!"

"And I'm still going to yell at you both. I have all sorts of things planned to say."

"Fine. Ran?"

"...What?"

"Don't be too hard on him- them. It can't be easy."

She drew in a long breath and let it out; it steamed in the damp air. "No, but this isn't either." And after that, neither of them said another word for quite a long time; it was enough to just sit together in silence in the rain, waiting for Kid, or Kaito, or both.

* * *

_dark blue dark blue have you ever been alone in a crowded room_

Kaito pushed through the crowd at a sprint, moving more freely as he moved away from the congestion near the train station, heading back toward the only logical place that Aoko could have gone - the cinemaplex, with shops and lights burning all night. People fell away from him as he drew nearer, though the crowd was thickening again as the sidewalk gave way to shopfronts; something about his bearing must have warned them to give him distance.

_Can't imagine what it is,_ he thought to himself, swallowing the bitterness down. _I definitely don't want to see a mirror right now._

He caught sight of her after half an hour of searching, and felt a stab of lucky relief zip through his chest as he spotted her ponytail from a distance of fifteen meters, through gaps between the domes of umbrellas carried by passerby. "Aoko!" Winded, he had to try twice before he could get the volume he needed to be heard over the crowd and the rain, which was now coming down hard, pattering hard against umbrellas and the canvas awnings in front of the shops. "Nakamori Aoko!" He pushed his body harder, covering the distance between them in a handful of moments, umbrella collapsed and held at his side to make the running easier.

"Aoko, I need to-"

_the world could be burning and burning down_

"Don't want to _talk_ to you, Kaito," Aoko snapped, refusing to look at him as she pushed past. Her hair was soaked through, plastered against her face and neck in dark, thick chunks, and her clothing weighted down her little frame, heavy and cold with the rain. He caught her wrist as she went by, gripping tight as the anchor forced her to pivot to face him. She writhed, trying to break free, but Kaito shifted his grip to keep from hurting her, and held on tight.

"Aoko," Kaito said again, and her mouth was halfway open with another angry retort when he looked up and met her gaze with his own. What Aoko saw there stopped her cold, and as the fight drained out of her frame, leaving her standing limp and small in front of him, Kaito slowly raised the umbrella to shelter them both from the rain. "Will you listen to me for a bit?"

"...If you say one stupid thing, I'll leave," she warned, crossing her arms. Kaito nodded.

"That's fair. Can we sit over there?" He pointed to one of the benches arranged in a small sitting area, some landscaper's idea of a fair balance between space efficiency and "gardening," which ended up just looking awkward. This particular bench sat under a broken streetlamp, thick in shadow, and looked lonlier than the other benches along the row.

"Okay," Aoko said quietly, following Kaito at the absolute limit that the umbrella's width would allow.

The bench was wet; Kaito rubbed off what water he could with his sleeve before Aoko sat down, holding the umbrella carefully above her. He sat beside her, his movements careful and clipped. Beside him, Aoko sat stiffly, hands folded in her lap, staring out into the rain. They were silent for a while; Kaito's breathing levelled out, recovering from running, and he grew even more still as it did. The excess of energy that both of them were known for was nowhere to be seen; both sat very still, and for Kaito, at least, it was from a fear of moving, as though it might break something.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Aoko finally asked, her gaze fixed forward. Kaito was watching her, his focus flicking all across her - her expression, her hands, the slant of her shoulders, her pulse in her throat, barely visible only because he knew what to look for through the gloomy shadows under their umbrella. Nothing in her was moving, nothing giving clues.

"Aoko...I wanted to explain. I'm..." He fell silent, throat closing over his potential words. _I can't tell her. Even now. I can't do it. I can't __help__ her hate me any more than she does._

As the silence stretched, making clear Kaito's inability to continue, Aoko sighed and slumped forward, propping her chin on her hands. "Kaito, you baka. ...Did you know that even Hakuba-san is worried about you? He stopped talking about whether you're the Kid or not, he just is quiet and thoughtful when your name gets mentioned, when you're not there.

"Sensei asked me if you were maybe having family problems that were keeping you from school. She said she supposed I would know if anybody did. I had to tell her that I didn't know at all. That made me think, you know? I... We always used to know. Everything about each other, really. And now...I feel like I know nothing about you, anymore."

Aoko pulled her arms tight around herself, sitting up a little as she turned to look Kaito in the eye. "You always liked to keep secrets from me just for fun, to frustrate me or make me guess, but this isn't like that, I think. You don't seem... You're different, now. And I don't like it."

Kaito listened, thinking hard as he worked out how he wanted to answer...or what he even wanted to say. From the back of their mind, Kid walked slowly up towards him, standing just behind him with hands on his shoulders in support. Kaito closed his eyes, acknowledging the thief, and opened them to meet Aoko's with a little more determination than before.

"Aoko, I've...got secrets that I can't tell you. Well, I won't. And I've...I had the idea that you'd like it better if I'd just stay away, and let you forget about me, instead of being near to you with my secrets still hidden. I don't-" He put up a hand to make her pause, his expression softening as Aoko puffed up with a lecture ready to loose on him. "Hang on a second, okay? I...I've been reminded that maybe that was a stupid idea. But I still...I'd rather not hurt you more by letting you find out."

"_Baka_ magician," Aoko growled, getting up in his face with a scowl and a clenched fist. Kaito leaned away, and she pressed closer still, until he ran out of bench. "You are so stupid, you know that? You never think anything right. You are so _stupid!_ Why would you think I could ever forget about you? Stupid, I can't, ever! You're - you're an idiot if you think that I want you to, to change like that."

"You always tell me I'm stupid, Aoko," Kaito answered shakily, breathing tight and nervous with her so close to his face, and his emotions already so frayed. The umbrella shook, unseating raindrops collected at its edges, and they fell to the bench and ground around the pair with a wet patter, separate from the lightly drumming rain that still fell. "That's...nothing new."

Aoko sat back, fists in her lap. "Well, you're _extra_ stupid this time," she declared. "You should tell me anyway. I want to know."

"I can't, Aoko," Kaito said.

"Not true," she countered, pure stubbornness pouring from every inch of her bearing. "You just have to say the words. You _can_ tell me, and you _should_."

Kaito frowned, pressing his lips together. "I _can't,_" he repeated.

"CAN."

"Can't!"

Aoko pressed forward again, her eyes hard. "Do it, Kaito! Tell me!"

He closed his eyes, umbrella shaking above them both. "I can't tell you, Aoko."

"Tell me your secret!"

"I _can't,_ Aoko."

"Yes you _can,_" Aoko growled, "And you'd better if you want me to ever talk to you again. Tell me, Kaito!"

"You won't want to talk to me if I tell you," he moaned, turning his face away from hers.

"_Try me._"

"No."

"Tell. Me. Now," she demanded, every word measured. "Tell me your biggest secret that you've kept hidden from me for so long, that makes you have to keep avoiding me, that you're so afraid to tell me. Tell it to me now, Kaito."

"No," he whispered, fear and panic beginning to take over his resolve. The words pounded behind his eyes, on his tongue; it would be so easy to just tell her, to prove to her how wrong she was, how horrible the secret really was; it would be so, so easy. It would end everything, finally. It would be easier than this.

"Please," Aoko whispered back, from a distance of barely two hands' lengths.

He cracked, and opened his mouth.

"I love you."

* * *

Kid stood behind him, hands on Kaito's shoulders, and as the magician's brain caught up with his mouth, the thief wrapped his arms around Kaito's shoulders and chest to keep him on his feet.

"Good choice," Kid murmured, pressing his temple against Kaito's hair. The magician stared ahead, wide-eyed, in shock, and the thief propped him up while, outside their head, time continued onward.

* * *

Aoko stared. "You- you-" Her brain caught up, suddenly, and she leapt back from him with sudden, catlike alertness. The rain fell on her back and shoulders, making her shiver. "Kaito," she mumbled, gaze locked with his, sounding confused and more than a little lost.

Kaito closed his eyes, bowing his head. "I'm sorry, Aoko." But he had told her the truth, he realized, a truth he'd only just understood as he said it. Kid's presence - Kid's existence - was a secret between them, too, but he had been wrong to think that it was the biggest secret that he kept from her, or that it was the most important. For so long, he'd been threatening himself with the dire consequences if Aoko discovered the truth about Kid, that he'd successfully distracted himself from the other secret, the one that was actually his, entirely, to keep or to reveal.

Aoko treated Kaito like a brother, and like brother and sister they had grown together, side by side. And she still treated him as such, taunting, mocking, chasing and playing with him, all in ways that paid no attention to their genders and all the attention to their personalities. She nagged him, scolded him, reminded him of things; she loved small gestures of affection between them, but reacted with the fondness that a family member might, not the shyness and embarrassment that a girl with a crush would. Aoko probably did love him, Kaito knew, but it was very unlikely that her love had any romance to it. But his love for her...it had changed as they grew; it had broadened and deepened.

And he'd tried not to concentrate on it, because Kid had arrived around that same time, and suddenly his time - their time - became dedicated to maintaining a training regimen, planning and researching Kid's work and the legend of Pandora, and executing the heists themselves. The luxury of a crush wasn't something that either of them could spend time on, or really had any interest in spending time with, either. High-school love felt paltry and small, compared to the rage and vindictive anger of a murdered father's son. And Aoko, Koizumi, all of them, faded to the background as the Kaitou Kid's work began anew.

But she had always been there, supporting him in her own way, and believing in him even as Hakuba arrived as a classmate and attacked him as an opponent; even as Koizumi grew very, very strange indeed. Her unshakeable faith in him and in his identity was, Kaito supposed, the thing which nutured his interrupted crush on her, bringing it back to the fore as Kid and he fell into a predictable rhythm of heist research, preparation, and execution. Life had a pattern to it, a melody, and he was content with it as it stood for the better part of a year.

Then Shinichi happened, and threw everything into imbalance again. Suddenly, Kid had more reasons to be present than just his work. Kaito suddenly had reasons to be jealous of his counterpart's freedom, and of the way that Kid could cross boundaries of opposition that Kaito himself hadn't dared to, to boldly make friends with the detective on the 'other side' while Kaito hesitated to come clean to the girl who'd known him for most of his life, who'd seen him cry when his father died. And Kid's own feelings reminded Kaito of his own, which he'd ignored for too long.

No wonder it felt like an anvil had just been lifted from his heart. Even despite Aoko's lost, uncertain expression, Kaito felt more positive, less weary, than he had been in a long time.

"Aoko..." She drew back as he spoke, as though she was bracing herself. "I know...I'm pretty sure, at least, that you don't, ahm, feel the same. It's...it's okay, actually, and that's why I didn't want to say anything, because I know it's just...I know it's just me. But...well, now you know."

She was silent for a long time, long enough that Kaito began to fidget. "...Aoko?" he asked finally, wary.

"If you ever flip my skirt again, I'll kill you," she said simply, staring at her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry your presents got ruined."

"It's okay, Aoko," Kaito mumbled, his free hand fidgeting in his lap while his other held the umbrella over them both. "Thank you for getting me a present, in the first place."

"I just wanted to cheer you up, you stupid baka idiot magician," she muttered, looking anywhere but at him. "You were worrying me. And over something so stupid, too."

"...Stupid?" He knew he shouldn't have asked, but...

Aoko looked up to meet his gaze with petulant stubbornness in her own. "Yes, stupid. How stupid do you have to be to think that I wouldn't want to talk to you if you told me? We're best_friends_, Kaito. And unlike some stupid moron magicians I know, I'm not gonna run away and leave my best friend alone just cause- cause of stupid reasons, either. You should know better."

"Okay, okay," Kaito said, thoroughly lectured and feeling very sheepish indeed. "I won't leave you alone anymore."

"That better be a promise," Aoko warned him. Kaito smiled, holding up his hand with pinky extended.

"Promise," he said.

Aoko snagged his pinky with her own, hooking on and tugging hard. Kaito winced. "Good," she said, a fair amount of force still lingering in her voice and posture. "Cause I'll beat you up if you break that promise. You better be careful."

"I will be," Kaito promised, his attention held by the way that Aoko's skin, wet and clammy from the rain as it was, still felt warm and comforting against his own.

* * *

_._

_._

_*quietly* Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please exit the theater in an orderly fashion, so as not to disturb the players, and join us next time for "Sneeze, curiosity, modifications." Leave your comments in the box on your way out! _


	30. Sneeze, curiosity, modifications

_Hello again! New chapter up, plus another omake (this time featuring our own Haibara Ai and Professor Agasa.) Bear in mind that this is the abridged version of the chapter; the original (which contains mature situations and sexual content) can be found here, if you fix the html: hhttp colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 13386 dot html._

_Enjoy! And please do leave your comments; we read them ALL and respond to quite a lot of them. Thanks!... Ysabet & Rednightengale_

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_**Book Three, Chapter Nine**__** (abridged version): "sneeze, curiosity, modifications"**_

There'd been a cheap all-night café open within line of sight of the bench, the kind with its menus on a punch-button display at each booth; they'd taken turns twice to ferry hot chocolate out to their damp, cold watchpost, but neither Shinichi nor Ran proposed leaving. The hour had ticked over from 'late' into 'way too early' some time past, long enough ago that the local pair of beat-policemen had passed by twice on their rounds. Shinichi'd done his best not to hunch too deeply into his scarf and upturned collar at their perusal; and anyway, what would they have seen? A skinny young man waiting for a bus with his girlfriend, hard enough to see at all through the heavy downpour and nothing to arouse suspicion at all. The rain was his friend that night, granting him all the anonymity he needed.

The cops made Shinichi nervous, actually; it wasn't that he knew them or anything, but their very presence woke latent paranoia that recent events had lulled to a temporary sleep. If anything since his initial transformation had shaken his nerve, it was the knowledge that the Black Organization's operatives had infiltrated something as close-knit and trustworthy as the police force; and as he listened to their steps echoing off the streaming buildings to either side, Kudo Shinichi, Detective of the East, wondered at the circumstances that made him wary of the force that he had once respected so very much.

Maybe Kid was rubbing off on him in more ways than he'd thought.

He wished...

Wished...

Shinichi bit his lip and concentrated, calculating the route that the two cops would walk and how long it would take them to return. He dug into his capacious memory and pulled out the most likely locations for robberies on their beat, compiled a history of the neighborhood's crime stats as far as he could remember, picked out the best vantage-points from both groundbound locations and aerial if you were staking out the two jewelry stores, seven small restaurants, two convenience stores and miscellaneous other criminal targets...

_(I wish-)_

...and in short did his best to distract himself. At which technique, apparently, he totally failed, because all the time this unhappy little voice seated just behind his eyes kept saying _I wish he'd-_

"I wish he'd come back," murmured Ran beside him in unconscious echo. She was wearing a clumsy, too-large pair of gloves that Shinichi'd dug from a forgotten inner pocket of his coat- the fingers were far too long and flopped comically at the tips, but at least they were warm and dry, and both hands were wrapped tightly around her paper cup of cocoa.

"Which one?"

"Kid. Kuroba-san. Either one of them, just... I hope he found her."

Shinichi bowed his head, eyes closed against the weariness that was beginning to make his bones feel loose inside his skin. "So do I," he whispered.

There was a trickle of rain winding its way down the back of his neck; he focused fiercely on the sensation, on cold and damp and discomfort... Foggy grayness intruded its way into his thoughts, the beginnings of true exhaustion blurring the edge between waking and sleeping; and the thread of damp morphed unobtrusively in his tired mind into the soft touch of a finger sliding down his spine, warming as his skin lent it heat. The touch became a caress, familiar, gentle as the brush of a gaze; it turned into two fingers, one gloved in something silky and the other trailing a delicate nail down his back in a sweet, hot line-

-he jerked awake, aware that he'd very nearly dozed off. Beside him Ran stirred. "Shinichi? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just... wait. Is that Nakamori-san?"

It was.

And she had their umbrella.

She was a pretty young woman, now that Shinichi was able to see her face without the interference of heist or crowd or any of the other five million distractions that had been around the last (and only) time they'd met. Thick dark hair sparkling with raindrops massed around a flushed, preoccupied face as she hurried across the wet pavement towards the train station across the street. Her gaze was turned inwards, barely acknowledging the weather or her surroundings; and as she rummaged in her backpack for her wallet, she glanced behind her towards the darkened streets with a searching, questioning look. After a moment it softened a little, and the lines of stress around her eyes smoothed out; she ducked her head as she moved towards the entrance, folded the umbrella and vanished inside.

Shinichi let out his breath. He hadn't even realized that he'd been holding it. From beside him, Ran's hand crept into his. "He found her," she whispered, and he hugged her tightly.

It wasn't much longer before another figure came through the damp and drizzle, sans umbrella; wild hair plastered for once to his skull, rivulets running like tears across his silent, dark-eyed face; he paused when he came in front of them both, hands tucked in his pockets.

"I, um." Kuroba Kaito fidgeted in front of Shinichi and Ran's twin worried gazes. "I seem to have misplaced your umbrella."

The tension went out of Shinichi's shoulders in a rush, and chuckling, he scooted over on the bench, leaving room between himself and Ran for Kaito to sit. "It's okay, I'll get a new one," he said, relief warming his smile. "You look like you need to sit down."

"I, um, actually could really-aa-aaa-_aachoo!_" He looked up, sheepish, one finger rubbing his nose. "I could use some coffee."

"And a warm bath and a blanket and we have to get you home right _now,_ you're going to get sick like that," Ran declared, all business. Jumping up from the bench, she grabbed Kaito's hand, grip slipping a little because of her oversized gloves. "Shinichi, get the bags, okay? Come on, Kuroba-san, let's go across the street, there's coffee, and then we can go home and I'm sure Shinichi will let you warm up at the house..."

Kaito, worn-out enough from his emotional encounter with Aoko that he felt about as hardy as he looked (and he looked like a drowned mouse), had little choice but to be towed along behind Ran, nodding politely when she seemed to actually be asking his opinion instead of ordering him around. A little distance behind them, burdened by several brand-new bags (procured from the surrounding shops) into which Aoko's purchases had been carefully bundled, Shinichi was smiling as his girlfriend thoroughly mothered the magician.

_I feel the same way, Ran. I don't know if it's all better yet, but...I'm really relieved, too._

* * *

"Aaaa-aa-"

"Here you go, I found where Kaasan keeps the tissues."

"-aaahh-_aaaachooo!"_ Sniffle. "Thengew." Kuroba Kaito blew his nose. "Oh, wonderful; I do NOT need a cold on top of everything else. Stupid weather." He sighed, scrubbing at the tip of his nose with the back of one hand.

Ran had, as promised, been dropped off at her door, or rather at her staircase; she'd stolen a moment for a brief kiss with Shinichi before looking at Kaito and saying quietly, "Goodnight, Kuroba-san; please tell Kid goodnight for me too, okay?" Her face had been wistful, but she hadn't lingered; faint sounds from the entrance above had preceded her father's sleep-tousled head sticking out as he growled something unintelligible at Ran's two escorts before closing the door behind her.

The walk back to the Kudo estate had been quiet, and (fortunately, since the skies had opened up) short. And now, one hot shower and a borrowed flannel bathrobe and pajamas later-

"AAACHOOOO!"

Shinichi handed over the tissuebox, wincing sympathetically; that last one'd sounded like it had hurt. Sniffling experimentally (nothing so far, good), he raised his cup to down the last swallow of the hot cocoa he'd made upon their arrival (the Krupps was just too damned noisy- they'd've had his kaasan down in a heartbeat if they'd made coffee) and watched the other over the cup's rim.

_They're so different. I still can't get over it- it's almost physical, body language and breathing patterns, even blink-rates, and that's supposedly one of the hardest things to consciously alter. Different. He- Kid- said that they weren't all that alike; I wonder how deep the differences go, and the similarities?_ He'd read about split personalities and MPD; none of those quite seemed to apply, as this didn't exactly seem to follow the guidelines for either 'split' or 'disorder'. Maybe, Shinichi thought as he lowered his cup, the situation was different simply because it_was,_ i.e., unique rather than classifiable among existing samples. That would definitely fit, all things considered.

It didn't matter, anyway. Kid was Kid and Kuroba was Kuroba, just as he was both Shinichi and Conan. For an uncomfortable moment Shinichi wondered what it might've been like if his transformed body had brought with it the personality of a frightened, intelligent child to share the view from behind his eyes with. Would he have managed as well? Probably not; he'd been an only child all his life. So had Kuroba Kaito, if he remembered his research right.

Well, not any more. And all Shinichi could feel in that case was profound gratitude.

The magician in question sat slumped back in his chair, nursing the last of his own cocoa with eyes closed. His hair, toweled dry following his shower, had reached new heights of bedheadedness and he looked tired, perhaps a little drawn. But the wretched, aching misery of earlier was gone now; if loneliness still lingered behind the familiar/unfamiliar face, it was at least tempered with something better than the anguish that Shinichi and Ran had witnessed.

He looked... younger than Kid, somehow, just as the detective had said; or maybe it was Kid who looked older than their shared years. Younger, and exhausted. "There's a guest-room upstairs," said Shinichi quietly. "C'mon, I'll show you the way."

Kaito tried to wave Shinichi off, but it was hard to sound convincing when he could barely form words around a series of jaw-cracking yawns. "Really, I'm fine," he protested, right before another yawn made Shinichi wince (and yawn in sympathy). "I'll just get out of your-"

"You're too tired to move, almost," Shinichi countered, wry in the face of the magician's botched attempt at stubbornness. "Go get some sleep. Come on, follow me."

Muttering half-formed protests under his breath, Kaito did as he was told, falling into bed with all the grace and composure of a drunk kitten. Shinichi tucked him in, turned out the light, and returned to his own bedroom, where - despite the strength with which he wished for either, or both, of his bedmates' company - sleep claimed him quickly.

Hours later, moonlight on his face and a gentle hand on his shoulder woke Shinichi from dreams that flitted across his skin and nerves. He twisted to look over his shoulder at the person by his bedside, rubbing sleep from his half-opened eyes. "Kuroba? Wh's wrong? You okay?" Bright blue eyes gleamed above a toothy smile as his visitor bent closer, the delicate but callused fingertips of one hand smoothing hair back from Shinichi's brow.

"Try again, Meitantei."

"Kid!" Shinichi flipped over, turning to face Kid completely as the thief took a seat on the bed's edge beside him. "When did you-uh, get back? Is Kuroba okay?"

"He's fine," Kid reassured Shinichi, smiling fondly. "And grateful for yours and Mouri-san's assistance. He's pretty exhausted, though, so he's sleeping now. And the body needs rest, too."

It was strange, seeing the other side of the face- the more familiar thief's side, as opposed to Kuroba's. Odd, thought Shinichi, that the private face of someone who'd made notorious his unknowableness should be the one he knew the best; it was as if the moon had shown something secret and hidden, something just for him and Ran.

Shinichi studied that face in the intermittent light, hazy with fading rainclouds but pouring through his window in the last gasp before moonset; he scooted over a little towards the wall. "There's room," he offered tentatively, pushing the covers back. Concious of his own weariness and the wry, regretful knowledge that it was a damn shame he _was_ so tired, Shinichi looked up at Kid, smiling just a little. "It's not a very big bed, but there's room for you if you want." Company sounded very good.

With a smile, Kid didn't so much climb as _pour_ himself into the bed, twining his arms and legs around Shinichi's like a very enthusiastic ivy vine, or a warm magnet. Tucking his head under Shinichi's chin, cheek resting on the detective's chest, Kid wiggled around to optimize his snuggling postion, boneless satisfaction radiating from every inch of him. "You're _warm_," Kid declared with pleasure, nuzzling Shinichi's collarbones and throat affectionately. "I _liiiiike_ warm."

"I'd've never guessed," murmured Shinichi, wrapping his own arms around the other and burying his hands in Kid's hair with a kind of secret delight. It was a peculiarity of his that his hands and feet tended to get chilly, especially when he slept; and he just... couldn't not touch, couldn't not stroke the warm, pettable softness or slide the strands through his fingers over and over. Or work his fingernails in, luxuriating in the heat and feeling the thief purr like some sort of leopard who'd decided to pretend to be a housecat just for the night.

_Warm_ was Shinichi's quilt and sheets, tugged up to Kid's shoulders and half over his head; _warm_ was the astonishing heat that radiated out of the other body in the bed, in the way Kid's slowing breaths reflected back from Shinichi's bent arm and up into his face. _Warm_ was how the detective kissed what he could reach, murmuring "Goodnight," before he pressed his face against his living pillow and closed his eyes again.

_Warm_ echoed forward from dim, distant memories of being carried as a small child and from more recent, half-unwilling (but oh, the comfort in them) of the same again; and from the future with Kid and Ran, all three together. Or so he profoundly hoped.

But right now, most of all, _warm_ was sleep and the certain knowledge that when Shinichi woke, he would not be alone.

* * *

_crunch... crunch... _

Sunlight made the backs of Shinichi's eyelids rosy in color, and his skin was warm where the sunbeams hit, hot where Kid's body was pressed against his own. They were in his room, he remembered. And he still had a whole day left, maybe a bit more, until he transformed, and Kid was _so_ warm and close.

_crunch__Crunch.__ Crunch._

Shinichi squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying his best to ignore the cereal sounds and the way that the foot end of the bed, between his feet and Kid's, was weighted down, the blankets pulled tight by the person sitting on them.

And he really did love his kaasan, _really_ he did, and he didn't really want to kill her.

_Crunch._

...Mostly because Shinichi didn't want his father to kill _him_ afterwards. And anyway, she meant well. Probably.

_Crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch! Chomp._

...And Kid was awake, Shinichi realized, noticing the tenseness of the thief's body. And his kaasan was sitting _on the end of the bed_, eating breakfast and watching them cuddle. And Kid was still cuddling him. A lot.

Shinichi cracked one eye open, focusing his gaze on the very attractively pale curve of Kid's bare shoulder and chest. _Oh, mmmmm..._

_...Wait._ He squeezed his eyes shut again.

"Where did your pajama shirt go?"

"Heeeeee."

With both his hands tangled under and around Kid's body, Shinichi facepalmed as best as he could, smacking his forehead against Kid's chest with a gentle thud. "Good morning, Kid."

"Good _morning,_ Tantei," Kid breathed, nuzzling his way under Shinichi's hair behind his ear. Shivering from head to toe, Shinichi squirmed against the hot/cold tickle of the thief's breath and tongue against his skin, pushing his way free with considerably less reluctance than he might have had under any other circumstances.

"_KID,_" he scolded, as the thief's giddy blue gaze came into view for the first time that morning. "This isn't really the time!"

"Oh, I think it is," Kudo Yukiko commented lightly, resting her chin on one palm. Pigtailed, pajama'd, and crosslegged between the other two's feet, cereal bowl resting on her ankles, she smiled fondly at her son and his bedmate. "Don't mind me."

Shinichi _stared_, then smacked his forehead against Kid's chest again. "_Kaaaaaaaaasan._"

"Well, if you're sure, you might as well get up right away and head downstairs, as breakfast's ready. And it's already noon, and I didn't think you'd want to...sleep...away your whole day, after all, as you've only got the one left." Yukiko laid extra emphasis on _sleep,_ and knowing her implication, Shinichi blushed crimson.

"Did you sleep well, Kudo-san?" Kid asked, running one hand down Shinichi's shoulder and side, under the blanket, across his hip, and-

"Gah!" Shinichi squirmed away, this time nearly throwing himself off the far side of the bed in the process. Kid's hand reappeared out from under the blankets, emphatically guided by Shinichi's.

"I slept wonderfully," Yukiko answered, ignoring Kid's pawsy hands with as much willful blindness as the thief's own innocently impish expression suggested. "And you?"

"Mmm, isn't it obvious?" Kid answered, nuzzling Shinichi as he towed the detective close. "Kudo-san, I have to apologize sincerely; I don't believe I've asked your permission even once to court your-"

"_THAT_ will be enough," Shinichi yelped. Unable to extricate himself from Kid's arms, he instead popped his head up above the thief's and leveled his mother with a pleading expression. "Kaasan, we'll get up and get dressed. I promise. So could you _please_...?"

She waved her spoon airily. "Fine, fine. But-" and she leveled it like a judge's gavel, pointing the end of the bowl sternly straight at Kid. "I want to know your _intentions_ towards my son. He's the only one I've got, you know. I have to look after his interests." Dipping the spoon back into the bowl, she took another bite and grinned around it as she swallowed. "Doesn't he have cute interests? I mean, he did when he was a baby, and _I_ always thought that when he grew up he'd-"

"KAA. SAN." Her sole offspring covered his face.

"I assure you, my intentions toward your son are entirely honorable, Kudo-san." Kid's voice was suddenly very sober, and he twisted around Shinichi's body in a brief serpentine motion that ended with their embrace reversed, Shinichi's cheek on Kid's chest. The thief curled around the detective's torso and shoulders, pillowing Shinichi's head on his own bare chest and resting his cheek on Shinichi's shoulderblade.

"Shinichi's integrity guides my own," he said, holding Yukiko's gaze until his eyes slid closed, his features slipping free of any tension. "His happiness is very important to me, however...or in whomever...it is embodied."

"Ran-chan," said Yukiko, nodding thoughtfully; she nibbled the end of her spoon. "She has her own intentions towards you both, and she's a very practical young woman, you do know that?_Very_ practical, very adaptive. I have-" (she waved the spoon again) "-the highest opinion of her." Wrapped in a truly exotic lavender chenille bathrobe over her pajamas and brandishing silverware, Shinichi's mother should have looked far less serious than she did. But behind her playfulness was a considerable amount of determination; she meant every word that she said.

...which included the ones that made Shinichi's eyes go extremely wide when her grin slipped free again a moment later. "I'm going to be the hottest grandmother _ever,"_ she gloated, hugging her spoon to her chest. At the dead silence that had filled the room, she added: "Eventually. Eventually, you two. Very eventually, when things are all settled and safe. No rush! And no pressure on either of you, darlings." Sliding off the bed, she tucked her feet back into her slippers (they matched her robe and were monogrammed) before padding towards the door. "Well then, that's all settled. Now, on your feet and into the shower, both of you. Hm? Kid, there's fresh laundry in a basket outside in the hall- everything in here's been shut up for ages, it all needs an airing- and I'll have coffee ready shortly."

The door creaked as she pulled it open, and Yukiko paused, one hand on the knob. "Shinichi?" she said, and there was a note in his mother's voice that made him blink and break through the bubble of shock that had him frozen. "Your father and I... are very happy with your choices. If you hadn't figured that out by now, I mean." She gave them both a brilliant smile, one of her best, and closed the door behind her.

Shinichi, who had half-twisted out of Kid's embrace in alarm over the whole _grandmother_ thing, fell back against the thief, limp, as his thoughts realigned with an audible clunk. Kid curled his hands around Shinichi's jaw and throat, petting and caressing. "She said 'either' of us?" he asked lightly, fully aware that most of the detective's attention wouldn't be focused on his lighthearted act of shock. "I suppose I'll have to inform Ran of that, so we don't disappoint your mother's expectations..."

"I... think... she may be way ahead of you," said Shinichi, dazed. "I think she may be way ahead of both of us." That squawk that Ran had made from the changing-room, back when they'd been trying on the pareos- he'd wondered what else had caused it, if it had been solely based on the revelation of the 'supplies' or maybe on something else as well. Like, for instance, Yukiko's mentioning that she didn't quite want to have grandchildren just yet, maybe? "And I'm not going to think about it right now." He shuddered, casting around a little wildly for something else to focus on, something that had nothing to do with, with-

"Really, Tantei? And what _do_ you want to think about, hmmm?" murmured the thief, leaning over and biting the tip of Shinichi's ear very lightly.

_Oh. Well, __that'll__ do._ After all, the chances of Kid becoming pregnant weren't exactly high... Shinichi wriggled around, slipping his hands up over his head to pull Kid a little further within reach; with a happy sigh, the other scooted down just enough that they were nose to nose. The thief opened his mouth to say something, and right then the detective decided that it was time to test out his experimental Shutting-Kid-Up method. So he captured both hands in his own and put the teasing, maddening mouth to good use.

It seemed to work pretty well.

Shinichi twisted around, pressing his weight down beneath the covers; back went their interlaced hands onto the sheets at shoulder-height as he kissed the thief with every intent of pushing him past words and into incoherence. The mouth under his own was hot and silky; the fingers tightened rather than trying to twist free, and as Shinichi began to trace a trail down chin to throat to the dip between the collarbones, Kid arched beneath him with an exultant sound, almost a laugh. "T-antei, what're you-"

The detective concentrated on what he was doing, wondering how long he could keep this up before one of them lost it. "Shhh... didn't you-" (sternum, heart beating hard beneath his lips and tongue) "-say that-" (soft skin of the belly, heaving below the ribs in ticklish tremors) "-you wanted me to-" (navel, tantalizing and meant to be kissed until it quivered) "-taste you?"

Kid bit back a moan. "I. Ahh- did. Didn't I?" That sound again, definitely a laugh, though breathy and ragged. "A-and you're going to...?"

"Shhhh."

Maybe Ran'd been right when she'd called him a control-freak in the past. But this was something that held a certain fascination for Shinichi, had for several years since he'd learned about it in the way that just-barely-teens find out about sex: through hearsay and snickering rumor and the kinds of magazines that get passed around when the adults aren't looking. At first he'd had the usual reaction of _Who'd want to do __that__?_, but like most of the eww-factor bits and pieces it had transformed into interest by way of curiosity, and from there into something he'd really wanted to try, if he ever got the chance. Of course, Shinichi'd expected to approach it from the _opposite direction,_ but...

A person could only stand so much teasing. And he'd had to _lie there and not respond_ while his mother had carried on a conversation with Kid, and he'd had to push him back when they had a perfectly good bed, and really, a shower didn't take all THAT long, and _**AAAAGH**__._ It was that 'being eighteen' thing again, he supposed. If Shinichi ever got the chance, he'd have to thank whoever'd come up with it. But in the meantime...

Curiosity. There was really only one way to handle curiosity, right? And how difficult could this be?

heir conjoined hands had slid along the sheets to hip-height by now, and Shinichi let go; he was going to need his to take care of the matter of Kid's flannel pajama-pants... Only, as he discovered when he slid his own head and shoulders completely beneath the covers, it looked like he wasn't. How the hell had Kid managed to lose those as well as his shirt-? Oh well. The detective felt fingers threading into his hair and shook his head; _"Ohhhh_ no," Shinichi chuckled, muffled by the bedclothes. "Hands off. You asked what I wanted to think about, so you're going to have to lie back and deal with the consequences." The hands withdrew, and Shinichi grinned as he felt the sheets ripple. Somebody was gripping them tightly enough to nearly yank them loose.

In the shadowy regions he was currently occupying, everything was touch and scent; there was barely enough light to see the hand in front of his face, much less anything else. So Shinichi let his fingers investigate for him; Kid let out a strangled sound and jerked beneath him, requiring that Shinichi adjust his own stance- he didn't want to get a knee in a delicate place, and his own body was currently saying some very definite things about how much it liked the situation.

It was a shame that Ran wasn't there, though; as he slid his hands around carefully to cup Kid from behind, he allowed himself to think of her watching Kid's face and telling him every expression, every gasp and involuntary moan, describing how he was breathing and what he did when Shinichi lowered his head. The gutteral noise from the thief this time was accompanied by a distinct cloth-ripping sound; the sheets were losing their battle, but it didn't seem important.

Kid was biting his lip again, Shinichi could hear it in the way he was breathing; with an inner grin and a total determination to make the thief scream, he really got to work.

* * *

_Hmmm. He didn't scream, but that's okay. Next time._

Curiosity was assuaged, or at least some of it was... and maybe he should take care of his own little problem _on_ his own; or maybe, when Kid was back on earth again, he'd have an idea or two about how to handle it. "You okay up there?" Shinichi murmured, one hand tickling very gently somewhere around the thief's navel.

"Mnnnuuh-huh," Kid mumbled, one hand pawing blindly around until it connected with Shinichi's, fingers lacing tightly with the detective's. "Ta...ntei," he mumbled, clearly having trouble making his mouth work properly. "I...ah...oh. Oh, _**goddess.**_"

Shinichi snickered, muffling the sound against Kid's belly. "Mmm, pretty good for a first try, maybe?" Kid's hands came down on the detective's shoulders, gripping hard; Shinichi winced. "Kid, ow, what-gah!"

"_Here,_" Kid explained, as he literally dragged Shinichi up to his level, wrapping his arms and legs around his body with possessive force. He held Shinichi's head in his hands, thumbs bracketing his face, and as even as Kid's gaze progressively cleared, focusing through the post-orgasmic fog, he was fixing Shinichi with its full force. "_**Mine,**_" he declared, voice full of claim and challenge and dare. "Benten's sake, Tantei, you - that - _nnngh._" Words failing him, Kid expressed himself with his mouth.

What passed between them over the next little while was a combination of challenge, gratitude and something that threw tenderness right out the window for the moment but kept it within eyeshot, just in case it was needed. And somehow through it all, Kid kept on _talking-_

"You-"

"Are the most maddening."

"Magnetic."

"Singular." Shinichi moaned a little, the last scrap of control fading away.

"And I swear, Tantei," Kid growled, mouth moving back up to take Shinichi's and steal his breath, "I'm never, ever giving you back. You - your - _gods_, your mouth. Your thrice-damned wicked mouth, you absolutely evil, intoxicating man, you-"

"Talk...a lot..." Shinchi gasped, head falling back.

Kid growled and latched onto his throat in retaliation. "Talk _this._"

Talk... was unnecessary. They did well enough without words.

* * *

Some time later...

"Turtleneck, turtleneck..."

"Mmm?" Kid pulled a navy-blue hooded sweatshirt over his head.

"I said, _turtleneck._ Dibs on any turtlenecks in the laundry. Since," Shinichi rubbed at his throat a little ruefully, "somebody seems to have been chewing on me- not that I mind," he hastened to add, affection curving his lips into a little grin, "but it'll lessen the amount of teasing I get from Kaasan."

"You think, Tantei?"

"...maaaaaybe. Okay, _no,_ but I can always hope, can't I? Here we go-" A charcoal-gray turtleneck was fished out of the laundry-basket, and Shinichi pulled it into place. His wet hair made darker streaks on the cotton knit, towelled only half-dry from the shower a few moments before. Kid crowded in front of the small hall bathroom's mirror, finger-combing his own spiky hair more or less into place; Shinichi leaned against his shoulder, rubbing a thumb across his jawline. "Figures," he muttered idly. "One of the few good things about being shrunk- not having to shave- and I'm back just long enough that I ought to."

He settled his chin on the other's shoulder, steadying himself with two fingers hooked into the back of Kid's collar; Shinichi was feeling particularly boneless, mellow and contented enough to purr. It had been a very, very good morning, and the tide of euphoria that had run through every nerve like sheet-lightning hadn't entirely receded; nor was he ready to let it go, not just yet, nor its source... Shinichi turned his head just a little, breathing in Kid's scent, damp and fresh from the shower. He was, he supposed, entitled to hang on for just a little longer.

Staring across at the two faces in the mirror, he tilted his own just a little further to the side in an effort to match Kid's profile. "We really _do_ look alike, don't we? Wonder why?" he mused.

Kid frowned pensively, canting both their heads at a slightly different angle, nimble fingers stroking the line of Shinichi's jaw. "Well, isn't it obvious? We're actually secretly cousins... or half-brothers... no, fraternal twins separated at birth, that'd be it! Or perhaps we're the result of some mad scientist's cloning experiment, snatched from our laboratory origins by kindly hands and passed along to our respective families to raise. Who knows?" He cleared his throat, and the voice that came out next was Shinichi's. "There's only one truth, after all-"

_"QUIT_ that." The detective rolled his eyes. "I seem to remember somebody telling me 'Mind the crazy'?"

"Pay no attention to him, he's biased. Perhaps I should've said 'The Shadow knows'?" Again the voice-change; Shinichi snickered as Kid's register dropped down into the lowest bass rumble, following his comment with an ominous, booming laugh... which was succeeded almost immediately by a distinct, hollow knocking- two thuds- from the floor below. Still draped against Kid's shoulder, the detective twitched, and then very carefully stomped his foot twice in answer. Kid watched inquisitively. "One for yes, two for no; not Shadow fans, apparently... Poltergeists?" he suggested with sympathetically raised eyebrows. "There's a really wonderful Inari shrine over near Harajuku Station that's supposed to have a good exorcist."

The face in the mirror next to Kid's rolled its eyes. "That," said Shinichi succinctly, "was Tousan's warning that Kaasan's giving me- us- two minutes to get down there. He uses the kitchen broom; take a look at the ceiling right below us, you'll see a bunch of dents." Hastily he smoothed his own hair down and leaned against the wall to shove his feet into socks before accepting a hand back up; his fingers lingered on the other's. "Ready?"

Kid's fingertips hooked against Shinichi's, pads pressing together as Kid leaned in to press his nose and lips against the side of Shinichi's throat, warm through the turtleneck. "I suppose," he murmured. "Or we could find Ran," he continued, in the girl's own light register, making Shinichi jump a little. "She could probably convince your kaasan that coffee and breakfast isn't all that necessary after all."

"Kiiiiid," Shinichi said, reluctantly pushing the thief away. "You want kaasan to come up here and interrupt us? _Again_?"

"But it was such a lovely interruption the first time," Kid said in Yukiko's voice, batting long-lashed blue eyes at Shinichi. "Kid-san's beautiful bare shoulders looked so _strong_, wrapped around my Shin-chan, and it's just so pretty how their hair is so much the same color! Ran-chan won't have to worry about anyone wondering about her children matching each other, not at al-"

Shinichi's palm across Kid's mouth muffled the thief's eerily perfect mimicry of Yukiko's caroling tones. "_That_ will be enough, you," he muttered, face flushed, but he was working to hold down the corners of an amused smirk as he fixed Kid with a stern glare. "Downstairs. Now."

Kid licked Shinichi's palm, making the detective yank his hand back with a frown; the thief grinned, sticking just the tip of his tongue out between his lips, like he was daring Shinichi to catch it. "Hai, hai," he agreed, turning on the ball of one foot to lead the way toward the staircase. "Some tantei are just no fun when they're trying to be celibate."

"-CELIBATE-!"

Their progress downstairs was announced by crashing thuds, laughter and (when they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, miraculously without broken bones) a staggering tangle of Shinichi with one elbow around Kid's neck and Kid with one hand halfway up Shinichi's shirt. Yuusaku blinked at them both benignly from his place on the couch, half draped with a newspaper. "Shinichi? What ARE you doing?"

"Strangling- nngh! -Kid," he answered, half out of breath. He yelped as the thief did something to him beneath his shirt, slipped on the bottom stair and sent them both into the railing; Kid used the momentum to swing them around and onto ground-level, laughing as he ducked his way free in one easy movement. Unbalanced, Shinichi sat on the stair and panted; above him, casually graceful, Kid leaned against the banister and grinned at his host.

"Good morning, Kudo-san," he said cheerfully, long-fingered hands crossed at the wrists and dangling over the rail.

Yuusaku's eyebrow went up. "Good afternoon, Kid-san," he answered, unruffled. "There's coffee in the kitchen if you want it, and 'Kiko may even have left a little bacon if you're both quick." There was a smile in his eyes as he watched his son scramble back up, moving like a much younger child. It was a thing he'd noticed, a little detail he'd caught with his writer's eye: something of Edogawa Conan lingered in Kudo Shinichi's body language, just as Shinichi's own movements were echoed in the much younger frame. The two headed kitchenwards, arguing (_Did he say 'poltergeists'?_ wondered Yuusaku) like two rather rowdy little boys, and he hid his own amusement behind his newspaper as he picked it up again.

Yukiko was coming out of the kitchen as the boys headed in, and she had to twist out of their way, raising her own coffee and something else, fragrant and bundled in a napkin, above her head to keep them from walking into it as they passed. Kid pivoted on one heel, peeling away from Shinichi to drape himself over Yukiko's shoulder.

"Mmm, what've you got there, Kudo-san?" Kid asked, peering at the loosely folded napkin. Its contents smelled warm, sugary, and strongly of cinnamon; it was somewhat larger than her palm and the size of a muffin.

"What do you think it is, Kid?" Yukiko trilled, smiling secretively at him and covering her bundle with her other wrist, coffee held carefully level above the cinnabon. "If you'd come down earlier, before Yuusaku and I ate all the other ones, maybe you would have been able to find out for yourself, mmm?"

"Mouuu, Kudo-san, don't expect me to believe that a woman of your position could put away a whole batch of these deliciously overindulgent treats," Kid chided her, reaching one hand out, fingers spiderlike, to make a grab for the bun. Yukiko twisted away, and Kid followed; both were giggling as they maneuvered around each other, both mindful of Yukiko's very full coffee mug. On either end of the small passthrough that the pair played in, the Kudos senior and junior watched their respective partners with fond amusement and a bit of exasperation.

"Oh, just a _taste,_ Kudo-san," Kid was asking now, reaching toward her cinnabon with one intentionally demonstrative hand. The other, meanwhile, was sneaking in from the side, but Yukiko brought her wrist down to block it as she moved the bun away with her other hand.

"Ah-ah, Kid, I think you've had plenty of sweets for today already," she smiled.

"Oh, I don't know," Kid said, skirting around to her other side to try from a different angle, the sly smile on his lips echoing the one on hers. "I wouldn't say I've had enough by a long shot."

"Well, you'll have to get them elsewhere," Yukiko trilled, grinning as she folded the cinnamon bun and coffee mug both behind the small of her back, edging daintily away from Kid without turning her back on him. "I do think Yuusaku and I are all out, though I suppose you could ask Shinichi if he has-"

"The rest are keeping warm in the oven," Yuusaku cut in, voice pitched to carry over both his wife and the thief. Kid and Yukiko equally drooped, both turning to him as though he'd just taken away their toy.

"Mouuu, Yuusaku," Yukiko began to complain, putting on her best pout; Kid swooped in from the side for one last try at the bun and met the wall instead as Yukiko stepped smartly out of the way. Turning at the last second to soften the failed attempt, Kid's back touched the wall gently and gracefully as his - and the Kudos' - attention was drawn by Shinichi's easy, wry tones. In the doorway of the kitchen, the detective stood with one cinnamon bun in each hand, one of them with a bite out of it.

"There's easier ways to get your fix, Kid," he chuckled, and extended the bun without the bite in it for his companion.

Kid swooped in to snatch the other one out of Shinichi's hand, slinging one arm around the detective's shoulders as he stuck the bun in his mouth and held it there, grinning like a cheshire around the treat at Yukiko. "_Heeeee._"

Yuusaku watched all this with his own little smile; an empty plate sprinkled with crumbs lurked on the end-table beside him, mute testimony to his own 'fix'. "You two look about twelve right now," he murmured. Shinichi opened his mouth indignantly, and his father held up a hand. "I know, I know, touchy subject. But you do. Whatever would Ran-chan have to say about you both?"

"Probably something like 'Oh my God, not again'," muttered his son around a mouthful of crumbs. Kid snickered and stole a bite from Shinichi's bun. "Hey!"

Coffee went well with the pastries; it went so well, in fact, that when Ran actually _did_ arrive an hour or so later, they were on their second pot. The knock on the door had been a little shy; Ran's face, equally so, though it brightened when she saw the two male heads pop up over the back of the other couch as Yukiko ushered her in.

Yuusaku, in the middle of a small (but growing) array of notepads and books, smiled privately as Ran entered the room. _'Kiko and I probably used to look like that,_ he thought, sneaking a glance at his son's and the thief's twin expressions of puppylike rapture as Ran toed off her shoes and crossed the room to join them on the couch, settling in between them happily. _Of course, 'Kiko and I probably __still__ look like that._

"Ran-chan," Yuusaku said, gently interrupting the trio's mostly murmured welcomes and hellos, "There's a cinnamon roll for you in the kitchen. It'll warm up in the microwave if you like. We saved the last one from this pair of wolves just for you." As Kid and Shinichi's expressions fell, the thief looking wounded and the detective looking betrayed, Yuusaku laughed. "You two didn't think I'd trust you to _leave_ one if you knew it existed, did you?"

Shinichi developed a frown, challenging his father as best as he could while peering over the back of the couch like a meerkat. "Tousan, you're still hiding something from us! You said the last_one_, but cinnabons are sold in rolls of six, and there's only five of us here. The last one is, therefore, missing!"

"Is it?" Kid, chin and fingertips resting on the back of the couch, elbowed Shinichi lightly. "You've missed a suspect, Tantei. And I think I've solved the case! Kudo-san already had an empty plate of crumbs when we arrived downstairs, but someone else was just retrieving her cinnabon from the kitchen!"

Grinning, Shinichi picked up the thread of deduction gamely, turning in place to level his signature gesture, the extended pointing arm, across the room. "The last cinnabon wasn't the last at all - it was the first! The one that was eaten without a trace...the one that you had at the same time as Tousan had his, before there were any witnesses to your double portions...that cinnabon was eaten, Kaasan, by you!"

"What evidence do you have?" the actress challenged her son archly, springing to her feet with one hand turned in front of her mouth in a posture of deep offense. "For all you know, your father ate it! Or your boyfriend, while your back was turned!"

Shinichi narrowed his eyes at her, tsking. "Ah-ah, kaasan, you forget! What did Kid tell you when you were leaving the kitchen with your cinnabon? 'A woman of your position,' indeed! Who would suspect you after you yourself teased us that you had eaten them all? Clearly we would assume that, as a famous actress, you couldn't possibly have planned to eat _two_ whole cinnabons! But I know for a fact that you could have, and did!"

"Maa maa, Kudo-kun," rumbled a voice near his elbow. Shinichi held an admirably straight face as Kid advanced to stand between Shinichi and his mother, stroking an imaginary moustache and puffing his stomach out like a man of much greater stature - like the man who rightfully owned the voice Kid was wearing, in fact. "Let's not be rash. Yukiko-san is a woman of excellent standing," 'Megure-keibu' counseled, looking severe. Behind him, Ran and Yuusaku were both fighting down broad grins. "You shouldn't cast aspersions on her character!"

"Who could have eaten it, besides her, Megure-keibu?" Shinichi asked, pointing accusingly at his mother as he levelled a (very, _very_ admirably) straight gaze on Kid. "Do you have an alternate theory?"

"I do!" Ran, voice pitched as low as she could make it without aid of the bow tie, stood tall with hands on hips, nose turned up, and a smug expression on her face. When everyone in the room had turned to stare at her, she continued, swaggering toward the "crime scene" with overconfidence to spare.

"Bozu, you can't possibly accuse such a lovely, sweet lady as Yukiko-chaaaan," Ran rumbled, biting her own lip to keep from cracking up. Beside her, Shinichi was having much more trouble than her, and even Kid couldn't keep the amusement from his eyes as Ran continued. "Can't you see? This is clearly a locked-microwave case! Open and shut. And there's a beeper to say when it opens! So it couldn't possibly - hee - be anyone else but-aaaaaah, I can't do it anymore!"

Ran, and the rest of the room, dissolved into laughter. Yukiko propped herself up by leaning on her son, while Ran sunk down onto the arm of the couch, holding her sides. Even Yuusaku was laughing outright, papers and notebooks forgotten in his lap. Kid alone stood above the giggling mess, somehow still holding a straight face.

"Mou, and I had actually wanted to hear what Mouri-tantei would come up with this time," he deadpanned.

"He _is_ entertaining in his way, isn't he? Rather like a trainwreck," agreed a new voice, Haibara Ai's this time. "Or a catastrophe curve. Don't you find it so, Kudo-kun?"

Still laughing, Shinichi opened his mouth to answer Kid's quip... when he realized that the thief had utterly frozen, his Poker Face slamming down like an iron door. The rest of the laughter in the room thinned out almost instantly, and Ran was the first one to recover.

_**"...Ai-chan?"**_

"Of course," murmured the diminutive blonde, appearing silently from the little side-hallway that connected to the tunnel between Agasa's home and the Kudo residence. "My apologies for intruding," she said in what was a friendly voice for her; "I _did_ knock, but I don't believe you heard me. May I-?" She looked at the Kudos inquiringly.

"Of course, Ai-chan." Yukiko dimpled at her, seemingly quite glad to see the little scientist. "Sit down. Coffee? Or tea, or I think I might have some sodas left...?"

"Just water, thank you."

On the couch, Kid relaxed a fraction; for his companions' ears only, the thief whispered: "I didn't hear her. I _didn't hear her._ That's rather unnerving; am I slipping?" Shinichi shook his head silently, and Ran stroked the thief's arm in reassurance.

Tucking herself up into Shinichi's favorite chair, Haibara Ai surveyed the three teenagers on the couch; they blinked back at her. "Kudo-kun. You're looking... remarkably rested. Are you enjoying your first extended taste of freedom?" Her small face was pink-cheeked and relaxed, but there were faint shadows beneath the calm eyes. Shinichi nodded warily, wondering at her expression. If he hadn't known better, he'd have almost thought that she'd been-

No. Haibara Ai did not cry.

"It occurred to me- Thank you, Kudo-san," she murmured as she accepted a glass of cold water. "It occurred to me that I hadn't told you anything regarding the precursors of your transformation back, and I have a minor adjustment to make to the Apotoxin unit." Ai pulled something small, silver and cartridge-like from one pocket, holding it up to the light; it glittered, no larger than the memory-card on a camera though a bit thicker. "You have less than a day remaining; E.T.A. should be eleven a.m. tomorrow, more or less, and several hours prior to that you should begin to experience a number of symptoms triggered by the changing levels of Apotoxin in your system." She slipped the cartridge back into her pocket and took a sip of her water; Yukiko sat back down beside her husband, curling her feet beneath her.

"Symptoms?" asked Shinichi's mother worriedly. "But- what if we allowed him to sleep through them? Couldn't he miss out on them entirely?" Beside her, Yuusaku put his arm around his wife's shoulders.

"Oh, he'd wake up," said Haibara dryly. "Although he _should_ sleep quite soundly right up until that point; in fact, the Apotoxin unit will be feeding small doses of a powerful sedative into his system for some time before the symptoms even begin, followed by a final and stronger dose just prior to transformation. I designed the addition in this way," she added almost as an afterthought, "to relax your son's body initially and spare him some of the pre-change trauma, and then to bypass the pain of the reversion itself." There was a flicker of expression in her eyes, something there and then gone too swiftly to follow.

"Symptoms, you said?" This time it was Shinichi, eyes narrowing, who asked the question; his hands were cupped around his cooling coffeemug, and Ran took it from him before he dropped it on the floor. "What kind of symptoms?"

"Ah." She sat forward, her blue-gray eyes fixed on him. Beside the detective, Kid was as still as stone. "To begin with, you'll probably wake up in a state of some disorientation, possibly similar to alcoholic intoxication. That should be followed by increasing bouts of drowsiness, then a very deep sleep, and then the transformation itself. If all goes well, you _will_ sleep through that. I, ah..." Ai shifted a little uncomfortably in her chair, "considered it the least traumatic way to handle the change."

"Really," murmured Kid; it was the first thing he'd said directly to Ai since she'd entered the room, and now he raised one eyebrow at the scientist inquisitively. "That's a bit of a change for you, then, isn't it, tensai-san?"

Haibara accepted the sobriquet of 'genius' with nothing more than a salute of her own eyebrows. "Perhaps," she murmured. "Or perhaps I've been... rethinking my methods as of late." She shrugged. "So long as the outcome is the same, I see no reason not to apply mercy as well as expedition." Ai did not look at Yukiko, but one corner of the actress's mouth quirked up in a very slight, very smug little smile.

"So... he'll sleep a lot, then wake up drunk, then sleep _again_ and shrink," said Yukiko thoughtfully. "That certainly sounds less dreadful than what he went through before. Shin-chan, darling, I don't believe I've ever seen you potted before; I wonder what you'll be like?" Her eyes twinkled. "Will you be a cheerful drunk or a mean drunk, or even a morose drunk, I wonder? Your father, now, he likes to sing; and there was this one time at a _marvelous_ party back in California when he had a tad too much tequila, and he got hold of some plastic flamingos from the front lawn and did the most AMAZING-"

Yuusaku placed a firm hand over his wife's mouth. "No flamingos," the writer muttered. "We Do Not Mention The Flamingos. We _talked_ about this, 'Kiko."

"Have to say I sympathize," Kid chimed in, progressively relaxing thanks to the warmth of Ran and Shinichi on either side of him. "There's a few incidents I won't ever be admitting to if I can help it, and _no_," he continued quickly, holding one fingertip up in front of Shinichi's lips, "That is _not_ a challenge."

Ran snickered, sharing a smile with Yuusaku and Yukiko as the thief and detective played Glare Chicken. "Ai-chan," she said, drawing the discussion back to center, "Is there anything else we should know? Or should we just, um, say our goodbyes tonight, before Shinichi goes to sleep?"

"Goodbyes?" Shinichi squawked, leaning around Kid to offer a glare for Ran. "I'm shrinking, not _dying!_"

"I should hope not," Kid answered, patting the detective patronizingly on the head; Shinichi bristled and Kid turned to Ran, seemingly oblivious. "I believe Ran's wording was simply an exercise in tact, something that is perhaps lacking in our recent hours..."

Shinichi blushed, Ran blushed harder, and Ai looked fundamentally unimpressed. "I would think that might be a good idea, yes," the scientist said, tone wry. "Though I would caution you. Make your 'goodbyes' too...enthusiastic, shall we say, and you'll likely end up more inconvenienced than not."

All three on the couch eyed her warily, and it was Shinchi who asked. "What's that supposed to mean, Ai?"

"Nothing you already don't know about, Kudo-kun. I warned you against strenuous exercise for a reason. An elevated heart rate, especially one maintained at an elevated level for any significant time, will burn the Apotoxin through your body more quickly. The reversion time will be bumped up, but I can't predict by how much."

"That's good to know," Kid said, one hand gripping Shinichi's knee to warn him into silence. "Did you want to apply the modification to Shinichi's device now?"

"Yes. Follow me, Kudo-kun. We can simply use the kitchen, if that's alright. The lighting is good enough there, and all I'll have to do is modify the actual device, not make you bleed again."

"Small blessings," Shinichi muttered, following Haibara obediently out of the room. In their wake, Ran shot a guilty look at Kid, still blushing a little bit.

"Do you think we should tell Ai-chan that-"

"Pardon me," Kid said, addressing the Kudos, before turning to Ran and kissing her cheek gently and lightly. One hand stroked her hair behind her ear, fingers deft and gentle, as he offered a steady, reassuring smile for her. "I think that's nobody's business but our own," he murmured. "She's smart, she can figure it out later."

* * *

.

.

.

.

**Omake - ****Riding the Nightmare**

I. _Haibara_

.

"I'm Sherry," she said softly. "And I was, yes, once an adult. And an 'employee' of the Black Organization. And lastly, one of the creators of the drug that brought both Kudo-kun and myself to this sorry state." She would have spread her child-sized hands wide, displaying them, if she could have; but she couldn't; she was tied to her chair.

"HI, SHERRY!" chorused the rest of the group in the loose circle of chairs. The shrunken scientist shivered once as the next person to be introduced stood up.

"Chianti," said the thin, tattooed young woman with a cruel little laugh. "Me, I'm still an adult-" (she gave Ai a sly sort of smile, the butterfly-mark at her left eye flickering its wings) "-and I love my job. But I don't love having to put up with the superior dipshits who run things and won't let me do what I want. I want out. That's why I'm here tonight, because I heard... oh, well, you all _know_ what I heard. So hi, hi, whatever." She sat down as well.

"HI, CHIANTI!"

The introductions continued on, one after the other- Vodka, still wearing his shades even in the dimly-lit room; Korn, his permanent frown of disapproval oddly tenuous; Kir, her pretty face distinctly out-of-place in the gathering, and-

"And I'm Vermouth, of course." The blonde smiled across the circle and blew a little kiss at Ai, who froze in her chair like a rabbit confronted with a particularly pleased-looking snake. "I'm _so_glad you could all be here with me tonight, because as Chianti said, we've all heard the rumors. And really, who among us wants to spend the rest of our amoral, self-centered lives working for an organization who won't hesitate to kill us if we step out of line-? We ALL want out, don't we? Of course we do... and so now all our plotting, all our patient waiting has borne fruit!" She beamed at the circle of avidly-listening criminals and token terrified scientist. "And we all owe it to our dear, darling Sherry! Don't we, Gin?"

Like the dregs of bad memories, the silver-haired assassin appeared from behind her chair, carrying a small case which he flipped open. His cold eyes swept around the circle, lingering on Ai's face the longest as he gave her a smile full of sinister promise. Vermouth also smiled at her again, sweet and poisonous as she held up a familiar capsule in red-nailed fingertips. "Dear, sweet Sherry, who thought she could get away scott-free; it's no-one's fault but your own, you know. We want out, but no-one wants to get caught, do they? Incarceration? Not for us. And so instead we're all going to take a little step into our private pasts, back to the age of... innocence."

"After all," Vermouth said brightly, mockingly, holding out the case full of capsules as the soon-to-be-former Black Organization members rose eagerly to receive them, "tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. Isn't that right, Sherry?"

Horrified, Ai began to struggle against her bonds. Maybe they'd all die; maybe the drug would kill them- _please, please, let it kill them-_

"Oh, don't worry, darling," called out Vermouth from the press of reaching hands. _"This_ batch has undergone further testing. We'll all be joining you at your lovely grade-school before you know it; and won't we have fun then?" Red-lipped death, she laughed at the writhing girl. "So very much fun, all over again, and again and again and again-"

* * *

Haibara Ai choked off the end of a scream as she threw herself out of her own bed, landing on the floor in a tangle of sweat-damp sheets and utter terror. The overhead light flicked on, showing Professor Agasa's worried face and distressing bed-head. He regarded the disheveled scientist, kneeling down creakily to help her back up. "Bad dream?" Agasa asked quietly; bad dreams were a frequent occurrence in his household.

Ai nodded mutely, a bare inclination of her chin. The fear was still very much with her, and she allowed herself to be wrapped in the robe she kept on the back of her bedroom door. Careful, pudgy hands pulled the robe closed; and it was with the kindness that was characteristic of Agasa that he didn't blether with 'are you all right' or 'what's wrong'. He merely tucked the folds around his fellow scientist and nodded once, peering down at her through short-sighted eyes.

"Believe I'll have some hot chocolate, Ai-chan. Would you like a cup?"

"Yes, Agasa-kun, I would."

The world was dark and cold and full of dread; a little warmth might make it feel better, at least.

* * *

II. _Agasa_

_._

He'd woken to some sound, some little noise; uncertain of what he'd heard and only vaguely aware of the early sunlight filtering in through the windows, Agasa Hiroshi had stumbled from his bed in alarm. A tiny voice in the back of his head kept insisting that what he'd hear had been a gunshot.

-and then he was at Ai-chan's door, and he'd thrown it open to see, and _oh God no- Ai, __no__-_

_**-**__**NO**__**-**_

...and then Agasa'd awakend, shaking in every limb, covered in a cold sweat.

It had taken a little while before the dream had receded enough for the rest of the world to make sense. But once rationality had reasserted itself, the _real_ sounds had caught his attention: mutterings, a gasp, a protesting moan.

And now...

Agasa's hands were steady as he stirred the heating mixture of milk, sugar and powdered chocolate. He glanced a little over his shoulder at the small figure who sat contemplating empty space, eyes darkened by whatever had broken her sleep. "They do say," the scientist ventured cautiously, "-psychiatrists, that is- they do say that sometimes it does good to, hrm, talk about a nightmare." Pale blue-gray eyes met his, full of distance and a great deal of unwillingness. "Maybe? Perhaps? Possibly?"

"You first." Ai folded her arms. "You _were_ awake before me, after all, Professor."

The milk was beginning to simmer; Agasa turned it down. "Err, yes. Well..."

"...what do psychiatrists know, anyway?"

"Precisely."

"Whipped cream, Ai-chan?" He gave the cocoa one last stir. "Empty calories, I know, but... just this once?"

"Maybe just this once."

Agasa smiled to himself.

The world was quiet and warm and full of peace, at least for the moment. And perhaps that would be enough.

* * *

.

_Thanks again for being here! See you next week!_


	31. College, case closed, homework

_**Three Thieves**__**:** A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by red__nightengale__ and _ _ysabet__**  
**__**Book Three, Chapter Ten**__**: "college, case closed, homework "  
Warnings: **__Mature subjects, sexual situations in the original chapter (which can be found here if you fix the html: http colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 14763 dot html poundsign cutid1) _

_**Crossposted to the following LJ communities:**_ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

* * *

.

"...and that's it? Plug and play, so to speak?" Shinichi peered at the small black box that still clung barnacle-like to his hip; with plastic-gloved fingers, Ai clicked the small hatch on one end shut. She'd also checked the biopatches holding the twin fangs in his skin, noting with approval that his previous transformation hadn't caused the expected skin-tears at all.

"That's it, yes." Off came the child-sized gloves, rolled inside-out and tucked one within the other in the prescribed, lab-proper manner. "And now," she said, leaning against a counter with her arms crossed as her patient pulled his turtleneck gingerly back into place, "I was wondering if you might enlighten me on your plans."

"Ah... plans?" Guilty flashes of what he'd _hoped_ to spend his sole remaining evening doing flickered through Shinichi's eyes; Ai rolled her own.

"Next week, Kudo-kun. I am NOT interested in this evening's extracurricular activities, although I hope you'll keep my warning in mind and keep it down to a dull roar." The scientist tilted her head to one side. "You've been out of classes for very nearly a month; the children are becoming extremely worried despite my reassurances, and I think the Professor's excuses are beginning to wear thin with our teachers. Had you planned on returning?"

The thought was painful, a jarring slap of flat, stale reality against the past two days. Shinichi nodded reluctantly. "It's not like I have much of a choice, do I? Of course I'll be going back." Back to gradeschool; back to brain-numbing classes, back to seeing the world from waist-high; back to being a sub-citizen, back to being a child.

Back to pretending, make-believe, falsehoods, imposture... lies. Back to Edogawa Conan's world. Without Ran, without Kid. -No, that was stupid; he'd still have them, of course he would, and they'd have each other. It'd just be different, that was all. Very different.

_God._

"In that case," went on Ai, either ignoring or deliberately allowing him to sidestep his own unhappiness, "I have a thought on how to handle your new addition." She reached up to tap the Apotoxin pack, now hidden by gray cotton. "However, it'll require a bit of subterfuge... I don't suppose," said the diminutive scientist somewhat sarcastically, "that you might know of anyone who'd be good at that sort of thing, would you?" And she raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

* * *

"...And oh, I'll need a new wig, I meant to pick one up as soon as we got back into town, but it's just been so _busy_ what with Shin-chan's new size and everything else..."

"I could loan you mine," Kid offered with a smile, chin propped on his laced fingers, elbows on knees. Across the coffee table, Kudo Yukiko and the Kaitou Kid collaboratively planned what they were best at - a disguise. Around the pair of them, Ran and Shinichi tried to keep their apprehension from their faces, Ai made no such effort, and Yuusaku merely looked amused.

Granted, Shinichi thought, his father had had a lot longer to get _used_ to his wife than Shinichi and Ran had had to get used to their thief. Still, that didn't make the scene any less impressive...or worrisome. _Truly a jack of all trades,_ Shinichi thought with pride. _He looks just as intent as when he and I were doing research together in the library. Completely manic and completely focused all at once._

"So, uh, Ran, what were you busy with all day?" They'd adjusted their seats on the couch, leaving Kid a whole half of the space and scooting together on the other end, out of an only_mostly_ feigned apprehension for the thief's formidably scheming aura. "Kaasan had said something about a...interview? Did I get that wrong?"

"It was just a brief meeting," Ran clarified, looking a little awkward as she explained. "Kaasan wants me to get into the paralegal field, and she badgered Tousan into taking me over to meet one of her colleagues this afternoon. I had to get a note to excuse my absence from class, and Sensei wasn't happy at all. The meeting went well," she continued, taking the cue from Shinichi's sharply interested expression, and smiling as she retold more of the day.

"Hasegawa Suzume has worked with kaasan for years now, and she used to be her main office assistant before Kuriyama-san took over for her. Hasegawa-san went off to have a baby, I think. She's very nice, and very knowledgeable about the work. She said that if I wanted to go to school for it, that Waseda University would be the best choice for me, but I'm not sure that I could get in there. They only take three hundred students a year."

"Ran, that's ridiculous. You're brilliant," Shinichi protested, squeezing her hand with a grin. "You could get in easy!"

Ran frowned. "I'm not brilliant like you and Kid are," she said without heat. "And that's okay, I know I'm smarter than a lot of people, but compared to _you_ two..."

"-And adhesive," Kid was saying to Yukiko. "Excuse me a moment." Turning to the side, Kid twisted past Shinichi's shoulder, taking and squeezing Ran's free hand. "You are brilliant, Ran, brilliant and intuitive and empathetic. And we're lucky to have you, and you will _certainly_ get in to Waseda."

Ran stared. "You were listening?"

"Of course," Kid purred, matter-of-fact. "You're speaking quite clearly." As though that might have been the main obstacle - not the thoroughly focused attention he'd been paying to an entirely different conversation - the thief smiled, straightened up, and turned back to his conversation with Yukiko without missing a beat.

"You were mentioning sequins?"

"No, now that I think about it, I bet mica glitter would work better," Yukiko mused, thoughtful. Ran and Shinichi, recognizing a self-preservation instinct when it hit them across the head, quickly tuned out.

"Um. Well. What Kid was saying is true," Shinchi repeated, earnest. "What else did Hasegawa-san have to say?"

Ran shrugged. "Not a lot. It wasn't a long meeting at all, and not terribly formal either. I do have her card, though."

"Hey, it's a connection." Shinichi nodded. "That's definitely good. So do you think you _want_ to? You haven't really mentioned anything about college yet, come to think of it."

She looked uncomfortable. "Well...I'd been trying not to, actually," she admitted. Shinichi frowned, confused and concerned, and Ran hurried to explain. "Because of you! I didn't want to...well, Conan-kun wouldn't care about college, and once I knew it was _you_, I didn't want to...well, I thought it would just upset you."

Shinichi studied her for a long moment; this wasn't something he could say lightly or easily, but- it wasn't anything he hadn't thought about before, either. "Ran, it's- not like that. I've been away from school, our real school, for almost _two years._ Even if I was cured today, even if every member of the Black Organization was behind bars tonight, I couldn't just drop back into my old life like nothing'd ever happened." He shrugged, not really smiling, even if his expression had a little wry amusement in it. "So- I don't graduate. I pick back up, study when I can, take make-up courses and get a diploma later on; it happens. And as for college..." He raised an eyebrow. "There're other options, and well... I haven't exactly done things the normal, predictable way so far, have I? Why start now?"

Ran bit her lip. "It just seems like such a waste-"

He shook his head. "Even before all this happened, I was starting to think about maybe a different route than college. Of course," he added a little whimsically, "that was when I was still getting Kudo-The-Boy-Wonder fanmail..." (Across from them, Ai snorted to herself very quietly.) "But the last thing, the _very_ last thing I want you to do is limit yourself because of **my**limits. Please, Ran?" His smile was very real and very tender. "Give me something to live up to, okay? Other than just growing up permanently, I mean. And solving murders. And getting driven to distraction by riffraff with grabby paws..." The smile turned into a grin as he glanced over at Kid, still deep in planning something rather dreadful with his mother, and retained its tenderness as he turned it back on Ran, affection in his eyes. "...and a beautiful woman who's got more common sense than the both of us put together."

"Well that goes without saying," Ran said briskly, a little shake in the back of her voice hinting at the emotion she wasn't letting show. "_I'm_ the only one of the three of us who doesn't go leaping off of buildings, or skateboarding down a roller-coaster track, or getting shot at by people with guns and bad tempers, or evading police procedure, or fabricating evidence, or impersonating authority figures, on a regular basis, except for the times when you two drag me into that sort of thing, and _no,_ don't start," she added quickly, putting up a hand to halt the dismay that had flickered onto Shinichi's face; "I'm not saying that to make you guilty or anything, I can take care of myself quite well. And I'd dare say I'm _better_ at it than you two anyway."

Shinichi looked confused. "Better at it...?"

"Getting shot at," Ran explained matter-of-factly. Shinichi choked and Ran beamed. "You two are silly enough to actually let yourselves _get_ shot. I prefer to dodge."

"I've lost more jewels that way," Kid griped over Shinichi's shoulder, looking comically put out. "Would you like to know how hard it is to get emerald shards out of a wool suit? Really quite a pain."

"You sound rather flippant about that, Kid." From the other side of the coffee table, Yuusaku spoke calmly, but the crease between his eyebrows betrayed the muted alarm he felt. "How many times has this happened?"

"Only a handful. He's really quite predictable, my sniper-san," Kid answered, tapping his chin thoughtfully as he reclined casually in his seat. "Always aims for the heart. Always hits it, too, which I suppose is fortunate. Those first couple times, before I knew enough to wear kevlar, if he'd missed his target, he would have done more damage than he did by hitting straight-on."

"He hit the gem, didn't he?" Shinichi asked quietly, holding Ran's hand tightly. She covered his hand with her other one, stroking lightly. "I suppose we should feel lucky he never tried for a head shot."

"No, that was Scorpion's signature," Kid corrected him. "I had beads of glass from the monocle in my eye for _weeks_."

"I am less than relieved by knowing that," Yuusaku commented dryly.

"Clinically speaking, he's quite correct, though; blunt-impact shots and near misses can actually cause far more physical trauma than direct perforations," said Ai quietly. She'd been listening all this time, still sipping from her glass of water. "My own experiences with gunshot wounds taught me that a glancing shot tears rather than cutting through cleanly; and the scarring, of course, is considerably worse." Aware of the startled eyes that had turned her way, the little blonde turned her glass around in her hands; it was almost too large for her small fingers. "That was some time ago, though," she added. "The cellular-regrowth salve that the Professor and I developed has very nearly erased the marks. You might find that it does the same for yours, even long past their healing." That last was towards Kid, who looked thoughtful.

"You were _shot?_" Ran was horrified. "Ai-chan, when was this?"

"Quite a few months back, during my own sole reversion to my adult form," the scientist answered matter-of-factly. "I had an encounter with the same individual who effected Kudo-kun's transformation." She drank another sip before placing the glass on the small end-table beside her and rummaging around once more in her small labcoat's capacious pockets, withdrawing a flat white container.

Shinichi's eyes lit up. "Is that—"

"Yes; I brought it along for you to use in case of possible skin-tears around the port entrances," she explained. "but there's no reason it wouldn't work on previously-acquired scarring. And I have plenty back in my lab."

A little dubious, Ran reached out, taking the tiny jar of ointment and examining its contents. The translucent, pinkish cream had a faintly acrid scent to it that reminded her of something familiar, something that made her slightly uncomfortable, something… After a moment Ran's eyes widened as she identified the acridity. "It smells like-!" Repulsed, she closed the container; Kid took it curiously and sniffed at it. His brow furrowed and he glanced at the other two on the couch in question.

"It smells like, like… when you shrank there was this smoke," explained Ran to Shinichi, slightly green. "Kid, you were there- remember? It's like that." Ai blinked.

"Really? How curious. We _did_ base it on research that I'd done prior to my own change, and it does use the same chemical matrix; I simply didn't consider…" She trailed off, watching Kid cap the contents and pass it along to Shinichi, who pocketed it with a nod of thanks. "I must tell the Professor that we'll need to add a masking fragrance if we ever consider marketing it. I rather doubt that 'Eau de Kudo' would go over well with the general public."

"Oh, EEW."

"Raaaan..."

"I have to agree with her, Tantei."

"Although," added Ai consideringly, "it would really have to be 'Eau de Apotoxin' to be absolutely accurate. Not the best of names for a marketing strategy, I suppose. Perhaps we could make it gunpowder-scented?"

By this point Yuusaku was eying the diminutive scientist with a seriously disturbed expression, and Ran looked utterly revolted. "Was that a _joke?"_ she asked in horror.

"Of course not, Mouri-san," Ai deadpanned, perfectly straight-faced. "Everyone knows that I have absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever."

"Obviously," Kid grinned, apparently taking the conversation easier than anyone else. "That's why you named yourself 'Ai.'"

Haibara's eyebrow slid upward, noting Kid's insight into the dual meaning of her name - and his acknowledgment of her black humor - with startled respect. "Indeed. Clearly, I am of stone."

"A modern-day Samson," Kid intoned somberly, gravitas in his nod and a quirk of humor on his lips.

"Ever so unfortunate that you haven't any long hair for your Delilah to cut off," Yukiko contributed, tilting her head prettily in mock concentration. "How are your ankles?"

"Hale and well-dipped," Ai returned easily, turning her attention back to Shinichi. "Kudo-kun, I expect a full and _immediate_ report as soon as you begin to feel the symptoms I've mentioned...and no, I don't care what else it might interrupt you from. It's necessary."

He raised an eyebrow, then pulled his cellphone from a pocket and held it up. "Speed-dial. Of course, if I'm dozing off like some sort of narcoleptic- never mind, someone'll call you. Why, though? It sounds like you've planned for every eventuality; I'm not even going to have to be awake for it this time, right? -and thank you for that, by the way. I mean it." Feeling his own flesh melt off his reforming bones wasn't anything Shinichi'd choose to go through if he could manage to avoid it.

"For observational purposes," Ai answered plainly, giving Shinichi a Look that said he should have thought of that already. "I don't expect to have any sort of active role in tomorrow's transformation, but the data I can gain from observing your state as you change will be very valuable."

Ran frowned. "You want to watch him nod off and wake up several times, then act like Tousan after too many beers, and then fall asleep again?" She eyed the blonde cautiously. "Couldn't we just call you after the intoxication part but before the shrinking part?" She curled one hand over Shinichi's arm. "Because he's not going to be left alone, not for a minute."

"Of course he's not, Ran-chan," put in Yukiko. "And if you need us to call Mouri-san, I'm sure we can come up with something... hm. Little Conan-kun has the- chicken-pox? Measles? A horrible toothache? Maybe a-"

The detective's daughter had turned slightly pink. "That, um, won't be necessary, Kudo-san. I took care of that already. I, ahh, brought something to sleep in and clothes for tomorrow and everything."

"-scarlet fever? Awful nightmares? Croup? ...oh, you did? However did you manage that, Ran-chan?" And her schoolbag, which still leaned against the couch, did have a slightly overstuffed look to it. Kudo Yukiko peered at it thoughtfully and then considered her son's girlfriend with one of her more delighted smiles. "Mmm... When _I_ had to find a way to slip out with Yuusaku, I usually resorted to the old studying-late-at-the-library excuse. But that wouldn't do for overnight, so- oh. Dear, dear, dear. Ran-chan," (and her smile took on a mischievous quirk) "just who did you persuade to cover for you? And where are you supposed to be, hm? Just so all our bases are covered-"

"-and we have the same alibi," murmured her husband. "We wouldn't want to get our stories crossed, now would we? Poor plotting."

Even pinker than before, Ran's eyes dropped guiltily to the floor. "...Sonoko-chan," she mumbled. "I'm, um, supposed to be staying over there tonight; her parents are in Greece 'til next Tuesday." Beside her, Shinichi's eyes suddenly bulged in their sockets.

"Oh? Is she trustworthy?"

"She wants me to cover for _her_ this coming weekend. So I think so."

"Ra-a-annn," Shinichi cut in, keeping _most_ of his considerable alarm off his face. "Did you _want_ your father to attempt to castrate me in the near future?"

Ran blinked, hard, and blushed just because of the visual that came along with her boyfriend's question. "Sonoko wouldn't-"

Shinichi gave her a good firm stare. "Suzuki Sonoko is a very loyal, strong, supportive friend. She's very important to you, and I know that, and I respect her and your friendship with her. But Ran, she _talks_. You would not _believe_ what I've heard from her because she thought I was an unimportant little kid. Some of the things she sa-"

"_About me?_"

Shinichi backpedaled, hands up to guard in front of his face. "No no no, that's not what I meant, I'm just saying, she's a bit- I mean, she-"

"Suzuki," Kid interrupted, his volume low as though he were privately reflecting, but his voice pitched to carry across the room and cut through both Shinichi's and Ran's cycling panic. "Related to Jirokichi-ojisan? Of the Suzuki zaibatsu?" He brought his gaze down to the other two, something sly sparkling in the darker corners of his lake blue eyes, and Ran nodded numbly.

"Oh dear," Kid continued, his casual tone at odds with his words. "That could be very bad indeed. She doesn't know I'm here, does she? I hope not."

"I haven't told anyone about you at all, Kid," Ran said, sounding a little bit hurt. "I wouldn't, ever, unless you said it was okay."

Kid smiled for her, reassuring. "I know, Ran. But still, if anyone in _particular_ would be inconvenient, it might be your friend. I am remembering the right girl, correct? Blonde, thin, sharp face,_obsessive as hell about catching my ass_, and not in the manner involving handcuffs?"

Shinichi snorted softly. "Knowing Sonoko? I wouldn't count on that." Kid blanched.

"She's not- Shiniiiiichiiii... she is NOT that bad." Ran had her most stubborn, mulish look on her face, the one that made _her_ look like the token eight-year-old in the room. "I told her that you were visiting with your family, that nobody was supposed to know you were here- I said that Tousan'd make a big fuss if he knew I wanted to stay over late and, um... watch movies with you... and if I fell asleep on the couch, then that was nobody's business but ours." Chin up and defiant, she stared the other two down. "And I _did_ tell her that I'd cover for her when she visits Makoto-kun, and she _really_ wants to see him, he's got a tournament and his club's staying at an onsen and she got a room there too..." She shook her head. "I know she's a featherhead, but I don't think she'll risk her onsen trip, I really don't. It's too important to her... and I think she could tell this was important to me too." Ran looked at them both one after the other as defiance melted into fondness; "She has no idea..." One hand went out to Kid's, the other to Shinichi's.

"-and anyway," Ran added after a moment, a touch of humor returning to her voice, "at least she has good taste. Shinichi's right; she's a HUGE fangirl." The little grin she gave the thief had secrets tucked away inside it.

There was a moment of silence, which was broken, surprisingly, by Yuusaku. Just settled back into his seat with a fresh cup of coffee and a book held open across one knee, he let his smile rest entirely in his eyes as he gave his son and associates a dryly assessing look-over.

"Were we ever that disgustingly adorable, 'Kiko?"

"We still are, darling," she purred, snuggling up against his side.

"I'm leaving," Ai announced.

* * *

They sent her off with promises to call _immediately_ when the intoxication-stage seemed to be waning into sleep, no matter the hour. She left them with dire warnings against overexertion and, somewhat surprisingly, a slightly cryptic farewell wish of 'good luck, Kudo-kun.' Shinichi saw her to the tunnel and returned, shaking his head.

"Kaasan? When you talked to Haibara the other day, you didn't, well, _threaten_ her or anything, did you?" The detective watched his mother suspiciously as she raised her head from her husband's shoulder to blink up at him, as innocent as any blue-eyed kitten.

"Threaten? Whatever do you take me for, Shin-chan? I would _never_ threaten one of my son's friends in any provable way! Ever! Why, I'm wounded that you would think that I'd-"

_"KAASAN._ Spill it."

She tucked back a curl of caramel-golden hair with one manicured fingernail. "I merely suggested a few alternative ways in which she might want to, oh, attain her goals. And what those goals might be, in the long run. These serious types, you know, they're all so _short-sighted,_ Shin-chan! Sometimes they need to be reminded that there are other possibilities beyond what they're pushing so hard for. They're so prone to tunnel-vision that after a while all they can see is the tunnel, not the light at the end. Or what's past the light, for that matter." Yuusaku smoothed his wife's hair, long fingers cupping her jawline for a moment before she captured them and laced her own between.

"So- what IS past the light?" asked Ran, fascinated and a little unnerved.

But Yukiko merely smiled and would not say.

The conversation settled down somewhat after that, mainly because Yuusaku still had a lot to do in preparation for the writers' conference that had occasioned their visit, and Yukiko wandered into the kitchen to make dinner, declaring that on their last night together before everyone had to stop "playing hooky from real life," nothing less than a home-cooked meal would suffice. Ran, Shinichi, and Kid kept quiet on the couch while Yuusaku worked - well, Ran and Shinichi kept quiet, and Kid kept quiet_ish_. They cuddled together, like exceptionally affectionate puppies, and Yuusaku glanced up over the edge of his papers every so often to watch them with a small smile.

Shortly before dinner, Shinichi's cell phone went off, startling all three on the couch. One by one they climbed off of each other, until the offending little red device was dug out of the seat cushions and flipped open.

"_Yo! Kudo! Care t'ever answer yer phone? I thought it was gonna go over to voicemail again!_" Shinichi held the phone away from his ear; Ran frowned, discerning the voice but not the words from her polite distance next to him. Plastered up against Shinichi's other side to eavesdrop, Kid paid for his nosiness with a wince, and pulled back to nurse his ear, glaring at the phone.

Shinchi rolled his eyes at the thief, addressing his friend on the phone with a dryly unimpressed tone. "Mattaku, Hattori, you just about took my ear off. Cool down, will you?"

The line crackled with static as Hattori's volume challenged the limits of the cell phone's speakers. "No way, Kudo! I've been trying to call you for two days now, but your phone keeps ringing straight through to voicemail. You didn't have it turned off, did you? This is important!"

Shinichi winced. _Turned off? More like 'utterly ignored'...but I don't think Hattori would appreciate me telling him why I left the cell phone on a different floor of this house for most of the past twenty-four hours..._ Shinichi slid a glance Kid's direction, and the smug, self-satisfied smirk that lit the thief's eyes was almost enough to make Shinichi blush all over again with the memories it dragged up. He flapped one hand at Kid, glaring; cooperatively, the thief tuned down his smirk. Just a little.

"What's up? Is it about the case?" Ran's expression sharpened, worried, and Shinichi waved a hand to soothe her, putting his finger to his lips to keep her quiet. _"He's fine. Just angry,"_ he mouthed at her. After all, if Hattori was well enough to lecture Shinichi, that meant he probably hadn't suffered another attack on his life. (_Or at least that it wasn't successful,_ he amended.)

"Yeah, it is. Did you see the paper? They had an article in it - I saw it on the online version. And they put a blip up on tonight's evening news, too. I bet you can find it online. They said that things are getting wrapped up."

The Detective of the East swallowed a large twinge of envy; it went down in a lump, and he sighed. Pulling his laptop back up from its perch on the end-table (they'd been all three examining Wakeda College's curriculum), he typed in a couple of queries, talking all the while. "I missed the news article- I've been a little tied up lately, sorry. Growth spurts, that sort of thing... Hang on a sec." Google came through with a piece from the _Mainichi Shinbun:_

THE ORGAN TRADE: International Profits, International Atrocities

__

When Fernandez dé Piños-Salcido of Guatemala found that his girlfriend had become pregnant, he had every hope of beginning a new life. The 23-year-old had quit the violent drug-ridden intercity gang known as the Mala only a year before; already he'd begun to have the tattoos that covered most of his face and neck removed in an effort to fit back into the world beyond the crime-ridden streets of Guate. When he heard that small, cattle-ranching work camps were being set up in the northeastern backlands beyond the towns and small cities, the lure of money gained through honest toil instead of street thuggery sounded almost too good to be true.

Sadly enough for Fernandez, this was all too accurate.

Two months passed with no word to his girlfriend, friends or family, then three. All inquiries to the ranch contacts brought vague answers or none at all. In desperation, he was reported as a missing person, but his past as a Mala member slowed the investigation and lessened official interest. His case was moved to the growing backlog faced by the authorities of Guate, and after four more months the family no longer received reports. Fernandez dé Piños-Salcido was officially declared missing and unofficially presumed to have fallen foul of old enemies or simply bad luck. The few pay-records from the company footing the work camps showed that he'd received a month's worth of pay and then simply not turned up one morning. Fernandez dé Piños-Salcido's case was, so far as the authorities were concerned, unlikely to be solved and warranting little further attention.

Until his severed, mutilated head showed up more than six months after he had vanished, frozen inside a cow-carcass destined to be ground up into pet food at a Japanese cannery near Tokyo.

As reported in previous headlines across the world, eight cleaned, commercially-frozen beef carcasses plummeted from the damaged cargo compartment of an international transport plane belonging to the [FILL IN AGAIN] shipping company. Shortly after their precipitous arrival, the thawing meat was found to have dismembered human body parts crammed inside their rib-cages and organ cavities, primarily hands, feet, portions of limbs and heads. With only a single exception, the faces had been mutilated by removal of the eyes. The lack of torsos and the eye removal, along with the disparity of matching limbs, suggested possibilities of illegal organ smuggling.

_Tokyo Metropolitan police launched a full investigation, drawing on resources both civilian and interdepartmental due to the severity and horrific nature of the case. In particular, Osaka Precinct Chief Inspector Hattori Heizo (well-known for his hard-headed leadership in the Kyoto Violent Crimes unit) was brought in to head the task force that eventually became required to search out the source of the victims. In a remarkable series of linkages between cause and effect, the-_

The article went on to reference Chinese organ-smuggling rings, the East Indian organ trade, past arrests in Japan's underground body-part market, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It also went in-depth regarding Hattori Heizo's recent and successful attempts at extraditing the culprits, a long chain of businessmen in Guatemala and an equally-extensive line of Japanese contacts. Shinichi whistled; beside him, two heads leaned against his shoulders and read. "Damn," he murmured, turning up the cellphone's volume. "Your dad's literally kicking butt and taking names, Hattori. _Big, corporate, international_ butt. Hate to say it, but... this really was something we couldn't've done. Handing the case over sucked, but-"

"I know, I know." Thinned out by distance and the phone's tinny receiver, Heiji's voice held a strange mixture of pride and defensiveness. "Doesn't mean I haveta _like_ it, though. At least we laid the ground work; somethin' to be proud of, I guess."

"Yeah," said Shinichi softly, scrolling down the screen. "Yeah, it is."

"...So, what's this about growth spurts? You having a flashback, Kudo? 'Cause that freaky little scientist of yours warned you, y'know. How long've you been back t'normal?" The annoyance had eased down considerably, curiosity taking its place. "Don't tell me you changed in the middle've Kiddy School or anything? Or in front of Mouri? If you did, I could probably hide you someplace up here, we've got a cellar. You can't sedate the guy twenty-four/seven, ya know."

Shinichi snorted; he couldn't help it. "Don't tempt me. And no, not exactly a flashback, Haibara found a way to work around them. I'm going through Trial #1 of this new thing she came up with..." Briefly he outlined the Apotoxin pack's functions and possibilities. "Hattori, I really think she's onto something; I've been my old self for almost _two whole days_ now, and... it's been great. Better than great, so much better-" He swallowed; to either side he felt more than saw the looks exchanged by Kid and Ran, and the little kiss dropped by the latter against his shoulder. "And it'll happen AGAIN, and I just- Hattori, it isn't my old life back yet, but it's a start. And if it works like she thinks it will..."

Heiji laughed. "I'll be able t'hear you celebrating from here, won't I? And what's Neechan think about all this?" he teased; "Am I gonna be able to hear her too?"

_That_ had been just loud enough to be audible. Still listening, Ran squeaked.

"...sounds like somebody's got a start on her celebrating early, yeah?" Heiji laughed again. "Where are you, anyway? What've you been up to, all grown up an' no place t'go? -Or maybe I ought not to ask?" _Tellllll meeeeee!_ said Heiji's voice gleefully, no matter what his words said. Ran squeaked again, and Kid snickered against Shinichi's shoulder.

"Uh."

"Kudo?"

"..."

"That didn't sound like Neechan just then." To Shinichi's left, Kid opened his mouth; Ran reached across and covered it with her hand; his blue eyes twinkled, and a moment later Ran _eeped_as he flipped it over in his own and kissed the palm. _"That_ did, but the laugh, nuh-uh."

"Uh. No."

"I don't wanna know, do I?"

"No." He floundered for a moment, then brightened. "But, ahh, my parents are here! You've never met, but, uh- Tousan, Kaasan? Say hello to Hattori Heiji-" He held out the cellphone imploringly towards the rest of the room; his kaasan was in the kitchen, but-

"Hello, Hattori-san," said his father obligingly. "Very pleased to meet you; Shinichi's told us all about you."

"Hello, dear!" said Kid brightly in Kudo Yukiko's voice. "Yes, he's told us _all sorts_ of things, and about that charming friend of yours too- what was her name, Toyama Kazuha? She sounds just lovely." From the kitchen doorway, Shinichi's mother appeared, looking startled.

"...Kazuha? Yeah, she's, uh- Wait. What'd he say?" Heiji sounded unnerved; frozen in place with the cellphone in his outstretched arm, Shinichi shook his head at Kid frantically, who beamed.

"Nothing, nothing! I'm sure you'll be perfect together. Lovely to meet you, darling, and the best of luck!" Kid blew a kiss at the phone, and from the doorway Yukiko mimed a silent round of applause as Shinichi groaned and brought the phone back to his ear.

"Heiji? Heiji, that was-" He winced and pulled it back a bit, cranking down the volume. "No, no, I didn't- you haven't met my parents, when you do you'll underst- no, really, trust me, you will... Uh, when? How often am I going to change back?" Shinichi blinked. "Not sure; I need to check with Haibara on that. It's gonna screw up my school-schedule pretty badly, but we're already working on a medical excuse." More irritable sounds from the phone, shading from imminent violence gradually down into determination. "Okay, yeah- that'd be good, I'd like that." His companions on the couch raised eyebrows at each other, and Kid cocked his head slightly to one side, listening hard.

The call wound down into promises to find the newscast and to call with more information regarding Shinichi's next scheduled transformation. Farewells were said, and when Shinichi snapped his cellphone closed it was with a bemused look on his face. "He wants to visit; or for me to come up there, either one. Maybe not this next time, but soon."

Kid grinned wickedly. "Oh, really?"

Shinichi sighed. "Kid, _no_. Whatever you're thinking about, no, you may not do it. Hattori's my _friend_. Torturing him for fun is not something I'm okay with."

Kid frowned, pulling a ridiculously exaggerated pouting face. "What about pestering? Can I pester him?"

"No."

"Bother? Poke? Nag? Annoy?" The thief sounded puppyishly hopeful, putting his whole body language into the act; to Shinichi's right, Ran was giggling behind her hand. Across the room, Yuusaku's eyes had taken on a note of reminiscent melancholy to accompany his warm approval. Shinichi was silent, giving Kid a Look; the thief wilted, considered this for a moment, then perked up again.

"What about defenestrate?"

Shinichi rubbed at his temples; the twinge of a headache was starting. "You know, I _know_ I knew what I was signing up for when I agreed to all this, but even so, Kid, you are _extraordinarily_good at being difficult. You do know that, don't you?"

Kid _beamed_, leaned forward and kissed Shinichi's cheek. "Why thank you, Tantei," he caroled. "I don't think I'd known that about myself before!"

"Oi oi oi..."

Kid's retort, if there was to be one, was cut off by Yukiko, popping in the doorway with a pleased smile. "Dinner's ready," she sang. "Come and help me serve it?"

Before the other two were on their feet, Kid had bounced to his; Shinichi gave Ran a look, melted slightly, and sighed again. _"No_ defenestration. A _SMALL_ amount of ...something harmless, because I warned him ahead of time that you would. **SMALL. HARMLESS.** And if you weren't trying to look innocent, you'd probably get somewhere with me faster." That put Ran into the giggles again. The detective slumped back against her, hand over his eyes; he made quote-marks in the air with his fingers. _"'Dear Hattori,'"_ he began, speaking out loud as if reciting a future email to be sent after the smoke had cleared, _"'please inform me as to when it'll be safe for me to re-enter Japan without expecting to be challenged to a Sudden Death Smackdown by half of Osaka. Don't worry, I'll replace your hat. Sincerely yours, Kudo Shinichi.'"_ One blue eye peered at the thief from between his fingers, and his mouth curved in a reluctant smile despite himself.

"'Small' and 'harmless' aren't exactly terms I'd use for Kid, Shinichi-" Still laughing, Ran hugged her boyfriend's shoulder.

"Why, _thank_ you, Ran," purred Kid; he gave them both an enormous, toothy grin before singing out _"Cominnnnng!"_ and vanishing kitchenwards.

* * *

Dinner was tasty - Yukiko was smug - and dinner conversation revolved mostly around discussion of Shinichi's newly-acquired "medical condition."

"I still think a congenital issue would be more believable," Kid was saying, perfectly balancing eating and talking without ever crossing one into the other. "With respect, Kudo-san, the frequency of mid-childhood development of that sort of disorder is more feasible, I think, than a pre-existing condition that has not been previously revealed to the school."

_A gentleman,_ Ran smiled, watching him, as the conversation continued. With little knowledge of medical conditions or technicalities herself, Ran couldn't contribute much to the conversation, but she was listening attentively nonetheless. The vigor with which the three Kudos and Kid were planning the subterfuge was really quite impressive, on a technical level; they all seemed to be tripping over themselves as they finished each other's thoughts.

"I recognize that, Kid, but nothing in Shinichi's tests supports that, and if he were tested at school or in some other public way..." Yuusaku frowned. "It seems easier to go with a progressive blood condition."

"A 'blood condition'?" Yukiko challenged. "Nothing more specific than that, just 'blood condition'? That seems shaky, Yuusakuuu~."

Shinichi turned to Kid. "What are you humming?"

The thief beamed, singing, in a light English falsetto, two bars from a song that no one else recognized. "Oh, Shilo, that was close! -Take your medicine..."

"...Right." Shinichi turned back to his parents. "I'd worry about inducing a panic, though, if I get - well." He stopped, frowned, and amended himself with a wry expression. "-_when_ I get injured in a public way. It's hard to separate 'blood disease' and 'infectious' in the public eye. I don't want to become a plague child."

Ran frowned, turning over a bite with her chopsticks; that wasn't a pleasant thought. "What about... something common? Something everybody's heard about?"

"Hm; like-?" Yuusaku looked interested.

"Like... well, there's all kinds of things you hear about people living with- glaucoma and high blood pressure, and diabetes and arthritis and heart conditions and leprosy, okay, _not_ leprosy, but... If it's something that everybody thinks they know about, when you say 'because of my having blah-blah-blah I have to do _this_,' they'll just nod and smile because otherwise they'd look stupid. That's what people DO." She took the bite, chewing delicately. "And it's less mysterious than some syndrome nobody's ever heard of, so they'll just assume it's being treated properly and feel sorry for you without making a huge fuss. Kudo-san, this is really good; I bet Tousan'd love it- could I get the recipe from you later? I might want to try it with beef some night."

By now the other four were all staring at her. "Ran, that- just might work," said Shinichi slowly. "Because you're right; the main reason why a con-artist succeeds is the gullibility of the victim and their susceptibility to preconceived notions. Television has a lot to do with that, it's the 'everybody knows' factor cutting in. Everybody knows that diseases are diagnosed within twenty-four hours of their first symptoms, you see it in all the medical dramas-"

"Everybody knows-" cut in Yukiko, eyes crinkled in amusement, "-that the villianess in the movie wears stilettos and drives a hot red sportscar-"

"Everybody knows that the butler did it," said her husband wryly, "even when he hardly ever does-"

"Everybody knows that the bigger they are, the harder they fall, which is NOT true if they've been trained right." Ran's eyes sparkled. "And-"

"-and everybody knows that the criminal _always_ gets caught," murmured Kid. "She's quite right, you know; this really _is_ excellent."

That turned the conversation to a varying duet between the five of recipes and ailments, sometimes crossing in rather weird ways. Yukiko was enthusiastic over the prospect of a diabetes variant and suggested that Ran add broccoli as well as beef; Yuusaku still held out for the blood-disease idea and countered that a little more garlic might improve things. Kid suggested a non-fatal version of leukemia and denied that any changes were needed, it was just perfect as it was. Ran shuddered at this, offered up her thoughts on epileptic seizures and narcolepsy ('Though they might think you were trying to imitate Tousan...') and wondered if maybe pork might do.

Sweating just a little, Shinichi nixed the idea of leprosy with loathing and volunteered to load the dishwasher.

* * *

The library clock had just announced eight p.m. when they heard the crash.

Ran had been curled up back on the couch beside Kid, paging through her half-finished calculus homework and complaining about her finals schedule. Kid was commiserating, going over his and Kaito's own classes ('Do you split up who takes what?' she asked him a little shyly), Yuusaku was halfway up the rolling book-ladder in search of a French dictionary and Yukiko was upstairs hunting for something in the master bedroom, when the sound of breaking crockery made all the heads in the room jerk up in alarm.

Kid, predictably, was in the kitchen almost before the others had made it to their feet, though Ran was a close second; by the time she'd reached it, though, he was crouched on the floor beside a groggy Shinichi, who sat with his head propped on his knees, breathing deeply. "Ow," he muttered as he raised his head, leaning back against the thief's supporting arm. "What-" Blinking dazed eyes clear of the clinging fog that had made him waver and fall, the detective took in the scatter of plate-fragments that lay around him on the floor. "What did I just do? I was... fine, and then I..."

Ran brushed away a few bits of china and knelt beside him. "How do you feel?" she asked anxiously, brushing the hair back from his brow. "Did you hit your head?"

Kid, his face tight, ran featherlight fingertips through Shinichi's hair to check for knots or blood. "Nothing," he reported, his hand lingering. Beside him Yuusaku also peered at his son from floor-level, tilting his chin gently to examine his pupils; they seemed to be equal in size, and the writer frowned as he sat back on his heels.

"What exactly happened, Shinichi?" His voice was calm.

"I- don't know." Shaking his head a little dizzily, Yuusaku's son scowled and picked up a scrap of the china; it was beaded with droplets, quite damp, and the dishwasher still stood open. "I was rinsing the plates to put them in, I remember that, and then it... I was just sitting on the floor and there were things rattling on the floor all around me." He rubbed irritably at his forehead. "I'm- everything's a little fuzzy, but I feel okay, I just- blacked out for a second? I think."

"Already?" Yukiko stood in the doorway, a pair of shoes in her hands and a dismayed look on her face. "Shin-chan, Ai said you wouldn't begin dropping off until much later! What are you thinking of? Tsk." Stooping, she reached down to brush unnoticed chips of broken china off her son's pants-legs. "Let's get you back on your feet and upstairs, shall we? And then you can fall over at your leisure, and when you reach the drunk and disorderly stage you won't break anything else."

"Kaasan, I am NOT going to be 'drunk and disorderly', I'm... ow. I think I landed on some sharp bits." Moving gingerly, Shinichi allowed himself to be helped back to his feet.

"You're going upstairs," Kid announced, brushing china shards off Shinichi's rear with matter-of-fact briskness. "And you're going to lie down or at least sit."

Shinichi gave the thief a Look which suggested his thoughts on being ordered around. Kid returned the expression with interest, tightening his supporting arm around Shinichi's waist and getting an irritated glower for his trouble.

"_Boys,_" came a voice from their left; both turned their attention to Ran, who was standing with hands on her hips and a disapprovingly raised eyebrow. Behind her, Yukiko was hiding a smile.

"Well, I think your tousan and I don't even need to be here," she teased, stepping forward to frame Shinichi's face with her hands, one thumb stroking his hair back over his ear. "You have two perfectly capable nannies. I don't need to dote on you at all!"

"Kaasan," Shinichi muttered, "that won't stop you anyway." Yukiko beamed.

"That's my boy detective, seeing right through me," she cooed, petting his hair softly. "Now go get a bit of rest, just to settle your poor kaasan's nerves, alright? I don't want to see you breaking something more important than dishes next time."

"I'll be fine, Kaasan. -And _yes,_" Shinichi added quickly, putting up a hand to interrupt Ran, Kid, and Yuusaku as they all prepared to respond, "-I will go upstairs and lie down. Promise."

* * *

Not only the detective went up the stairs, of course; so did the thief and the Voice Of Reason (who made a face when she reached the top of the stairs, turned around, returned a few moments later with her backpack, homework, and something that looked suspiciously like _Conan's_ school backpack.) When the parade reached the room, Shinichi sighed, flopped down onto the bed and then scooted over mutely to allow Kid and Ran their share of the mattress. "I don't _mean_ to be acting like a sulky little brat," he muttered, hand across his eyes, "and I'm sorry. I just... it's been... so _good."_ He blew out his breath in an aggravated sigh. "And I don't want to see it end."

"Who says it has to?" asked Ran gently, pulling her calculus notebook back out of her backpack and leaning against his hip. Kid swiveled around, tucking his feet up and sprawling half across Shinichi's legs, chin propped on his palms. "It's not that late, you've still got hours to go. Remember what Ai-chan said?"

Kid tilted his head to one side. He composed his features, and something disturbingly like Haibara's clinical calm arranged itself on his face. "'To begin with, you'll probably wake up in a state of some disorientation, possibly similar to alcoholic intoxication,'" he quoted in her clear young girl's voice, the duplication almost perfect right down to intonation and the precise way she rounded her vowels. "'That should be followed by increasing bouts of drowsiness, then a very deep sleep, and then the transformation itself.' And I should tell you both," Kid added impishly at the end in his own register, "that I'm rather looking forward to the intoxication part. Should be interesting, and it _might_ even be fun for you, Tantei. You never know."

"Nnngh. Nobody better have a camera."

Ran leaned down, kissing the detective on the corner of his jaw. "I don't and Kid better not." She shot the thief a mock-glare and then ruined the threat by dimpling at him. "And I'm kind of interested in seeing the Great Drunken Detective Of The East myself, you know." She hooked her feet up onto the bed next to one of Kid's elbows, curling up onto her side; he caught her sock-clad foot in his hand, tickled it slightly, and then began to work the sole with thumb and the heel of his hand. "Eeep! ...oooh, that feels good... I bet," Ran murmured, pushing her foot into the thief's hand, "that you'll be a floppy drunk."

"Floppy?" Shinichi blinked behind his hand, eyes just barely visible; Kid began to work his knuckles up and down Ran's arch, and she groaned.

"-uhmmm. Floppy. You know, like... like... arms around people's shoulders, halfway in their laps, really friendly? Tousan's like that after his fifth beer, though he usually has his tie around his head by then and wants to dance with people as well. I don't think you'll want to dance, though, will you?" Watching her face intently, Kid did something to the center-area just behind her toes that made her eyes half shut. "Kid? If you ever need a new profession- ohh- you could make a fortune doing thaaa_OOOOOH_ that feels wonderful-" Their thief chuckled as Ran quivered; he began on the other foot, and Shinichi's eyebrows climbed along with the corner of his mouth as his bad mood began to slip away.

It was hard to stay annoyed when you had such good company. _And anyway,_ he thought, watching them both with a little grin, _sulking's such a huge waste of time. Not that that's stopped me before, but it __is__._

Time. It always came down to time.

After Ran had recovered from the puddle-like state that Kid's handiwork had put her into, the calculus homework made its way onto the bed. It didn't take all that long to finish; Shinichi admitted to sneaking into Ran's books numerous times as Conan to keep up with the rest of his class- he was a bit behind, but not all that far. Language studies came next: English in all its illogical complexity, and Shinichi watched as Ran and Kid bent over the text together. Relaxed and oddly weary, he felt his limbs settling into a boneless, lethargic state; it was a little like how he'd felt on winter mornings when, curled warmly deep beneath the blankets, he'd woken drowsy and full of the knowledge that he didn't have to be up for hours yet.

The two voices made a soft duet, one that faded out as he dozed. It was only when Ran's books thumped onto the floor that Shinichi cracked his eyes back open. "Eergh?"

An all-too-familiar notebook settled across his legs; he pushed himself halfway onto his elbows and regarded the thing with loathing. "That's... MY homework."

"Mmmhmmm."

And it was, simplistic half-game math questions, childish reading assignments and all. Ran crossed her arms and leaned back against Kid, giving Shinichi the Stare she'd perfected over the past year and a half. "And you need to finish it."

"Right _NOW?"_

"Right now." Staaaaare. "It's not like it'll take you very long, Shinichi. And who knows how you'll feel tomorrow?" Time again; it always came down to- At his groan of dismay, Ran raised one incredulous eyebrow. "Shin_ICH_iiiiii..." Stubborn, grouchy silence was all she got back for a long moment; but at last he capitulated and pulled the horrible notebook and its accompanying brightly-colored texts towards him with an enormous sigh.

Fifteen minutes later, having beaten all previous bad-handwriting records, Shinichi made a disgusted noise and finished the last of Conan's vocabulary words. "There," he grumbled, stacking the lot and shoving it back into the child-sized school backpack; it thumped loudly onto the floor. "This is NOT how I envisioned spending my last evening over four feet tall." He collapsed back onto the pillow, flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. The other two, both weighting down his legs and ankles, looked at one another.

"You say that like it's over already," Ran pointed out, not bothering to disguise the smugness in her voice. Kid grinned at her and pushed Shinichi's pant leg up, fingers slipping inside it to tickle his calf.

"If you _want_ to call it a night, Tantei, that's understandable; after all, you _did_ have such a moment of faintness earlier, and your constitution is just so _very_ delicate, what with your leukemia-diabetes-epilepsy condition." The thief's hands caressed further up Shinichi's leg, then pulled out of the pants leg and continued across the surface of his knee and thigh when the jeans got in the way; the rest of Kid followed with them, creeping up Shinichi's leg like some sort of smarmy garden weed. "Of course you'd want to turn in early tonight. We understand. We'll sleep in the guest room next door, of course. Disturbing the well-deserved rest of a chibitantei such as yourself would be just _too_-ack!"

Shinichi, not appearing very delicate or faint at all, had grabbed Kid by the shoulders of his shirt and tugged upward, using the thief's weight to anchor his own movement. Kid and Shinichi ended up nose to nose, glare facing grin, both of them more or less sitting up on the bed.

"Care to continue testing your luck, thief?" Shinichi's voice held challenge and a brazen dare. Kid smirked, slid his hand five inches forward, and squeezed.

"_Nnnh!_" Shinichi yelped, twisting around and away from the thief's very distracting grip, and levelled an even stronger Look on the unrepentant Kid. "_You._ And you!" He turned his attention to Ran, sitting with her legs tucked beneath her at his side, giggling. "Oh, sure, it's funny when Shinichi squeaks. Let's see how you like it," he said, menacing her with both hands. Some short space of tickling and wrestling later, Ran had handily pinned Shinichi to the bed, one hand on each shoulder to hold him down, holding his legs down with a carefully placed knee.

"Now what, Shini~chi?" Ran teased, smiling broadly down at him, hair falling over her shoulders and caught in the corner of her mouth.

Shinichi grinned up at her. "You're beautiful," he said. Ran smiled deeper, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and Shinichi smirked. "And I gotcha." He reached for her, hands slipping under the hem of her shirt and upward, and squeezed, thumbs applying clever, firm pressure. Ran's eyes fluttered shut, her spine arching as she pushed against her boyfriend's touch, and Shinichi's look of concentration flickered into a thin, satisfied smile for a moment.

"I could be very evil right now," Kid commented dryly, "Especially since Ran's got you so nicely pinned, Shinichi."

"Oh, do it," Ran sighed, licking her lips distractedly. "Mmmm, he shouldn't get to be that smug by himself."

"You're not even looking at me," Shinichi protested, mostly for show. Ran smiled, eyes closed.

"I don't have to, Shini~chi. I know you're doing that smug thing like when you solve a case."

Shinichi blinked, a little flush rising on his cheeks and his hands faltering for a moment. "That's not at all like this," he said.

"Oh, I think it is," Kid mused, rising onto his knees and making the mattress shift. "It's that, mmm, little something that makes you so very molestable when you look like that."

"Oh, thanks," Shinichi returned, his smile widening, as Ran sighed her somewhat inarticulate agreement with that plan.

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Kid snickered, shifting his weight.

Ran was radiating smugness. "Shinichi, he's gonna _get_ yo-_**oooooh!**_ K-kid..."

From behind Ran, Kid looked over her shoulder at Shinichi with a wicked little smile. "Was that a 'no,' Ran-san?"

"_No,_ ah, uh, no, that was a yes. Ah... Ahm. Yes."

"Keep going," murmured Shinichi softly, matching Kid's grin with his own; talk of intoxication, this was as heady and exhilarating as anything produced by a drug or by alcohol.

* * *

Kid pressed against her shoulder, whispering wicked, beautiful things into her ear before kissing it; Shinichi's name was mixed in among the words, and Ran moaned, nails cutting through the gray turtleneck as she tried her best to be in two places at once. Kid was breathing fast, matching Shinichi's own pace; the thief murmured into Ran's ear again, biting just beneath it for a moment- Shinichi could see the flash of his teeth and then how he kissed the mark better, hot breath ghosting over her shoulder. Ran's response was not a sob this time, it was a gasp of laughter-

* * *

Heart pounding, his own body on fire, Shinichi lay still beneath Ran as she went limp at last, heavy and panting. Eyes fixed on the shining blue gaze beyond her body, he kissed the place that Kid had bitten; then Shinichi shifted up and gently bit the earlobe that Kid had kissed, tasting the thief's mouth there. Ran's lips worked against his skin, he could feel them move; but her words were lost, and all that was left of them was the smile that they became as Kid braced his hands on either side of her body, sliding forward to kiss Shinichi slowly and with great, deliberate thoroughness.

"...and we're not even _undressed_ yet," Ran whispered close beside them, dazed. ..

.

_(That's all for this week! See you next week! However, please continue on; we have a lovely little omake for you.)_

.

_**Three Thieves Omake**__**: Flamingos**_

_(Written per a request by **lil_1337** . Thanks, Linda!)_

_Yukiko's Version:_

"What was that, darling? Why is it a bad idea to mention flamingos around Yuusaku?

Oh, well. You see, it was like this...

There was this perfectly _lovely_ party in California, a costume party, and you _know_ how much I adore Spain, don't you? Well, I had this dress I'd bought there, and a mantilla, and the most marvellous tall ebony comb, and- how could we resist? I went as The Shady Dame From Seville, and Yuusaku went as my Matador, Senior Adamante. You should have seen him, he looked SO handsome- all black velvet with gold trim and this gorgeous sweeping cape-

-anyway. I suppose perhaps there _might_ have been just a little too much sangria flowing, or maybe it was the tequila, or... what's that other stuff? Calvados? I think it was calvados, or- I don't know, I never can keep that sort of thing straight, which is why I usually stick to wine, which I _do_ have a head for, you know, although I can't abide champagne.

What?

Oh- oh, of course! The flamingos! I'm _so_ sorry, I do tend to get sidetracked just a teensy bit, don't I?

You see, we were both of us just a wee, wee bit inebriated, and... you know that stage where just about anything's funny? Someone put on some Flamenco music, and Yuusaku kept laughing about how really it was _flamingo_ music... and we were outside, and lo and behold if there weren't actual plastic flamingos in the yard. Terribly tacky, actually; they're just SO pink, just like dreadful dishwashing gloves, you know?

But Yuusaku... he picked one up, and he proceeded to do this _dance._ Well, darling, I have to say that even though I'm certain he thought he was dancing the Flamenco, it was no such thing. And why he wanted to dance the Flamenco with a flamingo when his beloved, long-suffering, patient and MIGHT I say beautifully-dressed wife was right there, I haven't a clue. But, well, he did...

...right into the swimming pool.

And by then, everybody else had had a dreadful lot of sangria or tequila or calvados or, or... You know, I think perhaps it was all those Margaritas we'd had earlier, it was such a hot day...

What? Oh. Yes, right into the swimming pool. And everybody just... followed him in, like a bunch of baby ducks. Or bulls after the matador, I suppose. Me? Well, of course I followed him in as well- Yuusaku's a _terrible_ swimmer.

And after that, what with everyone deciding that their costumes were too heavy to wear wet and all the neighbors complaining about the noise and the public nudity and the police and... all sorts of things... we woke up on the roof. I never quite did understand how we got up there, or why Yuusaku seemed to have managed to collect no less than _eleven_ flamingos by that point and an entire bottle of something absolutely foul with a worm at the bottom, isn't that awful?- or where our clothes had gone, but we managed to sneak out with no-one the wiser.

What? Oh. No-one stopped us on the way home, darling, and anyway the windows were tinted. Poor Yuusaku had such a dreadful hangover, though; now me, I _never_ get hangovers.

Anyway, that's why it's not a good idea to mention flamingos around Yuusaku."

_Yuusaku's Version:_

"Ahem. I just... don't care for them very much. Far too pink. End of subject."

_-Owari-_


	32. Intoxication, game, birthday

_**Three Thieves**__**: A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by **_ _**rednightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
**__**Book Three, Chapter Eleven**__**: "intoxication, game, birthday "  
Warnings: **__Mature subjects, sexual situations in the original chapter (which can be found here if you fix the html: http colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 15891 dot html) _

_**Crossposted to the following LJ communities:**_ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

* * *

.

.

"...and we're not even _undressed_ yet," Ran whispered close beside them, dazed.

"We can fix that," Kid purred, his breath ghosting across Ran's cheek and Shinichi's lips.

* * *

Lazy, slow-moving lovemaking: a few hours spent together as much for comfort as for pleasure, learning each other's likes and dislikes... with time pressing on them like an anvil. They lost track of control and the world for a while; when they came down to earth again, it was to the warmth of skin against skin, lips and hair, sweat and heat. They had a lot less clothing on, in a disorganized sort of way; and as the minutes lengthened and time lost meaning, Shinichi found himself fighting off small surges of dizziness.

He did his best to ignore them, fought them back, fought them off, fought the encroaching night off and away... but as his vision went black, not white, Shinichi had only a split second to wonder why, before it all disappeared.

When he came back to himself, his awareness flickering back in a fuzzy way alarmingly reminiscent of his blackout in the kitchen, it was to feel kisses and hands all across his skin, the caresses of his lovers. He took stock, with difficulty, noting that he was still standard-size and that neither of the others seemed to have noticed anything amiss. Kid was on his other side now, bracketing him in, and the thief pressed in a welcome line against Shinichi. Ran's warmth cloyed against him in front, soft plush curves and the beautiful smile he hoped to hang his hat on for years to come. Shinichi shook off the remaining fuzziness as best as he could without alerting the other two. _Won't do them any good to panic anyway,_ he thought. _They'll notice when it becomes inevitable, but until then...I want to stay right here._

"Guys..." His voice was hoarse. "Mmmnnnnh. Hi."

There was a soft laugh against the nape of his neck. "Hi," murmured the thief; "Fancy meeting you here, Meitantei-sama. Come here often?" The honorific made Ran giggle; she reached across his shoulder, threading her fingers through Kid's hair wordlessly.

"Every- mmmm- chance I can." Shinichi snickered at his own bad joke, and then swallowed the laugh up in a soft groan as Kid slid hands around to toy gently with his navel. They left off doing that after a moment and teased him gently, walking little pathways up his body and between his skin and Ran's before sliding down in unison to pull Shinichi close. A hot little shiver ran up his spine, and the last blurry shadows scattered from his mind as he pushed back.

They talked while they were together—commonplaces and intimacies both; it wasn't just bodies that needed to be learned, and for all their intelligence they were still very young, and people say things together in such moments that they would never, ever say in the everyday waking world. At one point Shinichi paused, drawing in a deep breath, and looked directly at Kid.

"I want..." Shinichi took in a deep breath. "I want to see you, see your face when, when we… move, against Ran, together." Ran's hands were on his shoulders; he pressed one to his lips, kissing the palm while all the while his gaze was fixed on Kid's, so dark a blue as to be almost black. "I want to see what you're feeling; I- want you to see _me."_ He tipped his head forward, their breath mingling; fingers slid through both their hair from behind, tangling the strands as he met Kid's lips with his own and wrapped his arms around the thief's waist. "I want," Shinichi whispered into his mouth, "to see your face when you let go. I want to _see_ you." He tightened his grip, heel sliding up to press against the back of the thief's thigh.

It was an intimacy within an intimacy- admitting what he wanted the most, both the saying and the actual act. A last little barrier Shinichi hadn't even known was there crumbled into dust, and he took Kid's mouth hungrily, nails biting into the other's back as Ran molded herself to him from behind.

When Kid realized that he wasn't paying attention to the kiss, regardless of Shinichi's enthusiasm, he pulled out of it, one hand moving to press fingertips against Shinichi's lips to preempt his speech. The thief studied the detective's face, its intense - but confused - expression. Beyond that, Ran's features were creasing into a worried frown, and Kid shook his head, murmuring a soft reassurance.

"It's okay," he said, "I just need to...It's just..." He shook his head again, disentangling one hand to reach up and smooth Shinichi's sweaty hair from his brow, strong emotion flickering through his dark eyes. Shinichi had actually said it, pinned down in words the concept that Kid had utterly and fundamentally let himself go in the presence of his two companions. And that he intended to do so again. Kid was fine with the concept when he didn't have to focus on it too much, but bracketing it out in words like that, defining and committing it to fact, _planning_on it, meant that he had to think about how much in the world could take advantage of that absence of concentration, that abandonment of his guard. It was an extremely inopportune moment for his paranoia to return, but here they were, rushing back, and Kid fought to keep the instinctive barriers from rising as he struggled with words to explain. "Tantei, I..."

"Kid, it's okay," Shinichi said quickly, lips brushing the thief's fingertips. "I didn't-"

"No, it's alright," Kid interrupted, "It's alright. It's just...I hope you can appreciate how infrequently I have heard that sentiment expressed to me and have _agreed_ with it. Everyone in this world, I swear, wants to see me with my masks off, and I've never wanted..."

Ran smiled softly, reaching one hand across Shinichi's shoulder to stroke Kid's hair. "I think you're beautiful when you let go," she said, and a little giggle worked its way into her voice as Kid's face betrayed his conflicted response to that statement. "You too, Shinichi," she added, kissing the detective beneath his ear. "It's nothing to be afraid of, Kid," she added, biting her lip a little in uncertainty that disagreed with her steady voice. "I'll guard you both, if you want, if that would help."

Kid looked up from his thoughts, catching and holding Ran's gaze with wide eyes. "Ran..."

She dimpled at him, shrugging a little and making the curves of her chest drag in distracting ways against Shinichi's back. "Some of us maybe forgot that you're a _mysterious criminal,_" she giggled, adding vocal air quotes around the title, "But I remember! So it's okay."

Kid let his gaze speak his gratitude for him, receiving her smile in return, before turning his attention back to the detective in his arms. "Tantei..."

Shinichi let his head drop forward again, touching forehead to forehead with the thief in his arms. "No-one else," he said so softly that the words were barely more than stirrings in the air, "no-one else will ever see you like this. Nobody'll ever know except us, not if they see your face, not if they know everything about you, not if you unmask to the world, not if you tap-dance naked on Nakamori's desk. Just us, me and Ran; nobody else ever. We'll keep your secrets; you _**are**_ our secret. No-one else." He was silent, face shadowed by his tangled bangs. "Us too, we're _your_ secret. Seems like a fair trade, huh?" Shinichi hands worked independently of his voice, sliding up the other's spine, stroking every inch of skin they could reach as if memorizing the texture. His fingertips lingered; they'd found a scar edging one shoulderblade, maybe from a rough landing or some other calamity. Ran's own hands dropped down to slip along Shinichi's arms, delicately tracing Kid's ribs until it seemed like he was being embraced by a four-armed, four-handed creature, everything moving together.

"But- _don't_ tap-dance naked on Nakamori-keibu's desk, please?" Ran murmured, smiling against Shinichi's shoulder. "He seems kind of high-strung; somehow I don't think he'd appreciate it."

Kid laughed, letting Ran's humor soothe his own strained nerves; he rocked against Shinichi anyway, cuddling close, and reached across to stroke Ran's hair with a watery smile.

"I suppose I'm not quite a tame lion yet," he murmured.

She leaned her head into his hand, blue eyes candid and clear. "Who wants a tame lion? A lion without any teeth or claws or anything's not a lion, it's just... a big housecat. Or something. We don't want to tame you." Ran looked over Shinichi's shoulder at him, and her mouth quirked up at the corner. "You don't really _look_ tame right now to me. Does he feel tame, Shinichi?"

"Mmm. No. Not tame at all." Shinichi closed his eyes and pressed his face against Kid's chest, listening to the rhythm inside as they moved; it was soothing, the steady thump slowing from a rapid drumbeat to something steadier, stronger, warm beneath his cheek. "Tame lions don't jump off rooftops, or bite me where you did this morning. Tame lions don't-"

Behind him Ran made an inquisitive noise. _"BITE_ you? Where? And what did you do this morning? Tell meee!"

Shinichi grinned just a little evilly. With his face still tucked against Kid's chest, he told her. In great detail. Very, _very_ great and loving detail, and he felt the steady tempo against his skin pick up in rhythm to Kid's breathing as Ran made soft approving sounds.

Kid licked dry lips, pulse fast in his chest and elsewhere, a flush rising on his skin. "I..._did_ say you have a wicked mouth, Tantei..."

* * *

In the midst of what followed, at the very edges of Shinichi's vision, little flickers of dark kept trying to bloom. He shoved them back, focusing on the moment and the movement; everything narrowed down to sensation and the seconds ticking one after the other, the rhythm of heartbeat and the slide of skin against skin. _Not... oh... not. Not. Not going to pass out. Not going to-!_ It was like the moment when all the clues clicked together, that rush of adrenaline and _now_ness that overrode everything else: perfect and crystal clear. Ran had been right, totally right, and as Shinichi shoved the wave of black away he resolved dizzily to tell her so-

_-later, ohgod, later-_

* * *

Kid lay beside Shinichi, arms and legs tangled with Ran's across the detective's body, and studied his face.

Shinichi had seen him - and he had seen Shinichi - at the last moment before everything whited out. They had moved together perfectly, choreographed by the good sense of their bodies and instincts, rather than their fears or second guesses. All of that had fallen away; as before, Kid had let himself go, feeling his self slipping through his fingers and into Shinichi's care for the duration of their joining. He had encountered Ran's hands on Shinichi's skin, laced his fingers with hers briefly, partnered with her in tandem to caress Shinichi's body in ways that made the detective thrash against them both. It had been perfect.

And then, in the moment after, Kid saw Shinichi's eyes go dark and blind as deadened unconsciousness claimed him. And Kid had crumpled around him and felt something in the back of his mind scream.

* * *

Ran was stroking his hair. "Kid. Kid, look at me."

"Ran, I can't. I saw-I saw him..."

"He'll be okay, Kid. I'm sure he will. He pushed himself too hard. Ai warned us."

"His _eyes_, Mouri-san."

"It's _Ran_. Shhh, Kid, you're panicking. He's _okay_. And he wanted to spend every last second he could with us. With you. I know he won't be mad at anything except his own body."

"Ran, he...I couldn't stop, I saw the moment he blacked out and I..."

"Shhhh. Kid, it's okay. It's okay. Tell him what happened when he wakes up again, and it'll be okay."

"He won't be..."

"I know." Her voice was tight, with the edge of tears in it, but steady - for his sake. "I can smell it too. I think it's his sweat, I think it smells different when... It's so much earlier than it should have been, though. Hours and hours earlier."

"We pushed him too hard. I pushed him too hard."

"_KID._" He looked up, startled by her fierce tone. "_Stop it._ He's just going to transform, not _die._ And he would smack you silly if he saw you being ridiculous like this."

"...Thank you, Mouri-san."

"_Ran._"

"Ran."

"Good. Now...can you do me a favor? I want to have something ready for him when he wakes up...afterward. I just thought of it...something that will help him cope. He's going to be more upset than we are, even. But I have an idea. And you need to stop guilting and do something useful to help him. So...once it all starts, and Ai-chan comes in and everyone else... can you go get something for me? It's a pretty simple thing, but I bet you could find it faster than I could."

* * *

When he woke, it was a slow, gradual thing, a drowsy climb out of darkness and a profound sense of delicious, incredible warmth. The echoes of pleasure still sang through every nerve; Shinichi thought hazily that he felt like a struck tuning-fork, thrumming with something so all-consuming and absolute that it left no room for anything else. And he'd seen Kid give himself to him, _seen_ him at last, drunk on and with the sight even as he'd taken in his body... _So good. Oh god, so good. Let me keep this-_

(someone was wrapped around him, arms holding him close; he could hear them breathing)

...and Ran, she'd been moving with them, gripping him and crying out over and over against his shoulder, hoarse little gasps. Kid's face, seen at last, at last... it had transformed, gone wordless and abandoned, lost in the ultimate moment just as Shinichi's had, he knew. Just as he still was... And oh god, yes, the seeing had been what had pushed him over the edge, as potent and unbelievable as the raw ecstasy burning up his spine. And it wasn't over yet... _Don't let it end, don't let it, don't, it doesn't have to, say it doesn't, say-_

(and they were whispering something, inaudible little words muffled by where their lips pressed against his hair. He knew who it was, knew by the way)

It just- went on and on and on, the long gasping moment fading and merging somehow with the dreamless black this time, not ending there. And even now, waking up wasn't waking up at all: it was floating, buoyed by long swells of euphoria that left sense and logic stranded somewhere on a shore far away.

(their arms tightened. It was)

_So good. Let me stay here, I don't want to- I-_

(Ran, she was)

_don't want to leave them... where_

(talking to)

_are they?_

(Kid? Why wasn't he close against him too? and he was whispering back and he sounded so afraid)

Shinichi opened his eyes.

"...R-Ran?" His voice... was funny. And his mouth was dry, and the bright spangle of the room's lights that they'd never turned down made Shinichi wince back halos of blur. He couldn't get the world to settle down, or his senses, or anything else, really. "Kid? Kid?-" Everything _swam._ And, bathed in the langour that still sent winding trails of happy sparks along his muscles as he blinked and blinked again, Shinichi reached out a wavering hand. It doubled and tripled in his own vision, and for some reason that was funny too.

_Everything_ was. Ran, her face glowing and hazy like something seen in a fever-dream as she whispered endearments, so close to his; Kid, curled up beside him but apart, not touching- no, wait, that wasn't funny, but it was _fixable,_ and he tried to brush the thief's face with his hand. Warm fingers captured his, and Kid was saying... something hurried and frantic, but to Shinichi's addled mind neither Ran's nor Kid's words made any sense at all.

So he did the only thing that _DID_ make sense, kissed what he could reach of Ran's face and then dragged Kid's hand in and kissed it too. "S'beautiful," he murmured happily. "You both'r so. Beautiful, I mean. Was s'good, so so good. In-f'king-_CREDIBLE._ Want t'do that again and 'gain and 'gain... Was so. Yeah... mmmm..." He stretched sleepily, limp and utterly content. They'd both fallen silent, blinking at him owlishly; and that was also funny, enough to make Shinichi beam at his lovers in enormous, expansive affection. And giggle, just a little.

A few brain-cells bumped together, causing sparks. What had Ai said? Shinichi was, was, he was...

"N'toxicat'd," he informed them brightly, and attempted to kiss both at the same time. "Haib- Habai- H- Mmmm. Ai-chan, she w's right." Their eyes were so large, and so _shiney._ It was really very amusing, and he loved them both so much and he felt so utterly, spine-tinglingly _good..._ Shinichi made a contented sound, dragged more of Kid's hand and arm in between himself and Ran in an effort to haul him closer, and cuddled whatever he could reach.

"...I don't think he's drunk, Kid. Not exactly. I, um, think he's..."

"High as a kite, yes." A deep breath. Dreamily Shinichi kissed Ran's breast and then used one of Kid's fingers to draw a heart where he'd kissed. Everything was bright colors and fuzzy edges and it was all absolutely, incredibly entertaining...

Bracketing him with their bodies, Ran and Kid shared a look. "Haibara-san might want to adjust the dosage next time we do this," Kid finally said, unable to manage any more useful comment on the situation. Similarly dumbfounded, Ran looked to Shinichi, who was attempting to curl one hand around each of their napes to pull them close. Or at least, that was what it seemed like he was trying to do...his aim was rather abysmal, but his cheer was unshakable.

"Kid, look..." Guiltily, Ran let a little giggle escape, stroking Shinichi's hair back from his brow. "_Look_ at him."

As bidden, the thief did, and when Shinichi's gaze slid happily over to meet his own, accompanied by a slurred string of endearments, Kid had a brief moment of queasiness. Shinichi was acting so...so _not-him_.

The detective's brow creased, and both his hands moved, with extreme concentration, to hold Kid's face between them. "S'wrong?" he asked, "Frownin'. Shouldn't be frownin'. C'mere, I have smiles. Give you one."

Kid was laughing before he even knew what hit him. And with tears caught in the corners of his deep blue eyes - of relief, guilt, or pure emotional strain, he wasn't sure - he leaned down to kiss the silly detective even sillier.

A rather random hand stroked his hair. "No tears," Shinichi scolded, nosing his cheek when breathing became something of an issue. He kissed the corner of Kid's eyes, one after the other. "It... mmph, it got all fuzzy, but I didn' miss it, you know?" The little he could see of Kid's face must have looked puzzled, since Shinichi explained. "You know. THING. At the end. _Saw_ you, b'fore it got all... mmmm." He nuzzled Kid's throat. "Fuzzy. 'N you were... just. Just. Uhm." He wavered for a long moment, trying to capture the right word.

"Beautiful?" suggested Ran softly.

Shinichi's smile was glorious, the same one that was there every time he figured out a mystery. _"Beautiful._ Like I said, both've you." He yawned, reaching out for Ran and tugging her closer with a haphazard hand. "Sleepy," he murmured. "Been th'best day inna world." And if the presentation was somewhat under the influence, the sentiments themselves were honest and heartfelt.

Squirming around bonelessly between Ran and Kid to get a comfortable position, Shinichi encountered damp coolness on a sheet and made a face. "Messy," he grumbled, and then brightened. "Laundry?" He looked thoughtfully at Kid and Ran, gaze lingering on the latter in particular. "C'd sit on th' washer," he suggested, "an' we could-"

Laughing helplessly, Ran shook her head. "Not at- oh my gosh, it's WHAT time?- anyway, _no._ But I think I saw a laundry basket in the hall..."

Shinichi pushed himself up, presumably aiming for the doorway and beyond that, the hall, but didn't even get fully balanced on his hands and knees before his legs went out from under him. Weak as water but exceedingly cheerful about it, he let himself be folded into the arms and lap which had caught him, which turned out to be Kid's. Ran was right beside them, helping to corral Shinichi's long, floppy limbs.

"Maybe you should stay right here," the thief suggested, holding Shinichi's head in the crook of his arm, "And Ran can go get the laundry."

Between the two of them, only somewhat hampered by Shinichi's good-natured grabby hands, Ran and Kid got the bed changed, all three of themselves wiped down with wet washcloths, and acquired enough pajama items between the three of them to get everybody decent - mostly. Shinichi got stuck with shorts, since there was only one pair of full length pajama pants laid out for Kid, and the pajamas Ran had brought for herself. Rather than dig around for some of Shinichi's old things, Ran pointed out wisely that he wouldn't need them in adult size for long anyway, and they simply tucked him back under the clean sheets and crawled in beside him, one to either side.

"I'm getting pretty used to this position," Ran commented calmly, watching Shinichi doze lightly. He hadn't been satisfied until both Ran and Kid had snuggled up against him - close, closer, closest, until every breath he drew gently pushed against their bodies, and they lay nose-to-nose, conversing quietly over his head. "The two of us around him."

"I wouldn't say I'm used to it yet," Kid commented, glancing up to Ran's face and then back down again to study Shinichi's. "I'm still rather stunned that we're...that things are like this."

"Shinichi's got a big heart," Ran explained simply, smiling at Kid from very close range, "And I guess I do too. I'd rather love you both than try to be selfish, especially when it's so clear it wouldn't work anyway. Shinichi needs you as much as he needs me. You should have heard him when he told me the first time he'd kissed you...he was so, so scared. Petrified that I'd be upset, that I'd be hurt. He thinks about both of us more than...well." She stopped, snickering a little. "Maybe not more than he thinks about anything else, because he's still a detective freak! But a lot."

Kid smiled quietly, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Ran's ear for her. "He and I talked about you," the thief said. "He didn't want his changes to hold you and I back. I told him that...I told him I would ask you how you felt."

She lay silent for a moment, giving the question the thought and attention that it deserved. "Things've happened so fast," Ran murmured. "And I won't say that at first, I- didn't know what to think or to expect from you, like this; I still don't in some ways, except I believe you'll always tell me the truth. Funny, isn't it? You're the wanted criminal, but... I can't see you lying, not ever, not to us." She looked back at Kid, a touch of color rising to edge her cheekbones. "When I've kissed you, I've felt like I was kissing Ran-and-Kid-and-Shinichi; and when you touched me- and even when we both touched Shinichi, it was the same thing: Ran-and-Kid-and-Shinichi. And when I- if you'd want me to-" The color deepened, and a little involuntary smile curved her lips. "That's how I feel," Ran said softly. "Very much how I feel."

Between them, Shinichi stirred slightly, only just under the edge of sleep. A lazy little smile flickered across his lips before they relaxed again, and Ran's eyes suddenly twinkled. "Want to play a game?" she asked Kid, one dimple showing charmingly.

Kid folded his thoughtfulness into a safe corner of his mind, for later examination, and snapped his grin into place with all the mania and brilliance it was known for. "Yeeeees," he beamed.

The halogen-beam effect of Kid's grin made Ran's own eyes widen enormously for a couple of seconds, watering slightly before she managed to pull up what her Karate instructor would have recognized instantly as her Game Face; it couldn't hold a candle to the thief's expression, but it was a valiant try. When she'd managed to get her vocal cords back working, Ran let her gaze slide down to Shinichi's bare chest; the other dimple made an appearance. "The object of the game," she began very softly, "is to wake him up without touching him any further than we are now or saying a word. My friend Sonoko told me about it, and _she_ got it from her older sister. Winner gets a kiss. Ready?" At the broadening of the other's grin, she whispered, "Okay. I'll start."

And very, very gently, but at the same time with a certain deliberate focus, Ran blew across Shinichi's chest, skimming the copper-penny brown nipples there. The detective twitched slightly, forehead wrinkling, but continued to doze. Ran made a face and nodded at Kid, watching with great curiosity to see what he'd try.

Kid rubbed his hands together, blowing on them as though to warm up for a magic trick, and grinned at Ran with mischief in his eyes. Stretching one palm out flat, Kid held his hand a small distance above Shinichi's body, very still. He lowered it by little increments, slowly, until the barest breath of air separated his palm and Shinichi's stomach. One corner of his mouth smirked upward as his hand drifted southward, until the center of his palm hung directly over the lowest point between Shinichi's hips. Kid just held his palm there, steady as stone, with nothing between his skin and Shinichi's but a tiny cushion of quickly warming air.

The detective twitched again, this time not just the tiny little flicker of unrest that Ran's attempt had caused but an indrawn breath, a ripple of his body as he flexed beneath Kid's palm. One of Ran's eyebrows went up as Shinichi's eyelids creased, drew in for a second, trembled... but did not quite open.

The thief gave a dramatic (if entirely mimed in silence) sigh and drew back, watching intently.

Biting her lip to keep from giggling, Ran sat up just a tiny bit and leaned forward until just level with Shinichi's ear. This time her puff of breath was far narrower, aimed not into the ear itself but just below and along the tender join fronting the lobe- an aerial tickle, almost. This time the detective turned his head restlessly and made a little noise, a faint sound from the back of his throat. But still he did not wake. His girlfriend peered at him and then stuck out her tongue in a very juvenile fashion before tilting her head to watch Kid's second try.

Kid kept his laughter silent, composing himself into stillness before making his next move. He leaned in carefully, sure to keep any bit of his body from touching Shinichi's and disqualifying him, and even held his pajama shirt back to keep the fabric from brushing the detective. Lowering his face toward Shinichi's, Kid glanced to Ran, closed his eyes with a gentle smile, and breathed across Shinichi's mouth and nose, warm air that carried the scent of Kid's kiss.

Shinichi was still for a moment, drawing in a long breath. Then he pushed up, mouth opening to take Kid's. Brow furrowing in concentration, Shinichi kissed first instinctively, then more eagerly, as he woke, and one hand clumsily threaded itself into Kid's hair to hold him closer.

"Mooooue, you win," said Ran in almost-mock disappointment. She giggled as Shinichi wriggled, stretching luxuriously beneath the thief as Kid allowed his weight to rest gently against him. "Shinichi, how are you feeling?"

The smile she received as the two parted was beatific. "Mmmmm. Warm," he murmured, fingers playing with Kid's hair. There was considerably more sense in his eyes, but the drowsy euphoria of before was still there, if lessened a little. It was an interesting mixture, and as he reached out to run a fingertip along Ran's face, a little flicker of confusion made him frown. "Did you... blow in my _ear?"_ Kid snickered, leaning his cheek against the detective's shoulder.

"Maybe just a little..." She caught the fingertip and nibbled on it delicately.

"Oh." He blinked, still somewhat muddled. "How come?" The fingertip traced her lips.

"We were playing a game with you, Tantei-san," murmured Kid whimsically, settling himself carefully against the detective so that he was embraced but not squashed. "You were the gameboard and the pieces and the prize, and I won." Ran arranged herself around him as well, so that they each had their heads against a shoulder. "So now I have you. What do you think I should do with you, hmm?"

There was a hand on each of their heads now, and Shinichi sighed, a sound utterly full of contentment. "Anything you want," he said drowsily. "So long's you share." He closed his eyes again, and Ran tugged the covers up high enough to cover them all. "Prize, huh... Does that make me... dunno, like one've those jewels you go after?" Shinichi's voice dropped gradually through the last sentence until the final words were just barely audible.

"I did say I'd steal you." Kid met Ran's eyes across their detective's body, smiling wryly. "Without taking you away. One of my more successful heists." Ran grinned back, eyes soft and fond.

"So... you did..." He sighed again. "Best day... in the world." For a few minutes the three lay there, hearts beating in steady rhythms that complemented rather than contradicted each other's. All was warm and peaceful, and the fingers stroking through silky and springy hair gradually slowed, still moving gently.

"...Ran? Kid?"

"Mm? What is it, Shinichi?"

"C'n... you both do something f'r me? Two things?"

"Of course, Tantei. What's the first thing?"

"...promise not t' panic."

"-okay. What's the second thing, Shinichi?"

Deep breath. "Call... Ai. Now."

And the fingers stroking their hair went still.

"All good things," Kid murmured after a pause, resignation shading his eyes. Across Shinichi's chest, Ran had curled even closer, pressing her cheek hard against his skin. "Ran, would you like me to...?"

"I don't want it," Ran said, in a tone that was clearly fighting to avoid petulance, and only mostly succeeding. "I don't want him to change back. I want to keep Shinichi...I want him like_this_." She clenched him tight, turning his skin white around the pressure of her fingertips.

Kid petted her hair softly, easing her hands out of their worried clench. "Ran. Quiet now. It'll be alright. And we have to get Ai-chan up here soon, to take care of him." As she drew a steadying breath, tension falling out of her shoulders and grip, Kid smiled sadly across Shinichi's body at her.

"I want to keep him, too. ...Would you like me to go fetch...?"

"Yes," Ran said, "Please do. And then could you go out? I don't know how long this transformation will take, and I want..."

Kid grinned. "I'll get an excellent one for him. ...And Ran?"

"Mmm?"

The thief lifted his head from Shinichi's chest, stretching across to take Ran's mouth with his own and kiss gently, just the flicker of his tongue tip between her lips, the press of his soft lips against her softer ones. He pulled back to see her startled expression. "I didn't get a chance to answer you earlier," he explained, a mischevous smile flickering through the corners of his eyes. "And I think later, I'd like to hear more about what you'd like to try. I'm not averse to the idea either."

As Ran blushed, Kid slipped out of bed and into his house scuffs, trotting downstairs in his pajamas to alert Shinichi's parents of the situation. On her part, Ran arranged Shinichi on the bed more perfectly, straightening out arms and legs that were already growing hot to the touch, in preparation for the change. Biting her lip, Ran stroked hair back from Shinichi's brow and studied his face, trying to memorize every inch of how it looked in that moment- postcoital, cuddly and at peace, and beautifully dedicated to her and to Kid. The detective's personality read through his features so clearly, even unconscious, that it made tiny tears well up in the corners of Ran's eyes.

"_Baka_ Shinichi," Ran muttered, tugging the blankets into alignment with extra force. "We just fixed the sheets. If you're going to mess them up again, you're doing it the wrong way."

* * *

About three quarters of an hour later, Kid - fully dressed in his recon blacks and a bit of extra protection against exposure - slipped out of the glass double doors of a small boutique in Beika's most fashionable shopping area. Shinichi, he knew, would at that moment be in the middle of the torturous process of size change, and hopefully would be dead to the world through the whole thing. In the meantime, Kid had gone straight to the top, choosing only the best to find the solution to Ran's little request.

Letting the glass door close quietly behind him, Kid held still and listened in satisfaction as a tiny electronic chirp announced that the building's alarm was reset, doors locked; all was returned to just how it had started - with one significant exception. In Kid's hands, a paper shopping bag rustled invitingly, full of neatly wrapped tissue paper and one bit of precious cargo; on the counter inside the store lay a little stack of yen notes - piled neatly on top of a handwritten receipt which listed size, SKU, color, and price of the single purloined item. Beneath it all, the ubiquitous Kid doodle grinned into the darkness of the shop, waiting for business hours to arrive the next morning.

* * *

Ran was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Shinichi lay in bed, hooked up to only two IV's and a small number of monitoring devices, all of which had been carried over from Agasa's residence by the Kudos, Ran, and Agasa himself. Shinichi was about eight years old at this point, and the rate of his shrink had slowed for the final stage of the transformation. Ai said it was to be expected with the tweaks she'd made to the formula, whatever that meant.

The first twenty minutes had been hideous - he had gone from eighteen to twelve in that short time, and at one point Ran feared his skin would _rip_, so thin and fragile it looked as he lay still in bed, eighteen-years-big skin quite literally draped across his twelve-years-small skeleton. Ai had warned her not to move or touch him, to safeguard against damage to his tissues, but Ran was afraid of what _Shinichi_ might do if he woke. And how he hadn't, yet, she couldn't fathom. The speed and extremity of the change was absolutely boggling, and yet he lay there, seemingly still as death; only the quick beep of his heartbeat's monitor and the shaking of his ribcage as his breath sped up, just short of hyperventilating, proved his life as the cloud of steam and smoke had begun to build around him.

_I feel like, any minute now, I'll wake up to see the real change. The one with all the screams._

It was terrifying, Ran admitted to herself, clenching a fistful of bedsheets in her hands in lieu of holding her boyfriend's hand or even stroking his brow. He was shrinking still - she could watch the way his hair progressively slid across the pillow, dragged by the motion of his head as it was pulled down the bed by his shrinking body. At the point that his skin had tightened up a bit after the first big stage of the shrink, just enough that it was possible to see the suggestion of muscle mass beneath the excess tissue, Agasa and Ai had carefully, delicately lifted Shinichi's head to replace his pillow, laying a lightweight cool cloth across his forehead and eyes to soothe and aid the change of the tissues there. Shinichi's face had mostly shrunk by that point (and _god,_ Ran thought with terror, _what if he'd been de-aged further, past the point at which the human skull stops growing? What would that have done to his brain?)_, and Ai said that the cool cloth might help prevent burst blood vessels in his eyes and save him the red-eyed look of the overtired or the overworked.

_Or undersized,_ Ran wryly added, watching the corner of his mouth twitch, the barest flicker of a frown. Shinichi wasn't expected to wake for another hour or two; Ai had admitted to overestimating the amount of painkillers and narcotics necessary in the device for the initial run ("Would you rather I underestimated, and allowed him to wake for the last few moments of it?") but did take under consideration Ran's shy observations about the, ahm, _sensitivity_ Shinichi had shown to the drug when he'd woken earlier.

Yukiko and Yuusaku had spent most of the time up to this point watching from a bit of a distance; content to let the professionals handle the situation so long as they were handling it _right_, Yukiko supervised carefully, satisfaction apparent in her bearing as each stage of the change failed to induce screaming wakefulness in her son. Yuusaku had brought some work with him up to the bedroom for the vigil, but didn't do much of anything with it at all, instead just watching his son sleep.

"It's like watching time run backwards," Yukiko murmured, as Shinichi's body shifted its final few centimenters. Conan now lay in the bed that Shinichi had begun in; while Yukiko sounded unworried by this, and Yuusaku was silent, Ran bit her lip and held back small, disobedient tears that seemed to be ignoring the mandates of _will not cry_ and _must not be selfish_ that Ran had strictly imposed on herself. She looked over her shoulder at Yukiko, hands knotted together in her lap.

"It makes me wish I could go back with him, sometimes," she said. "I had a dream about it. That I went back with him, because he couldn't find a way to come forward to return to me."

"Oh Yuusaku," Yukiko sighed with a big smile, "We really do have the best daughter in law in the whole world, don't we?"

Ran flushed, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "I'm not- I mean..."

Yukiko waved a hand. "Oh, we'll help him buy you the ring if he needs it," she said with a smile, and only after staring for a moment did Ran realize that Yukiko was mostly teasing, to cheer her up. "Honestly, being a boy detective is a very glamorous and potentially fatal occupation, and that's all fine and dandy, but he won't be able to afford enough rings if he keeps picking up paramours at this rate."

"Kid could provide them," Yuusaku offered, deadpan.

A quiet snicker from the other side of the room drew all of their attentions; surprisingly, it was _Ai_ who'd laughed.

"Kudo-san, I admire your practicality," said the little scientist dryly, climbing onto the side of the mattress beside Shinichi, small careful fingers seeking out his pulse. "And your son seems to be doing just fine. All things told, this has been a relatively painless transformation, pun possibly intended."

"Let's keep it that way," muttered Ran, still a little warm around the cheekbones.

Minutes passed, punctuated by the unobtrusive beeping of the IV drips; Ai adjusted their flow now and then, but as the bags emptied and the face of the bed's occupant smoothed out and settled into Conan's familiar contours, she crimped and then capped the lines, taking vital signs and other readings. At one point one small, limp hand stirred, the fingers reaching out unconsciously for something; Ran slid her fingers within reach, and the childish ones closed over them.

Agasa jotted down notes onto a clipboard, chewing his moustache with his brow furrowed in thought. Occasionally he and Ai conferred over a bit of data, and Ran glanced up once from her focus on Shinichi's face to find Yukiko watching the two scientists thoughtfully. She caught Ran's questioning gaze, mouthed _birds of a feather_ at her, and went back to her contemplative staring.

The detective's daughter shook her head; sometimes Kudo Yukiko bewildered her.

At last the small, pale figure's fine brows drew together, and dazed blue eyes opened. "...nngh." Dialated pupils slowly assumed their normal size, and sense crept back along with wakefulness. "Everything... okay?" Shinichi whispered, licking dry lips; Yukiko moved forward with a small glass of water and a straw. Her son drank deeply, eyes fixing on his fellow victim's face. "Haibara? Did it-"

"It went quite well, actually. Early, yes, and the chemical levels will require certain adjustments in future trials, but... _quite_ well indeed." She smoothed one hand across the covers at the end of the bed, satisfaction giving her pointed face a glow that very little else did. Agasa glanced down at Ai's face, affection painting his own features. "How do you feel?"

The boy blinked, taking stock; he flexed slowly from toes to shoulders, grimacing slightly as joints protested here and there, and his grip tightened on Ran's own fingers as he took a second to give her a wan if reassuring smile. "Not bad," he said, surprised. "Not nearly as bad as last time. Just tired and achey; why?"

Agasa answered for her. "Hrm, well, apparently a great deal of the pain was caused by the body's instinctive struggle against transformation. The gradual sedation and relaxation avoided much of that and reduced adrenaline and fatigue." He smiled down at the boy. "A pity we didn't think of trying this earlier, Shinichi-kun, but now that we have, we can move forward-"

"-so long as you don't exhaust yourself during each transformation with extreme feats of-"

Agasa put a quelling hand on Ai's small shoulder. "_Ai-_chan."

She subsided, but the little smirk in her usually calm eyes spoke for itself. Hastily Shinichi cast about, looking for a change of subject as he slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position with Ran and Yukiko's help. The little room was full of people, but there was one missing- "Wait, where's Kid?"

"Ai-chan, have you made him blind?" The cocky tenor tones of Kid's voice floated to Shinichi from just outside the doorway, but the thief himself appeared futher into the room, stepping out from behind Yuusaku with a smarmy grin. "Famous detectives can't keep their reputations up when beset with sudden cases of visual impairment."

Ai's glance informed the room what she thought of the thief's teasing; while the Kudos elder looked happy to see him, and Ran lit up with disproportionate eagerness, Shinichi met and returned Kid's familiar, relieved gaze with one of his own.

"Phantom thieves usually have problems with their performances if they're limping," Shinichi retorted. Kid laughed, skirting around Ai to settle onto the end of the bed, cheerfully folding his legs beneath him. A soft, rectangular package, neatly done up in boutique tissue paper giftwrap, rested between his knees. Shinichi eyed it warily.  
"Kid...what's that?"  
"Should I tell him, Ran?" Kid asked, fingers lightly poised on the edge of the package. "It was your idea after all."

She shook her head. "People with presents who don't want to open them don't deserve to have them," she informed Shinichi with mock hauture. "There're little kids in China who'd _love_ to have a present to open. There are _starving children in America_ who don't get birthday presents like that-"

"Birthday?" Tentatively, in fear of confetti, smoke, doves or possibly a shower of foil-wrapped condoms, Shinichi pulled the package towards him and tugged at a ribbon.

"Well, isn't it?" Ran leaned forward to stroke his soft hair back from his forehead. "Sort of, at least. So open it, will you?" Spurred on by this, the boy began very carefully to untie the knots... slowly. Very slowly, one at a time, with meticulous attention to detail.

"ShinIIIIIchiiiiiiiiiiii..." his mother whined. Her son snorted in amusement and tore at the giftwrap in earnest.

It was red.

It was red, and smaller than the last package he'd gotten of the same sort, soft and heavy in his hands, draping over them even while still wrapped. The paper pulled away and the soft red knit was revealed; the crewneck collar, the strong, intricately twisted column of cables running in tiny stitches down the front of the delicate knit. It was a spring sweater, lightweight fabric of very soft, supple fiber, just a bit more sturdy than liquid in his hands: a simple pullover style, smooth columns of stockinette stitch which gave way to short bars of ribbing at wrist, throat, and hem, lined with narrow two-strand cable twists down the sleeves, back, and on either side of the center panel of cables. It was perfectly sized to fit him as he was now, all eight short and thin years that his body could claim. He held it up by the shoulders, measuring the weight of the cloth in his hands, the softness of it against his palms as he gripped it. The color was a pure, clear shade of red, perfectly matched to the _other_ red sweater, the one he'd owned for over a year but worn only once.

Visible over the edge of the sweater as Shinichi held it up, Kid was grinning like a Cheshire, and Ran, at his side, had a big smile of her own to boast.

Ai, Yukiko and Yuusaku all looked at each other, perplexed; the significance of the red sweater was lost on them. They hadn't been present during the case on Shinichi's birthday the previous year, when a symmetry-crazed architect set a bomb in the theatre of a building he had designed; when Ran, armed with her tiny sewing kit and Shinichi's voice from the far side of a door, had been forced to choose red or blue, life or death, for herself and for Shinichi; and when her simple birthday gift for him - a red sweater - had inspired the choice that saved their lives. Agasa, however, smiled slowly and, with a few quiet words, ushered the three out into the hallway and closed the door, blinking hard. "Perhaps I'm getting sentimental in my old age," he murmured, "but I believe they could do with a little privacy. _Temporary, brief_ privacy," he added hastily for Ai's benefit. She shrugged, still in too good of a mood over her scientific success to be more than momentarily irked.

Yukiko, however, leaned forward and (much to her husband's amusement) kissed the Professor on the cheek. "You big softy." He blushed pink and led the way to the stairs.

* * *

Back inside the bedroom, Shinichi was thoroughly bracketed by his lovers, both much larger than himself now. He was shaking softly. "Thank you," he murmured, pouring into the word all the anchoring, reassuring strength that the sweater represented. In his lap, draped over and clutched in his small fists, it all but _poured_ positive energy into him, a representation of so much that couldn't possibly be defined in words. It all went in circles, bouncing from each of them to the next, causal and correlational all tangled up in one big ball.

Ran, who had given him the first one, who was repeating her loving gesture for him now, no matter what his size.

Shini

chi himself, who'd placed his life into Ran's shaking hands, bruised and filthy, separated from each other at what they both believed to be their final moments by the rubble of an imperfect achievement.

Kid, who hadn't been part of that first red sweater's memory, but brought the second for Shinichi now, accepting and echoing the history that he knew preceded his entry into the Ran-and-Shinichi equation.

Ran, who _had_ to have requested the sweater specifically, letting Kid into that private loop, making him a part, a cog of the mechanism to reach across the divide of body age and to maintain the touch on Shinichi's heart, hers and his fingertips straight onto his soul, that had been forged throughout this single long weekend of his return.

And both of them: seeing him for himself in all ways, knowing him well enough to give him a concrete reminder, providing the touchstone _before_ he needed it, and physically expressing their message with the red thread that made up the sweater he held.

"Thank you," the detective murmured, holding his Voice of Reason and his Thief close as he was able, curled around the sweater scrunched up in his lap between them. "Thank you...thank you..._thank you..._"  
.

.

__

* * *

_(Note: you can find photos of the entire red sweater thing above (sort of, you'll see) at the following address, if you fix the html: http colon slash slash picasaweb dot google dot com slash alanna214 slash ThreeThieves?authkey=Gv1sRgCLOBz8SK3PCTUw# rednightengale made them, and they're worth the look; go see!)_

.

..  
_**Omake: "After Careful Analysis..."**_

"Okay, men, let's go over this again. What do we know about the notice?"

In the Kaitou Kid Task Force Situation Room, Ginzo Nakamori looked to his team's best analysts expectantly. "Well?"

"He may be targeting grade schools," offered one, passing forward a slim packet of print-outs with information about the schools which could be most likely targets, based on the information from the notice.

"We considered the possibility that there was a code worked into the numbers, as well," offered another, adjusting his glasses nervously. "We tried ciphers that involved the positioning of the numbers, or using the punctuation marks to deliniate between sections of the message."

"We even tried running all the numbers through a scramble pattern before decoding them," added a specialist near the wall, red-eyed with lack of sleep, "to see if the positioning was irrelavant."

"And?" Nakamori glared at his pipe, aggressively packing tobacco into the bowl. "What's the message?"

"...We didn't find one," admitted the lead analyst nervously, twitching and speaking quickly as Nakamori's glare swung from his pipe to center on him. "We looked for all the basic encoding schemes, date-specific codes and geographical coordinates; we looked for symbolic significances, color significances, puns related to the alternate meanings of his nickname..."

"Nothing," concluded the embarrased man's neighbor, drooping. "Not a single interpretation held water after we investigated it further. The details didn't match up, the coordinates we assembled from the numerical components of the notice led us to empty lots or altogether outside of Japan, the nearby schools have observed no unusual behavior at all, before or after the notice was left, and, um, frankly, keibu?

"We're out of ideas."

Nakamori turned away, lighting his pipe with cranky emphasis, and glared at the magnetic white board at the front of the room. All around the central element of evidence, scribbled ideas and bare scraps of information trailed off into frustrated question marks in various colors of dry erase ink. In the center of the board, held with magnets to the smooth surface, hung a photocopy of the "notice" and a photograph of the evidence - the sales tags removed from a single item of merchandise offered at a small boutique in Beika-cho, laid neatly beside a large stack of yen notes and coin.

_Purchased: 1 sweater.  
Item style #SWBSPR10ST45  
Size S, color RDSLK  
Price ¥19000  
Tax ¥2000  
Total ¥21000  
Thank you~!  
KID_

_-Owari-_


	33. Return, Division One, Takedasan

___Greetings! Our apologies for the day delay of posting; a combination of vacation, a convention and a great deal too little sleep combined to thwart posting on time this week. However, better late than never, hmm?_

____

Tonight we're back to Life As We Know It; the world hasn't waited for our heroes, and things are moving right along. Where to? Oh, you'll see. ^_^

___Also: We will be taking a two-week hiatus following this chapter due to massive quantities of nonline life. Don't worry, we're still here. The next chapter, which will be the beginning of Book Four, will be posted on _**__****Friday, July 16th**___... The Management_

_._

_**Three Thieves**__**: A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by nightengale and ysabet**__**  
Book Three, Chapter Twelve**__**: "return, Division One, Takeda-san"  
**__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: dc_yaoi , detective_conan , magic_kaitou and manycases1truth_

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* * *

_

Time, that most transitory and changing thing in Kudo Shinichi's life, passed. As it was a Sunday, it passed with sleepy slowness, neither creeping nor dragging but instead tiptoeing through the length of the day. The detective spent much of it dozing as his body reaccustomed itself to its diminutive state, aided by Ai's occasional presence and an order to 'swallow this, Kudo-kun' or insertion of a new cartridge into his APTX-pack.

Shinichi felt... not exactly hermitish or reclusive, but curiously shy of the rest of the world; it was as if his capacity for company had been temporarily filled to the brim, limiting him in both what he wanted to see and whom he wanted to be seen by. And there was the childish shape again, of course. He'd worried in the back of his mind how Ran and Kid would react, how he himself would deal with the issue of what could only be considered a form of incapacitation... only to find out that it wasn't an issue at all. They'd spent most of the day curled up beside him on bed or (later) couch, companionably warm and nonintrusive.

He'd kept the sweater close by.

As early morning transformed into late, Ran's cellphone had rung with Sonoko's repeated call-tones until she had in desperation spent twenty irritated minutes herding her friend's excited assumptions from the realm of Shinichi-and-Ran's-Hot-&-Secret-Rendezvous into something more closely akin to the far calmer image that it was necessary that she believe. "Although," Ran had said wryly afterwards to the other two, "she wasn't so far off from being right... except for things like Kudo-san supplying, um, supplies. Sonoko'd never come up with anything like _that."_

"Maybe you ought to suggest she hide them under the edge of HER mattress," suggested Kid with a perfectly straight face. "And then you can ask if this Makoto-san of hers has a brother- or a sister- since it's _quite_ obvious by now that two are better than-"

At that point Ran had pelted him with couch pillows while Shinichi had snickered Conanish snickers from his cocoon of blankets. "Sister!" she'd sputtered.

"It's a reasonable question," the thief had pointed out. "After all, what if I'd turned out to be female instead of male? A villainess instead of a villain, not Kid but Kid-chaa~aan?" He'd beamed at the other two as they had stared at each other in mute speculation. Yukiko, amazingly enough, had blushed quite red and left the room with her husband trailing bemusedly behind. Ran and Shinichi had watched this exodus and then turned shocked, accusatory glares on their friend, who had merely buffed his nails against the sleeve of his borrowed sweatshirt. "It's a gift," he'd said modestly, bare seconds before dodging another sofa-pillow barrage.

Late morning had worn on into an afternoon of old movies and naps; after all, it wasn't as if any of the three had gotten much sleep the night before. Ran had at last left reluctantly to head back to the Mouri agency and her home by way of Sonoko's. She'd kissed Kid quite firmly and then stooped to brush her lips against Shinichi's brow; it had felt like a promise. "I'll be glad when you can come home again," she'd whispered, and then left at last.

Kid, too, had eventually had to leave; too much time spent away from his own home was, while not as pressing a problem as Ran's, still not a good thing. As the evening shadows bloomed outside the windowpanes, he'd gathered his belongings (and the skull-patterned pareo that Yukiko refused to allow him to leave without) and then pressed an identical kiss onto Shinichi's forehead before toeing on his shoes and readying to slip out the back way into the night. "I'll see you soon, I hope?" the detective had said a little forelornly, still curled up like a cat in his nest of quilts.

"Just **try** to keep me away, Tantei," Kid had smiled, blue eyes full of mischief.

The door had closed behind him, leaving Shinichi to slump down into his covers in something very like dejection. A weight had pressed down beside him; he'd looked up from his sulks a moment later into his mother's face, and she'd ruffled his hair.

"Well, Shin-chan, Yuusaku- who's up for a little Scrabble?" she'd asked brightly.

* * *

But that had been then, and now it was full night and Shinichi was curled up on the couch, feeling as if he had a cold space to either side of him that no pile of blankets in the world could ever warm.

_Okay, that's just ridiculous. They're not gone gone, they're just... gone. For a little while. And you'll be fine, and a little space is probably a good thing, right? Right. Ran's got to make sure her father isn't drowning himself in cheap beer, Kid's got to, uh, do whatever it is he does to keep his life running, and YOU need to figure out what you're going to do now. You've finally, finally got a real possibility of a cure in your hands- or on your hip- and that's got its own set of problems inherent in the process._

Nestled deep in the warm quilts and comforters, he lay back and contemplated the ceiling overhead, a frown creasing a fine line between his childish brows. _First, if Shinichi comes back permanently, where does he- do I- go? I can't show my face, so 'in hiding' is the obvious answer; but I wonder if I could turn that into 'in disguise'? Kid'd help. Above all, I can't be seen; that means no direct police-contact, since I'm damn certain there's a leak in the system somewhere._

Secondly, if Shinichi comes back, where does Conan go to? The disease idea's sound, but unless we stage a sudden death, and I do NOT want to inflict that onto the kids, then... I think he's going to have to leave permanently with his 'parents'. It's a moot point for the moment, though; who knows how long it'll take for the APTX-pack to have a full, lasting effect? It was amazing, though... so much more than amazing. So much more... For a few minutes Shinichi daydreamed, remembering the feel of Ran's mouth against his, Kid's hands on his body, his own eager response to them both-

-and swore mentally at the uncomfortable _lack_ of a physical reaction where his mind said one should be- no pleasurable rush of adrenaline, no interesting tingles or, well, anything else. Especially anything else. Not surprising, but... distressing, if inevitable; and the best thing he could do would be to keep that sort of reverie for his dreams, because the reality was certain to be nothing but depressing. _Hell of a world,_ Shinichi grumbled mentally, where being a horny teenager is its own punishment. Still, it's a good thing, I guess, considering the situation. Deal with it, Kudo; act like an adult, even if you can't act like an adult, so to speak.

Restlessly he reached for the laptop he'd left on the coffee table earlier, popping it open and booting it up. From the kitchen came faintly tuneless singing; Kaasan was concocting something that involved much clattering of utensils. They'd ordered out, and the whatever-it-was apparently was meant for the following day. As his laptop bleeped itself into wakefulness, Shinichi mused that he was going to miss his parents a lot more than he would've thought previously when at last they did leave. As much of a pain as they could be on occasion, they'd surprised him over and over this time in so many ways. And he'd _enjoyed_ it; he'd even enjoyed getting utterly crushed by his father in the Scrabble game earlier that day (Kudo Yuusaku tended to play a very ruthless game; his wife had come in a poor third and had sulked for hours.)

In the end, though, Shinichi knew that as much as he'd miss his parents, he had to stand on his own again, and soon. They had to return to their lives, once Yuusaku's authors' convention was finished, and Shinichi had to return to his own. It had been over a month since Conan's "normal" life's routines and rhythms had been put on hold - a month filled to the brim with more medical craziness than many people sustained in their whole lives, and with more emotional daring - and rewards - than many people were blessed to experience in _any_ of their lives.

_I've never given much thought to the afterlife, but I suppose I really should,_ Shinichi mused, his thoughts drifting off course as he considered the ways in which having a "near-death experience," including but not limited to the three changes he'd experienced over the last four days, had somehow become comparable in his mind with a 'normal' person's list of errands. Errands according to Kudo Shinichi, he mused, might go something like this:

_Cereal for breakfast…wash laundry…age one decade in the space of six hours…have mind-blowing sex with your girlfriend and your boyfriend…play dress up in disguises concocted by your boyfriend…help girlfriend's father solve case in afternoon…attend boyfriend's heist in evening and try to catch him committing grand larceny…perform reasonable imitation of public narcolepsy and reawaken a decade younger…return to girlfriend's house, sleep for two or three hours…attend first grade classes in morning._

Which, Shinichi snickered to himself, didn't sound like such a bad day at all, really. Not ideal, but so much better than the parameters he_used_ to think limited him.

It startled him to be smiling, but he was; the thoughts of Kid and Ran - and, admittedly, of the Shounen Tantei's reaction to his return to school - had buoyed his spirits in a rather predictable, but no less gratifying, manner.

So, with good mood in his grasp, Shinichi had to decide on his next move. And it was a pretty simple decision, really: with the cows case out of his hands and on its way to being wrapped up, he needed something else to keep himself occupied. And the APTX pack, and its implications, was the perfect choice. A quick email to Hattori and to Kid, outlining all the technical specifications that he could wring out of Haibara, would be a good start, to put them all on the same page. And some research on long term dosage plans like the one Ai had adapted to their purposes for Apotoxin might give him some useful background information. And then he should get started on the forgeries for Conan's new medical condition…and practice his story, so that he'd have a believably simplified version of it ready for the kids' questions.

_I guess I've decided, then,_ Shinichi realized, mildly impressed with his own calm about the situation. _I'm going back tomorrow._

And the decision felt good. It really did, and Shinichi felt a rush of energy at that thought. Original or no, his life as Conan was just as _real_ as his life as Shinichi, and though he'd surely be cursing his current optimism as soon as it came time for vocabulary exercises alongside Genta, Mitsuhiko, Ayumi, and Ai... Though he'd be cursing the homework, he'd be glad of the company.

_I do miss them,_ Shinichi thought, waking up his laptop and typing in a few routine Google searches - a small number of the battery of keyword searches he ran as the 'warmup' to any session of research on all things Black Org. _They're good kids, teachable and as patient as first graders really can be. And they've grown a lot this last year._ The spring term - and the start of a new school year - would be coming up soon. The Shonen Tantei would be _second_ graders soon.

_I bet that'll just mean they get into even more trouble._

* * *

The next morning had a double dose of deja vu to it: backpack, child-sized clothes, Shinichi's mother calling _Shin-chaaan, get moving or you'll be late!_ up the stairs as he tamed his cowlicks into place with a hasty comb. Thudding down the staircase, he headed with the instinct of many years towards the front door, only to be stopped by a small throat-clearing to one side; Haibara stood waiting near the entrance to the tunnel to the Professor's place. _Well, duhhh,_ Shinichi winced mentally; of course they couldn't be seen leaving the Kudos', Edogawa Conan had been staying with _Agasa-hakase_ all this time, right?

Right.

The diminutive blonde assessed him with a long, thoughtful gaze as he shouldered his school backpack for the first time in over a month and walked beside her through the tunnel. "Well, Kudo-kun? Ready to take up the weighty burdens of First-Year Kanji and Recess?"

"Ready or not, here I come," he quipped, hooking his fingers beneath one strap.

"Ahh, but are they ready for you, I wonder? In any case, the other three will be happy to see you, ne?" She sounded oddly light-hearted; and it occurred to Shinichi for the first time that, just maybe, Haibara Ai might have missed his presence at school too. One never knew with Ai.

It felt unutterably strange, walking down the sidewalk towards the gradeschool as if none of the previous weeks' events had occurred at all; and in a real sense, he realized, they _hadn't._ Not for the kids he'd be seeing soon; not for the teachers or anybody else he dealt with on a daily basis, with the exception of the obvious suspects. No; he'd been sick, that was all, following the motorcycle-crash. And soon his 'mother' (or whoever Kid and his actual kaasan had concocted between them) would be showing up to talk with the correct authorities regarding little Conan-kun's sad medical condition. But right now, for all he could say... he'd been ill, and he was feeling better, and he had a weird black box on his hip (which _somebody_ was bound to bump into and notice) that he'd better explain about before-

_**"CONAN-KUUUUUUUUUUUUN!"**_

Thundering herds of gradeschoolers- okay, actually it was just Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta- came pelting down the sidewalk towards him, glee on their faces. "I called them," murmured Ai with alarming complacence, and Shinichi swallowed a somewhat surprising lump. The next few minutes were spent reassuring them that Yes, he felt okay, Really he did, Yes, he was glad he was back, No, he hadn't found any new cases while lying around convalescing in bed, and Wait, you've been doing what?

"We talked to Sensei about starting a real Detective Club at school," said Genta in something less than his usual bellow and more of a matter-of-fact announcement. "You know, Conan-kun, like... Gardening Club and Cooking Club and all the sports things and-" All three faces were ear-to-ear with grins. "'Cause that way they'd let us have a booth at the school fairs and we could sell stuff! Shonen Tantei Riceballs like in _Fruits Basket_ and almond cookies with, uh-" (he thought for a second) "-they could be shaped like our badges! And-"

"Genta-kun, that was _NOT_ why we did it," scolded Mitsuhiko, hands on hips. "We did it so we could have a classroom to meet in and so we could maybe have a lab- we could do tests on things and fingerprinting and it'd be just like the detective shows-"

Ayumi was opening her mouth to put her yen's-worth in, and Shinichi- Conan- waved his hands in the air. "Guys, guys! Whatever the reason, it's still a good idea." He paused for a second. "Except, um, you realize that this means anybody who wants to can join, right? And investigate things? With us?"

_Blink, blink._ Realization and dismay wrote across all three faces. Genta was the first to recover. "I don't want Yutaro-kun to be in it," he muttered. "He's DUMB. And he'll try to run things."

"So will Asayako-kun, and she's not dumb, she's mean," said Ayumi glumly.

Ai tilted her head to one side. "You could think about it for a while," she suggested. "And maybe try to start it next year?" This met with reluctant approval and became the general topic of discussion as the small group walked the last few blocks to school, chattering. Shinichi met Ai's gaze with his own, knowledge shading their shared agreement.

_It'll be easier if they have something to concentrate on if I have to leave then, won't it? And who knows... it may not just be me who's leaving._He watched as Ai answered one of Ayumi's questions about a class project, and wondered.

* * *

Sensei welcomed him back with almost embarassing enthusiasm; she seemed sincerely happy to see her 'little Edogawa-kun'. The other children chattered excitedly about motorcycles and bad guys- the crash, as distant as it seemed to him, had been all over the news, and he noticed many excited drawings of zooming bikes on the Picture Wall where all the crayon productions lived. One little boy even asked him with great solemnity if people could see his brains now that he'd smashed his head; Conan reassured him that no, so far nothing had leaked out.

...or so he hoped, though the past few days had _definitely_ been insane enough to be the result of head-trauma. Surrounded by a knot of curious kids, Conan fielded a ghoulish little girl's question about how many needles he'd gotten stuck with and resolved to spend the day ONLY thinking about things that could happen, would happen or had happened on school grounds. Which resolve, of course, failed in short order. Halfway through the day, Quiet Study Hour found him idly doodling little designs down the side of his notepad that ran the gamut from tiny four-leafed-clovers to something that approximated some of Ran's more elouquent curves. He scribbled them out hurriedly once he'd recognized them and put himself to ferociously going through the first hundred kanji, one at a time, stroke by stroke. And then the second hundred. And then the third...

*

Kobayashi Sumiko, First Grade teacher, watched bemusedly as her prodigal (or prodigy, whichever) student bent his head industriously over his notepad, working on his handwriting. It seemed to have improved, which was nice, since the homework he'd turned in earlier had been almost unreadable. What _had_ he been up to while he worked out the math questions? she wondered, recalling several near-illegible scribbles. _Watching movies, probably. But at least he's trying; look at him go, he must have been bored to tears, poor thing..._

* * *

School. Real, actual, school - classes with English exercises that he excelled at, geometry and math that he had to concentrate on completing less skillfully than he actually could, to keep certain people from making certain awkward connections. Then the unavoidably gymnastic lunchtime rush for the melon-pan and milk coffee before it was all gone, which netted him only fifty percent success today. Thirsty, he attended afternoon classes, unsuccessfully trying to ignore the taunting warmth and floral breeze winging in the open classroom windows; the restlessness that came from too much winter and an overabundance of internal energy ran through him like an electric current. The weather was also affecting the rest of Ekoda High's student body, making his classmates fidget restlessly in their seats. Pencils tapped and shoes squeaked against the tile; chairs shifted and the teacher cleared her throat, an underwhelming attempt to regain attention. To Kaito, most of this - and nearly all of his classmates - didn't matter so much. They kept their distance as he kept his.

Three who mattered somewhat more, though, commanded more of his attention. Hakuba, possessed of an unaccountable and worrisome patience of late, was quiet in the fringes of his attention. _Akako_, who was looking at him again, damn the woman to hell, and who put shudders up his back just from proximity, seemed discomfited by the sunny weather. Good. And Aoko. Aoko, who was being...well...

"Kai~_toooooo._"

_Eek._ Kuroba Kaito turned on his heel, finding and meeting Aoko's critical blue stare with the most innocently unconcerned one he could dig out of his repertoire. "Naaaaani yo, Aoko?" he asked, his tones nasal and annoyed. "You've been following me around all day and you haven't once connected with that mop of yours. -Not that I'm complaining. But it's weird."

There was an unaccustomed frown on her face; not that she didn't frown a lot (she did; it usually became a glower, given a little encouragement) but this one didn't fit quite right- it had too much puzzlement and too little agression, and it looked more than a little uncomfortable perching there. Crossing her arms, the Inspector's daughter leaned against the classroom wall and stared him down with eyes that were remarkably like her father's. "Baka. Most people'd be glad I wasn't trying to hit them."

"Most people can't duck as well as I can." He leaned against the wall beside her, gaze slipping away from hers and directing itself out at the random mass of students as he took up the same position, arms crossed in mimicry. "So?"

She shot him a sideways look tempered only slightly by what seemed for all the world like a deliberate attempt at calm; it was a little unnerving, since Aoko'd rarely held a conversation with Kaito in the past few years which didn't involve at least one blunt object. "I've been trying to figure you out. Why did you tell me that the other night?" she asked him in a low, uncertain voice, abrupt as a sneeze. "You never said anything like that before."

Oh. Okay, so all she'd done was trade one blunt object for another, words instead of dangerous cleaning products. Frankly, he preferred the mop.

Kaito winced, trying to keep the impulse to hunch his shoulders under control. "You told me to tell you," he said, his voice carrying the clarity of simple confidence. "I remember a whole lot of 'Tell me tell me tell me' from your end. I didn't promise you you'd like what I had to say."

"I didn't say _that,_" Aoko countered quickly, before receding back into her low volume, queryingly unconfident tone. "I just wanted to know why it was _that_ that you had to say."

"You told me to tell you my biggest secret," Kaito said, shrugging. He looked over at her, a little startled by how easy it was to meet her confused gaze with his own clear and steady one. "That was it."

Aoko bit her lip, eyes searching his for any hint of subterfuge, evasion or mockery; what she saw seemed to disturb her even more than any of those might have, and she looked away after a moment, studying their passing classmates as if they were the most amazing things in the world. "I don't understand," she said at last, and there was a hint of pleading in Aoko's voice. "You could've told me anything. You could've made something up, or even said you were the stupid Kaitou Kid again. You could've told me _anything_ and I probably would've believed you. So-"

"-so why did you tell me the truth?" The girl swallowed. "It hurt," she muttered, and Kaito couldn't be certain if she was talking about herself or about him.

The first warning bell for class clamored overhead; neither of them moved but the hall cleared rapidly, stragglers heading towards their respective rooms at a rate that left them alone with surprising speed. Aoko remained leaning against the wall, chin tucked and arms still crossed, hugging herself as if to protect something. Her face was closed: doors shut, barriers in place, all the blockades set up and manned with riot-squads. "Kaito?"

"Hm?" He watched her.

"I have a secret too."

And just like that, she pushed away from the wall and hurried towards her next class, leaving him behind in the echoingly empty hallway.

The magician watched her go, thief at his side. Both of them were still, expressions slack as though they'd been smacked in the face with a newspaper, or something equally startling. Kid found his words first.

"Well. Shit."

* * *

Lunchtime again, this time on the other end of the country:

"Hei-_ji!_ Who keeps mailing youuuu? Is it a giiiiirl-friiiiend?"

The teenage detective squirmed away from his oldest friend, snapping his cell phone shut and holding it up and away from her reach. She leaned in closer, beginning to push him off balance with her proximity, and he wobbled onto one foot before regaining his balance and shouldering her out.

"Ka-zu-ha. Stop it already!" Heiji narrowed his eyes at her, shoulders hunched. "Ahou. It's just Kudo again."

"Ohhh," Kazuha sang, arms crossed and chin raised, "So it's your _boy_friend."

"_Ahou!_" Heiji snapped, pocketing his phone and swatting at her ponytail with his other hand. She ducked, of course, and spun away from him in the same motion, sticking her tongue out at him as she backed away.

"I'll leave you two alone," Kazuha taunted, making a face, before trotting away cheerfully. Heiji pulled his phone out again, opening it to his mail box. A half-finished draft sat waiting for him, and he keyed out the remainder of the message quickly, glancing up occasionally to be sure Kazuha wasn't returning for Round Two.

_Guess that would be one way to deal with the kiddie dumb. Long term effects wouldn't be worth it, tho. If no other reason - then I'd beat you at every case. Besides it'd be hard to find a rusted titanium spoon to start with. Probably have to rust your own._

-Kazuha just went vulture on me. Caught on that I'm mailing you a lot. Better not for a while, just to keep her off my back. Sorry to abandon you, tho. Mail your girlfriend instead? It'd give Suzuki something to talk about at least. -H

Heiji pressed send, his mind already on other thoughts. There were a few other things he could have suggested to help Shinichi make it through his first day of kiddie school in a month, he figured. But he wasn't sure that he could even bring himself to suggest them, much less actually type them out to tell Kudo. Heiji looked to the window, gaze sliding up past the buildings to the bright sky above.

_Like I told you, buddy. If you hurt him, I'll make you sorry. Don't make me have to come through on this… for his sake, too. I don't get it, but he's happy, and you're part of that. That's worth protecting, for sure, even if it makes no **goddamn** sense._

* * *

Division One breakroom, lunchtime.

"…And I heard from one of the front desk girls that Beika Elementary called _us._"

"Did something happen?"

"No, no, it's okay. Sorry, keibu, I didn't mean it to sound like that. No, it's just-"

"What is it? Shiratori, tell us!"

"...Well, they called to tell us that Edogawa-kun is back in school."

"Oh, he's feeling better? That's such good news."

"Takagi-kun, I think you're missing the point. They called the _police_ just to let us know that one of their students returned to classes."

"No need to take that tone, Shiratori-kun."

"Yes, keibu."

"Regardless, did they, ah, say anything else?"

"Well, to be completely precise, the receptionist I spoke with said, 'We just thought we should _warn you_.'"

"…Megure-keibu, may I have permission to head over to Beika Elementary and check on Conan-kun?"

"Ahh, yes, Sato-san, that's a good idea. It's a slow day, so how about you and Takagi-kun head over to the school and, ahm, just see how things are going."

"And be in place for the inevitable crime scene?"

"Shiratori-kun, that's not what I meant."

"Keibu, with respect, you can't deny that-"

"Shiratori-kun."

"Hai."

"Well, hrrm. Sato-san, Takagi-kun, try not to cause a fuss, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"And, ahm, give Conan-kun my regards on his recovery."

* * *

Conan flipped his phone closeD surreptitiously, slipping it into his pocket while Sensei moved around to the other side of the room to check on a classmate's unfortunate bathroom moment. He supposed that he ought to quit with all the texting, but right now it was helping to keep the shreds of his sanity relatively intact. So far he'd texted Heiji three times, Ran twice and was considering dropping a certain Phantom Thief a line. But considering the time of day and the hazards of using _that_ number... maaaaybe not. And besides which, Kuroba was probably in residence, or running the show, or... however they managed it. Someday he was going to have to ask about that, he supposed... It still felt a little strange, knowing that he _could._ Still made him have to consciously shove back certain memories, the kinds that made him glow deep inside...

_Sigh._

But there was a little less than an hour left of class. He could deal with that, he could manage just fine, he could-

"-Sensei? I don't feel so good..."

"Yuki-chaaaaaaan's got my PENCIL! Yuki-chan, give it back! YUKI-CHAN GIVE IT BACK RIGHT NOW-"

"Sensei? Seeeeeeeenseeeeeiiii? Sensei, can I go to the bathroom? Please? SENSEI CAN I GO TO THE BA-"

Conan closed his eyes.

There was a faint tapping sound and then sudden, attentive silence. A diffident, familiar voice said cautiously: "Err..."

He opened his eyes again, startled. _"Takagi-keibu?"_ The officer stood by the doorway, Sato-san just behind him. Every small face in the room was turned towards them and focused like radar-dishes; Takagi looked slightly nonplussed at the multitude of eyes, but cleared his throat. "Ah- Kobayashi-sensei?" The teacher greeted him cautiously, stepping into the hall. The three spoke quietly together for a few moments, glancing back into the classroom in what was unmistakably Conan's direction. He sat up straight, fighting back paranoia _(is Ran okay? is something wrong? what-)_ and began sliding his schoolbooks into their backpack. To either side, Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko looked at each other hopefully. Ai merely looked resigned.

"Conan-kun? Could you please come here for a moment? Bring your backpack."

"Awww..." Like three puppies watching as a larger dog gets taken for a walk, the younger members of the Shonen Tantei watched as their comrade vanished through the door. "I bet he gets to ride in a squadcar," groused Mitsuhiko in a whisper.

_"I_ bet he gets to help Takagi-keibu and Sato-san with a case," muttered Ayumi, fiddling with her notebook.

Genta slouched back into his seat. "Bet he gets to go home early." He kicked the legs of his desk.

Haibara sighed to herself. _All of the above, and then some. Welcome back, Kudo-kun._

* * *

"-so we thought we'd just... check on you and see how you were doing, Conan-kun. That's all." Rubbing at the back of his neck, Takagi glance sideways at his partner, telegraphing _Well, say something_ with his eyes. "And give you a ride home."

Conan clicked his seatbelt-buckle into place. "Oh," he said brightly. "I thought maybe you came to make sure there wasn't any trouble going on around me." There was an embarrassed silence in the squadcar, and Sato-san twisted around in her seat, an amused expression on her pretty face.

"Conan-kun," she said kindly, "we just wanted to welcome you back to school. You've been gone for quite a long while, you know, and we spoke to Mouri-kun about you several times. We... well." She made a small movement, quickly stifled, as though she had very nearly reached out to ruffle his hair and then had thought better of it. "You're almost an honorary policeman, after all. We've missed you." She smiled at him. "And besides, Takagi-kun was worried about you."

_Oh, really?_ Behind his mask of Edogawaness, Shinichi regarded the woman thoughtfully. Sato Miwako was a cop right down to the marrow of her bones; the major difference between her and her partner Takagi was what Shinichi had cautiously defined as optimism on Takagi's part and unwilling pessimism on Sato's. They each had remarkably open minds- open enough, at least with Takagi, for Shinichi to believe that once or twice his cover as little Conan-kun had, to a certain extent, been blown... if they had let themselves believe what their minds had told them, of course. He'd said as much to Kid at their ill-fated date at the Italian bistro.

And so he reassured the two officers with all the skill he'd acquired during their acquaintanceship, and wondered just what it was that Takagi was actually worried about. Or whom.

_It's not like I want to find murder victims lying around,_ he thought a little resentfully. _And it's been... what? A month and a half since the cows? Damn, has it really been that long? Granted, that was a LOT of murder victims, but still. And I didn't find them that time, they came to me._

I bet I cause a hell of a lot of extra paperwork.

* * *

Yuusaku was trying not to think about it, but the thoughts kept sneaking back, wiggling into the corners of his concentration in insistent, eager ways. It felt like small hands tugging on his pants legs (_"Read! Tousan, read Holmes? Holmes, Tousan,"_), like hot summer air blowing in from the open kitchen windows, picking up the scent of braided French rosemary bread fresh from the oven as it wended through the house, reaching him in his library. (_"I only cheated a little, Yuusaku. Come on, it still counts as home-made!"_) It felt like the companionable warmth of a broad hand on his shoulder, the clench of quiet love that had steadied and rooted six wonderful, too-short years of friendship. (_"You really ought to give more credit to Chesterton, you know. Brown is as much a classic as Holmes."_)

It felt, Kudo Yuusaku sighed to himself, like home. The library around him looked just as it ever had, tall bookshelves curving to follow the walls, and the golden streams of sunset light coming in the wall of windows washed across Yuusaku's skin and the supple surface of his old beloved armchair with equal warmth. Traveling for so long had its downsides, the writer mused, flipping several pages forward in the text he was reviewing. He'd read it several times before, but was now going through again, placing post it notes to aid his lecture. It was a fairly mindless task, and his mind had plenty of space to wander.

Today was Monday, and the convention began on Friday, in four days; though he and Yukiko had returned to Tokyo a week early for the express purpose of spending time with Shinichi before Yuusaku had to work at the convention, they hadn't expected to have _quite_ so adventurous a week in their son's company as it had turned out. Still, this _was_ Shinichi. And the addition of Toichi's son had been an unexpected - but predictably chaotic - additional factor. Nothing was simple with a Kuroba around, Yuusaku chuckled to himself. Never had been, never would be. His son seemed to have that concept pretty well in hand; from watching their interaction over the last few days, Yuusaku had been able to comfortably assure himself that Shinichi was in good hands with Kid - and, just as importantly, that Shinichi was capable of handling Kid in all his complexities.

_Ran-san surely makes it easier for them both,_ the writer mused, turning a page without really seeing the text. If he was being completely honest with himself, Yuusaku did feel a tiny twinge of jealousy toward his son, but the emotion was tinged with the amber gilt of old memories and aged satisfaction, so it didn't bite like fresh envy might have. Still, he couldn't help but think 'what if'. What if Toichi had been willing to ask his wife to share, the way that Shinichi had asked Ran-san? Yuusaku remembered his friend with warmth and regret, heart clenching.

_You should be here with me to see our sons together, friend,_ Yuusaku thought, his lips quietly forming the words in unconscious emphasis._Kaito is a magician worthy of your skill, and Kid a thief of your talent. You always called Kaito your greatest magic trick...would you be happy to see that you have twice as much cause for pride, now?_

A soft hand on his cheek pulled him from his reverie. Opening his eyes, Yuusaku saw his wife's eyes first, focusing on their gentle expression as his own cleared. She raised one knuckle to his eye, wiping away a little bit of the water there without comment; Yuusaku let her do so, his smile thin and a bit bitter.

"'Kiko..."

"He'll be upset with you if you do poorly at your presentation this weekend, you know," she chided him, clearing books and papers from his lap and the arms of his chair with matter of fact efficiency. "You can't just sit here staring into space all week, or you'll flub your speech and Toichi will smack you upside the head with his ghost cape."

Yuusaku let his wife move around and on top of him, well used to her unstoppable nature, as she neatened up the area directly around him. When she was satisfied, Yukiko settled herself into Yuusaku's lap in place of the books, linking her arms around his neck, and smiled at him from close range. Her curls were a bit fuzzy, a product of the humidity from the kitchen and the private setting, where she didn't need to worry about photo ops or appearances or even wearing makeup. She usually still did, and it was always picture-perfect, though usually less dramatic than when she was going out. Yukiko's makeup and fashion sense were an inherent part of her, it seemed, and Yuusaku loved her for every bit of her appearance-focused personality. Even more, he loved her for all the ways she cut straight through appearances to the cores of people beneath.

That incisiveness was on full display now, as she studied his features with critical, intelligent eyes. "Yuuuuusaku. You're getting frown lines again. You know what we have to do about that," Yukiko scolded him.

Chuckling, Yuusaku smiled and slipped his glasses off. "Yes, I do," he said, raising one hand to curl around Yukiko's nape, fingers sliding through her soft blond curls. "I can't be seen in public with frown lines. It would be bad for your image."

"And just think what the cameras would do with you at the conference, looking like this!" Yukiko tsked disapprovingly, shifting her position on his lap so the soft curve of her hip pressed close against Yuusaku's stomach, her upper body turned to face him. Both knees were folded primly together to one side, though the soles of her feet - bare of house scuffs, and wearing just nylons - were making tracks up his calves, toes pressing the muscle there. Yukiko's fingers laced through his hair, nails scraping his scalp; Yuusaku smiled, brushing her hair back from her face, and sighed.

"I can't ever get a good sulk going when you're around, can I, 'Kiko?"

"Nope!" Yukiko grinned, freeing one hand to poke the tip of his nose playfully. "Frown lines, remember."

"I remember," Yuusaku murmured, guiding her mouth down to meet his own.

He kissed her softly, with the patience and trust of a marriage more than twenty years running, and the love of a man who knows he's found his better half. But Yukiko being Yukiko, the kiss didn't stay gentle and reassuring for long. Her slim curves, gorgeous at any age, pressed cutely against his chest, and Yuusaku wrapped one arm around her waist to hold her in place, slipping his tongue against her lips. The vaguely waxy taste of her lipstick was something he barely noticed any longer, the same way that Yukiko had long since stopped pouting about his bristly mustache. They simply knew each other, and in knowing each other, loved each other.

In a few minutes' time their breath was short, pulses quick and skin flushed. Yukiko was sporting a soft, dark oval at the base of her throat, just far enough to the side that it wouldn't show under tomorrow's blouse neckline. Yuusaku's ear was red and pink in patches, the crest of it a little wet from Yukiko's kiss. His hands had just begun to trace the curves of her thighs and rear, pleased that the dress she was wearing wasn't as full-skirted as her normal fare, and left more available to his touch, when a cheerful, tinny bell went off in the kitchen.

"Oh, the loaves," Yukiko chirped, detatching her mouth from the tender patch of skin behind the corner of Yuusaku's jaw, and perfunctorily detatching his hands from various parts of her anatomy. "Can't let them burn."

As she trotted off, Yuusaku rolled his eyes with a sigh, accustomed enough to her whimsy to know that she was just playing, and that as soon as the loaves had been rescued she'd be back, and probably a few buttons further undone, too - but that didn't mean, he grumbled to himself, hands folded carefully on the arms of the chair to help him remember patience until she returned, that he had to like it.

* * *

Takagi was just winding up his tale of District One's performance in the interdepartmental darts competition ("Shiratori-san took second though Megure-keibu, ahh, didn't exactly hit the target as often as we needed- but we still did pretty well. And Sato-san refereed this year, since nobody wanted to pay for a new target this time,") as they pulled up in front of the Poirot Café. Conan had been nodding at all the appropriate points; dealing with Takagi and Sato was always interesting- the more they forgot who they were talking to, the easier it was to deal with them. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to talk to them both without his phantom Conan-self between the three.

Well, that wasn't going to happen any time soon, unless things changed drastically. But someday, maybe-

They pulled up to the curb; Takagi slid out (Sato was driving today) and helped Conan out of the door. "Is this your first day back home, Conan-kun?" he asked, handing him his backpack. The boy nodded, looking towards the staircase involuntarily. There was a door opening at the top, and he could see someone stepping out. "Well, I'm sure you're glad to be back." Takagi knelt down beside him, putting himself at more of an equal level. The officer had a markedly youthful, earnest face; his expression was far less puppyish than it had been when Conan'd first encountered him- there was some seasoning there now- but his boyish good looks still made him the sort of cop that you expected to see handing out Pi-pokun mascot toys at the next TPD public event.

Now he put a hand on Conan's shoulder, smiling at him just a touch anxiously. "Conan-kun, you know that if you're ever worried about anything, you can call us, right?" There was embarrassment in the detective's gaze, but something else too; and Shinichi frowned behind the mask of glasses and bright-eyed inquisitiveness, wondering what it was. "I'm sure you're happy to be home now, and I'm sure we'll... see you sooner or later, but... I just wanted to say that you don't have to wait to reach us until there's a, ahh-" The man floundered, his free hand flapping a bit.

"-a dead body?" supplied Conan helpfully. In the squadcar, Sato-san bit back a laugh.

"Well. Yes."

"I know, Takagi-keibu, but thank you." The boy hitched his backpack up onto one shoulder, edging away a step. "It's okay. Thank you for the ride!" Another step, and another, back towards the haven that waited at the top of the steps...

The officer sighed, a trace of frustration threading through his voice as he rose from his crouch. "You're welcome, Conan-kun. Jaa."

* * *

"Takagi-kun? What was that all about?"

The junior partner of the pair watched the small figure climb the stairs, short legs moving rapidly; light spilled down the darkened stairwell from the open door above, which closed after a moment. "Nothing, really. Just... he's an amazing little boy, and I'm glad to see him back with Mouri-san's where he'll be safe."

"You're sure? Nothing else? That's sweet of you, Takagi-kun."

"...Thank you, Sato-san. No- nothing else."

_Better safe than sorry, Conan-kun. Especially in your case, especially lately. Better safe than sorry._

* * *

It was _amazing,_ how quickly people adapted, when you got right down to it. Simply amazing.

Cooking-chopsticks poised over a sizzling panful of pork katsu, Mouri Ran watched as bits of her world popped themselves almost visibly into place, twisting and lining up neatly like the sections on a Rubik's Cube. _Click!_ Conan-kun was home. _Click!_ Tousan was grousing, flipping through the channels and complaining that there was nothing decent on to watch. _Click!_ There were childish schoolbooks and a small jacket scattered across the end of the couch, and the place there that had been so achingly empty was no longer so. _Click!_

Her fingers twitched; they wanted to put the chopsticks down and then smooth the cowlicks in the soft dark hair, prove to herself that he really was back home (her home, anyway) again. Just that, nothing more, not while he was like he was; but—

He'd hugged her at the top of the landing, just a brief little-boy embrace. And that was fine. Shinichi was learning to live his life in installments; she could too.

Ran turned a cutlet over; from her vantage point she could see the top of Shinichi's _(Conan-kun's,_ she needed to remember that) head, peeking over the back of the couch; papers rustled as he went through his schoolwork prior to dinner.

Hot oil spattered as she began shifting the cutlets onto a platter, thoughts pensive. How had it been, going back into his classes and 'peers'? _At least Ayumi and the rest were waiting for him,_ she mused as she forked steamed vegetables into a bowl. If he'd only known how many times they'd called… The bowl went onto the table alongside the cutlets; katsu sauce followed, accompanied by rice and salad._Tousan's going to think he's in Heaven; I haven't cooked this much since Sh—since Conan went to the hospital._ Two kinds of furikake clacked down onto the table, and Ran sighed, wiping her forehead. "Dinner's ready," she called. "Who wants Katsu?"

As Mouri scrambled to his feet, hooting his enthusiasm for a properly cooked meal, Conan turned around on the couch, propping his chin in his hands on the back and smiling. It was Shinichi's smile, no matter which face it lived on; and it was Conan's too, and as Ran smiled back she found that she was glad to see them both.

* * *

Monday turned into Tuesday without a quake or a shiver; and Tuesday rolled over into Wednesday with equal aplomb. Like the Rubik's Cube Ran had imagined, life began to reset itself back into the familiar patterns that it had assumed for so long. If beneath the same-colored sides of the cube there were multishaded variations that occasionally clicked themselves sideways and flashed a brilliantly-hued moment—a whisper behind Mouri's back, a text, a few precious hours at Agasa's where the masks could come off—then that was to be expected.

School for them both reassumed the shape it had had before, with one exception: the small black box on Conan's hip. A carefully-written note of explanation was given to Sensei Tuesday morning containing a request to meet with the teacher for 'the good of little Conan's health' sometime in the near future. Ran's own missed work was made up for easily enough, and the brief texts from Kuroba seemed to indicate as much there as well.

_Kid…_

Shinichi missed him sharply, almost painfully; so did Ran. He made it to Wednesday before he sent off the first request; and as he typed it in halfway through recess, he found himself wondering if Kaito had a separate account.

* * *

The response that Kid got to his text made him snicker.

_Did I ever tell you re: mistaking Hattori for you? Remind me to later, & the PC's perfect. 4pm okay? Am back at Ran's now btw._

He tapped his response in slowly, working under his desk with one hand. _Mmm, no, but I'm flattered. Accent would be easy, hat near-impossible. You know its details too well. Did u cut class early? C u 4._

It was good to hear from Shinichi, _very_ good, and the afternoon's first text from the detective - his first contact with Kid since parting ways on Sunday - had been both unexpected and glee-inducing. In happy anticipation of the afternoon's date, Kid pocketed their cell phone, handed motor control back over to the Magician, and curled back up in the back of their shared mind, satisfied and warm like a cat in a sunbeam.

_Happy?_ Kuroba asked him, settling back into the driver's seat with a small smile. Around them, class proceeded; Kid had been leading for only a few minutes, just long enough to receive Shinichi's first text and return it, and the one that followed, with two of his own. None of their classmates save Akako had noticed the switch, not that they could keep her from noticing regardless, and Kaito and Kid were practiced enough at swapping places that not even a sigh or a twitch marked their shuffling. Sensei was reading off an English text in the front of the room, and the pair kept one ear tuned to her place in the text, so that if she called on them they wouldn't be caught off-guard.

_"Very,"_ Kid answered, pillowing his head in his arms across a nice big mental pillow. _"Is four o'clock okay for you? Don't we have an after-class meeting today?"_

_We do,_ Kuroba nodded, his pencil scratching across his notebook as he took notes for appearance's sake. _I don't think it'll make us late, though. You're fast and today's been a slow day. I don't think Class President will have much to say._

_"Not even about the spring fair?"_

Kaito frowned a bit, erasing one character and rewriting it more clearly. Internally, he turned a nod of acknowledgment in the Fool's direction._Mmm. Forgot about that. Well, it's not like the first festival-planning session takes very long. They'll probably put off theme choice for a week while everyone puts in suggestions._

_"You want to try to fix the results again this time?"_ Kid sounded amused, which was always dangerous. _"We could have a pirate themed booth..."_

_I think it'd be nice of us to let the class actually make a decision about the fair booth out of their own free will for once, don't you?_ Kuroba mentally rolled his eyes, earning a laugh from Kid. _Then again, the class would probably stop winning prizes for best booth if we left it up to everyone else's collective judgement._

Kid rolled over, stretching - Kuroba snickered at his feline-like friend, enjoying the thick, tactile blanket of warmth and tingling contentment that rolled off the thief in waves. Kaito had little to do with the cause of the thief's satisfaction, but that didn't mean he couldn't tap into the positive, rich energy that it produced. _"It's for their own good,"_ Kid declared magnanimously, nodding. _"So, pirates?"_

_I don't know,_ Kuroba mused, pencil still working across their notebook to present the illusion of attentiveness. _It seems too...generic. Let's think on it a while longer, okay?_

_"Mmm-hmm,"_ Kid agreed, tucking his face under one elbow, propping his hat over his eyes to shade them from the sun. _"Wake me up when the meeting starts."_

_Lazy bastard,_ Kuroba said, without heat, turning back to his schoolwork with a small smile. Aoko spotted it, and Kaito watched her glance snag on his expression and then slide away again, puzzled.

Kaito frowned, a little wry. Relations between her and him had been _interesting_ all week; after her mysterious declaration, Kaito had done his best to pry the secret out of her for the space of one day. When she woudn't cave, he just dropped the subject, choosing the rare route of maturity instead of pestering her to exasperation. This tack had utterly befuddled Aoko, and now - instead of keeping her secret and herself aloof and distant from him, she'd resumed hanging around him as though nothing unusual had happened, trying to figure out his strategy. In a strange way, Aoko's declaration had _settled_ things between them, rather than creating more confusion; Kaito still wanted to know what her secret was, for sure, but he was content to wait and see if he couldn't get her to volunteer it instead of trying to pry it out of her. And the longer he persisted with his uncharacteristic patience, the more confused Aoko became, which made her more willing, by degrees, to resume beating the crap out of him (or trying to) with her mop. And as soon as she did that, Kaito knew, things would be okay between them again.

Being patient had been made easier for him this week, through means not entirely of his own making. Kid was planning a heist, a _big_ one, and about half of their free time since Sunday night had been dedicated to preparation and set up. The workout room was getting a workout itself; not only had Kid equipped it to practice a dry run of the heist's setup, but he'd also been putting himself through strenuous exercises, ending each night panting, sweaty, and giddy. And, strangely, Kaito hadn't paid for any of this save for a few mild muscle twinges. The thief simply had so much excess energy to burn off that the week's intense preparation was all being sourced from his own reserves, and Kaito had very nearly been an uninvolved bystander to the whole process.

There was one more night before the heist; Thursday, the last night before the authors' convention that had brought Kudo Yuusaku to town, would be the night of the full moon, so the heist notice would have to be delivered to the police, the Task Force, and to Detective Mouri, tonight.

_"Amusingly enough, I'll be right in place to do so this evening,"_ Kid snickered to himself, quietly enough that Kaito just heard it as a murmur.

_You planned that,_ Kaito answered with a smile, knowing better than to phrase his comment as a question. Of _course_ Kid had planned it; there was really little in the thief's life that wasn't orchestrated, with the exception of his relationships. Kaito knew better than to think that Kid would willfully manipulate the hearts of people he loved. And yet, everything had come together so perfectly...

_"Nope,"_ Kid answered, leaping ahead of Kaito's train of thought. _"Not even I could have faked that level of giddiness the next morning, you know."_

_True,_ Kaito grinned. _Or the level of twitterpated._

_"Hey!"_ Kid sat upright, an adorably indignant pout on his face. _"I look charming when I'm twitterpated."_

_Hai, hai,_ Kaito nodded, waving the thief off dismissively. _Some of us have schoolwork to do._

* * *

Anyone watching Mouri Kogoro would assume that, just at the moment, he was a very happy man.

It was something about the set of his moustache, the way it bristled at the world. Or perhaps it was the satisfied, smug grin on his face; or his remarkably neat appearance- best jacket, best tie, neatly-ironed shirt, shoes polished and unscuffed. Or, of course, it might be the way he was cavorting around his apartment, a sheaf of papers waving wildly in one hand as he did an impromptu war-dance in front of his daughter's and ward's owlish stares.

"Cooooooontract! Cooooooooooooontract! CONTRACT! CONTRACT! COOOOOOONTRACT!"

"I think your tousan needs therapy," muttered Conan.

"No, _really?"_ whispered the detective's daughter out the side of her mouth. She cleared her throat. "Um. Tousan-?"

Her father beamed at his offspring. "Contract!" he caroled, flapping the pages. "I've got a signed three-month renewable contract with- you remember that new resort that's been in the news? The one with the waterfalls out front- Fuketsu something?"

"Fuketsu Fukyo?" Ran blinked. "With the private racetrack and four nightclubs? Tousan, what did you _do?"_

As it turned out, it wasn't so much what he'd done as who he knew- that, plus a chain of circumstances. The Idol singer Yoko that Mouri was so infatuated with (and whom he'd helped beat a murder rap not all that long after Conan had come into the world) had also a fan among the rich investors in Fuketsu Fukyo Resort; she'd sung at the opening ceremonies and was a frequent billboard item there. And when a string of petty thefts had increased in frequency and boldness to the point that the resort's reputation began to feel the pinch, Yoko had made a little suggestion...

*

"-seriously, it's a wonderful opportunity!" Ran enthused as they made their way down the stairs; her father's jubilant voice could be heard from above as he yammered away on the phone to one of his Mahjong cronies about his good fortune. "I mean, it's a beautiful resort, he'll love staying there, he'll have his own suite, it'll be good for business-"

"-and it's the sort of thing he can handle, case-wise," finished Conan wryly, thumping down the steps beside Ran. "He's good with thefts, and they're sure to publicize that they've hired the Sleeping Detective to sort things out." He shot his girlfriend a small grin, ducking under her elbow and bouncing past in a very childlike manner. "Ran-neechan'll have a little peace and quiet now and then," he teased her softly. "And maybe she can have a visitor or two that way, hm?"

She blushed, sparkling back at him with eyes that said that she'd thought of the same thing.

The Poirot Café was fairly busy for a mid-week afternoon; most of the tables and booths were already taken, and as the bell on the door jangled, Ran peered around doubtfully. Her hand automatically sought contact with Conan as she scanned the cafe, fingertips brushing her boyfriend's shoulder. "Did he happen to mention," she asked, "what he would be..._oh._"

Ran had fallen still, gaze aimed straight through the center of the cafe to the furthest wall, where a row of small booths lined the wall under small, high-set windows. In the center booth, sitting sideways in the seat, heels kicked up onto the seat and ankles crossed, a gentleman in grey pinstripes, with striking grey eyes, ruby red necktie, and a quiet smile, met and held her gaze.

_Someone's feeling charming today,_ Conan snickered, just barely able to see Kid's fedora from where he stood, and inferring the rest from Ran's reaction. Kid _did_ look brain-stoppingly good in that suit, after all.

"Come on, Ran-neechan," he said, reaching up to grasp and tug her hand. "Let's go introduce you to my uncle."

"U-uncle?" Ran sputtered, suddenly tearing her gaze from Kid's to stare at her miniature boyfriend. "He - that -"

"We were in a hurry and he didn't give me any warning to put together a story," Conan muttered, sotto voce. "Bastard deserves every 'ojiisan' I give him."

"I, ahm." Ran looked across the room, flushed, and looked down to Conan again. "I don't think he looks very much like an ojiisan at all," she whispered.

"Neither do I," Shinichi grinned, showing teeth, before tugging her across the cafe.

* * *

"Conan-kun!" Kid's Westernized voice, smooth as cream, greeted them in advance of his smile, which kept flickering at the edges like it_wanted_ to go manic but that wasn't part of the gameplan. "Have you brought a friend to meet me?"

Conan beamed. "I did! Ran-neechan, this is Takeda-san. He's a good friend of my Tousan and Kaasan. Takeda-san, this is Mouri Ran."

Kid stood, offering a shallow bow in greeting. As he brought his head back up, his eyes and smile held an expression more appropriate for the bedroom than a coffee shop, but it was silent and it was brief; by the time he'd fully raised his head, it was gone. Ran and Conan had only the shadowed impression of the smile, lips pulled against little dogteeth, eyes mischievous and wicked and suggestive, dark hair springy and wavy beneath the hat that shadowed his face when it was tipped down.

On autopilot, Ran settled herself into the booth opposite Kid, a blush rising steadily on her cheeks. "Nice to meet you, Takeda-san," Ran said. "Conan-kun talks about you a lot."

"I'm sure he does," Kid purred, and with just those four words both Ran's and Conan's blushes doubled in strength. Supposedly oblivious to this, Kid continued with earnesty, steepling his fingers together on the table in front of his coffee. "How have you been, Mouri-san? I've heard only the barest bits of your future plans, but what I have heard has made them sound expansive."

"Oh, I don't have anything, um, set in stone yet, but Kaasan and I have been thinking about various options for me," Ran said, doing her best to return Kid's flirtatiously familiar gaze with a steady one of her own.

"Ohhh?" Kid all but purred the word, somehow making his suggestive tone sound downright _bouncy_. Ran, amused but still flustered, began to explain.

Beside her, Conan was managing better only because he lacked the hormones that Ran had and which Kid was taking advantage of; but his mind was just as distracted as Ran's, back in the bedroom where the three of them had made love.

_Made love,_ Shinichi repeated to himself, rolling the words around in his head just to hear them again. He carefully kept the thoughts romantic, not sexual, because the uncomfortable dissonance of a child's unresponsive body wasn't something he wanted to voluntarily call upon himself. Still, there was little of lust and mostly of love in his memories of Ran's eyes as she laid back beneath him; of Kid's eyes right in the second before they closed at the end, and he replayed those visual memories on loop, like a music box's brief, simple melody.

_I got to - and next time I'm back, I get to again- with these two amazing, brilliant, beautiful people._ He looked up, from Kid's gently disguised face to Ran's flushed, familiar features, and smiled wryly, watching them talk without hearing their words. _Very beautiful. Either my last twenty lifetimes were shit, or my next one's gonna suck, but I don't care right now. This lifetime is so worth it. ...Guns and shrinkage not included._

"Conan-kun? Conan-kun."

Conan shook himself out of his reverie, cheeks a little pink, and focused on Ran's bemused face. She was a little less pink now, just the tips of her ears and the highest curves of her cheeks, and Shinichi wished he was Shinichi again, not Conan, so he could kiss her there. "Mmm, what is it, Ran-neechan?"

"You were daydreaming," she said, cut off before she could continue by Kid's laugh.

"Good daydream, Meitantei?" The thief leaned against the back corner of the booth, completely at ease. Every inch of his posture showed relaxed confidence, and his suit, no matter how he moved, slid and folded smoothly with him. It was very well tailored, a fact that Kid seemed to be resisting the urge to show off more than he already was.

"Good enough," Conan answered Kid, putting aside his indulgent thoughts in favor of attentiveness to the moment. He'd done well readjusting to life as Conan up until now; just because Kid was in front of him and Ran for the first time since they had all parted with a kiss didn't mean that Conan couldn't keep his focus together.

"It would have been a nicer dream if I got to finish it. I was thinking about catching bad guys and thieves, and I just nearly caught the thief when Ran-neechan poked me."

Kid's eyes sparkled, and he stretched one hand across the table to pat Conan's shoulder. "Don't fret. You can try again soon, I'm sure."

Enomoto-san came by then, full of slightly wary welcome and an appreciative smile for 'Takeda-ojisan' as she took their order. Her footsteps receded towards the kitchen as Conan leaned a little across the table. "If you look any smugger, people're going to start wondering what you just got away with," he murmured sotto-vocé. "You look like a cat with cream on his whiskers." Kid's little smirk dared him to elaborate on that description, but Conan chose the better part of valor and continued on, raising his voice just a bit as another party of customers took the one remaining booth beside theirs. "Ojisan, you'll never guess what just happened to Ran-neechan's tousan!"

"Ohhh?" Kid's smile, if possible, turned even _more_ smug, and Conan and Ran were just about to give in to the instinct to check themselves over for feathers, sleeping gas, alarms, or possibly _Kanchou Me_ signs, when the door of the Poirot Café slammed open, bell jangling. Framed in the doorway, Mouri Kogoro panted hard to catch his breath and locked gazes with his daughter.

"Ran!"

"Tousan! What are you doing? I was just talking to Conan's tousan's friend, Takeda-san, about your new contra-"

"Not now, Ran!" Mouri stalked through the café, fist closed tight around a small roll of white paper held before him like a baton. "The contract can wait! This is more important right now!"

Ran pushed herself out of the booth, lifting Conan onto the bench behind her so he was off of floor level and guarded by her. On the other side of the table and elsewhere, Takeda-san looked appropriately horrified, the rest of the patrons (most of whom knew Mouri by sight) were alarmed, and Enomoto-san was headed their way in the sheepish wake of the café's manager, who looked distinctly perturbed at the scene.

"Mouri-tantei," the stocky man began to say, drawing up to a level with the detective and the rest of the table. "What is going on here? You're distressing the customers."

"My apologies," Mouri said, gruffly clearing his throat and composing himself, Ran standing just behind and beside him. "I received a very alarming notice only a few minutes ago."

"A...notice?" Ran echoed hesitantly. Behind her, she felt Conan go tense. And on the other side of the table...

"Yes!" her father declared, apparently ignorant of the _wall_ of smug glee that was rolling off of 'Takeda-san' just to his right. Mouri got the paper unrolled, snapping it open between two hands so hard it popped the air, and - loudly enough that not only the whole café, but the passerby on the street outside could hear - declared the three words that Shinichi and Ran already knew, with a giddy, sinking sense of inevitability, that he'd say:

_"A heist notice!"_

The next few minutes were full of exclamations and people demanding that Mouri explain; Conan, Ran and 'Takeda-san' sat through it all, perfectly still, staring at the table before them which still lay innocent of either coffee or cups. Or at least Conan did; he was experiencing something that could only be called a _completely_ inappropriate moment based on adrenaline, anticipation and a feeling in the pit of his stomach as if something hot and vibrant had just hatched there. He raised his gaze slowly, feeling Ran's hand cover his smaller one beneath the table.

Kid... was staring straight at him, eyes so full of electric mischief and manic challenge that it was a wonder they didn't set the air between them on fire. And he was _grinning._

"You," whispered Conan. _"You-"_ He couldn't get the words out; Ran's hand on his was shaking, and the grin from across the table ignited his own, slow and full of its own flavor of challenge. _**"You,"**_ he murmured again... and left it at that.

* * *

  
**_  
On the fifteenth night of the third month,  
Look to the edges; there are no pictures in the moon's face above.  
This is the first night to divide by two  
Since twins cannot be pushed apart;  
So let's celebrate that which is two in one,  
And those which are held apart without being parted.  
For now, we'll leave the third gem until later.  
So watch the sky with me.  
Find the pair with two that's one between them.  
Kaitou KID only seeks the lucky;  
Among them all, which ones are "five stars"?  
We don't need to reach the permafrost;  
I'll be satisfied with the King's shine to warm me.  
Oh, but he'll be lonely without his Luckiest star;  
I'll swoop for both at once,  
And with my white wings to the moon's white back,  
I'll meet you there._**

-Kaitou KID 

* * *

_And that's it for the evening... Did anyone expect that, hmmm? XD Just wait'll you see what happens next. Please join us on July 16th for __**""twins, temple, costs"**__. We'll see you then._


	34. Twins, Kyoto, cheating or not

___Greetings! We're back from our hiatus, and tonight we begin things with a new Kid heist! And a few other new things as well..._

____

Lately we've been concerned by the small numbers of comments we're receiving. It isn't praise or ego-boosts we're looking for- we just want to know when we do things right and when we do things wrong. It's important to us; this story is important to us, and the people who're reading it are too. So, we asked around a bit for suggestions... and we got a couple that we're going to go with, starting tonight.

First and foremost, the chapters will be shorter- we're going to keep them around 5000-6000 words rather than 10000-11000. It was pointed out to us that it's HARD to review something 10000 words long- by the time you're finished, you've forgotten the things you liked/didn't like. It's also reeeeeally hard to navigate around when we have the part-one/part-two thing... hence the shorter chapters. We're keeping to the same schedule of once-per-week posting; and, also, we may be modifying our original-vs.-abridged format later on (there won't be any explicit chapters for some time due to the current storyline.)

Book One was concerned primarily with introductions; Book Two was the development of the friendship; Book Three dealt with the growth of the relationship between Ran, Kid and Shinichi. And Book Four... is going to go places where we haven't gone before. Dark places, sometimes- there's a big, scary Organization out there and a lot of mysteries that need to be solved, and it's time for us to turn in that direction. Of course, that won't be *all* that happens... **grin**

___So if you read, please talk to us, okay? We want to know what you're thinking. And now that that's said- on with the show!... The Management_

___._

* * *

_**Three Thieves**__**: A series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by **_ _**nightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
**__**Book Four, Chapter One**__**: "twins, Kyoto, cheating (or not) "  
Warnings: **__None  
__**Crossposted to the following LJ communities:**_ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

* * *

_"A heist notice!"_

As Mouri stood triumphant before the Poirot Café's patrons, Kaitou Kid's missive displayed in his outstretched hands, Conan, Ran and 'Takeda-san' sat perfectly still, staring at the table before them which still lay innocent of either coffee or cups. Or at least Conan did; he was experiencing something that could only be called a _completely_ inappropriate moment based on adrenaline, anticipation and a feeling in the pit of his stomach as if something hot and vibrant had just hatched there. Around them, a rising din of shouted exclamations and demands was turning the normally quiet café into something approaching an impromptu press conference, with Mouri at its head, questioned from every direction; the noise registered distantly in Conan's ears, unimportant background chatter. He raised his gaze slowly, feeling Ran's hand cover his smaller one beneath the table.

Kid... was staring straight at him, eyes so full of electric mischief and manic challenge that it was a wonder they didn't set the air between them on fire. And he was _grinning._

"You," whispered Conan. _"You-"_ He couldn't get the words out; Ran's hand on his was shaking, and the grin from across the table ignited his own, slow and full of its own flavor of challenge._**"You,"**_ he murmured again... and left it at that.

Kid's grin cranked up a notch, just for a second, pure delight pushing it past all trip-wires of sanity and right over the edge. And then it shifted, slid sideways.

* * *

It was an interesting situation.

The players: Mouri Kogoro, Edogawa Conan, Mouri Ran and 'Takeda-ojisan', whose identity was as false as Conan's own (and quite a lot more temporary.) The act in play was, of course, the prelude to grand larceny, presented in the form of a riddle and a formal invitation. And as for the ones being _played..._

Takeda-ojisan was all concern, half rising, adding his voice to the din of questions and excited dismay surrounding Mouri-san. In a flurry of noise and gruff no-comment responses from the Amazing Sleeping Kogoro, Ran and Conan found themselves being dragged out of the café and out onto the sidewalk. Takeda-ojisan followed along quite naturally, handsome face creased in concern; it wasn't until they were actually inside the agency proper that Mouri stopped in mid-conjecture, blinked, and pointed at the unfamiliar face with the rolled-up notice. "Who're you?" he demanded.

"He's my ojisan," explained Conan in his best matter-of-fact voice. "Well, sort of. I mean, I always _called_ him my ojisan, I've known him all my life." _Which,_ Shinichi thought privately behind Conan's face, _is true, actually; I met Kid before I ever became Conan._ "He's my- my, uh-"

"I'm his mother's eldest sister's nephew's second cousin, twice removed," Takeda-san said smoothly, his American accent practically saluting. "Every now and then my business takes me to Beika, and well, you know how it is with family; I couldn't face his mother without having checked in on the little bozu at least once per visit." He ruffled Conan's hair, white teeth flashing in his face as he stood poised beside the doorway, perfectly at ease. "You wouldn't believe what tricks he can get up to, left to his own devices."

"Oh yes we would," muttered Ran darkly; her father didn't seem to notice but merely nodded brusquely. "We, ahh, we'd met for coffee, but- oh! We never were served, were we? Takeda-san, I'd be happy to fix some for you- how do you take yours?" She edged towards her father, who took the hint and gestured towards the couch with a modicum of manners.

"Any way you'd like to fix it for me," Takeda-san assured her with a charming smile; unnoticed (maybe), Conan snorted a very small snort.

Takeda-san, as it turned out, was rather impressed with the Sleeping Detective's fame; he slathered on the charm, alluding to his own work 'in property acquisition, it's very boring, nothing nearly as exciting as yours I'm sure' only vaguely and inquiring a little anxiously about how the notice had arrived. He'd heard of the elusive Kaitou Kid before, of course ("The Moonlight Magician himself? I understand he'd give even Sherlock Holmes a hard time- Conan-kun, did you swallow wrong? Don't choke, bozu- here, let me pat you on the back-") and was properly concerned about the safety of his small relative.

"You say the notice simply... appeared, Mouri-san? On your desk, of all places? That's quite amazing." The young entrepreneur took a long sip of his own coffee, eyebrows drawn together in magnificently honest perplexity. Beside him on the Mouri Agency's couches, Conan avoided looking at Ran at _all_ and fought back another choking fit.

"It did," the detective said gravely, sliding the note across the coffee table for Takeda-san's perusal. "See for yourself."

___On the fifteenth night of the third month,  
Look to the edges; there are no pictures in the moon's face above.  
This is the first night to divide by two  
Since twins cannot be pushed apart;  
So let's celebrate that which is two in one,  
And those which are held apart without being parted.  
For now, we'll leave the third gem until later.  
So watch the sky with me.  
Find the pair with ____**two that's one**____ between them.  
Kaitou KID only seeks the lucky;  
Among them all, which ones are "____**five stars**____"?  
We don't need to reach the permafrost;  
I'll be satisfied with the ____**King's**____ shine to warm me.  
Oh, but he'll be lonely without his ____**Luckiest**____ star;  
I'll swoop for both at once,  
And with my white wings to the moon's white back,  
I'll meet you there._

___-Kaitou KID _

"That looks _very_ complex, Mouri-san," said Takeda-ojisan, grey eyes wide. "Do you really think you can solve it? Aren't the police usually involved with this sort of thing?" The sharply-dressed young businessman peered at the lines of carefully-written kana, hands resting on the couch, very properly not touching a thing. "I remember the news reports- there's some sort of- task force? Special squad? All helicopters and jackboots as I recall." He raised one eyebrow inquiringly. "All that, just to catch one thief? Perhaps it requires a more... personal touch?"

Mouri scowled down at the notice. "Maybe." He looked uneasy at the thought of contacting Nakamori, and from his place beside Ran, Conan squirmed internally at the very thought of dealing with the Inspector again- their last meeting had not gone well, what with his own gas-induced nausea and so forth.

"Maybe we ought to try to figure it out first ourselves, Ojisan?" he suggested, surreptitiously pulling his school notebook and a pen out from the schoolbag that still rested beside the couch. "And then we can call Nakamori-keibu. He'll be glad you're on the case, won't he?" That little remark earned him a puffed up look of _well-of-course-he-will_ from Mouri and an impressed nod from 'Takeda-ojisan', whom he was beginning to mentally catalog as _Kid, you bastard_ in his head.

And speaking of which- The businessman looked at his watch and hastily downed the last of his coffee. "Is it that late already? Tsk; Mouri-san, as much as I would love to be around to watch your investigative prowess in action, if I don't leave now I'll be late for my next appointment. You know how it is- these things just pile up, one upon the other; you never know when you're going to have to fly from one city to the next, hm?"

"Of course, of course," said Mouri absently, still frowning down at the heist notice. He broke off long enough to wave his guest out. "Boy, why don't you walk your uncle down to the street?" Obediently Conan drank the last of his own coffee, telegraphed _it's okay, don't worry_ at Ran (who was looking more than a little unnerved by now) and trotted along behind his nattily-dressed uncle.

"Your _timing_," Conan grumbled, as soon as they were far enough down the stairs to safely carry on a low-volume conversation. "I'm going to stick so many darts right in your smug _face_..."

"You charmer," Kid trilled, walking down the stairs backwards so he could grin at Conan, effervescently happy. "Well, I wasn't lying, must be off. Go have fun with that rotten thief's riddle, mmkay, bozu? I'm sure you can figure it out if you try hard."

Conan's glare spoke volumes; Kid tittered again and hopped down the last few stairs to the street-level landing, touching down with a light 'tak' of dress shoes on concrete, just the same way he always did while in uniform.

"Soothe Ran-chan a bit, won't you?" he asked, just before turning away to step onto the sidewalk. "She doesn't have anything to worry about; I'm in no danger."

Conan growled, his eyes bright with the excitement of chase. "Says you," he promised, tapping his watch warningly. Kid laughed again, his grin absolutely manic.

"Well then! _Mata ne._ Til tomorrow."

* * *

_**"TOMORROW?"**_ Ran sat the empty coffee-cups down in the sink with rather more of a crash than was probably healthy for them. "Are you SURE?"

"It says so right in the first line," pointed out Conan helpfully in his best Tantei-In-Training voice; Mouri nodded, mustache bristling. "He didn't disguise it or anything- the 'fifteenth day of the third month.'" _And that farewell of his... Dammit, Kid, give a little more warning next time, will you?_ He scanned down the notice, pencil busy as emphasized words were jotted down and the margins began to fill up with speculation. "So now we know what day, and next we need to know what he's going to steal so we can know where to be. Right, Ojisan?"

"Mmmrmm."

_If he gets too bogged down, I can always shoot him with a dart and tell him he solved it while he was in one of his narcoleptic fits, I guess; we've never done that before, but it's no more unlikely than solving a murder that way, right?_ Conan frowned, noting the multiple references to stars and the sky- lines two, eight, eleven, fourteen and sixteen all mentioned it. _So, astronomical phenomena? 'Look to the edges' says watch the horizon._ He drew a circle on the paper and began to chew on his pencil's eraser, thinking hard about the night sky. The moon was mentioned twice; therefore it had to be a night-time heist, unless it was being held inside an observatory or similar (most of which did NOT feature gemstones as one of their exhibits, tektites excepted.) "There're lots of things about stars, aren't there?" he prompted the Sleeping Detective along; Ojisan had turned the notice upside down and was peering at the kana in reverse.

"Hrrmm."

Ran looked at the two heads, large and small, bent so intently over their work... and sighed, wiping her hands and heading towards the phone. "Fine. So it's tomorrow. Should I call Megure-keibu, Tousan?" Her question was directed at her father, but her eyes rested on Conan's head (which shot up in alarm.) "I mean, that's what we're supposed to do, aren't we? Notify the authorities?" She picked up the receiver and looked at it thoughtfully. "I wonder if anyone else received a notice? Newspapers, the TV stations, Nakamori-keibu-"

_Brrrrrrinnnnng._

Ran stared at the receiver in her hand, momentarily confused. Then-

"Oh." She pressed a button on the phone base. "Mouri Detective Agen-"

"-_THINK THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE WANTED TO LET US KNOW ABOUT THIS?_" Nakamori's voice roared out of the handset, and Ran held it at arm's length, wincing hard, as his tirade continued, peppered with more than a few creatively unprintable curses. "_WHEN WERE YOU PLANNING ON CALLING US ABOUT THIS, MOURI? OR DID YOU THINK IT WAS ALRIGHT TO LET THE TASK FORCE HEAR ABOUT A HEIST FROM A MEASLY REPORTER?_"

"...Good afternoon, Nakamori-keibu," Ran said faintly, her voice polite despite the stress vein twitching in her temple. "Tou-san is working on the clue right now, so how can I help you?"

There was silence on the other end of the line, then an awkward harumph. "Ah. Ran-san. I, ahm, was calling about the heist notice."

"Did you get one as well, Nakamori-keibu? We were just discussing who we ought to let know about it."

"Ahm, yes, apparently Megure-keibu's squad received one as well, at the same time as the Task Force received ours. What time did your notice arrive?"

"Oh, hm, hold on a moment," Ran said, covering the microphone and holding it to her shoulder. "Conan-kun."

"What is it, Ran-neechan?"

"You're good with time. What time did Tousan come downstairs with the notice?"

"Four-oh-nine," Conan said, with a cheerful grin which turned adorably downward as he continued. "We hadn't even had time to get our coffees."

"Thank you," Ran said, turning back to the phone. "Nakamori-keibu? Conan says Tousan came down at 4:09 with the notice. He told us he'd just discovered it after being on the phone, so it could have arrived anytime before then, up til about 3:55, which was when Conan-kun and I walked downstairs to meet his uncle for coffee. Tousan was on the phone, so he wouldn't have noticed the letter being delivered." She clicked the little speakerphone option on, and Nakamori's voice spilled out into the room.

"The same time, then," Nakamori said, sounding troubled. "How did he deliver three notices all at the same time, all over Tokyo?"

"How the hell did he manage to deliver one _to my office while I was in it?"_ growled Mouri, poking at the notice itself with a finger. "No deliveries, no clients, no paper airplanes through the window, no goddamned pink smoke-gas, no-" The two men spent a few minutes grousing back and forth regarding Kid's delivery habits. The March 15th date was noted, agreed upon, and after a hasty argument regarding whose hands the whole mess belonged in _anyway,_ it was agreed that Megure would be hosting this particular party, as two of the three notes had been delivered on his turf, so to speak. Nakamori didn't like it, of course, but even he had to admit that this time (again), a compromise was necessary.

"Ran-neechan? Could you help me find my shoes?" Muttering beneath his breath, Mouri was busy slipping the notice into a protective envelope and locating his keys and so forth; a squadcar would be arriving shortly to pick the three up, and if there was ever a chance for Conan to have a word with Ran it was now.

"Of course- did you leave them in Tousan's room? Here, I'll help you look." Seconds later, they had the only privacy they were going to be able to manage, and Ran crouched down to look directly into her diminutive boyfriend's face, distress showing in her own. "Shinichi? Shinichi, I didn't think- you and Kid, you're _still_ going to-? Does the term 'bad idea' mean anything to you?" Her hands tightened on his shoulders, the fabric of his sweater bunching between her fingers. He reached out, cradling her jaw in his own small palms.

"Ran, it's okay. No, really. No, really, it is; we kind of worked this out earlier- I said something about it, you remember? I told you how we fought it out at the last heist? He'd be disappointed if I didn't give it my best, and he _has_ to do this; ask him why." He could feel her pulse beating beneath his fingertips, and Shinichi slid one hand up to stroke a straggle of hair back from Ran's forehead. "He has a good reason, and he knows where I stand on this. Trust him. Trust _us._ He'll fight for his damn prize, whatever it is this time, as hard as he always does; I'll fight to keep him from getting it as hard as I always do, and whoever wins- it won't make a difference between us, or between either of us and you." Shinichi leaned forward a little, allowing his forehead to rest against Ran's; her hands slid down his narrow shoulders to rest lightly on his shoulderblades. "If I didn't do my best, he'd be disappointed; if he didn't do his, then I would."

She was silent for a moment. "What if- what if you caught him?" she whispered.

"What's caught doesn't have to stay caught. Do you really think that there's a pair of handcuffs in the world that he can't break out of?"

Jingling noises in the front room indicated that Mouri had found his keys at last. "Raaaaaaaaaaaaan!" he bawled. "Get moving! Car's here!"

Ran's hands tightened again. "Alright," she murmured. "Just- be careful for both of you, okay? I don't think he knows how."

Shinichi smiled into her eyes. "You'd be surprised. Now, let's get going before Ojisan has a coronary."

* * *

"Okay." Inspector Megure looked around the small table at each of the faces that sat around it. Inspector Nakamori, head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force; Officer Shiratori, standing in for Division One's criminal profiler who was out on maternity leave; "Sleeping" Mouri Kogoro, private detective. Megure's gaze slid down as he looked to his left, at the much shorter final member of the hastily-gathered pow-wow: Edogawa Conan, first-grade detective. Beside him sat his chaperone, Mouri Ran. The two of them sat close to each other, one of Mouri-san's hands on Edogawa's shoulderblades as the child leaned forward in his seat, expression intense. He was already deep in thought, gaze looking through the copy of the heist notice that lay before him.

_And it's our luck that he's probably our best shot at deciphering this in time,_ Megure sighed to himself. _I should assign Takagi-kun to watch over these two at the heist. Can't be too careful._

"So." Megure gathered his thoughts, and the others' attention. "What have we got?"

There was a knock at the door; it opened, and officers Takagi and Sato slipped into the room. "Sorry about the late arrival, sir," apologized Sato, taking a seat across from Conan and beside Ran; her partner slid into the last empty seat at the table. "Drug bust. We got the last of that Sumida-cho ring- they slipped up one time too often."

Megure's tired face lost a few lines for a few seconds as he smiled. "Ah, excellent work, Sato-san. And you haven't missed a thing. Shiratori-kun, would you do the honors?" The tall detective pressed the 'record' button on the small official recorder in the middle of the table, cleared his throat and began.

Conan watched the others' faces as the notice was read aloud and its arrival times and locations were documented for posterity. Copies were passed around; out came the pens and notebooks, and the boy slid his own onto the table as well. It said a lot regarding Conan's level of acceptance at Division One's investigations that not one person in the room seemed to find it amusing or anything other than quite serious that he was following the same procedure as his adult colleagues. They, at least, had learned.

Nakamori, on the other hand, watched him intently for a few moments before turning his attention back to his own notes. "Stars," the man muttered. "Or the sky, at the very least, and a lot of mumbo-jumbo nonsense about kings and luck." He scowled, underlining several words. "'Two' is mentioned three times- four, if you count the reference for 'both' in line eleven-"

"Five," put in Conan helpfully, "if you count 'pair' in line nine."

Takagi coughed. "And the moon's referenced twice, both times indicating that it'll be straight up overhead." He glanced down at his own notebook. "Moonrise tomorrow will be at five twenty-eight p.m., with moonset the following morning a little less than eleven hours away. Zenith will be at ten fourty-one p.m. I, ah, thought that, what with 1412's preoccupation with moonrise and moonset during past heists, it would be useful to... err, have the information." Even sitting down, he managed to shuffle his feet.

Megure merely nodded. "Mm; good, good. So we have date and time; we-"

There was a sharp _snap!_ from Nakamori's direction; two pieces of pencil clattered to the table. "If we don't know what the bastard's going to steal, we won't be able to figure out it's location," he rapped out, fishing a replacement out of his coat pocket. "And if we don't figure out his target, it won't matter a good goddamn if we know the date and time or not. Ideas? What about these f-" (he visibly bit off the epithet, glancing at Ran) "-damned stars?"

The smallest member of the impromptu gathering bit his lip and stared at the notice; he had a few ideas, but- "Pairs," said Sato thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her lips. "Stars in pairs- double stars? Constellations? Planets with two moons? Astrological signs?" She began to draw up a table on her notebook. "Shigure-kun, do you have your laptop with you?"

* * *

Two hours, a considerable amount of swearing, numerous cups of coffee, eight orders of Indian take-out curry (including one child-sized portion of vindaloo) and two broken pencils later-

"Pisces." Mouri stared gloomily at the sketch he'd drawn on his own notepad, a V-shaped scribble ending in a loop; it didn't bear much resemblance to the constellation, but then, the constellation didn't look much like two fish on a string either. "Not Gemini, since the 'twins cannot be pushed apart'; but Aries and Aquarius to either side." The constellations made a nice neat line of stars from one side of the horizon (the 'edges') to the other, with Pisces neatly bracketed inbetween. "I still think it has something to do with water. Or fish. Or maybe rams. Aquarius, Pisces? Are there any famous gemstones shaped like fish out there?" He began to doodle little drawings of waves.

Conan rubbed at his eyes; they were tired, but the burst of adrenaline from earlier was still buoying him up enough that he had a good few hours left in him. _If there ARE any fish-shaped targets out there, a certain somebody's going to up a heist-shaped creek without a paddle. Wonder if he's ever had that kind of problem crop up in past heists? I'll have to look into it._Beside him, Ran yawned; she'd been quietly jotting down everyone's observations as they came up, and her fingers had long since tired.

_"Not that I'm aware of,"_ came Hakuba Saguru's diffident voice from the speaker unit in the center of the table. He'd been called in by Megure to 'assist the investigation' not long after Takagi and Sato's arrival, somewhat to Nakamori's surprise; Megure had been doing his homework. So far he'd helped to establish the zodiac signs and had suggested that the 'five' in line eleven might infer magnitude of stars. Multiple theories had been considered and discarded (taking up most of the pow-wow's time; a large amount of Conan's work in particular had involved shooting down the doubtful, the unfeasible and the blatantly silly), and now Hakuba cleared his throat. _"Shiratori-keiji, what are the stars of highest magnitude in Aries and Aquarius?"_

_Tap-taptaptap-tappa-click._ The laptop hummed and something inside its casing made tiny whirring sounds, loud against the silence. "Those would be- wait." Conan looked up at the arrested tone of Shiratori's voice. "I believe we may, as the saying has it, have a winner. The two stars of highest magnitude in Aquarius in particular are twin supergiants, Alpha Aquarii and Beta Aquarii."

Nakamori blinked. "Let me guess," he said wearily. "High magnitude stars? Very bright?"

"Very." Shiratori's long fingers typed again. "And they- ahah. According to my data, they each have a nickname associated with luck." All eyes in the room were focused on the tall detective as his hands flew across the keyboard. "The nicknames are in Arabic: _Sadalmelik_ for Alpha Aquarii, meaning the 'lucky one of the king', and _Sadalsuud_ for Beta Aquarii, the 'luckiest of the lucky'."

There was silence. Nakamori rested his forehead briefly against the palm of one hand. "And... are there any gemstones in Japan within reasonable reaching distance with the same nicknames?" His question was asked in the same voice as a mother might use after a teenager's tardy return from a date regarding 'did you fill the gas-tank?' or 'you came straight home after the movie, right?'

It was Sato's turn to answer this time; flipping through the lists of gemstones of note that currently had homes within Japanese national boundaries, she frowned and traced a finger down each page. "Mmm... no... next page... no... next p- wait, wait, here we go." The detective looked up, excitement giving her eyes a shine of eagerness.

"Two amethysts which appear to be directly named after the stars in question. Sadalmelik is one hundred fourteen carats, and Sadalsuud is one hundred twelve carats. They're listed together - they were cut from the same source, apparently, and they're both rated above AAA status - wait, there's a endnote." Silence, while Sato searched the index of the list and everyone else waited in anticipation. She found what she was looking for quickly; her snort of derision made everyone else sit up a little straighter.

"Oh, that's just too-"

"What is it, Sato-san?" Takagi at her elbow peered in to look. Sato shook her head, an exasperated - but almost fond - smile on her lips.

"I believe we've solved the riddle. Both Sadalmelik and Sadalsuud - the stones, that is - have an extended explanation in this index. It says that- well, I'll read it.

"_'Concerning Sadalmelik & Sadalsuud: To current knowledge, the pair represents the only known amethysts over one hundred carats of Deep Russian grade. After being dismissed as 'merely' a Deep Siberian grade little sister to Sadalmelik, Sadalsuud was re-evaluated upon its recovery in 1994 after being stolen by Thief 1412. Some authorities believe a re-evaluation based on notoriety is an example of rating bias in action, and dismiss Sadalsuud as a worthless stone because of its questionable history. Others view Sadalsuud's nickname, "Luckiest of the Lucky," as curiously appropriate to its promotion.'_"

There was silence after this reading, while everyone in the room (and on the phone line) digested the thought that they not only knew the targets - but that one of them, at least, was a repeat target. Conan and Ran sat very still, knowing - as the rest of the room didn't - that Sadalsuud's history lay not with the current Kid, but his father.

Megure cleared his throat, asking the question that many of the others were surely thinking. "Where are they displayed?"

_"I have the first,"_ came Hakuba's voice from the speaker. _"Sadalmelik is in the private collection of one of the zaibatsu of Tokyo. A Kikoman-sama."_

"I've found the little sister," Shiratori added, glancing over the top of his laptop at Nakamori with a grimace. "I'm afraid it's not good news."

"What? Where is it?" Nakamori was all but climbing out of his seat. "We'll keep that bastard thief away from it!"

"Then you'd best pack your bags," Shiratori returned dryly. "Sadalsuud is in Kyoto."

* * *

"Conan-kun? Thumping your head against the wall does _not_ help. I should know, I've already tried it." Takagi had just stepped out of the men's lavatory into the precinct hallway; now he stood looking down at the boy where he sat waiting in the hallway. The others were further down the hall, wrangling over just who was going to go where; he already knew where _he_ wanted to be, and that meant a fast trip to Kyoto tomorrow.

"I keep thinking that one of these days he's going to make more sense," Conan said almost sadly, rubbing the back of his head and wincing as Takagi sat down beside him. "And then he goes and does something like this. How's he going to steal both gems at the same time?" The noise at the end of the hall had just increased; Nakamori was making some sort of point, finger punching the air in front of Mouri's face as he pulled a cellphone out of one pocket with the other hand. "And... why do I think he's perfectly capable of doing just that?" He became aware that, as had happened without comment in the past, his cute-little-boy persona had slipped a significant number of notches in the detective's company; somehow it didn't feel like a problem, not with Takagi.

The dark-haired man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Because he probably can?"

"Nngh."

"Yeah."

Another body settled onto the bench. "When you two heroes have finished fanboying 1412, I believe we need to make plans for traveling to Kyoto first thing in the morning," said Detective Sato Miwako, settling back with a sigh. "Nakamori's making the arrangements with the authorities there right now; we're on a sort of 'lend-lease' status. The others will be covering the heist here in Tokyo; since the three notices were delivered here rather than elsewhere, Nakamori-keibu believes that the greatest police-presence is needed here." She sighed again and pinched her nose in the exact same gesture that Takagi had just used. "'We' means Takagi, myself, you and Ran-san, Conan-kun; we'll call your and Ran's schools in the morning."

Conan blinked. Somehow he hadn't quite expected Mouri to allow his daughter to be sent away like that; although... "Ojisan's worried about how the notice showed up in his office, isn't he?"

"He is." Sato gave him a sideways look, the kind that occasionally made him wonder just what she and Takagi had concluded regarding his own peculiarities. "He'd like to send her to stay with her mother, but she wouldn't hear of it. This is- I suppose you'd say it's the lesser of two evils; and Takagi-kun and myself have been assigned as your, ah, escorts." It was remarkably kind of her not to use the term 'babysitters' when you got right down to it, thought Conan with an internal grimace. "I don't suppose I need to ask you to cooperate in every way, do I?"

"Of course not, Sato-san," he replied politely. Beside him, Takagi bit off a small sound very like a snort; the noise was, however, nearly lost in Ran's rapid footsteps on the hallway tiles as she came back towards them, a determined look of triumph on her face. "When do we need to be ready?"

* * *

As it turned out, they didn't end up leaving until nearly noon the next afternoon; by car it took roughly six to seven hours to drive to Kyoto, and the morning was taken up with police preparations, negotiations regarding stakeout personnel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... Sometimes Conan wondered if the reason why some cops ended up looking prematurely aged was the sheer amount of paperwork they had to endure. Mouri had vacillated between excitement over the case and teeth-grinding warnings to Takagi as to looking after his daughter; amusingly enough, these warnings lessened in both force and frequency when confronted with Sato-san's less than amused expression.

Three phonecalls, seven texts and a handful of emails to Hattori had produced one extremely enthusiastic Osakajin; Heiji seemed to view the entire thing as pure entertainment, and there was no doubt that he was looking forward to Conan's- Shinichi's- visit. It figured; one man's trauma was another man's treasure, and Hattori'd been getting bored lately with the dearth of crime and cases to keep him busy. A Kid heist suited him exactly.

The heist itself seemed to be scheduled to take place at a historic temple, Kozan-ji, nestled in the hills to the north and east of Kyoto where it had sat since the year 774 A.D. Apparently it was well known for its collection of national treasures and 'cultural assets', of which the Sadalsuud could be considered one; the gem had been donated by a grateful Englishman at the turn of the last century whose son had apparently been cured of some dreadful disease by drinking tea there. Conan had read that little account, read it again, and then privately decided to pick up some tea while at Kozan-ji for Ai and Agasa. One never knew when these things might come in handy.

Most of the trip there was spent leaning against Ran in the back seat, reading or drowsing or talking very quietly together. Takagi and Sato seemed content enough to discuss their own affairs in low voices now and then, but a great deal of the drive was spent in comfortable silence after they'd gotten the main briefing and planning sessions out of the way. Ran (who was still more than a little jittery about the whole thing) hadn't slept well; watching her brows draw together as she dozed, the small detective by her side wondered what it was that she dreamed of. Or whom.

His own thoughts were oddly composed, even happy. No-one (with the exception of Kid himself that one time) got hurt during a heist; there would be no corpses, no reproachful bodybags or chalk outlines to haunt his dreams- just the chase and the spike of adrenaline and a triumph that, no matter which one of them it came to, could be shared by both. Watching the scenery speed by the window, Shinichi saw not the early greening of spring but a manic grin and one shadowed deep blue eye; his own reflection in the windowglass became obscured by the brim of a white hat and a swinging clover-marked charm.

_See you soon, Kid. Do your best; I will too._ He dozed off against Ran's shoulder then, wrapped in memory and comforted by the promise of the coming evening.

...and eventually there was noise, and a car-door opening; and they were no longer moving. And Hattori Heiji's familiar voice was in his ears: "Hey, K-Conan-kun! What kept you?"

* * *

Kid was thinking, and doing a lot of it.

As things stood, he had two options. He could cheat...or he could cheat a _different_ way. Obviously, neither approach appealed to him, but despite all that he had planned and schemed, he'd still come to this standstill. The crossroads stood before him, but the game's rules were a bit different now, and where he never would have faltered, now he hesitated to place his steps.

Kid already had a plan for the night's heists. A few plans, actually, each of them interlocked so that he could flow from one to the next and back again as the situation and opportunity - or inconvenience - demanded. If everything was as it had been, there would have been no problem. But now that Shinichi knew everything about him - and Kid was still boggled by how far from pure hyperbole that 'everything' was - it didn't feel quite right to play the heist in the same way that he had before.

"Playful unfairness" was one way to phrase the philosophy Kid had held in the past toward his heists and his interactions with the Task Force in general. He had more talents, more skills, more agility than they did; he was smarter, faster, and he had _wings_. The playing field wasn't level to start with, so there was no purpose in worrying over 'unfair advantage.' Kid used every tool at his disposal, they used their much smaller range, and he won. Simple.

But with Shinichi - it was different. They were equally smart, fast, and clever; Shinichi was every bit as agile as he was, with unique tools just as effective as Kid's glider and smoke bombs. To say they 'stood toe to toe' would be to underestimate their mutual drive to step over that dividing line between them, forcing the other to lose ground. They were rivals, perfectly matched; it was just what they _did_ and what they _were_. Being together in a relationship didn't change an inch of that.

_Hell,_ Kid mused, raking one hand through his unruly dark hair and remembering Shinichi's hands there, _It just makes it __more__ true. We were already tied up in each other. This is just one more way to fixate._

Kid's problem stemmed from their equal footing, actually. Two of the plans he had made for the evening's heists involved aid: one from Jiichan, the other from Kuroba. Whether it was fair to employ either of those plans was what Kid now wrestled with. If he won because of Kuroba's or Jiichan's aid, could he really say _he_ had beaten Shinichi, fair and square? If he lost through the lack of their aid, would he have really been giving it his all? For the first time, these questions troubled the thief, and chin in hand, he stared into the midst of Kyoto's glossy green foliage as he considered them.

"He's not flying solo either, you know."

Kid's head jerked up, gaze tracking around him and seeing no one. The mental equivalent of a tap on the shoulder anchored him, and he closed his eyes briefly, placing the voice. When he opened them again, Kuroba sat on the tree branch beside him with a smile.

"He'll have called the Osakan," Kuroba pointed out, lacing his hands behind his head and leaning into a sunbeam. "And Nakamori and Megure will be on the case, as always; the Task Force, Mouri, Ran and Shinichi too, the Kyoto police, various other detectives and officers. Heck," he laughed, "They might have even brought in the white knight for this one."

"Saguru?" Kid asked, getting a nod from his counterpart in return. "He's still in England, he left on Tuesday night. But it would be interesting if he'd been called, if for no other reason than he'd be cranky to be woken up. It's been a while since he chased me, too."

"I think he's getting tired," Kuroba opined, cracking one eye open to look at Kid. "Too long without success. He's no terrier like Kudo; he'll probably back off and re-evaluate his method, Holmesian that he is."

"So I'm dating a terrier?" Kid snorted, smiling. "I suppose it fits. He'll growl if you call him that, too."

"And he'll have Ran right behind him with her fists up," Kuroba added. "Like I said, this isn't a samurai's duel. He'll have resources, and you will too. You're trying to talk it around into pretty terms so it doesn't look like it, but really? If you try to pull this off without Jiichan _or_ me, you're just trying to lose."

"I'm not..._trying_ to lose. I just don't want him to..." Kid shook his head, searching for words. "You remember the Kikoman heist?"

"The one that started all of this?"

Kid smiled. "That one. I don't want to pull something like that on him. He cheated that time. He knows it, I know it, and we moved past it. But I don't want to do that this time. This one's..." Kid's gaze turned distant, his canines showing as his grin went feral. "This one's going to be _amazing_."

"So...that's a _yes_ on the fireworks, then?" Kaito quipped, grinning too. "I'll get them ready. Are we crashing at the normal place?"

"Think so," Kid agreed, raking his hands through his hair again; this time, though, they tugged hard, the feeling helping to ground his sweeping, lightheaded giddiness. In the sky ahead of the pair, the sun was flirting with the treetops; only a few more minutes remained until true twilight descended. The thief grinned at the sun, then hopped down from his branch; leaves and branches whipped past him as he fell two stories to land in a crouch on the needle bed of the forest floor.

"Come on, Magician," Kid called, looking up to the tree branch he'd left. "Not much time before curtain."

"I'll follow you in a bit," Kaito called down, still projecting his mental image of self on the branch for Kid's benefit. "I want to watch the sky go dim."

"Then I'll see you in a bit," Kid said, tipping an invisible hat brim at his counterpart. "I'm going to go be Foolish."

* * *

___._

___That's it for this week. Take care, and we'll see you next Friday with _**_Book Four, Chapter Two: "plan, win/lose, costs"._**_  
_


	35. Plan, win or lose, costs

___Hello again!_

___Time for a little larceny... or maybe not; depends on who wins, hmm? And tonight I don't think I'll say much. -except, except, except! Last week's ton of comments were WONDERFUL, and helped to restore faith that we're not shouting into an empty theater here. Many many thanks, y'all; feedback _**_always_**___ helps, one way or another. **bows gratefully** Keep 'em coming, please- especially about tonight's little chapter. I think this should make a few of you very happy..._

___Okay, that's all from me tonight. Settle back with some popcorn and enjoy the show!... The Management_

___._

___

* * *

._

_**Three Thieves**__** series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by **_ _**nightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
**__**Book Four, Chapter Two**__**: "plan, win/lose, costs "  
Warnings: **__None__**  
Music: **__'Thick As Thieves'__, Dashboard Confessional (at http colon slash slash www dot youtube dot com slash watch?v=aopK2A8MCd4)  
__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _dc_yaoi__ , _ _detective_conan__ , _ _magic_kaitou__ and _ _manycases1truth_

* * *

"So, Kudo," said Heiji cheerfully, "what's the plan?"

Sandwiches, riceballs and a thermos of coffee had been the Osakajin's Welcome-To-Kyoto present to the travelers; they'd spent a solid hour eating, meeting with the temple abbot in his tiny office, and going over the map of Kozen-ji. Ran had remained in the office on the radio with her father, helping to keep the Tokyo-based team up to date on the Kyoto team's activities; she'd waved Conan on when he'd pointed uphill with a questioning look, and with that tacit permission he and Heiji had slipped out into the twilight.

Their path had taken them around the circumference of the temple, supposedly as a perimeter check but actually to talk. A thin, light drizzle had fallen earlier that day and the temple grounds smelled green and wet with the first tentative growth of March. It was warmer in Kyoto than in Beika; Heiji had his jacket unbuttoned and his hands shoved in his pockets, meandering along as if he hadn't a care in the world (deceptively so, of course; by the end of the walk he'd be able to draw a layout of the temple grounds and pinpoint every visible guard, as would Conan.)

The grounds were orderly, in an ancient-temple-full-of-historic-treasures sort of way. Trees towered overhead, their broad branches arching like enclosing arms over the tiled rooftops. A sloping path led up a hillside towards the temple, half steps and half mossy ground; a tiny building where the temple's great priest Myoe had once lived lay to the right, while to the left and beyond stood a library, a tea-house, a doujo, the oldest tea-field in Japan (people tended to wax poetic about that particular feature in the online websites), a shrine to Myoe and the main hall at the highest point of the slope. The higher you climbed, the steeper it got; downslope came the sounds of the Kyotaki river, and the entire place exuded the kind of peace you only found in deep forest.

...or it would, if there weren't cops everywhere. And spotlights being wheeled in. And generators for the spotlights. And extension-cords for the generators. And- "Is that a helicopter?" asked Conan, craning his head to stare up between the trees.

"Three of 'em. So, plan?"

"Where the hell are they going to land if they have to? This place is all hills, the flattest thing around here is the river." The boy scowled at the aircraft as it clattered its way past like an airborn mixer, tossing the branches overhead in a private gale all its own. "I hate it when they bring those things to a heist, they never do any good and they just add one more layer of distraction."

"Yeah? Didn't you take a pot-shot at Kid from one once? And _plan,_ Kudo?"

Conan shot him an amused look, too hyped up himself by adrenaline to really be annoyed. "What IS it with you and the plan? We scope out the site- we're doing that right now- find the biggest weaknesses, make sure those are covered, position ourselves as best we can, expect things to go totally pear-shaped at some point and cope with them when they do. We know where Kid'll be and when; we know what he'll be after. We don't know how." He looked around- they were climbing now, heading past the doujo and nearly at the main hall. "This is a classic Indiana Jones-type scenario, really; big fat gemstone in the idol's hands, temple guards-" (he nodded at a monk who scurried past, heading downhill; the monk bobbed his head) "-and it'll have to be played moment-by-moment. Not that I don't _have_ a plan, but..."

"Knew it. So, what's the plan?"

Conan told him.

_"Seriously?_ That's _it?_ Kudo, you're slippin' in your..."

The boy mock-glared at his friend. "If you say 'old age' you're going to spend the rest of the evening with an ice-pack in your lap, Hattori. _Think_ about it- what're we trying to do? What's the most important thing to be accomplished at this heist- and more than that, what else can we do? This is a _hideously well-known historical site._ The oldest patch of tea in the entire country is growing not a hundred meters from here, that little house by the entrance is over seven hundred years old, and if we damage anything at all the Agency for Cultural Affairs will display our heads on pikes on the temple wall." One eyebrow went up. "Or they'll display yours, at least; I'll just become a target for public censure and lawsuits that'll last til I'm eighteen. Again."

Hattori made his displeasure regarding this known. In fact, he was still expounding on this when they climbed the last and steepest bit of stairs to enter Kozan-ji's main hall.

Kon-do, the largest building on the temple grounds, was primarily a single broad-windowed room with a number of smaller rooms and a tiny enclosed courtyard behind it. While a slightly smaller hall, Kaizan-do, held the temple's main shrine (featuring a statue of Myoe), this one contained the heist target itself.

Policemen with chattering radios were stationed around the broad porch that edged the hall, faces preoccupied; the handful of Task Force members that had been sent up to Kyoto from Nakamori's squad were positioned at a 3:1 ratio to Megure's uniformed officers. "The local cops are handlin' incoming and outgoing routes," said Hattori in answer to Conan's unvoiced question. "They're the guys with the helicopters. Personally, I'd put more men to combin' the grounds for suspicious characters, but... this is the freakin' _Kaitou Kid._ If he wants to be here, he already is."

"Point. Which is why I planned what I did."

"And they're gonna let you do that? You? Or d'you need me to-"

He shook his head, taking in his surroundings as they entered the temple proper. "Sato and Takagi'll take care of it; they're the 'official presence' in charge here- a pretty high honor for those two, really, especially if they pull this off. I... made a few suggestions in the car on the way up, once they'd described just exactly what we'd be- oh." Conan stopped in his tracks, staring straight ahead. "That's it, isn't it? That's the prize?"

Heiji, his hat now off and stuffed hastily in one pocket, rocked back on his heels and stared as well. "Yeah, that's it."

The great hall was the largest building on the grounds, intended to accomodate all the temple's resident monks and traveling pilgrims. As such, it was an impressive sweep of shining woodwork, the flames of oil-lamps reflecting off a myriad of polished surfaces... but none of them shone as brilliantly as the curl of potent, secret light just beyond the carved wooden screen.

The cast bronze Buddha on its stone pedestal was probably no more than a few centuries old; most of the buildings and their contents (with the exception of Myoe's dwelling) had burned down in the 1700's and had been replaced then. It was somewhat larger than life-sized, dark and beautiful and showing traces of gilt in its folds and draperies and on the serene, meditative face whose lips curved in the most elusive hint of a smile. Nestled in his clasped hands, just lying there loose, was a glittering shining _thing,_ so deep in color that all the naked eye could see was a constellation of refraction, angles and hints of burgundy-violet as if someone had set the heavens on fire and then Buddha had gathered them up in a handful.

There were two figures kneeling beside the image- Takagi and Sato, just finishing the preparations that Conan had suggested in the car; beside them stood a particularly muscular-looking monk, black robes camouflaging his build but not his body-language: the temple's equivalent of a bouncer. "That's Yoshida-san. He's the statue's current protector- took over the post just three years ago." Heiji nodded at the monk, who inclined his head slightly without taking his eyes off Sato and Takagi for a second. "Nice guy; kinda short on words, though. Hey, Yoshida-san."

"..." The monk nodded.

Conan stepped up to the edge of the wooden screen; he was just tall enough to rest his chin on the wooden edge. "They're not taking any chances; good." Two officers were in the process of setting up miniature motion-detector cameras at strategic places in the room. A doorway to either side of the image's raised platform caught his eye. "Where do those lead to?"

"C'mon, I'll show you."

The hallways beyond the main shrine were narrow, lit only dimly by subdued, discreet bulbs- apparently the shrine _did_ have electricity, just not where the public could see it. "Monk's changing room, couple of smaller shrines, courtyard..." Hattori led the way out into the tiny interior courtyard. Barely more than a few bushes, rocks and some raked sand, it made a tiny island of silence against the bustle of the larger room that they had left. He leaned against one wall, hands stuffed back into his pockets again. "Kudo?"

"Yeah?" Conan sat down on a worn wooden bench, head tipped back, studying the sky; it had cleared, and the full moon was less than an hour away from zenith.

"Why aren't you..." Heiji hesitated, groping for words. "...not sure how 'xactly to say this..."

"Upset? Worried? Conflicted? Struggling? Disturbed?" He sighed. "Losing my mind? Figuring out a way to let Kid win?"

"Hey, hey, I did _not_ say y-"

"Hattori. Hattori, listen to me for a few minutes, will you?" Face still tilted up towards the sky, Conan closed his eyes. He could feel the moonlight on his skin, not cold like everyone said it was but very faintly warm- light was light and kissing-cousin to fire, even the silver light of the moon. "Nothing's changed when it comes to heists. He'll play his part, I'll play mine, and we'll do our goddamned best to win, both of us."

"Yeah? And if he wins, you lose-"

"And if he loses, I win. Right. What happens if he wins, Hattori?" The other was silent. "A gem gets stolen, and later on it gets returned. Security maybe gets beefed up a bit, maybe not. And what happens if he loses?"

He couldn't quite see Heiji's frown; it was lost in the shadows of his face, black against the white light silvering his hair. "The amethyst stays here, Nakamori has t'take a cold shower, we all go home heroes." The Osakajin snorted softly. "And maybe, just maybe, that thief ends up in the lock-up with his face all over the front pages of the next day's paper. But I'm not counting on that."

"No. But... you see?" Eyes still closed, the boy tilted his head back a little further, fully exposed to the moon's touch; maybe somewhere Kid was doing the same. "He'll try his hardest and so will I; if we don't, neither of us'll win."

"Hm."

Silence stretched between them for a few long moments; Hattori sat down on the bench beside him with a creak of ancient wood, tipping his own face up and towards the sky. "So... you're not gonna be pissed off if I do my damndest to take that bastard down?"

"Hell no. He'll be expecting it." Conan grinned to himself. _But I wouldn't count my chickens, Hattori. He still has a little revenge to take on you, and even though I got him to agree on 'small' and 'harmless', I'm not sure we were using the same dictionary._

"Kudo?"

"Hm?"

"You're a nutcase, you know that? You're worse than he is, and that's sayin' something."

Conan, eyes still closed, smiled at the unseen moon overhead and remembered two days and nights full of warmth and new discoveries. "Hattori, you have no idea."

And that was where they were when Takagi came looking for them, fifteen minutes before countdown.

* * *

They had ten minutes left and Kid was flying through the trees.

_"Fool,"_ Kaito cackled, flying alongside with a giddiness that came from knowing the night's events were no longer in his own control, _"You'll make us late!"_

"Never!" Kid chirped, hooking a right hand turn around a tree trunk and diving downward, leaping from branch to branch with sure footing and cleat-treaded black boots. The shadows hid him, his agility propelled him; the roofs of the temple zoomed nearer. Light poured from the windows and the chinks in the roof; guards at the edges of the glow stared blindly into the inky night. Above, the moon crept closer to her highest point.

With two hands tightly grasping sturdy branches til the bark nipped into his skin, Kid brought his headlong rush to a halt, choosing his vantage point carefully. His momentum and the wind in the branches made his perch sway; he smiled, riding the motion with an elastic, adaptive crouch.

"Far better to stand in the darkness looking out, than in the light looking in," Kid murmured, scanning the temple grounds one last time. If any in the overlit temple had known where to look, they might have seen his teeth, a bright white grin that seemed to float untethered amid the blackness of night foliage. Everything else about him was hidden under the black reconnaissance clothing that had let him approach so far without being seen. Now Kid gathered himself and leapt forward, spanning yard and paths and porch and the wide expanse of the main temple's rooftop, landing finally on the inner slope of the roof with the lightness of doves' feet.

_One cost,_ Kid thought to himself, marking a mental tally. _Now..._

He dropped two stories to the courtyard, keeping to the shadows and edges, away from the moon's bright face. Inside, the rustle and clatter of the gathered officers and detectives was steadily quieting as the chosen time approached and already-tense nerves stretched nearly to breaking. With three minutes left, Kid carefully gassed the courtyard guard, and darted onto the temple's inner porch and into the labyrinthine inner hallways.

It was to the credit of officers stationed sparsely throughout the inner hallways of the temple that Kid had to proceed more carefully than he expected. _Shinichi's fault, I bet,_ the thief grinned, slipping past one of the guards in the split second when his eyes closed on a yawn. _He's always thinking of the little things._

_Too bad for him - I have, too. Jiii will be in place now; the rest is up to me to trust him, and Kuroba. Kyoto's half belongs to __me__._

Kid reached the doorway to the temple's main room a few seconds behind schedule, and his mental counter stood at a pricey +15sec as he finally reached his chosen spot. Having come as far as stealth would take him, Kid locked his grin in place, threw a fat handful of pink smoke pellets (some sleep gas, some not) into the dead center of the large display room, and swept his cape around himself, then away. With his other hand he aimed one shot from his card gun at the frame of a pivoting spotlight currently trained on the Buddha at the opposite end of the room, and as his white cape flared behind him like wings, the card connected with a metallic ping, sending the lamp pivoting wildly around to fix on Kid himself. The beam washed the white-clad thief in dazzling light as officers, both those blinded by the beam and those who could now see Kid, yelled in shock.

Against the relative darkness of the night and the temple, Kid stood blindingly bright, a shock to both senses and eyes. His monocle reflected the light from the spotlight back on his audience; the hat brim guarded against the rest of it. With clear vision Kid swept the room, cataloguing reactions and positions of the officers and Task Force. He didn't need to question where the gem was; it sang to him, the way that the gems always did, and it became his lodestone as he charged into the room, acrobatically vaulting and flipping his way through the field of lunging, grasping law enforcement officials. His wild laugh filled the room.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, _it's showtime!_"

* * *

_...aaaand GO!_

'Go', in this case, meant _close your eyes__._

If there was one thing that Kudo Shinichi was good at, it was learning from his past mistakes. In his pre-relationship run-ins with the Phantom Thief, he'd noticed his opponent's predilection to changing the level of light at his point of appearance- bright to dark, blackness to brilliance, visibility to obscurity. Without any way of predicting **how** the thief would manage it, he could be fairly certain that he would- it could be as simple as redirecting one's viewpoint or as complex as changing the entire scope of illumination. Either way, it was going to happen.

From his place in the corner behind Takagi and Sato's legs, huddled as small as he could make himself, Shinichi- _Conan,_ he reminded himself, _I have to be Conan right now-_ began to count as the wild ruckus began. _Juu- kuu- hachi-_

"-goddammit, keep STILL-"  
"Aaaaagh gerrOFFmeyabastardyeronmyHEADgerroffgerroffgerroff!"  
"GRAB HIM! NO, HIM NOT ME! HIM! HIM! GRAB-"

_-shichi- roku- go-_ (Laughter, manic and delighted, filling the room)

"Itai! Ow fuck he-"  
"-DIDHEGETITDIDHEGETIT OH! SHIT! OH! SH-"  
"-backups, we need reinforcements, get IN here_OOF!"_

_-shi- san- ni-_ (and he'd missed this, he'd missed it, Heiji was right, he was as crazy as Kid)

"GRAAAHHHRRR- eeghk! ow ow ow ow ow-"

Conan punched the back of Takagi's leg; two hands swooped down and grabbed him, hoisting him up onto broad shoulders as he shaded his eyes with one hand and cracked them open just barely, clicked a very tiny, precise control on his glasses, and-

_Ich!_

-watched as Heiji kicked one floodlight into oblivion even as Sato took care of the other.

_**BLACKOUT.**_

As the darkness hit, startling thief and officers alike into stillness, Kid swore he could _feel_ the smirk radiating off his opponent near the room's wall to Kid's right. Kid faced the rest of the room, his back to the idol's screen, and though he knew exactly where he stood, mentally envisioning the room's layout in precise detail, he couldn't see a _damn_ thing. Blind and horribly amused by it, Kid kept completely silent as cracked open a small grey gas capsule and tracked his way by touch and instinct around the far end of the wooden screen. His toes hit the edge of a shallow step and he stopped, holding the capsule above the step at waist level.

Infiltrating the temple that afternoon had been _too_ easy - with representatives from three forces present, and no Nakamori to run wildly amok pinching peoples' faces, it was a matter of moments to get into the temple and take a good look at the preparations. While checking the general layout of the temple, ensuring that it was just as the blueprints had stated, he'd scoped out the locations and anatomy of the police spotlights, so he could plan exactly where to aim and what angle to shoot his cards to make them spin. He'd examined the back hallways, pretending to hurry through on an errand while his feet found the best, most silent boards to step on. He'd examined the ceilings - too thick and smooth to provide exit or handholds - and the courtyard's inner walls, which offered much more potential for regaining his altitude once he'd lost it.

The hills falling away from the temple's main room ended up capturing his heart, though, and with his exit route planned, Kid carefully avoided both his boyfriend and Hattori - the former of which would surely see through his disguise, and the latter of which would be too much of a temptation to _poke_ at - while watching Sato and Takagi set the motion sensors. He saw them bending over the idol's hands, where Sadalsuud was unpretentiously laid. A subtle opportunity for a clearer look hadn't presented itself, but Kid had been fairly sure at the time that whatever they were preparing wouldn't be too difficult to defeat.

As the first, then second moment past the blackout ticked by, Kid's heavy, thick grey gas fell from the capsule, rolling across the wooden step like something liquid, and little flickers of red light showed where the motion sensors' beams lay. He stepped around them delicately, trusting the sluggishness of the fog to prevent it from spreading across - and thus lighting up - the whole floor of the temple's altar, and proceeded up onto the step, then the slightly raised platform that held the idol.

The barest scrap of moonlight had made it in through the far wall's windows, through the grate, and onto the gem; it gleamed clear and bright save for two dark, rough-edged lines that crossed Sadalsuud's single visible, perfectly smooth facet. Fearing a fracture, Kid leaned closer, gloved hands touching and feeling out the truth, and when the realisation of what he was sensing struck home, he had to work hard to keep from laughing out loud. _Well. Trust my Tantei to find the Occam's Razor in all of this._

Realizing he needed to buy time - and quite a bit of it - Kid cast his voice across the room, mimicking the sounds of a metallic crash and his own mocking laughter, to keep the bustle and confusion of officers busy. It wouldn't fool Conan, or at least he hoped it wouldn't, but it would thin the pack near the altar a bit. He turned his attention back to the problem of freeing Sadalsuud, calling out with expert ventriloquism and mocked voices - now Sato's, now that of the Kyoto officer in charge. He even tossed Nakamori's voice into the mix, giggling quietly as a few confused shouts, then angry cries of deepest offense, preceded a Dogpile on the Bandit which, unfortunately for the officer standing at the place where Kid had cast his voice, was rivaled by none that had gone before.

Sadalsuud, a gem without a setting, was in essence an ovoid rock. A very fancy, pretty ovoid rock, but a rock nonetheless - one which had no sticking-out bits to hang on to or to use as anchors, one that couldn't be glued, bolted, drilled, clamped, or held by any other method for fear of damaging its integrity. Therefore, the police had been forced to deduce a method to keep it in one place. Putting it in a box would only keep Kid out as long as the box held, which - considering his skills - wouldn't be long. A bigger box, a more complicated box, a more difficult box; it all boiled down to the same thing: Boxes opened. And they _liked_ to open for the Kaitou Kid.

If not a box, what? Kid's smile showed fangs as he ran his fingers across his little Tantei's solution to that problem. If not a box, simply _tie it down._ And tied down it was - Sadalsuud was trapped against the palms of the huge bronze temple Buddha by countless wraps of thin, hard, strong fishing line. Steel braided fishing line, capable - the last Kid had checked - of carrying over _four hundred_ kilos. Home wire cutters wouldn't even scratch it, and the sort of equipment needed to slice through just one length of the stuff - something similar to a Jaws of Life - was not exactly part of Kid's basic heist kit. And, far from only one, there were _hundreds_ of wraps around the Buddha's hands, harming neither the statue nor Sadalsuud that it held, but binding them inextricably together.

_Point to you, Tantei,_ Kid cursed, trying to find a single weakness in the thickly-wrapped wire. But there was none to be found, and his mental timer was running down. He had less than a minute left until he needed to make the tug, and if he wasn't in place to escape when he accomplished that, or wasn't on time, the whole plan would go to hell in a handbasket and he'd lose_both_ gems.

"This will not be less than a draw, Meitantei," Kid muttered, making his decision. Gritting his teeth, the thief pulled two road flares out of his kit, again marveling at how much useful stuff Kuroba managed to pack into such small spaces on the costume. There was no magic in it, just wisdom of a stage magician's ways, and Kid was grateful for it now. The flares came free, lighting at their ends with a quick snap, and the thief tossed them, one with each hand, into the middle of the room. Bright white light poured from each flare, lighting up the room with a steady but sparking glow, like unnatural campfires. In the uplight from the flares, Kid's face looked eerie and menacing as he greeted the roomful of officers and detectives from his perch draped across the Buddha's broad, cold shoulders.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Kid purred, feeling his core go still and quiet in preparation for the next few seconds' work. His opponents - well, all of them save for Hattori and Shinichi, both of whom were charging the pedestal even as Kid spoke - stood still, held at bay by some combination of shock and awe, and maybe a bit of unconscious predator recognition. Kid addressed the detectives with his eyes, including Sato, Takagi, and the higher-ranked Kyoto detectives in his assessment.

"Sadalsuud is lonely. She doesn't have her brother or even a light to shine in. I'm here to rescue this lucky damsel. But first, I must bring her brother to witness her escape!"

_San...ni...ich._ For just a bare second, Kid closed his eyes, holding his right hand out in front of him, and _**pulled**_. The whole room sucked in a breath, disbelieving, and Kid opened his eyes to grin at the roomful of stunned officers, white-gloved fingers curled satisfyingly around the heavy weight of Sadalmelik, its black-purple depths gleaming with a sanguine shine, in his palm.

_Second cost._

* * *

Conan's first incredulous thought (after he had yelped in the inevitable reaction one gets to two very bright flares when one has clicked on one's glasses' infrared option): _That's __**cheating! **__SONOFABITCH-_

His second thought, however, was: _No, it's __**not.**__ Two heists, two targets, two people committing the heists, two teams trying to prevent the heist. I use everything I've got, why shouldn't they?_

All of this took place in the split second between dropping down from Takagi's shoulders and barreling towards Kid at a dead run, Takagi reaching vainly for him. The floating spots of brilliance and glare weren't really a hazard- between the infrared overload and the rapid change in lighting (the irony would occur to him later), his vision was pretty much shot anyway. This didn't stop his legs from moving; nothing much would have at that point.

The same went for Hattori Heiji. Unburdened with the heavy riot-gear of the Taskforce squadmembers, lighter and more flexible than the cops in their uniforms- He'd thrown one arm in front of his face at the first hint of a yell, eyes still clenched shut as he, Conan, Takagi and Sato had preplanned. So now, less visually-impared than the majority of the room's inhabitants, he opened them and vaulted the carved waist-high screen, planted a foot on the railing and launched himself straight at Kid with a look of glee on his face that very nearly matched the best in Kid's own repertoire. He had a bone or two to pick, and the opportunity was just too, too sinfully good to pass up, no matter what.

Unfortunately, this pretty much coincided with the monk Yoshida-san's sudden lunge, following just at the end of Kid's words. They two managed to avoid collision, but only barely; as it was, one of the Taskforce members who'd perhaps been in service a wee bit too long described the tableau as 'looking a lot like one of the wilder Tibetan Buddhism paintings, you know, the ones with all the bhoddiwhatsits and everything.' (He was later placed on paid leave and returned eventually, much refreshed.)

In the fitful, sparkling light, the two larger bodies and the one much smaller impacted the Buddha's base with enough force to shake it in its moorings; Heiji, in a show of acrobatic ambition that had to've been sparked by something other than his usual determination, braced one foot on a monkish knee ("Aaagh!") and sprang upwards, arms outstretched.

Hattori was _laughing,_ Conan realized as he scrambled for a purchase as well, reaching not for Kid but for Kid's prize: Sadalsuud, still cupped safely in the Buddha's hands.

At the top of the Buddha, much like a treed cat but without the hissing, Kid crouched nimbly, patent white loafers somehow gripping sure and steady on the smooth bronze shoulders of the statue as he grinned down at his pursuers. Sadalmelik had disappeared somewhere onto his person, and the thief swept one corner of his cape out of reach of Hattori's grasping hands as the detective lunged. With a clucking noise, Kid switched a finger in front of Hattori's nose, taking advantage of the fact that the other's hands were busy keeping him from falling off the vertical contours of the statue.

"Tsk tsk, Tantei," he snickered, before vaulting off the statue's shoulders, onto Hattori's back, and then onto the edge of the wooden screen in front of the idol. Conan skittered around from his position in the statue's arms to get Kid in his sights again, Hattori - yelping in indignation - pushed himself away from a painful collision between skull and bronze, and the bouncer monk growled and dropped his shoulder, charging straight at Kid like a football lineman.

"Ahou, don't get near him, he's just going to-!" Hattori's yell wasn't soon enough. Kid hopped up from the screen a moment before Yoshida reached it, tucking his feet up daintily. The monk passed under him and he came down on the man's back, straightening his legs and trotting down the man's back like it was a garden path. As Yoshida growled and began to go down, the thief reached the man's rump and leaped, driving the monk and the screen both to the floor as he propelled himself upward with elastic energy.

Again Kid gained the high ground, bracing himself with two feet and one hand on the Buddha's head and one shoulder, the side of his shoe tucked against the Buddha's protruding ear for a foothold. Bending down over the front of the statue, Kid bared his back to the rest of the room as he hung upside down, cape falling like a screen to block out the rest of the room. Behind it, Kid - top hat fallen off somewhere in the scramble, monocle still firmly in place - offered an inverted lunatic grin to one Edogawa Conan, crouched threateningly over Sadalsuud. With not thirty centimeters between their noses, Kid blinked innocently at Conan as the boy narrowed his eyes and tapped the side of his shoe, throwing sparks as the generator revved up.

From outside the curtain of his cape, Kid and Conan could hear yells and guns being cocked. Hattori let out a yell. "Holy-! Back up, Kudo's gonna-"

"Haven't you taught him better than that, Meitantei?" Kid asked congenially, as relaxed as though they were sharing a calm afternoon tea. Conan smiled back, showing fangs.

"I don't know, some types just never learn." With his shoe charged, Conan reached slowly and steadily up, bringing one wrist in front of his eye, poising the other hand over the trigger of his dart watch.

A quiet _clack-clack_, and the soft ripple of Kid's cape, told Conan that the thief had his card gun - and probably a smoke capsule or three - armed and ready as well.

"Well then," the thief smiled, the completely manic expression made even weirder by his position. "A bit of a stalemate, isn't it?" They were still for a second. Then a cuss and fast motion behind Kid, to the left, made the thief whip his free hand out of the shelter of his cape, making two quick gestures and snapping his fingers. Conan could just barely see past the edge of the cape - there was a lot of pink smoke, a floral scent, and some very alarmed - and colorful - shouting from Hattori.

"Now now, Tantei, haven't you been taught not to interrupt private conversations? I'll be done with our dear chibitantei in a moment, just as soon as he gives me what's _mine_," Kid called, inspiring a fresh wave of cursing from Hattori and several of the officers who were steadily edging closer to the obscured pair. "And officers, if you would be so kind, please back away." In the unsteady shadows behind Kid's cape, Conan's revved kick generator spit sparks across the textured bronze, wirey steel, and smooth amethyst between thief and detective. Sadalsuud, still trapped in her wire prison, threw clear, rich light in thin shards all across both their faces; Conan's from below, and Kid's upside-down features from above. His eyes gleamed bright and manic, riled up by the gem's liquidly eloquent brilliance, as they met Conan's with an impish, flirtatious confidence. "I'd hate to have to gas you all into unconsciousness and nausea. It really does feel like cheating, when I'm reduced to that."

Rainbow shivers of sparks reflected back from Conan's eyes as brilliantly as from the jewel between them as he grinned straight into the other's face, all teeth and confidence. "So don't, then. And it IS a stalemate, isn't it? You can't have this without more trouble than you can handle, and I can't have that without being knocked ou- ah ah ah," he warned the thief as the other opened his mouth to explain blithely just how much trouble he _could_ deal with. "Takagi-keiji had to cut the end of that metal twine with an electric saw; even if I wanted to, I couldn't give it to you. So, stalemate, Kid-san... Sadalsuud's not going anywhere."

The crosshairs of his dart-gun centered a fraction more perfectly. "But _you_ might be soon," said the small detective ominously. His grin widened.

"Ah, tantei, you offer such a hard bargain." Kid shook his head with a crocodile frown. "I don't particularly like your terms." Setting the gun aside on the heel of Buddha's hand where they could both see it, Kid captured Conan's attention with the flick of his wrist, drawing one of his aluminum cards, sharp-edged for shooting or throwing like darts, out of his breast pocket. It was the Ace of Spades, and Kid held it in front of his face, blocking the bare half from Conan's sight, before extending it out until the cold, sharp edge kissed the boy detective's jaw; the card body, held lovingly between two of Kid's gloved knuckles, was angled so as to be nearly invisible. Kid's eyes were indescribable. "May I try a little something?"

The cape swept suddenly away, baring Conan, Kid, and Sadalsuud to the rapt, apprehensive attention of all the police and officers in the room. Even Hattori, who out of the corner of Conan's eye was registering as much more pastel than he had a few minutes prior, crouched still and guarded in front of the altar. He'd grabbed a leg from the broken wooden screen and now held it before him like a bokken; Kid smiled as though he could see the grimace of obstinate determination on Hattori's face, despite that the Osakan detective stood to Kid's back.

The thief lowered himself carefully from the shoulders and head of the statue; his card at Conan's throat ensured that he was the only one in the room who moved. The pint sized detective was grinning ferally back at him the whole time, apparently utterly unafraid of the thief's threat; Kid's mouth turned down in a cute pout as he settled into place right-side up, crouching with both feet on Buddha's wrist, the fingertips of one hand braced on the cool bronze of the buddha's thumb, over his gun. Slowly the card was exchanged for the gun, and with its barrel hovering rather closer to Conan than most of the room (except Kid and Conan) was comfortable with, Kid visually dismissed the detective who still had his tranquelizer watch aimed straight for Kid's head. Looking down between his knees, Kid peered at the wire prison surrounding Sadalsuud with a birdlike curiosity.

"Hmm. I wonder." He reached forward, the Ace now held between his fingertips much like a razor, then paused, looking concerned, and glanced out to the officers and detectives surrounding the scene. "What do you think? Do you think?" He grinned then, an expression that barrelled straight past the lunatic fringe and into true unhingedness. It was a grin of his eyes and his mouth, of teeth and comically raised brows and a werelight deep in his eyes that didn't know what rules _were_, much less which to follow. Kid gave his audience a good dose of that grin, then turned it on Conan, and then on the amethyst between both of their feet.

"Let's get you out of there."

"That won't cut it," Conan laughed. "You're welcome to try, though if you harm the statue or the gem, you know what I'll do."

"Oh, I wasn't about to cut it," Kid said distractedly, leaning to one side to get a better view. One of the lower-ranked officers in the audience peered with him, turning his police-issue flashlight on the spot that Kid was looking at. "Oh, thank you," the thief murmured, smiling as Sadalsuud sparkled in seemingly gleeful response. "Right there."

"You moron!" Another officer yanked the flashlight from the helpful one's hands, clubbing him over the head with it; the light flickered away.

Conan shook his head very slightly, also peering at the side. "You really don't want to do anything to those wires," he admonished the thief cheerfully. "Don't you know anything about what Buddha said? You should 'avoid unwholesome actions.'" There were no visible ends of the wires, though the twisted lump that knotted them together was just within sight if you looked at the correct angle. The ends themselves were hidden beneath the gem itself, somewhere in the statue's lap.

"Very wise, chibi-tantei-kun. Then perhaps I will try _this_..." Flicking his wrist, the thief produced an aqua blue silk square, which he swirled around the card and pinched in place. Insulated this little amount, he slid the card between two of the wires and then another two, carefully and swiftly weaving it between the wires until the bottom edge of the card hovered above Sadalsuud's surface.

The crosshairs never varied from their aim, never shook on Conan's wrist- and he was acutely aware that, this time, he was using it in front of an audience. That was going to require more than a little explanation later on... But for the moment, the moment itself was everything; he couldn't spare thought to worry about anything but the way the sharp-edged card was insinuating itself between the wires. "Wouldn't do that if I were you," he breathed, for Kid's ears only. _"__Really_ wouldn't. Pepper-gas."

The thief's eyebrows raised, and he flicked a glance up to meet Conan's gaze for a brief second. "Oh?" Kid adjusted the angle of his wrist and arm, grin falling from his face as he concentrated. "Is that all?"

He twisted the card sideways, and three (or more) things happened at once.

First, the spray exploded from the statue, spraying upward from its concealment point beneath Sadalsuud. It coated Kid, the statue, and even reached past them toward the front line of the officers (who very quickly put a _lot_ more distance between themselves and the altar).

Second, a shrill metallic wrenching sound was heard, a long series of simultaneous notes that began at the moment the pepper spray exploded and continued a solid five counts into the expansion of the cloud. Then the sound stopped, ending in a dissonantly musical jangle.

And thirdly, as everyone's hands and arms went up to guard their faces from the quickly-spreading cloud, Kid stood up, balancing calmly and carefully on the now much more slick arm of the huge Buddha. In his left hand, the Luckiest of the Lucky, the amethyst Sadalsuud, caught the light from his flares and the officers' flashlights and spat bright crimson-plum spangles across Kid's now-wet suit, the Buddha, the officers, the blood that streamed from Kid's lip and chin, and a small lump, blanketed in bright white fabric, which lay squirming in Buddha's otherwise empty hands.

_Third cost._

From beneath the tangle of white fabric, eyes streaming with the effects of what vapors had made it through, Conan said something extremely inappropriate to being cradled in the Enlightened One's arms. He shoved at the clinging fabric, trying to untangle his way and see what the hell was happening. There were faint scraping noises directly beside him- Kid's feet? And yelps, and anguished swearing, and a continual stream of Osakabin from Heiji that even Nakamori would've been hard-put to match. Takagi and Sato were calling out orders to block the doors (as if that'd do any good) and as Conan got one arm free of the enveloping cloak, he flailed around and by pure luck managed to shoot a single dart in what he hoped was the correct direction.

_thwip!_

"Well, f-" said Heiji quite clearly before lapsing into silence. Wiping at his eyes, Conan silently completed the epithet in his mind and squirmed around, swinging one arm wide. His fingers caught something, a handful of fabric, a fistful of something damp that faintly stung, and he hung on with all his strength.

_You'll be wanting to let go of that now,_ Kid thought, tugging his pant leg free of Conan's grip with one hard yank. There wasn't any more time for playing or performance, not even a spare second for his Tantei's benefit. The thief was on not only one timer but two, both of them counting down fast; either one of them would, unavoidably and instantly, fell him where he stood when they ran out. The challenge now was to get free of the temple and free of his pursuit before they did. So, step one: altitude.

There was little the cloud of pepper gas could do to him that the direct contact from the spray hadn't already, so Kid grabbed a fat fistful of his cape in one hand and tugged hard, feeling Conan's little body rolling like a marble in the cup of the Buddha's hands as he was detangled from the tail ends of the cloth. Without a thought to the detective's wellbeing - he'd protected him with the cape when he could, and now it was up to Shinichi to take care of himself - Kid bolted off the statue, making his way to the wall of the temple's big room. Working solely from the layout in his memory, Kid navigated the margin of the room blind, eyes shut against the gas. He stumbled a few times, but in the general chaos of the room, it didn't matter much. Kid doubted any of the officers could _see_ him, much less successfully apprehend him, and he was moving three or four times faster than any of them anyway.

_Trust the Task Force to pepper-gas __themselves,_ he thought with derision, feeling his way to the wide open window wall with just a few light fingertip touches on the rice paper screens to orient himself. When the cool, sharp air of the evening washed across his face, Kid opened his eyes and blinked back peppery tears, gaining a spatial anchor and a steadying, panic-repressing breath of sharp, wild air. As the chaos behind him resolved itself into a general shout of anger and determination - probably aided by the clearing effects of the breeze coming in through the opened panel - Kid moved to the furthest edge of the covered porch that ringed the temple, clipped his cape to his shoulders, hooked in its pinon bars, and turned to face the room.

"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen...and goodnight."

Kid spun on his toes, laying himself back-first into the sinking embrace of the mountain air, and dove off the porch. Screams followed him, a few of which turned to inappropriately excited yells as he rolled, his wings spread open above him, and his path soared up and over the trees.

_You have my scent, hounds, but this fox will chew his foot off before standing still in your trap. My scent is the scent of free nighttime air. I hope you savor it well._

Kid flew as far and as fast as the glider could carry him, feeling his body succumb by degrees to the twitching, squirming pain from the capsaicin that was soaking through his uniform and onto his skin. The blood on his lip and chin marked the blood vessels that'd been burst open from the direct contact with the liquid; in patches, the skin under Kid's suit was succumbing to the same effects. Small bloody patches bloomed on the white fabric where his skin flexed against it as he steered the glider far away. Kid sailed well out of view of the temple before doubling back around and down, cutting through the trees toward the stream that ran across the valley floor. Several kilometers south of the temple, far enough that Kid felt he could safely expect a delay in pursuit, he keeled the glider into a small grassy clearing and immediately abandoned it, diving into the ice-cold water of the mountain stream.

The water made the pain _worse_ at first, and Kid's vision flickered out for a moment as all the pain he'd been holding back took over. He'd kept it at bay behind the mask of Poker Face and through the self control learned through painful past experience with poorly-mixed test batches of his own gases, but when it came right down to it, most men _screamed_ when directly hit with the stuff.

_Lucky for me I'm not most men,_ Kid thought to himself, trying to zen his way through the waves of pain. Eventually they lessened - and by the position of the moon, Kid could tell it had taken the better part of an hour for them to do so - and he climbed from the river shivering and chattering.

_Warmth next,_ he thought. _Can't believe I'm still moving. Kuroba, did you...?_

_"Yes,"_ a tight voice came back to him. The Magician was clearly distracted. _"Three costs in one night plus the pepper spray? If I'd let the magic cost hit you when it wanted to, we would be floating face down in that stream right now. Get us somewhere warm, Fool."_

_Working on it, Magician,_ Kid returned with gratitude. He stripped out of his uniform, leaving it on the streambank, and tucked his monocle into his pocket; in his black skintight underarmor, he collapsed the glider and tucked it under his arm, jogging into the forest in search of an appropriate shelter. Kuroba stood between Kid and the magic cost, holding it back like one might brace a door against a strong wind, and the thief searched for an appropriate foxhole. Against his chest, the twin lumps of Sadalsuud and Sadalmelik thumped reassuringly in time with the pace of his feet.

* * *

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_Hee hee. That's all for this evening! Join us next week, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel, when we present _**_Book Four, Chapter Three: "safe, weapon, masks". _**_ Have a good week, all! _


	36. safe, weapon, masks

___Evening, all! Welcome to Book Four, Chapter Three, and the direct continuation of last week's chapter; we're also about to move into the next phase of our storyline, one in which things will take a darker turn. However, before they do, we have a nice little bit of froth for amusement's sake- costumes and intrigue and a bit of who's who, just for fun. We hope you enjoy it!_

____

Thanks again for all the comments; they truly are of great value to us, and we're doing our best to answer them all. If we miss you, our apologies- we'll do our best not to. A question for you all: we've been talking about omakes a bit lately, and we're wondering- what kind of things would you like to see in an omake? Suggestions are always welcome; we'd really like to know.

___Enough talking, already. Without further ado, on with the show... The Management  
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____P.S.: Be sure to click on the links; they go some interesting places, and those of you who enjoyed the Twitters ought to be pretty happy.  
P.P.S.: To all the Otacon goers up north, stop by Nightengale Needles and say hi to _ _**nightengale**__ and _ _**ysabet**_

**_._**

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**__****Book Four, Chapter Three****__****: "safe, weapon, masks "  
Warnings: None**_**  
**__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_  
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**As was to be expected at a temple with the oldest tea-field in Japan, the endless cups of tea that the monks served to the exhausted, red-eyed authorities and their civilian adjuncts was excellent. But it wasn't coffee. And right now, Conan craved coffee with all of his detail-obsessed, paranoia-ridden tantei's soul. And he could _smell_ it somewhere; somebody had coffee, he KNEW they had coffee, and the whole world was full of coffeebean-shaped lumps of Unfair.

Not that he was alltogether unhappy with how the evening had gone, even with the pepper-spray. Sitting crosslegged on the porch outside the temple abbot's office, he watched the early sunlight filter through the thin green cloud of spring leaves that veiled the branches overhead and listen to birdsong mingling with Takagi's respectful, crestfallen voice as he related the facts of Kid's most recent theft.

Conan yawned. Not one of them had gotten any sleep afterwards, not even him, and dawn was nearly three hours past.

The abbot was taking it philosophically; that was nice. Not so nice was the more distant, agitated jangle of Nakamori's voice over the radio, held a good arm's length from Ran's ear; she sat a little ways from Conan, grimacing and taking notes with her free hand on a pad in her lap- apparently the Tokyo team had had a far less exciting but much more exasperating time than their Kyoto counterparts. She'd played her part of communications liaison the night before with slightly startling alacrity, though in retrospect it shouldn't have been startling at all; after years of managing her father's records, schedule, calls and business, it had been a relatively easy task. Sipping his tea, Conan watched leaf-shadows flicker across her flushed face and wondered what she was thinking. Was she angry at him for going up against Kid? Angry at Kid? Pissed off at them both for being masochistic idiots, maybe? What was it that troubled her, made her eyes grow narrow, made her expression sharpen as she ended the call and smacked down her notepad and pen onto the hard wood of the porch?

"COFFEE. _I. Smell. Coffee._ Where?" Mutely Conan pointed at his own cup and shook his head; his girlfriend blew out her breath in frustration and leaned against a post, eyes closing.

The temple was recovering from the night's excitement with amazing speed; monks seemed to be everywhere, helping the police to coil extension-cords and move lighting units down to the vans that waited below the hill. Photos of the damage inside Kon-do had already been taken along with prints, measurements and all the other minutiae dear to the hearts of police casefiles everywhere; now, three somewhat distressed monks were busy giving the Buddha a bath. The damage had been quite minimal: one broken wooden screen (repairable), several scuffs on floor, walls and broad bronze shoulders (cleanable), and a couple of damaged portable halogen lights (within budget.) Injuries had been primarily to pride; bruises would heal, bloody noses received due to fellow combatents' elbows and shoulders were already done with, and the only thing requiring a bandage had been when one of the Kyoto cops had stumbled backwards through a paper screen and gotten a gash to his forehead.

Of course, nobody seemed to be wondering how _Kid_ was doing, except for Conan and Ran.

"They said that the gem in Tokyo just disappeared," said Ran softly, her voice blending in with the birdcalls. Her eyes were still closed and mothwings of exhaustion shadowed beneath them. "Just- disappeared. That Kid was there, that he held out his hand and it just... went away."

"That was... his brother, probably," murmured Conan to his tea very, _very_ quietly. "I saw him do some pretty improbable things that night at the Ghibli." He'd told her about the evening, though he'd touched only lightly on the indescribable thing (even now, his mind kept stuttering when it tried to say 'magic') that the magician had shown him. "You'll need to ask him. Ran? Are you... upset?"

She drew in a breath, fingers tightening on the cellphone that she still held. "I was. And then, this morning I watched you for a while... and I stopped, mostly. Because if you were more worried, then- but you're not. I'd like to know why, though. Can you tell me?- here, let's go for a walk, okay?"

"Just a minute; I want to get a few things first." Climbing tiredly to his feet, Conan reached up to knock on the office doorframe just as the screen slid sideways.

He blinked up into Takagi's startled face; behind him the Abbot himself loomed, a tall, thin monk with an expression that had reached professional compassion years past and stopped there permanently. Both monk and detective looked as tired as Conan himself felt, but beneath the weariness the boy was glad to see a spark of satisfaction in the set of Takagi's eyes and mouth. Takagi and Sato's team might not have won, but they had given 1412 one hell of a fight. Forcing a smile from somewhere, Conan held up his cup. "Um- Takagi-keiji? Is there any more-"

He stopped. _The abbot was cradling a cup of coffee in his hands._ From her place on the porch, Ran made a small, predatory sound.

"There's a thermos in the office if you'd like a little," said the monk mildly, raising an eyebrow at his immediate, fixated stare; it was kind of hard to miss. "And some onigiri. In fact, why don't you and the young lady" (he nodded past Conan towards Ran, who had risen hastily to her feet) "find yourselves someplace quiet to rest and refresh yourselves? Takagi-keiji her tells me that you both had quite an evening." His old eyes twinkled.

"Uh. Arigato-" Edging past, Conan watched the two make their way down the steps with eyes that he didn't have to force into childish wideness. "You drink coffee?" he blurted out. "I thought... I mean, historic tea-field and... everything..."

Without turning around, the Abbot murmured "Ah. Self-discipline is the most difficult of virtues to acquire, but one that brings many rewards to the spirit. I have disciplined myself to drink and enjoy coffee; it is an- acquired taste." He gathered his robes around him, sailing serenely along with Takagi trailing behind. "Creamer and sugar are in the second drawer below the pot."

* * *

Birdsong woke them. In their makeshift den, tucked into a cradle of curving roots beneath a tall pine, Kid and Kaito woke together, several hours after dawn. As safe as he could get from the capsaicin, Kid had finally taken the full force of the night's magic cost like a battering ram to the chest, and lapsed into unconsciousness so deep that not the cold of the night nor the natural paranoia of a thief guarding his treasure stood a chance against it. He woke clammy and damp, sore in all the wrong places, disoriented and groggy.

_Fine gentleman thief I make,_ Kid thought to himself grumpily, disgusted in general with his situation.

_"You got the jewels,"_ Kaito commented. _"Though we should really go back to the stream and dispose of the suit, or at least put it somewhere further from our hiding place. Or vice versa. Leaving it there is rather sloppy of us."_

"In case you hadn't noticed," Kid grumbled, rolling to the side and pawing around on the dirt floor beneath his ribcage, "We were a little- ack- rushed. How the hell did I sleep laying on_this?_"

Kaito eyed the large spiny pinecone with distaste. _I have no idea._ He waved a mental hand, dismissing the cone, and Kid chucked it away from their foxhole. _Regardless, we need to figure out exactly how mobile we are, and get the hell out of dodge. If we're not back in school, people are going to wonder. And with the chibitantei here, even two miles upstream isn't far enough away._

"Yes... my little terrier," Kid said vaguely. Kaito sighed as his counterpart's attention slid sideways, distracted. "I hope he's alright. The cape... should have stopped... most of... it."

_Kid, you're fading,_ Kaito said, worried, as the thief's head dropped to rest on an uncomfortable but conveniently placed root. _Kid?_

"Just...need more sleep," Kid murmured, eyes sliding shut. Still recovering from the magic toll and the pain of the pepper spray, the pair's body demanded more rest whether its owners wanted that or not. As sleep claimed them both, Kaito tried to set up a minimal spatial alertness, like a mental security fence, to wake them in case of passer-by; but the body had no strength to do so, and descended into full, complete, and deep slumber.

* * *

"...so you're both really okay with, with..." Ran scowled at the leaf-litter underfoot, still trying to wrangle the 'working' relationship that Kid and Shinichi had managed to create between them into some sort of sense. It was difficult going for the daughter of a former cop and a current detective; she wasn't precisely having trouble with the lawbreaking aspect of the situation- it was her common sense that was giving her fits. Understanding that the two not only intended to keep up an adversarial stance towards each other during heists but _actively enjoyed doing so_ was making her head hurt.

"Look," said the boy at her side with a sigh, adjusting the hang of his backpack as he ducked under a branch. "You go to karate competitions intending to beat the crap out of your opponents, right?"

"We do NOT beat the crap out of each other. We score points on properly-executed blows."

"-whatever. You duke it out, scores get tallied up, the most skilled person wins, no hard feelings. It's a little like that, only..."

"...only the loser in a karate-match doesn't go to jail!"

He shot her an amused, understanding look. "You're more afraid of my winning than my losing, aren't you?" Ran froze in her tracks for a second, appalled. "It's okay, it's okay, I get it- and I'm not mad or anything. Look," and Conan- Shinichi, really; he was finding it hard to stay 'Conan' just now- sighed, shoving a hand through his hair and making it stand on end. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Heiji: One, if he gets caught he's not likely to STAY caught, and two, win or lose doesn't matter so much so long as one of us wins. And by that I mean no irreparable damage to life, limb or property, mine or his or anybody else's that's involved. Outside the heists is still outside the heists- except," and Shinichi flushed a little, a little smile quirking one corner of his mouth, "I kind of expect he'll want to talk shop."

_"You_ do," she retorted, shoulders relaxing just a bit despite the doubt still remaining in her eyes. "Mister Sherlock Holmes Freak."

"Yeah, well..."

They walked on a little further, each munching on an onigiri. Shinichi had shamelessly appropriated the half-dozen remaining riceballs and the coffee as well as the backpack he'd left in the office upon their arrival the night before; now he glanced sideways towards Ran's face as he licked his fingers. "Ran? What're you thinking about?"

She glanced down at him, one hand involuntarily smoothing his hair back into place. "You. Him. About how last night I had to sit in that pokey little office and, and play Telephone with Nakamori- did you know he bit his pipestem in half?- while _you and Kid_ were playing leapfrog all over that statue. All I could do was follow along and hope nobody got hurt... and I, I..." (she bit her lip) "...kept thinking that..."'

"What?"

Her voice dropped; so did her gaze, and pink tinged her cheeks. "Next time," she whispered. "I decided that next time we're together, after you change again, I'm going to find every scrape and bruise the two of you got during that damned heist, and I'm going to kiss them until they stop hurting. ALL of them. E-everywhere. Even if it takes all night." The pink deepened, and Shinichi lost whatever response he had been about to make for a few minutes as relief and a tide of warmth swept away the wincing feeling he'd had in his heart.

"I'll hold you to that," he murmured, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the palm; in his current shape, that was the best Shinichi could do. "I- wait."

"What?" Alarmed, she looked up; they'd gone downslope and along the river quite a good ways, perhaps a kilometer and a half. "He's... I think he's nearby," Shinichi said slowly, listening to the tiny, insistent voice inside his head that whispered _Kid!Here_ so faintly that he almost couldn't hear it. "Somewhere not too far away." The boy hesitated. "Listen, Ran? Do you mind going on back without me? Please?" he asked at her muleish look. "I know you want to see him too, but he's going to be paranoid and touchy and... if you're still working things through, that won't help."

She kicked at the dirt, looking very much like a much younger Ran; her bottom lip stuck out. "..."

"Please?" Shinichi put as much pleading behind the word as he could; things between them were still so new, still so fragile, that stress and fear might be more than the new bonds could take. "I'll- give him your love. Okay?"

"...okay." Ran sighed. "I guess you're right, but- I wish you weren't. Don't be long, Shinichi." Kneeling, she pressed a brief kiss to Shinichi's forehead and then hurried back up the trail towards the monastery as if afraid her own heart might turn her feet around.

Left alone, Shinichi closed his eyes and stood very still, not so much thinking as attempting _not_ to think. The peculiar something that told him that Kid was nearby was like a nudge, a tiny breath of air against his skin, an I'm-here, look-at-me, pay-attention; trying to see it directly was as difficult as focusing on the spots you got in your eyes after staring at the sun too long. But he tried, and the something pulled Shinichi further along the bank and across a shallow stepping-stone river crossing, down a side path and a winding crease between piles of boulders until...

_There he is._ He knew it before he saw him, curled like a wounded fox in the half-circle hollow below a gnarled pine that was probably nearly as old as Priest Myoe's dwelling. The white suit was gone; the black skintight armor/clothing that Shinichi had seen on top of the Ghibli showed oily stains and signs of soaking in muddy water, but looked to be dry now. Kid lay still, so still (for a moment Shinichi felt his heart stagger to a halt, until the thief's ribcage rose in a sleeper's slow rhythm), thin arms wrapped around his knees and face tucked against them; barely daring to breathe, Shinichi approached him a step at a time.

He was pale, face smudged with dirt and fatigue, lower lip and chin blistered with the aftereffects of the pepper-spray. Black eyelashes, absurdly long, lay fanned and spiky in the hollows of his tired eyes, and Shinichi paused in the act of reaching involuntarily to brush a fingertip against his face. Just one, maybe? Just a touch?

_Just one._ He reached out cautiously.

The hand that seized his had moved sluggishly for Kid (though abnormally fast for anyone else); it didn't squeeze, didn't crush, just held on in an unbreakable grip as the eyelashes slowly fluttered, unshuttered and opened. "Hi," said Shinichi quietly. "It's just me. You're still safe."

Dark blue eyes regarded him blurrily, clouded with a haze of profound, utter exhaustion. "...Tantei?"

"Yeah." Carefully he knelt beside the slack body. "Are you okay?" He fished around in his small backpack for the thermos and remaining onigiri. "Here; coffee? And d'you think you could eat-" The sentence was only half-formed before the riceballs were already in the process of being wolfed down. "...err, never mind. I guess you can."

"Mmmf!"

They were nothing more than rice, sesame seeds and nori, but from the way the thief was tearing through them they might as well be ambrosia. "Slow down before you choke," advised the boy, sitting back on his heels. "I put a lot of sugar in the coffee- that ought to help too."

A few minutes later, Kid sat back in his cradle of pine-roots with a sigh; a little of the dragged-out, scraped-too-thin look had faded from his face, and he regarded the small detective seated beside him with utter gratitude. "How did I ever manage without an entourage before this?" he asked whimsically, still exhausted but feeling much revived. "Every internationally famous Phantom Thief needs a chibitantei to follow him around and coddle him post-heist. Better than a screaming fanclub anytime." He rubbed at his eyes. "How did you manage to find me, anyway?"

Shinichi shrugged. "No idea. Don't worry, though; the rest all believe you're halfway across the country by now." He reached for the thermos, taking a long swallow of the remaining coffee before passing it back to Kid and digging something out of his backpack. "Sit still, will you? You need to have that lip and chin tended to."

"You could always kiss them better, Tantei, though I suppose in your current condition that might be a bit less desirable than usual." But Kid sat back, hands loosely clasped around the warmth of the thermos, and watched with slightly fuzzy interest as Shinichi opened the small container of salve he'd brought out. "Is that-"

"Shh. Yeah; it's the stuff Haibara and the Professor make. Now zip it, keep still, and let me tell you how things went after the heist." Shinichi scooped out a fingerful of the salve, leaned forward, and very carefully began to apply it to Kid's lip and chin. His touch was very gentle, and only Kid's eyes moved as the boy spoke.

He talked softly, low-voiced amidst the birdsong and the gurgle of the nearby stream: about the cleanup and the way the monks had scrubbed down their buddha with brushes, buckets and a lot of determination. He talked about the Kyoto forces and Task Force squadmembers griping over endless, tiny cups of tea about schedules and bosses and being stepped on by Phantom Thieves. He told Kid how the Kyoto team had audibly gloated over their more active role in a heist (even one they hadn't managed to prevent) versus the Tokyo team's more passive one; there was a certain caché to battling it out with the notorious 1412. As his fingers stroked the ointment onto the wounds, carefully, gently, Shinichi went on to tell the thief about the Abbot and his coffee, about Nakamori's level-voiced, measured swearing over the radio and about how Ran had sent him her love.

And all the while, Kid sat silent and patient, his amusement and interest showing only in his eyes as Shinichi applied the last of the salve.

"...there. How does that feel?" said the boy quietly, small hand dropping as he sat back again; it wanted to linger, but- _Not now, Kudo. Not now. Grow up first, then-_ He smiled wryly at his own thoughts. "Better?"

"_Much,_" Kid said, and meant every inch of the inflection he loaded into the word. "I'll admit it freely, Tantei, I was very afraid I'd broken The Rule."

Shinichi was silent for a second. "'No-one gets hurt'?" he quoted softly. "No. The pepper gas'd dissipated before it got very far- that was Sato-san's idea, by the way, the wire was mine- and the rest was just minor knocking around. A few people got black eyes, but nobody even needed more than a band-aid or two." He grinned, just a little, eyes fond. "I think Heiji impressed a few Taskforce members with his vocabulary, though."

"Sato? Mm, I should have guessed. It's more of a necessary tool for women, though I can't imagine why Sato-san would have thought it would _stop_ me..." He shrugged, too tired to pull off one of his full-body manic grins, and settled for a soft smile. "You know, I left last night not feeling like I'd won at all, but now I'm downright nearly smug. Just need another week's worth of sleep, and I'll be ready to cackle madly in victory over all of you. How did Hattori like his new outfit, anyway?"

Shinichi shook his head, somewhere just past bemusement but not into full laughter. "I would like to know _how_ you...do they even MAKE frilly...stuff... like that normally, or did you have it special made?" Kid tapped one finger to his nose, summoning the ghost of a smirk, and Shinichi smiled. "I know, I know. I'm not asking you to reveal your secrets - or your magician's, for that matter - but maybe just your seamstress's? When I said 'little' and 'harmless,' I didn't think you were going to interpret that as 'put Hattori in a frilly pink dress and apron.' Should I feel lucky you didn't turn his hat pink?"

"I think _I_ should feel lucky," Kid giggled. "Though, I didn't touch him or harm him physically, I didn't tie him up, keep him out of the heist, drug him, bludgeon him, teleport him, or strip him naked. I think a pink dress is quite harmless, all things considered."

Shinichi sort of stared. "Teleport? You could _do_- No, no, I am not daring you to prove it." He held up both hands, a surrender type gesture. "After last night, I have to wonder what your brother _can't_ do."

"Rule number one! I can't kill anybody." Kid made a slicing gesture across his neck with one finger, grinning. "So don't ask. Rule two: I can't make anyone fall in love with anyone else." The thief's grin turned familiar and warm, his eyes softening. "Not that I ended up having to." Then the soft moment was gone, and he put on a goofy, shambling voice. "Rule three: I can't bring people back from the deeeeead. It's not a pretty picture. I don't like doing it!"

Shinichi stared at the thief in thorough confusion. "I...suspect I'm not getting something, here. But -" He held up one finger. "I appreciate you going easy on Heiji. ...For certain values of 'easy'." Kid beamed, utterly unrepentant, and Shinichi's level glare sprung a leak and deflated into a slump-shouldered grin of exasperated fondness. "And Ran had a promise for you - for us, really." Shinichi told the thief what their girlfriend had said, relating the hesitance and firmness that she'd delivered them with. When he'd finished, Kid sat back in his little hollow, whistling low.

"She promises a lot," he said, a chocolate tone layered into the bottom of his voice that made Shinichi wish _hard_ for his old body, and for the low clench of anticipation that Kid's voice would have inspired. He had his mouth open to respond when the thief continued.

"There's a lot of bruises, though. Maybe we should mark them with Sharpie so she doesn't miss the ones that fade first?"

"..."

Kid's grin widened, showing more energy than he had possessed only a few minutes prior. The coffee and food was clearly having an effect on him, and the degree to which the thief was recovered seemed to be increasing exponentially with each passing minute.

"You know you're thinking about it," Kid laughed, seeing Shinichi's face. "Except Sharpie tastes so horrible. Maybe body paint? Or we could draw out a little diagram?"

"If we're doing that," Shinichi muttered darkly, "I think I'll be adding some extra spots in, too."

"Make sure I get to see your map before you give it to Ran," Kid said, leaning close. "I have a bit of a wishlist of my own." With a kiss to Shinichi's cheek, the thief pulled back, curling back into his foxhole with a satisfied sigh and a smile.

"Think I've got another hour or so before they send the dogs out this far?" he asked, frowning as he sought a comfortable position to rest his head. "The sun's so good for my poor back."

"Probably," Shinichi said, "Though I'd be careful anyway. Where's the..." He broke off, not sure where the boundaries of confidence lay, so close after a heist.

Kid waved one hand sleepily, already beginning to doze off. "Got rid of the suit. Left nothin' behind. S'okay...M'careful."

Shinichi smiled, this time giving in to his urge to stroke hair back from Kid's forehead. He had to lean forward at a crazy angle to do it, bracing himself against the roots of the tree so his short arms could reach far enough in, but his heart unwound a few inches when the skin of his fingers kissed Kid's cheek.

The thief smiled, burrowing deeper into his hole; Shinichi brushed a few leaves and needles free from the roots above Kid, letting them fall across the thief's body and legs. "Good job last night," he murmured quietly.

"You too, Tantei," Kid sighed, reaching up to briefly take and squeeze Shinichi's hand. "Haven't fought that hard...in a long time."

Shinichi smiled, pushing away from the foxhole and gathering up his thermos, onigiri cloths, and backpack. He walked away without looking back, trusting in the thief's instincts to protect his sleep, and returned to the path along the stream, following it back the way he'd come, toward the temple.

* * *

The trip back, despite everyone's exaustion, was rather noisy for the first hour or two. Takagi and Sato spent the majority of the time rehashing the heist from their perspective (it was beginning to amuse Conan just how many perspectives he was getting), and the two argued over every step of the entire thing from end to end. He heard the phrase 'Next time we'll do blahblahblah differently' over and over, and it never failed to make him grin secretly inside; Kid, of course, would be doing things differently too.

Not that this would keep him from adapting his own defenses... Despite all his calm matter-of-factness about wins and losses, it _still_ smarted just a bit that Kid had walked (or flown) away with BOTH gems. Just a bit.

The conversation ranged from griping over having too few men and too little equipment (the lion's share had stayed in Tokyo) to appreciative comments about Nakamori's riot-gear. Sato was occasionally a bit of a gadget-freak, and it was her opinion that sufficient night-vision goggles should have been commandeered for every member of the squad ("What else are those helmets for? If they'd do something to them besides install voice communication, maybe set up some sort of monocular infrared...") She'd glanced back at Conan then, very casually, her eyes examining not his face but his glasses; he had yawned and leaned against Ran, who had already slipped into a doze.

"I wish I knew how he managed that long-distance thing, though," muttered Takagi. "It had to be a fake, of course. Sadalmelik _did_ vanish, but... no. He had an accomplice, of course, probably the same one who piloted that helicopter during that whole 'mid-air walk' fiasco."

_I'm sure he did; but that's not the half of it,_ thought Conan silently. "Maybe it was magic," he murmured, his little-boy voice earnest; Takagi laughed nervously.

All was silent for a while, then, the roads between Kyoto and Tokyo unrolling endlessly beneath their wheels. Drifting half-asleep, Conan's thoughts wound painlessly backwards, retracing the morning's events after he'd returned from the riverside...

* * *

_Heiji'd been waiting, leaning nonchalantly against a wooden trail-railing; he'd expected Ran, but the Osakajin had jerked his chin towards the doujo a little further along the path. "Neesan wanted to see some of the rest'a the place before you headed out," he said quietly, his tired face relaxed and remarkably cheerful despite the night's loss. "Told her I'd wait here for you. You, uh... take care of whatever needed taking care of? -wait, don't tell me. Plausible deniability, all that crap." Conan had merely chuckled and scooted his small butt up onto the same railing._

__

For a few minutes the two had merely sat there, companionably staring out at the slope of forest and sky; then Conan eyed Heiji sideways. "So- what'd it feel like, getting stuffed into a pink frilly dress and apron mid-heist?" he asked with a little grin. "I have to know."

"Like getting pantsed, only backwards," deadpanned Hattori- and then broke up, laughing at himself. "Damned if I can figure how the bastard did it, but I guess I got off light, yeah? Coulda been worse."

"Could've been dressed as a showgirl instead."

"Or put in a dog-suit."

"Or a straight-jacket."

"Or a fundoshi."

"Or nothing at all."

"Aack."

"Yeah, well, he'd think it was pretty funny. So count your blessings, Hattori." Conan slid off the railing, hoisting his backpack onto one shoulder. "Hey- you said something about coming down to visit. Any idea when?" The Detective of the West joined him, and they started along the path towards the doujo.

"Dunno. Maybe in a few weeks? What kind've schedule're you on, with the..." Heiji thumbed towards Conan's hip.

"The full cycle runs every two weeks. Haibara set it up so I'll begin changing back on every other Friday afternoon, just like clockwork; I'll miss the worst of it, or so I'm told- there's some pretty powerful sedatives involved. Then I'll get about sixty hours... give or take a few. And then back to 'normal' again. If it works like it ought to, my body should start accepting the altered state as a norm eventually- she has a few ideas about stretching out the time." Conan kicked at a pinecone, eyes thoughtful. "That's the good side, the best bits; the bad side is that I can't show my face while I'm me, because if the wrong person saw it..."

"Mmmmyeah, I can see that. So- maybe you oughtta go someplace where nobody knows you." Hattori watched a cluster of monks hurry by, waving to one of them; he liked monks.

"Huh. Where?"

"No idea. But when you figure one out, lemmee know, okay, Kudo?" His friend's green eyes gleamed as he grinned. "If you can get into this much trouble as a chibi, I can't wait to see what kinda craziness'll happen around you full-sized. So keep me in the loop, willya?"

_"Deal."_

* * *

They were roughly a half-hour out of Tokyo when they pulled over at a public rest area. "Sato-san? Mouri-san? Would you mind waiting here for a minute?" asked Takagi with his usual politeness; "I need to talk to Conan-kun for a few minutes." His face was as good-natured as ever, but there was, Conan thought with mounting paranoia, a certain determination in his eyes that did not bode well. Ran eyed him nervously as the detective made a bit of a display of removing his wallet, badge and Occurrence Book from his pockets and laying them on the dashboard; Sato-san, however, merely nodded, eyes hooded.

They didn't go far; there were benches off to one side of the small complex of buildings and parking-lots, and Takagi chose the furthest one. "Sit down, Conan-kun," he said quietly. "We need to have a talk."

"Uhh- is there something wrong, Takagi-keiji?" _And I'll just stay right here on my own two feet, thanks a lot..._

The officer stared him down; for once, he wasn't smiling. "Just a little something we need to have cleared up. Could I see your watch, Conan-kun?"

"..." Mutely, he handed it over, wondering just what to say. Refusing was stupid; he'd expected this, after all.

Careful fingers used to examining evidence at crime-scenes turned the small timepiece over, a fingernail sliding along the edge of the cover. _Pop!_ Up came the clear plastic, crosshairs clearly visible; Takagi squinted along them, holding the watch draped across his own wrist in excellent imitation of what he'd seen the night before. "I'm not going to ask what this fires," he said slowly, turning it carefully around so that the tiny aperture below the crosshairs faced away from either of them, "because clearly it can't fire anything. Right, Conan-kun?" There was an edge to his voice. "It's a toy. And you were using it last night to bluff with. Because if it _could_ fire anything, it wouldn't be a toy, it'd be a weapon. And weapons don't belong in the hands of gradeschool kids, no matter how bright they are." Never mind an edge, that was a full-sized katana in full draw right there... As pleasant and easy-going as Takagi Wataru could be, even he had his limits.

_"Right,_ Conan-kun?"

OH. "Uh. Right, Takagi-keiji."

"That's good to know. So," (and Takagi placed the watch in his hands as if there was nothing odd going on at all) "you'll take good care of your toy and won't let any of the other kids get their hands on it, hmm? Or anything like it." Dark and very, very intent, the officer's eyes fixed on his. "Promise me that."

"I promise, Takagi-keiji."

"Good." Takagi gave him a slightly shaky smile, standing up and brushing at his pants-legs. "Thank you for showing me your toy, Conan-kun. Let's head on back now."

"...okay."

Back at the car, Ran looked at him with perplexity and the first stirrings of panic. "Conan-kun? Is everything all right?" He merely nodded and leaned against her, wordless; her arm came around his shoulders at that, and she hugged him until he stopped shaking.

The rest of their return was spent in silence.

* * *

"I have to tell them, Ran," Shinichi was saying, talking over Ran as she tried to talk over him; the only time either of them could clearly hear the other was when one of them stopped for a breath. "Takagi-keiji is going to try to protect Conan like he's a child, and get himself in danger for my sake-"

"Shinichi, he's a police-"

"_More_ danger, I mean, danger that he doesn't need to put himself in if he knew that I was fully capable of-"

"-a _civilian_-"

"-the _cause_ of all of this, Ran, and the cause of much more damage to Takagi-keiji and Sato-san and everyone _around_ me if-"

"-like a gun, Shinichi. It looked like a seven-year-old with a _gun_ aimed at _Kid_ and you're wondering why Takagi-keiji was upset? Or me?"

"-told you already, Kid and I-"

"-doesn't have any way to know that, does he?"

"That just proves my point, Ran!" Shinichi, arms thrown wide in exasperation, stopped his pacing to face his girlfriend squarely, with a truly frustrated pall to his expression. "I have to tell Division One - for their safety, if for no other reason. I'm too involved with them to let them walk around me blindly - especially since they're all looking out for me like surrogate parents or something."

A light, amused cough from the doorway startled the couple out of their anger. Framed in the doorway of Shinichi's bedroom, Kudo Yukiko smiled coyly and tsked at her miniaturized son. "Shin-chan, aren't your father and I enough parents for you? Surely between us, and Conan-kun's parents, and Mouri-tantei, and Megure-keibu and Takagi-keiji and Sato-san and goodness, you have a whole village raising you this time, don't you?"

"And I apparently need it," Shinichi sighed, raking one hand roughly through his hair, making it stand up in spots. It was still wet from his hurried shower; Ran's was similarly damp, though much more neatly brushed, and both of them were about three quarters prepared for the evening's festivities. He shook his head at the two of them, gave Ran a brief smile, and went to finish the last touches on his outfit.

Takagi, Sato, Ran, and Shinichi had arrived back in Tokyo around mid-evening; once they'd let Yuusaku and Yukiko know of their return, Yukiko hurried home from the conference to the Kudo mansion to welcome them and ask all about the heist (_"And when he was hanging upside down like that, did you happen to notice if his pants were tailored properly? Maa maa, Shinichi, don't scold your kaasan. Ran-chan, don't tell me you didn't look even a __little__..."_) while Yuusaku had finished up his evening panels and followed. Now the whole family, Ran included, was dressing up and looking sharp, getting ready for the Chūmoku Raiburai Benefit Gala. A masquerade ball of grand proportions, the high-profile charity event would formally kick off the four-day Tokyo Mystery Writers' Annual Conference, Twelfth Year. And as one of the guests of honor, Yuusaku was invited to bring his family and friends to attend the ball in his company.

A ball, of course, required appropriate dress; this was where Yukiko had come in.

The costumes had been her idea; she'd picked them out, had them ready, and had taken totally shameless advantage of the two travelers' weariness (and, admittedly, Ran's wide-eyed rapture upon seeing what had been chosen for her) upon their arrival. Upon dropping them off, Takagi and Sato, who had only met the elder Kudos peripherally in the past, had been more than a little bemused to see a protesting Conan dragged off by an enthusiastic Yukiko waving a child-sized mask while a somewhat wide-eyed Ran made hasty introductions.

Officially, of course, thought Conan wryly as he adjusted the set of his collar in front of the bathroom mirror, he was attending as the ward of the Kudo family's friend, Mouri Ran; it'd be nice to actually wear his own name on a nametag again someday. Not important, granted, just a tiny detail... but nice. At least his costume wasn't too bad...

...except for the mask. Reluctantly he picked the damned thing up. _Where does Kaasan FIND these things, anyway?_

"Shiiiiiin-chaaaan! We need to get going- are you ready?" _Speak of the devil-_ It wouldn't be so bad, really; in Shinichi's private opinion, the formal tux with its white brocade vest looked pretty damn good on him, even in miniature. He supposed that the mask might even have a certain something, so long as he didn't poke somebody in the eye (or leg) with the beak.

The slip-on yellow fabric feet, however, were going to get mysteriously left behind. "Coming!" Conan yelled back, surreptitiously kicking them beneath the clothes-hamper.

Just to add to the festivities (and his chances of surviving the evening with his mind intact), he' with a certain reprobate who he _knew_ would enjoy the organized chaos of a costumed ball; now, mask in hand, Conan headed back towards the library and wondered a little randomly if this had really been the most intelligent of moves. _Oh hell, why not? It's not like things could get much crazier than seeing Tousan dressed up as the Night Baron, and God alone knows what Kaasan's got planned for herself-_

He opened the Library door. "Okay, okay, I'm r-"

First impression: _Kid had outdone himself._ Conan boggled at the obviously female, distinctly cleavaged, costume-intact-except-for-the-shirt Phantom Thief who stood posed dramatically, long blonde hair flowing down her shoulders, monocle in place and top-hat perched jauntily- **"KAASAN!"** he exclamed in abject horror.

His mother's face fell; pouting, she crossed her arms and hmphed at her son. "Your _father_ thinks it's cute," she muttered.

_Yeah, but __he's__ not sleeping with Kid. Oh My God, talk about mixed signals, is she TRYING to give me an Oedipus complex? That's __so__ wrong-_

And then, still pouting, his mother huffed out of the way towards the door and he saw Ran.

The dress was simple: a flowing sheath, 1930's style, of ice-blue silk; wound around her in drapes and transparant drifts was a swath of... something, he didn't know fabric-names, but it was stiff and gauzy and about as substantial as smoke, embellished with glittering embroideries of snowflakes in silver. Ran's mask was plain satin edged in silver, otherwise unadorned; her hair had also been allowed to lie loose on her shoulders; and perched on her brow was a spiky, delicate coronet of what for all the world looked like ice.

This time he didn't simply gawk; she took his breath away, and only as she raised her chin haughtily and gave him a slow curtsy was he able to find it again. "You look nice," Ran murmured, cheeks burning.

"...Um. So do you..." He was frozen in place; she was just... beautiful. Like ice, only warm; like an onsen he'd visited once in the snow. And all he could do was stand there like an idiot and_stare._

"...Um. Your kaasan says I can keep the dress," Ran managed after a moment, fighting the urge to shuffle her stance. From the doorway, Yukiko _hmmm_-ed approvingly, then bustled away to get something else ready, but Ran cared less about that than the way her boyfriend's eyes kept tracking over her body, from diamond necklace to icy gauze wrap to the way the silk fell straight from her curves, and then straight back up again to repeat the circuit again. The more he looked, the more Ran could feel herself blushing, but it was a good feeling, a proud feeling, and it wasn't one she wanted to interrupt anytime soon.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the choice was taken out of her hands. Yukiko rapped on the doorway twice, making Ran look up quickly, sheepish. "Shin-chan. _Shin_-chan." Yukiko's tone was less impressed when she had to repeat herself a third time. "_Shinichi!_"

The pint-sized detective spun around, suddenly coming back to himself with a cherry-red blush. "Um. Yes?"

"We're leaving in a few minutes and I can't find your penguin feet. Go find those before your father finishes with his things, okay?" She was down the hall and out of earshot again before he could protest; choosing selective hearing over yellow shoe booties, Shinichi turned back to Ran with a smile that was only _kind of_ attempting to look apologetic.

"Wear that. The next time I..." He paused. "Ran, you're so beautiful like this. You deserve to be kissed, right now. Just like this. If I could, right this minute..."

She dimpled at him through her own blushes, looking not at all icy or cold; her eyes were warm, and they looked at him as if what she saw was less of a memory than an anticipation. "I'll keep that in mind," Ran murmured, "for next weekend. I wish..." She didn't have to finish the sentence; they both knew it by heart.

"SHINICHI! TIME TO GO! DID YOU FIND YOUR FEET?" Shinichi jumped.

A hand in a satin glove smoothed his hair, and he looked up into Ran's beautiful eyes; they twinkled as brilliantly as her coronet, and she tugged him to her side. "Let's go before your kaasan finds where you hid them," she murmured; he grinned back, loving her.

Hand in hand, each carrying their masks, the Ice Princess and her Penguin Escort left together for the ball.

* * *

_._

_...and there we go. We hope you enjoyed tonight's presentation. Please join us next week for Book Four, Chapter Four: "contest, fanboys, dance". G'nite!  
_


	37. Contest, fanboys, dance

_Helloooooo, ladies and gentlemen! *skids to a halt in the middle of the stage, panting*_

__

I apologize for posting tonight's update a bit tardily. I was at a party which was supposed to have internet which I could use for posting. The whole internet, however, had been boxed up and sealed, and it had become property of one Mssr Schrodinger, who refused to inform me conclusively of the manner in which I could open said box, or whether I could open it at all.

...ahem. I never claimed to do well with cats. MOVING ON.

It's been a while since I've seen many of you, though not so long for some (waves to the lovely girls from Otakon), and this is for several reasons all of which have to do with fabric and an excess thereof. From henceforward, however, I will be taking over the role of posting for most of the next two months, or at least until Ysabet gets bored and shoves me bodily off the pulpit. Not only do I want to pick up the slack that she's so gamely carried while I've been traveling for work, but I also like talking to you guys, being more than the shadow writer behind the scenes. *cue scary music*

[Happy Birthday starts playing]

...[Nightengale looks at the CD player] ...Huh?

[CD player plays Happy Birthday more insistently]

[Nightengale blinks] OH! Right. Happy Birthday, Linda. This year, we celebrate you becoming old (again). 3

Back to the story.

_[CD player switches to Angels and Airwaves, __Shove__ (__http colon slash slash www dot youtube dot com slash watch?v=m0zhQlQpNQ4) w__hich makes excellent background music for this chapter]_

__

Tonight we've got a lot of Kid, even while he's not onscreen; the guy's good for that. We've got lovely costumes and a bit of friendly idolatry, and even a lovely, romantic kiss goodnight. The beginnings of true love? Perhaps.

_So on we go, and please, leave your comments after the fic. We are __**so very**__ grateful for all the lovely comments we've gotten so far in the last few chapters, and we really hope you guys keep talking to us just as eagerly as you have been. We're getting so many good ideas for the story and for omakes!_

__

I've talked too long. Here, without further authorial preamble, is your weekly dose of Three Thieves.

.

* * *

_**Book Four, Chapter Four**__**: "contest, fanboys, dance"**_  
by **ysabet** and **rednightengale**

.

The Twelfth Annual Tokyo Mystery Writers' Conference was taking place at the Tokyo Big Sight, of course, the enormous convention center opened in 1996 (coincidentally by Suzuki Sonoko's great-uncle the former governor of Tokyo, casually referred to by her as 'Shu-ojisama, really, he's just a big softy'.) The grand opening ball itself was being held in a glass-ceilinged and quite enormous convention room atop the Conference Tower, eight stories up. While the convention was large enough to take up a respectable amount of space in the center, it wasn't nearly large enough to take up the entire thing; and therefore the fact that the event was sharing the center with no less than seven other conventions including the Bi-Annual International Welding Show, the Japanese Regional Baptist/Methodist/Lutheran Ministry and the International Security and Spyware Extravaganza.

_Got to make sure I check THAT one out,_ Shinichi thought to himself, intrigued, as they passed the main convention schedule flatscreen. _With company. __That__ ought to be interesting... talk about viewing it from two differing viewpoints- wait, actually we'd probably be looking at them from kind of the same one. Only in my case, I'd be figuring out how other people would bypass a security system and in his he'd be working it out for himself._

The elevator up was crowded but very fast- a good thing, since Shinichi privately hated the things. Standing in the middle of a group of adults in a small, enclosed room was very like being stuck at the bottom of a well and tended to induce claustrophobia. When the doors to the 8th floor slid open, he was the first out.

A few minutes later... "Sh- Conan-kun? Time to put your mask on," said Ran from beside him as the smiling TCC official handed him his name-tag (which, much to his dismay, read _PENGI-SAMA_.) He looked up from the name-tag into her eyes, mysterious and glittering behind the satin mask, and pointed at the label in silent indignation. "Sorry; that was your kaasan," she apologized, though her lips twitched in amusement. "I would've written 'Property Of The Ice Princess' myself."

"And that's supposed to be better?" he sputtered. The look she gave him, however, warmed him to his toes, and Shinichi mentally agreed that there were definitely worse things to be than under his girlfriend's personal ownership. Or timeshare, come to think of it...

Yuusaku and Yukiko were busy getting themselves and their guests signed in; while they were busy, Shinichi hooked his mask over his ears and fiddled with it. "Ran? Check my last few texts, will you?" The boy passed over his cellphone and watched as his girlfriend's face went through a number of shifts and changes as she scrolled down the texts.

After a moment she looked up, eyes shining. "First one to find him wins..."

"Wins what?"

She tilted her head mischievously. "Whatever they want from the one who doesn't win, with a pay-date of, oh, next Saturday."

_!_ "That's a pretty hefty prize, Miss Ice-Princess."

Ran's little smile widened. "That just makes it that much more fun, doesn't it, Pengi-sama?" She smoothed his hair down, tugging at his bangs so they fell over the front of the mask. "So you'll just have to do your best to outwit me, and we'll both have to do our best to outwit _him."_ Her beautiful eyes gleamed with anticipation and challenge, and her escort grinned right back at her.

"Oooh, now don't _you_ two look like the cats that shared the canary?" teased Yukiko, coming up beside her son in a swirl of white cape; Yuusaku followed behind, talking animatedly with several other guests dressed as ninjas. "Any more of that and I'll be wondering who's going to be arrested first tonight. Whatever has you both so pleased? Not that you shouldn't be, of course," she continued blithely, monocle charm swinging; "I mean, just _look!"_ The actress gestured with a white glove at the milling crowd as they stepped through the main doors and into the rooftop atrium.

From their position just inside the doors of the atrium, the room spread out wide and terraced before them. First there came a short series of broad stairs which ran the full width of the tripled double doors leading into the room; past that spread the white tile floor, sectioned into regular squares by neatly tended planters containing small trees and bonsai shrubs. People of every shade of importance filled the space, and even the men's clothing was colorful due to the masks, hats and capes that accented their tuxedos and suits to create their costumes. Light spangled off the gems and sequins adorning the ladies' dresses, gems, and masks; it refracted from the fine crystal goblets, filled with champagne and several kinds of wine, held in daintily manicured, gloved, and bejeweled hands. The atrium was filled from edge to edge with examples of wealth and comfortable living; guests of honor and minor celebrities mingled with the general attendees, everyone masked and anonymously equalled.

Into this glittering crowd, Yukiko the girlish "Kid" led her husband the Night Baron, Ran the Ice Princess, and Shinichi the lowly penguin minion. While Yukiko and Yuusaku immediately began to socialize with business contacts and acquaintances, Ran and Shinichi wandered off together, browsing the crowd like others might browse a shopping catalog.

"That one?" Conan pointed at a distinguished elderly woman, adorned with several layers of silks and emeralds.

"Mmm, no," Ran murmured, with a little smirk. "He's too vain to pick a disguise that old for play. If he was working, maybe, but he knows we're looking for him. He'll be pretty tonight."

From behind his mask, Conan eyed Ran with more than a little private astonishment. She was still so very much who she'd always been, but she'd- it was as if she'd been waiting for the chance to bloom, to open her prospects, her mind and her eyes along with her heart. Sometimes in the middle of his own cleverness or the excitement of the moment he forgot this; but it always came back to him. Seeing the girl he'd known from childhood turn her own intellect and clear-eyed perceptions onto something that a year past he would've sworn would have shocked her... shocked _him,_ but in good ways.

_'Pretty tonight.' Yeah, he will be; and I shock myself sometimes too, it's still... all so very new. But Ran? You're pretty tonight too._

She caught him looking up at her and blinked down at him through the eyeholes of her mask. "Mmm? What?"

"Nothing. Let's see- he won't be wearing one of the servant's outfits either, because then he'd be expected to work." The faux gradeschooler tapped one white-gloved finger against his lips. "Huh... nametags. If he can, he'll pull off a hint or a joke or pun on his nametag. And remember, he _did_ ask what color you were wearing; he said he wanted to match it. So there're our first three clues- look for someone attractive, watch the nametags, and keep an eye open for pale blues and whites."

With that in mind, they continued on, moving through the crowd at a leisurely pace. Ran gathered her share of admiring glances (and the occasional invitation to dance) from some of the onlookers; Conan, on the other hand, received numerous laughing compliments on how cute he was, how charming and solemn and well-behaved he was. He acknowledged these gravely and led his 'keeper' on through the hall, never relinquishing his hold on her hand.

"Well, if it isn't little Conan-kun! And Mouri-san, dear! How marvelous to see you both again!"

...Conan blinked rapidly at the figure that was making its way towards them; globe-topped staff in hand, black and lavender wire-stiffened draperies fluttering, it was no less than-

"Is that _Kikoman-sama?"_ whispered Ran; a tremor of silent laughter shook her.

It was. And dressed from the crown of her black-horned headdress to the tips of her trailing, voluminous skirts as Maleficent, the evil queen from Disney's _Sleeping Beauty._ She was painted and rouged, maskless (unless one might consider the truly stupefying amount of cosmetics that turned her face into a stylized image a mask) and unjeweled except for the tiny silver teardrop clasp at her garment's throat, the glittering wedding-band on one scarlet-nailed finger and the gleaming ruby eyes of the stuffed black bird that perched one one shoulder, wings spread ominously. Apparently she had decided that it was appropriate at a mystery writers' gala for someone to represent the villains' side of things.

Kikoman-sama looked Ran up and down with a practiced, approving eye. "Lovely; just lovely, my dear. You'll be breaking hearts from Spring to Fall." She leaned in close. "And where's that young man? Hm?" (Ran's eyes widened for a second, and Conan felt his heart skip a beat in incipient panic—she couldn't know, how _could_ she know about Kid?) "You know, the one who arranged my little affair with the Amber Wing so nicely over the phone—Kudo Shinichi."

_Oh. Whew._

"N-no, Kikoman-sama, he's… still working undercover. You haven't mentioned him to anyone, have you-?" Dismay wrote itself vividly all over Ran's face, but the old woman shook her head.

"Certainly not; as I recall, that was part of the original deal, secrecy in exchange for his assistance." She gave Ran a pat on her gauze-draped shoulder. "It's just that I'd dearly love to meet him; he had such a lovely voice, and… well, it's not as if I'm likely to see the other interesting young man who was involved with the heist, now, am I, dear? Gentleman Thieves only put in appearances on their own schedules, and I seriously doubt that the wishes of an old lady such as myself would mean much to someone with such an enormous fan-following." She chuckled. "He made the _top ten_ Google searches that month," she confided to Ran, leaning in even closer.

Conan couldn't help himself. "You use the internet, Kikoman-sama?" he piped up, taken aback.

Smiling down at him, the old woman tipped his chin up with a fingertip. "Well, of course I do, darling; it has the _best_ reading-material around." Kikoman-sama's dark eyes twinkled. "And a dreadful amount of truly amazing schlock. But one can't spend all night sitting up dreaming of the past, now can one? Not when there are so many of those interesting blog things out there to read." She tapped his beak. "Ta ta now, dears; take care of each other. I'd best be off before Noyen notices that I've escaped his apron-strings again. Be sure to dance a few dances, won't you, Mouri-san? You're only young once, though some of us—" (and she gave them a brilliant, painted smile) "—try very hard to disprove that truism."

And off she went through the crowd, every inch of her a very wicked witch indeed, right down to the diamond buckles on her heeled black slippers.

"...Not her," Shinichi said after a moment, laughter in his voice. Ran looked down at him, curious, and the little detective's mouth curved up in a wry smile. "Kid _is_ that good, but the outfit doesn't match you and Kikoman-sama will be tied up in social obligations all night. He wouldn't have enough time to fool around."

"Mmm, point," Ran nodded. "...Maybe he's repeating a costume tonight?"

"Any particular reason you'd say that?" Shinichi said warily, looking around as much as he could from knee-level. "If he's disguised as you, he'll go six months before I give him even one single-"

"Conan-kun! Ran hissed, scandalized. "Don't say that here!"

"I was just going to say kiss," Shinichi protested, sotto voce. "What did you think I was going to say?"

"Kiss is bad enough!" Ran hissed. "What could you have possibl-_OH._" Eyes wide, she blushed crimson. "Bad penguin minion," Ran scolded Conan, "You're maikng your princess dirty her mind with impure thoughts."

"Because my princess minds having those thoughts so _very_ much," Conan countered, a little flushed himself as his imagination caught up with the _other_ possible end to his aborted threat. Right. That was the sort of distraction that he could very happily stick on the back-burner for a week, and quickly, Conan did so. "-Anyway. What made you think he's repeating a costume?"

"Look at Jirokichi-san," Ran instructed in lieu of answering. Hopping up onto a planter, Conan followed the line of Ran's pointed finger and did just that.

Jirokichi-san, terrifyingly bushy eyebrows and all, was dressed rather startlingly as an 18th century gentleman in a satin coat of the palest blue. A long, curling wig adorned his bald head; his hat was enormous, edged by a fine fluff of feathers, and his imposing moustache had been waxed for the evening and curled at the tips. Ran and Conan gave him a long, thoughtful look._"Could_ be," said Conan eventually, "but... I... mmmmmno, I don't think so. Jirokichi-san's got too many calls on his time too, and besides, unless he's planning on carting Lupin around with him, I kind of doubt it." Ran craned her head, peering past the crowd; and indeed, wagging his tail proudly beside his owner, the rather scruffy little dog was quite present in his own ensemble of feathered hat and satin cloak.

"Drat. Alright then, Mister Detective, _you_ pick one." Ran leaned against the planter, watching bemused as the boy scanned the crowd carefully.

"Let's see..." Unconsciously Conan shoved his penguin mask back; it gave him a vaguely unicornish look with the twenty-centimeter beak pointing straight out from his forehead. "It'd need to be someone who could spend time with us, I'd guess, so- someone relatively unknown or at least a non-celebrity; that rules out most of the famous authors here. Somebody wi- oh. Oh, he _wouldn't."_

"What? What?" Standing on tiptoes to match Conan's field of view (for once), Ran strained her eyes. "What did you see?"

"Uh- one, two... three... four, five... and six, no, that's Kaasan." The boy closed his eyes briefly. "There are no less than SIX 'Kaitou Kids' in view right now."

"No," said Ran firmly. "Too obvious. And too much of a temptation, I think."

"-yeah; think you're right. Okay, your turn again. Want some lemonade, Ran?" A waiter carrying a tray was swinging his orbit towards their direction.

"Please."

Conan swiped a glass of lemonade off the tray as the waiter swept by, nodding perfunctory thanks to the man. A moment before the waiter moved out of view, though, Conan noticed a tiny detail that brought him up short.

"Ne, waiter-san," the boy called out, playing the part of a cute, well-behaved little Penguin-chan. "That's a really pretty tietack."

"Oh, you think so, boyo?" The waiter turned smoothly around, lowering his tray so a young woman could remove a lemonade from it, then came back toward Conan and Ran with a smile. The enamel and silver clover on his light blue tie gleamed as he turned. "Do you know what the four-leaf clover means?"

Ran dimpled at the waiter, interest showing in the angle of her smile. "It's for luck," she said, "That's easy. What about a harder one?"

"Oh?" The waiter cocked his head at her, amiably playing along; still on the planter, Conan caught, and frowned at, the surreptitious glance that the waiter cast over Ran's classy curves. "Maybe I should ask you about a red rose?"

Ran laughed, daintily shielding her mouth with one hand; her hand on Conan's waist was relaxed and loose, reassuring him. "Oh, no, that's much too easy. How about...Hmm. What about a fern? Like one of these?" Ran gestured at the contents of the large planter that Conan stood on; bright, thinly serrated leaves curved in long triangular arcs all around the outer edge of the arrangement. In the center, a bit of bare mulch and attractive creeping violets formed a base around some taller standing flowers and the central tree. Ran stroked the leaf of one of the ferns, including Conan in the conversation with a thoughtful hum.

"What do you think, Pengi-sama? Are these maidenhair or magic ferns?"

Impressed but hiding it, Conan examined the ferns also, coming to the same unsure conclusion as Ran. Maidenhair came in two shapes, one of which was quite close in leaf shape to the magic fern; the odds were good that the planter was filled with a hardy variant of maidenhair, as it would be more suited to easy maintenance than the magic fern.

_It says something about Big Sight that its ferns are so well-misted that they're nearly incandescently green,_ Conan thought. _And something about Ran, that she has, apparently, done some pretty thorough flower meaning research after I told her about the flowers Kid and I exchanged. Ferns...maidenhair or magic, they're definitely an appropriate symbol for her and Kid._

Meanwhile, the waiter was examining the leaves of the ferns beside Ran. "I don't know which type they are, Miss," he said, apologetic, "But I didn't think that plain plants had any sort of meaning. Maybe I could tell you about a lily instead? They stand for feminine beauty...something I think you know a bit about already."

Ran shook her head, shoulders slumping just a fraction. "That's alright, but thank you anyway. Thank you for the lemonade," she said, dismissing him; with a polite bow, he continued on his rounds.

Ran turned to Conan with a disappointed sigh. "I really thought I'd had him that time," she said, pouting a little. "Too bad. Your turn again."

"How do you know it wasn't him?" Conan asked, curious. He was certain as well, but this new deductive trait of Ran's was fascinating to him, and he wanted to hear her explain her path of reasoning in her own words.

With a smile, Ran shrugged one beautiful shoulder. "Other than the clumsy come-ons? He didn't answer my secret message. I named the two kinds of ferns that I picked for him, but he didn't know what I was saying by naming them."

"Tell me?" Conan asked, grinning. "I just want to hear you say it."

Ran swatted at his head lightly, finger to her nose. "Ferns are my secret message with _Kid,_ silly. If you want to hear it so badly, discover it for yourself!" With both hands, she slid Conan's mask back into place, tweaking the beak once she had it arranged. "Let's get back to your parents and see how they're doing. Maybe your kaasan will have an idea about how we can lure him out."

"Would he consider that cheating?" Conan wondered, hopping down from the planter to lead the way once more. "Somehow I don't think he would, if for no other reason but that he absolutely adores my mother."

"I really shouldn't consider that a good thing, knowing him," Ran said. Conan laughed nervously.

"Or _her_." Conan shivered. "Kaasan gets into altogether too much trouble for a civilian."

"Your tousan's nearly as bad," Ran countered, bending down to grin at her boyfriend as they walked. "He encourages her! And gets them both out of trouble after she's gotten them in."

"I don't think either of them plan to grow up, ever," Conan snickered. "Which, I guess, is an ironically fitting heritage for me to have."

Ran pressed her lips together, trying hard not to laugh out loud. "'Grow young with me, Shinichi'?"

The pocket-size detective turned as he walked, looking up into Ran's eyes and squeezing her hand tight. "Of course," he said simply, making a light blush rise on Ran's cheeks. After a moment, he broke the spell with a wry frown, mouth turning down like he'd eaten something sour.

"...Let's not make that a literal promise, okay, Ran? You were cute when you were little but I don't really want to see that again."

Ran nodded, eyes a little wide. "Your Kaasan might adopt me," she said with a little honest fear. "...At least I'd get out of having to give her grandchildren for a while?"

Shinichi snorted. "She'd just be mad that when you finally did, she wouldn't be a hot grandma anymore."

"No way." Ran shook her head. "Knowing your kaasan? She'll be pretty til she dies."

_I know someone else I could say that about,_ Shinichi thought, stealing a glance up at Ran as the crowd's density increased, halting their progress. Several people pushed excitedly past the pair, nearly trampling Conan. He scooted closer to Ran's skirts for protection, looking up at her.

"What's going on? Did something-"

"Shh, it looks fine," Ran said, a quelling hand on his hair as she peered through the crowd as much as she was able. "I don't think it's a bad thing, I think it's just - _oh._ Remember what we were saying about your kaasan?"

Conan suddenly had a headache. "...Do I want to know?"

Ran coughed delicately. "Well, I think she's...oh dear, I think she's taken her jacket off."

"Oh god, Kaasan," Conan sighed, in a very exasperated-Shinichi tone, and took Ran's hand. "Come on."

The pair pushed their way through the crowd, aided by the way that the mass of fanboys and fangirls surrounding Yukiko gave appreciative glances and berth to Ran and her crystal-studded costume; when Ran and Shinichi reached the edge of the clear circle surrounding Yukiko, it was with mixed relief and exasperation. The actress was much as they had left her; red tie, white gloves, white slacks and matching top hat with blue sash; monocle, patent white spike heels. The problem - or advantage, in the crowd's opinion - was that she'd removed her white suit jacket.

As they'd observed earlier, Yukiko wasn't wearing the blue dress shirt that was an integral part of the Kid costume. What they hadn't seen, though, was the low-cut, backless baby blue vestunderneath the jacket which kept her decent and was causing all the commotion. Yukiko was, by nature and profession, a beautiful woman, and so Shinichi could _almost_ not fault the crowd for flocking around her like she was every fanboy's answer to "What could possibly be better than Kaitou Kid?"

Clearly, the answer involved Kaitou Kid plus breasts.

_I cannot believe I just thought that about my __mother,_ Shinichi groused. _She's__ paying for the therapy._

The crowd of excited fans and photographers was growing; Conan took refuge once more atop a cement planter, leaning on Ran's shoulder. Several heads turned briefly at the tableu that they made, and a few flashbulbs went off in their direction as well; below the edges of her mask, Ran's cheeks pinked slightly and she pulled her transparent draperies around her a little closer. Conan grinned. _Kid, whereever you are, I hope you can see Ran right now, 'cause she's beautiful. Of course,_ he added mentally with a smug grin, taking a very quick, delightful glance downwards, _you can't have the view I have... Pity I'm not the right size to do anything about it right now, but Oh Well._ He snuck another look, storing it up for later.

Yuusaku, dark and rather menacing-looking in his Night Baron costume, lingered nearby- but not too near; he seemed to be talking with a knot of identically-uniformed guests, if the mass of navy blue surrounding him was any indication. His slyly-grinning white mask gleamed like a skull; and as the group around him broke up into laughter and then headed towards Kudo Yukiko with an air of definite purpose, he vanished behind the grouping of potted palms that his wife had chosen as a backdrop.

_Wonder what he's up to? Whatever it is I hope it happens soon; Kaasan's having a great time, but she always gets tired of posing for the paraparazzi really quickly; she says they never catch her good side._ It was hard to judge just what the actress would consider to be her bad side, though- even her son had to admit, though very reluctantly, that she looked...

(An onlooker costumed as Sherlock Holmes gave a resounding wolf-whistle; Kudo Yukiko preened, bowing gracefully to the deerstalkered 'detective.')

...well, she looked pretty hot, all things considered. For Kaasan, anyway.

The crowd was growing. Several of the actress' admirers (a number of which seemed to be among the ersatz Phantom Thieves Conan had spotted earlier) made enthusiastic noises, drawing the occasional scowl from the more dignified guests; they seemed to be a little the worse for drink- there were any number of bars near the Big Sight- and when one pushed his way up to the front of the group, a small shoving-match got underway as to who would be the next to have their photo taken with the lovely actress. Yukiko frowned, drawing back just a little; that only seemed to excite the combatants at the front of the group, and argumentative voices were raised loudly enough to carry past the murmur of the crowd.

Ran stirred apprehensively against Conan. "Do they have security at these things?" she asked worriedly. "I'm not sure how well I can kick in this dress, but if we get closer I can- OH!"

With a great deal of loud clamoring and officious voices, the scene against the potted palms was suddenly swarming with policemen- well, not _really_ policemen, but for the purposes of crowd-control and amusement's sake, close enough. Even the struggling figures at the edge of the crowd froze as uniformed cops surrounded the 'Phantom Thief', who blinked in wide-eyed astonishment as one of them declared theatrically: _AHAH, WE HAVE YOU NOW, KAITOU KID!_ and _PREPARE TO SPEND YOUR LIFE BEHIND BARS!_ 'Kid' hammed it up good and proper, dodging their grasping hands and flinging fistfuls of confetti into their faces (produced, Conan suspected, not out of thin air but from her pockets.) At last, though, handcuffs were clamped around her dainty wrists and she was displayed triumphantly as proof of how _LAW AND ORDER CONQUERS ALL! HOORAY!_

The crowd, quite sufficiently sidetracked, cheered in return; the grinning cops bowed, releasing their prisoner so that she could also take a bow. And then-

_**POOF!**_

Clouds of smoke swirled around potted palms and policemen and prisoner, momentarily obscuring everything. There was a swish, a flash of cloak-

(Ran and Conan stared at each other in wild surmise. But- no, the smoke was WHITE, and it was a sad thing indeed when you knew your boyfriend wasn't on the scene by a lack of pink)

-and the Night Baron himself was leering out of the drifts and eddies. 'Kid' made a small "EEP!" noise as she was caught up, handcuffs and all, in an arm and then dropped backwards in a very stylized embrace as the black cloak was raised up to block the view from the delighted crowd, which made the requisite exclamation designed for moments like this:

_**"Oooooooooooooooh!"**_

And then the midnight cloak swept back up, and out, and around, flaring darkly against the smoke; handcuffs mysteriously dangling from one wrist and wrapped in the Night Baron's mantle, the 'Phantom Thief' tipped her hat saucily at the crowd one last time before another burst of smoke obscured them both. Cheers and applause rang out, and when the fog had cleared... there was nothing left save a group of theatrically-puzzled policemen miming their bewilderment for all to see... and potted palm branches, swishing where two bodies had pushed their way through. An exit-door leading out to the observation-deck slammed shut, and one of the Big Sight's employees stepped discreetly in front of it.

Atop his planter, the Kudos' offspring clapped with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the crowd; his parents _deserved_ their ovation, by God- that had been beautifully done. Beside him, Ran cheered wildly.

_They've probably gone outside to neck,_ thought Conan wryly, accepting his girlfriend's help down from the planter. _But what the hell, it's their party too._

"Excuse me." The voice, from just behind Conan's shoulder, was tailored, clipped, and carried a Western accent, lightly British; as he turned to face the speaker, Conan caught himself expecting to see Hakuba Saguru. And when the speaker came into view, Conan had to do a double take.

Dressed in a deep gray three-piece suit, greatcoat, and fedora, the man held a pipe (unlit, because of the convention center's regulations) between his lips, a pocketwatch in his other hand. Around his neck, laid over his purple silk tie, hung an old and battered policemen's occurrence book, labeled in embossed English lettering; a scrap of black fabric, the only untidy part of his whole outfit, was knotted tightly around the cord right above the book's spine. The man sketched a loose bow to Conan and Ran, addressing them both with formality.

"I'm so sorry to bother you two on such a fine evening," he said, gesturing in small circles with the pipe as he spoke. "I just had a small number of questions, you see, and it would be a huge service to me if you could answer them."

Taken a little aback, Ran smiled politely and nodded. "What would you like to ask us about?"

"Ah, the incident that's just occurred tonight, actually," the gentleman said. As Conan observed him, he noted details: the watery, baby-blue shade of his eyes, the makeup that made his cheeks appear more sallow and thin; the bright intelligence in his gaze and movements, much like an old, attentive bird of prey. Conan couldn't place the costume, which was bothering him; though there were dozens of faces he didn't recognize in the atrium tonight, _this_ one he felt that he should.

"What about it, ojiisan?" Conan asked, drawing the man's attention. "You mean with the party?"

"No, no, bocchama," the man said, startling both Ran and Conan with his choice of extremely respectful address.

_Seriously, I should know this guy._ Conan racked his brain, coming up with little more than nothing and the sense that he really didn't have an excuse to be drawing a blank. _Who __is__ he?_

"I wanted to ask you about the Night Baron theft that occurred here tonight," the man said, smiling for the first time. As the serpentine expression spread across the man's face, transforming his expression from polite and respectful to something a bit more sinister and obsessive, it finally clicked.

_"Saito Yukio!"_

The man blinked slowly, making Ran's posture tense in reflexive defense. "Yes, that's me," he said, sounding genuinely puzzled. "You know of me?"

Conan grinned, showing teeth, as he looked up at the gentleman. "Saito Yukio-tantei, the detective who hunts the Night Baron! You began to pursue him after a stray bullet from one of his firefights struck the woman you loved, paralyzing her right hand so she could no longer play piano for you! You had to end your happy life in London, where you lived with your English wife to be near her family, and returned with her to Japan on the Baron's trail. You carry a scrap of his cloak with you always, to remind you of the time you got closest to capturing him."

Saito narrowed his eyes. The distressing smile faded away, replaced by a narrow frown. "Why do you know so much about me, boyo? I don't remember speaking with you before."

"Uh." Conan racked his brain; clearly the party guest, whoever he was, was determined to play the character to the hilt. Conan could appreciate that - it was a _very_ good cosplay - so he scrabbled for an answer that wouldn't force the man to answer out-of-world. "My tousan, he knows a lot about you, and he writes to me about you. He follows your work closely, yours and the Baron's both."

"Your tousan, mm? Who would that be? Ito-keiji, perhaps?"

"Ah, uh, no, he's Kudo Yuu-"

"-saku's friend," Ran cut in, bending down to pat Conan on the head approvingly. Or at least it was supposed to look approving; she put a bit more force than necessary into the second thwap, and Conan hunched his shoulders under the hit without complaining. He _had_ nearly slipped there; either this man was naturally good at eliciting truth from his interviewees, or Conan himself was just getting careless. It wasn't that late in the night yet, but Conan was still high on familial pride from his parents' dramatic playacting only minutes before. And with this man in what was possibly the only _Night Baron_ cosplay in the whole party that was based on a character _other_ than the titular bandit, Shinichi couldn't help but feel proud on behalf of his father's novels for inspiring not only fan approval, but actual cosplay.

..._Wait a second._

Shinichi's brain skidded back around to the starting point, chugging through the details presented to him with methodical deliberation. "...Kid?"

"I'm so sorry, but pardon me, boy? I've not been a child for a long time," Saito smiled, showing that unsettling serpentine twist of lips and teeth again. "Perhaps you may be confused."

_Possibly. Or possibly I'm being fed a line. Let's see who's the better actor here._ "Maybe I am," chirped Conan up at the detective with his own little smile. "There's an awful lot of people here, and everybody's all so dressed up. Sometimes it's hard to tell the people you know from the people you don't." He pointed. "Like that guy over there-" He pointed at Jirokichi-san, who'd wandered over to see what all the fuss was about earlier but gotten sidetracked; now he was talking animatedly with, of all people, Kikoman-sama. "I thought at first because of his costume that maybe he was somebody I knew dressed up as somebody else I knew dressed up like somebody else, but now I don't think so." Beside him, Ran made a faint sound as she caught on. "But it _is_ a costumed ball. What do you think, tantei-san? What would _you_ do if you wanted to figure out somebody's true identity?" The smile broadened, and Conan beamed up innocently into the watery blue eyes. "Hmm?"

"I've been trying to discover the Night Baron's true identity for years, bocchama," Saito said solemnly, a bit of regret tingeing his voice. "My Adeline deserves revenge for the way the Baron ended her reporting career, and took away her piano playing, from which she always drew so much joy; but I've hunted the man across three continents and two decades, and I've yet to capture his mask in my own two hands." He touched the stem of his pipe to his lips as his frown gave way to a thin smile.

"But...I don't think any of these guests are half as skilled at deception or trickery as that nefarious bandit," Saito continued, turning to scan the room deliberately. "You should be able to unmask their lies so much more easily."

(Ran snagged another glass of lemonade as a waiter went by; she settled herself comfortably against the planter with all the air of someone watching a particularly interesting tennis-match.)

Conan followed the detective's gaze. "Bandits are supposed to be good at that sort of thing," he agreed innocently. "But so are writers, and this room's full of them. People who write stories make up things inside their heads and mix them with what's real; and they have to fool a _lot_ of people, don't they? So I think the writers out there-" and he waved a hand- "are much better than bandits at deceiving people. _Much_ better. If they weren't good, Tousan says, they'd have to write nonfiction for a living." He cocked his head to one side. "Tousan also told me that 'a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on', but I'm not sure what he meant by that, Tantei-san."

_So put THAT in your pipe and smoke it (or not), Kid. If that's you, I mean. I'm still not at all sure. If it is, though, that's one amazing disguise; if it isn't, then this guy'll come away wondering what they teach kids at school these days._

"Well, that _does_ sound fascinating," Saito smiled, clearly humoring the bright little child, "And I've had quite the fun time talking with you, little bocchama. But I must continue my hunt...I think I see the Night Baron coming in that door again, so I'm off to have some words with him about his deplorable use of guns in entertainment."

Bemused, the two watched as the fictional detective ambled off in a slow but determined beeline towards the cloaked pair who had just reentered the ballroom. _"Do_ you think it's him?" wondered Ran curiously. "He wasn't very, well, pretty... and he didn't exactly match, and I didn't see anything odd about his nametag. Maybe he's just a really extreme fan- I mean, there're some amazing costumes here, lots of fictional characters." And there were, of course; Brother Cadfael bumped elbows with Father Brown over by the hors d'ouvres, Hercúle Poirot seemed to be having a fascinating conversation with Irene Adler by the main entrance, and out on the dance-floor two Miss Marples were waltzing together. One of them needed badly to shave.

"I...guess," muttered her companion, unwilling to give up on the idea entirely. "Let's keep an eye on him, though, okay? If nothing else, he damn well wins Best Actor Award." He frowned, watching the man intersect with his parents. If 'Saito-tantei' stayed in character, there might be a few sparks flying shortly... Intent on the subject of his scrutiny, Conan was startled a moment later by Ran's giggle. "Huh? What's so funny?"

"Well," she murmured, "don't look now, but Jirokichi-san's hitting on Kikoman-sama."

_"What?"_ Conan craned past the planter to look; sure enough, the record-setter in the fop's costume had managed to procure two wine-flutes of something bubbly for himself and the zaibatsu head; her hand rested lightly on his arm, and Kikoman-sama's wicked dark eyes were sparkling up into Jirokichi-san's as they made their stately way towards a small sitting area to one side of the grand ballroom. "Well, I'll be damned," murmured the boy with a snicker. "Good for them. But she's, hmm, a bit older than him, isn't she? Like what, more than a-"

"-a decade?" Ran grinned down at him, mischief in her eyes. "Maybe she just likes younger men."

"I was going to say _two_ decades," Conan muttered, "But maybe that's just because he's always throwing himself around that I forget he's actually that old. It would fit both of their profiles, too, since neither of them is much interested in acting their age. That doesn't give us any more evidence one way or another toward determining whether Kid is either of them...unless we assume that he wouldn't enter into a prolonged discussion with either of them under the expectation that they'd be trailing him around all evening thereafter, and would impede his stealth..." He was startled out of his musings by a sharp sound from above.

Ran was looking down at him with a disappointed expression, lips pressed together; quickly Shinichi racked his brain. _Yabai! What did I do now?_

"Shi-nii-chiiii," Ran grumbled, sotto voce, "I was _making_ a _joke_."

Joke? He replayed their conversation. _"...a decade...younger men."_ Oh.

Sheepishly, he grinned up at Ran. "I, um."

Abruptly, a smile broke across her face like sunshine, and she reached down to ruffle Conan's hair behind his mask. "Mystery otaku," she said fondly.

"...guilty as charged."

* * *

They spent a lttle time just looking at the dancers, then, both of them with more than a little wistfulness: Conan, because dancing with Ran would be both problematic and embarrassing, and Ran because quite frankly she wanted to dance. "When we find Kid, he owes you a waltz or whatever," griped the boy, staring out at the crowded floor.

"I don't mind all that much," his girlfriend said quietly as they stopped by the hors d'ouvres table. But blue silk dresses were meant to be danced in, and if Conan had his way then... Ran'd get her dance. This was a _party._ She deserved better than to-

"A photo, pretty lady? And little boy? If you don't mind?"

Both penguin-sama and Ice Princess turned, slightly startled. There was a photographer there, one of the professional ones that were currently roaming the ballroom like so many inquisitive Big Game hunters. This particular one was armed with a highly technical camera and a winning smile; freckles dusted his cheeks beneath dark, spiky hair, and his powder-blue U.S. NASA coverall sported various patches and quite a number of space-mission logos. "Uh," said Ran cleverly. "You'd like to take our picture?"

The photographer gestured at the table behind her. "With that kind of backdrop, how could I resist?" The two blinked at him and then turned as one to look at the hors d'ouvres table. And its ice-sculptures.

They'd admired them, of course- who wouldn't? Graceful and more than a meter tall, the flowing shapes could have been flames or waves or merely abstract curves; they were backlit and illuminated from beneath with blue and green LEDs, and as Ran considered them she had to admit that they did indeed make the proper background for her costume. And so the next few moments were spent producing publicity photos for the gala ("I don't know whether or not I can use them," said the photographer, smiling engagingly, "but if I didn't take 'em I can tell you I'd be sorry later." Conan had his own place in the photos, peering warily out from behind his mask past the drape of Ran's skirts. "-perfect! Can you edge a little further out, bozu? Great!"

The photographer snapped one last photo. "And miss, if you could write down your name and phone number here-?" He held out a card and pen, still smiling. Ran took them gingerly, leaning over one corner of the table. "One last thing... a dance, maybe? You'd look awfully pretty out there on the floor," the photographer wheedled.

(Beneath his mask, Conan's eyebrows, already climbing, shot a little higher.)

Ran's answer was admirably smooth, polite but firm. "Perhaps," she said lightly, "But I'd like some flowers first." She spread one hand, indicating the breadth of the large atrium. "There's a ton around here...could you pick one for me? I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Be sneaky about it."

The photographer grinned and bowed briefly before scurrying off; Ran turned to her minion, who was puffed up with indignant offense, and offered him a grin of her own. "It's okay," she said, "You can stop fiddling with your watch now."

"I what? Oh. Ahm." Conan's fingers sprung away from his other wrist, tucking into his pocket self-consciously. "I wasn't gonna dart him," he protested. Ran just raised an eyebrow. "Well. I was thinking about it."

"I don't know if that's him either," Ran admitted, crouching carefully to bring herself down to her boyfriend's level, "But if it is, we'll know soon, won't we?"

"And if not?" Conan asked. "He seemed, um..."

Ran beamed. "I wouldn't dance with him if not, silly." She touched Conan's shoulder, reassuring him. "Unless, maybe that would be a good way to force Kid to cut in?"

Conan snickered. "Best way to bait a thief is give his prize to someone else," he remarked. "You play dirty, Ran."

"No, I'm just impatient," she huffed, elbows on her knees. "Maybe we were wrong in our deductions? Maybe he's _not_ pretty tonight."

"What makes you say that?" Conan asked, curious.

"Well, we assumed he'd want to impress us, right?" Ran tapped her lip with a finger, thinking; her fingernail polish winked in the lights from the ice display. "What if he knew we'd expect that, so he did the opposite? And maybe...well, did he _say_ he'd dress to match me?"

Conan thought about it, recalling the text message clearly. "I think his words were, 'I'd like to dress to match.'"

"Hum. That doesn't work as well," Ran said, frowning. "I was going to say maybe that was a red herring too. But maybe not. The only ones that I really think were a good chance both failed my flower test."

"Maybe we haven't met him yet tonight?" Conan shrugged, as Ran stood up again, stretching her calves with a wince. An extended crouch in heels was kind to nobody's legs, and she tried to be as discreet about it as possible as she alternately flexed each leg, trying to get the blood flowing again.

"No, I think we _have_ to have," Conan said, shaking his head. Something just wasn't clicking right, and his gut was still saying _Saito Yukio_ even though the man had seemed to blandly shake off all his attempts to bait him into conversation. Plus, there hadn't been a scrap of baby blue on the man, save for his eyes. "It's just...it's too late in the night not to have run into him already; he would seek us out to tease us with the disguise, that's how he works. And it's time for dancing now, too. And he has to know that you'd be waiting for him..."

Ran smiled down at her boyfriend, a very little bit of strain in her eyes. "I'm sure we'll find him before long," she said. "If for no other reason except he'll get bored with waiting!"

"Oh?" A rich but carefree voice from just behind Ran's left shoulder made her spin around, looking for its source. On the other side of the narrow hors d'ouvres table, a gentleman in a gray suit, gray fedora, and purple necktie stood with his white-gloved fingertips braced on the table, leaning forward just a bit with an eager grin. His suit jacket was unbuttoned to allow the posture without strain. "Who's the impatient gentleman?"

"I'm sorry," Ran said, a little flustered, "Do I...know..._oh!_ Saito-san, I didn't recognize you!"

"Completely understandable," the man said, with a charming smile, "I did go and take off my face, after all."

Back up on a planter so he could actually participate in the conversation, Conan looked the man over again and realized that the change in appearance had been as simple and as profound as a makeup change: without the sallow coloring and shading on his face, the man's features were much more handsome. His nose was quite pronounced, and he lacked the androgynous appeal that was a hallmark of the Japanese standard of beauty, but for a Westerner, he looked quite charming.

The man stood, walking around the short end of the banquet table to approach Ran. As he did so, the strong blue and green cast of light from the LED's and the obstruction of the long rolling ice sculpture moved off his person, and Ran and Conan's eyes both went wide as he drew near, one hand casually tucked into his pants pocket, his suit jacket open to reveal the brocade vest that he wore.

The _baby-blue_ brocade vest.

"Ki-" Ran had opened her mouth on the exclamation before she thought about it; with a grin, Kid closed the final distance between them in a moment and pressed two fingers to her lips, gently silencing her.

"I'm sorry I made you wait," he purred, dropping the face's Western accent in favor of his own mellifluously charming voice. "But it wouldn't do to ask a lady to dance in an ugly face like _that_. Besides..." He smiled, drawing a small corsage out of his pocket as he flourished his hand. Framed with silver-gilded florists' twigs to match Ran's crown, the corsage featured several small yellow-green fiddlehead fern buds curled on a bed of delicate, bright green fern leaves. Kid leaned in close to pin the corsage to Ran's wrap, careful not to snag the fragile silk of her vintage gown, and patted her shoulder just to the side of it, pulling back to meet the thrilled surprise in her eyes with warm, impish satisfaction in his own.

"I had to fetch you your flowers."

A slow blush crept from under the edges of the mask as Ran's hand crept up to touch the corsage. From beside her, Conan watched, eyes soft. She stroked the curved lines of the ferns, fingertips barely grazing the delicate green. "Thank you," she said almost shyly. A twinge of mischief stole into her eyes. "We thought it might be you, you know."

He grinned. "Oh?"

"Oh yes. And then we thought maybe not, and- wait." She blinked, looking down at Conan in consternation. "Who won?" He stared back, eyes widening. "Uh- We had this bet," she explained to Kid, who leaned back against Conan's planter beside him, hands tucked into his pockets. "The first one to spot you won. Only..."

"...only we didn't spot you. You came up to us, and we weren't certain." Conan crossed his arms, staring mock-sternly up at Kid's disguised face. _"Almost_ certain, though. Almost."

The grin widened. "Reeeeally... so, that would mean only one thing." He tilted his head to one side, peering at them both with warm dark blue eyes that now lacked the wateriness of before. _**"I**_ won, of course. Now, just what did I win?"

Ran and Conan- _Shinichi,_ very much Shinichi- looked at each other, looked at Kid, and then looked back at each other again with dismay in their eyes. "One moment," said Shinichi carefully, and they both stepped back a bit to put their heads together in consultation. Kid merely watched, still grinning.

"...really DID win, since he..."  
"...thought it was him, so we sort of..."  
"...but he..."  
"...suppose..."  
"...I guess..."  
"...and really, you know, it's not like we'll..."  
"! Shinichi!"  
"Well? Am I right or not?"

Dismay had by this point turned into thoughtfulness (and a dash of naughtiness). Two pairs of eyes met once more and then turned back to Kid; Ran stepped in a little closer, drawing him down by his collar to whisper a few words of explanation into his ear. Kid's eyebrows rose, one after the other in a kind of facial semaphore, and his mouth closed over a small sound of intrigue.

"Oh, that sounds _very_ interesting," he hummed, a grin cracking through his nonchalance as Ran puffed up in the beginnings of indignation. Catching her chin in a delicate hold, he tipped her cheek to the side and kissed it, just below the edge of her mask, lacing whispered words into the breath that puffed soft against her skin.

"...don't you think that would be even nicer?" Kid completed the thought at normal volume, straightening up and addressing both Conan and Ran together. Ran, flushed bright crimson, couldn't even nod; Conan looked from Ran to Kid, brows drawing down.

"Hey, you..."

Kid blinked angelically at him. "Yeeeees?"

"You missed her mouth."

As Kid burst into honest laughter, one arm drawing Ran closer to him, and Ran squeaked in further embarrassment, Conan crossed his arms with a satisfied grin.

"In a bit, mm, my Ice Princess? First...I'd like to ask you to dance."

Already a bit closer to Kid than was probably appropriate, Ran nodded, smiling through her blush. "We should probably, um, move away from the hors d'ouvres table anyway," she said, peering around Kid's shoulder. The thief flashed a private grin for her, then mocked alarm, turning theatrically to notice and become flustered by the trio of party guests, standing directly behind him, who had wandered near and stayed to listen in somewhere around the whispering stage of the conversation.

"Oh, don't mind us, young man," one of them said, a matronly looking and distinguished woman in costume as Carroll's Red Queen. On her arm, a short, pale, thin man dressed as the Red King smiled and nodded; he looked a few years older than her, but that could have just been his complexion. The back of Kid's mind worked to classify the man's ailments while the forefront bowed and scraped in appropriately exaggerated apology.

"Really, don't worry yourself," the Queen said again, patting the hand of her King where he held her arm. "We understand getting caught up in the moment!"

"As do most of those here, I'm sure," added their companion, a person whom Kid quickly classified as their close friend based on body language and physical proximity. The third was dressed in a suit and waistcoat, accessorized with a top hat, a mouse tail, and a pair of bunny ears poking out of the satin band of the hat beside the iconic _10/4_ sizing card. He seemed to be portraying the entire Mad Tea Party in one, but fortunately wasn't attempting to act in character. "We're all fans of the absurd, the unlikely, and the fantastic; we're readers! An Ice Princess and her consort...and her, ahm, would you be her penguin aide or conscience, little boy?"

"She's my conscience," Conan piped up cutely, inspiring snickers from Ran. "The food is really good here, waooow!"

"Well, you should get yourself a plate and enjoy some while your onee-san dances with her friend," advised the Red Queen. "Enjoy your dance, dear."

"I will," Ran smiled, curtsying. "Good evening."

"They were an amusing trio," Kid murmured for her ears only, moving away from the table as he guided Ran's hand into the curve of his arm. "Close friends, I suppose. Maybe one of them's related? Cousins? Kissing cousins?"

"Shush and kiss _me,_" Ran whispered back, as they reached the edge of the dance floor. Above, tiny golden and white lights twinkled in a net of starry gauze; around the edge of the floor, which was gently demarcated by regularly spaced potted topiary, various couples edged in or out of the spotlight, laughing quietly or cuddling close as they wandered away in search of somewhere private. A few vivacious pairs danced with abundant energy, spinning and catching in freeform adaptation of ballroom dance. Kid and Ran took the center of the dance floor, and his hands slid gently around her waist, the heel of his hand coming to a gentle stop just above the silk-covered curve of her rump. He guided her into place, stepping carefully to avoid treading on the diaphanous gauze that spilled down from her wrap, hovering stiffly around her feet and the hem of her dress like self-standing window frost.

As Ran's hand rose up to rest on his shoulder, hesitantly, Kid slid his left into her right and raised the gentle clutch of them to position; Ran felt her elbow locking into the proper posture simply from the supple way that Kid bent her wrist, guiding her. Light from above slipped across his white gloves and her bare knuckles; it tangled in and bounced off of the facets in her necklace, reflecting back on his chin and the impossibly tiny emeralds that accented his ear. His hair - his wig's hair - had slid to the side as he turned his head to gauge their surroundings, and the four pinprick emeralds, set on a background of silver, made Ran's breath catch in a tiny, watery laugh.

"Mmm?" The thief turned his attention back to her, fingertips pressing against her body in a vertical line equidistant from her hip and her spine.

"Your - your earring," Ran said, low. "I'd wondered if you'd had any clovers on earlier that we missed."

"I put this on when I changed faces," Kid murmured with a grin, releasing her waist to tuck his hair behind his ear and touch the gems. "Too obvious?"

"Less than I'd expected," Ran answered, smiling. "You surprised us both in a lot of ways tonight."

"Me? Predictable?" Kid chuckled along with Ran, replacing his hand on her hip and pulling her a little closer. Through the thin silk of her dress, Ran could feel the heat of his body in waves, shivering up her skin and making all her hair prickle up. It was a little hard to think; with Kid so close, his breath gentle on her neck and throat, and her gown making her extra-aware of every inch of her body, Ran felt her breath catch; self-conscious, she immediately tried to swallow the sound.

"A-are we just going to stand here, or are we going to dance?" she asked, glad of her mask to hide the nuance of her eyes as she looked at him.

The thief smiled, releasing Ran's hand; he tucked his left hand around her neck gently, tipping her head back with the gentle pressure of his thumb. "We'll dance," he said. A smile flickered across his mouth; in his eyes, the deep lake blue hue shimmered, flickering back and forth between charming and honest. "But I believe you asked me to kiss you, before that."

Ran nodded. "Is...Is Shinichi watching?"

Kid's eyes shifted yet again. "Does it matter? If you don't want..." He stopped as Ran shook her head.

"I just wondered," she said, quietly. "I'm kind of in the habit of always paying attention to where he is. Either size."

Kid chuckled, his own breath a little shallow. "I find myself doing the same. ...May I?"

"Please."

Kid closed his eyes slowly, leaning into the kiss like a feather pillow gently sinking under the weight of a long day. Ran's mouth was soft and small, spit-slicked lips opening to his own, and a delicate jawline slowly moving beneath his fingers. He took a breath, catching much of her own exhale into his own lungs as they kissed, barely parting the surface for air before slipping beneath again. Ran's hand on his shoulder tracked up into the nape of his wig, a gentle hold mindful of his disguise; the grip of her other hand, which had come to rest on his waist, gradually tightened as the seconds ticked by. Kid's fingers flexed against her hip, feeling her warm, firm muscle beneath and pulling her body closer against his own. His heart tightened; she sighed; he licked her lip, tasting the sugar of her gloss. She nipped his lip, startling him, and he jerked her suddenly closer, pressing the kiss tight and firm for a few seconds, his tongue pushing advantage between her parted lips, until he regained control of himself and shifted his hip back, returning a space between their bodies which cool air could fill.

"I..."

"Let's dance," Ran whispered, leading his hand into position, giving him a smile. Head thumping with the beat of blood that wouldn't cool, Kid smiled back, poised his hand against the small of her back, and led into the dance.

* * *

And what did the penguin see?

It was, Shinichi thought from his vantage point half-hidden by yet another potted plant, pretty much the best moment of the evening. Chin propped on his elbows, paper cup of punch at his side and a small plate of some of the more interesting hors d'ouvres to the other, he watched with a little smile as the two moved into the crowd, threading in and out of the other dancers like a glimmer of twilight. Ran's drifts of gauze caught the light now and then in glittering flares of silver. Elusive as smoke, if you knew what to look for it was still possible to see them: two heads bent together, two graceful shapes moving together, leaning one into the other in a kiss.

_...just look at them._

He couldn't put what he was thinking into words, not really. There were just... feelings: _glad_ and _beautiful_ and _good._ And a kind of pit-of-the-stomach sensation of what was very nearly safety, security: the knowledge that, no matter what, the other loved one was in caring hands.

_Both_ loved ones.

It was the simple mathematical truth of three: not only were you able to pair yourself with another, you could watch the others together as well. The dynamics of a tripartite relationship both made it firmer in some ways and still more fragile in others... and yet, and yet, every time they were together, the bonds felt a little stronger. Seeing Ran and Kid together, it did twist the knife just a little- he wasn't a saint, and the longing to be out there was strong- but at the same time, it felt as if they were building a place for him with every moment shared between them.

_And God, just __look__ at them._

Almost as if they could hear, they pulled apart a little and then both straightened just a little, the dance taking hold and shaping their movements: hands clasped together, arms around waists, moving in a slow turn and a half-circle. Chance gave them a little space, a bit of a clearing around them; in flashes and small glimpses, they were clear to their watcher's sight, Ran laughing as she was dipped back on Kid's arm and then brought back upright in a graceful sweep.

Light trailed along the curve of Kid's shoulders, the line of his coat; light edged Ran's gown, the sinuous shape of hip and waist and the drape of her arm across her partner's sleeve. Light caught in her wintry crown, in the drift of gauze that curled around them both as they moved. Shinichi couldn't have said what the music was that they danced to- it was all _one_-two-three_one_-two-three, a waltz tempo beating like a heart.

The music, the rhythm, it moved them across the dancefloor in a series of circles, sometimes within sight and sometimes out: obscured like the moon in shadow, revealed like the moon in full. Silver and pale blue and dove gray, gloved hands and bare hands, heads tilted towards each other. Once, Shinichi caught a glimpse of Kid leaning close, lips tracing Ran's throat just below her ear as he whispered something that made her smile; a purely mental shiver of purely physical memory ran through him, and he stored the moment away to recall at his leisure.

Around and around they went; he watched raptly from his place on the sidelines; and slowly, slowly, Shinichi became aware of another couple on the dancefloor, not so far away at all. Black and white, both hats and his mask abandoned, their cloaks were thrown back and out of the way; with their arms around each other's waists, his parents danced slowly. Yukiko's cheek lay pressed against her husband's collarbone; her husband's rested against the top of her head. The two couples moved together mere meters apart, each in ignorance of the other; they barely needed the music, much less the knowledge that there was anything else in the world around them.

Kid's gloved hand stroked Ran's shining hair as they circled once more; and for a moment, he saw them both simultaneously turn to look for him, look at him. And from his place on the sidelines, Shinichi settled back and smiled to himself with the sure and certain knowledge that sooner or later, like the moon which moves from obscurity into brilliance, he would be there to take his place with them again.

* * *

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_Thank you for reading. Join us next week for Book Four, Chapter Five. Until then~!_


	38. Stormdrain, statistics, suggestion

_Kid, Kaito and Conan saunter into the room wearing related smirks, bearing a birthday cake, and dragging a large giftwrapped something behind them. Nightengale looks pleased._

Nightengale: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME? :D  
Kid: Certainly, dear author-san! Congratulations on surviving yet another year.  
Kaito: Omedetou. Have a dead body.  
Nightengale: Oh. YAY!  
Conan: ...I wasn't anywhere near it this time, dammit.

...Which, I think, is a thorough introduction to this week's chapter.  
What? *innocent smirk* This is _Detective Conan._ I'm quite surprised more of you weren't pawing at us wondering where all the corpses had gone.

.

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**Book Four, Chapter Five****: "Stormdrain, statistics, suggestion"**  
by **ysabet** and **nightengale**.  
_Warnings for this week: a leetle bit of gruesomeness. Don't worry, it's not that bad.  
Yet._

The Kudo house woke early the next morning. Yuusaku settled into his chair at the kitchen table with reading material and a perfect cup of coffee at an hour the rest of the house didn't even dream of; by the time Yukiko wandered downstairs, rubbing at her eyes with gentle fingertips (careful not to bruise the blood vessels!), her son had joined her husband.

Across the table from each other, they were large and small mirrors of each other, each buried in his work. Shinichi had a newspaper spread across the table, folded to keep it out of the way of his father's presentation notes, and was scanning the pages with absolute intensity, as though each story might reveal a crime. Opposite him, Yuusaku sat back in his chair, relaxed as he flipped through a stapled stack of printed notes for his day's events at the convention, panels and presentations.

Yukiko crossed the kitchen to her husband's side, slipping her arms around his neck from behind his chair and bending to kiss his cheek. "When did you get up, dear? The bed was already cold when I rolled over, and I'd been _hoping_ you wouldn't be _too_ worn out from...why, Shinichi, your singing voice is abysmal."

"_**LALALAAAAALALALALALALALAAAAA,**__ NOT LISTENING,_" Shinichi chanted, eyes squeezed shut, hands clamped over his ears. "For the love of- _KAASAN!_ Oversharing!"

"Mouuuu, Shinichi," Yukiko pouted, draping herself across Yuusaku's shoulders. "Don't be sulky just because you didn't get to-"

"**KAASAN.**"

Aloof from the conversation, Yuusaku lifted his coffee mug and took a sip, navigating around his wife's clinging. "Ran-san did go home last night, didn't she?" he commented lightly, one eyebrow raised. "And Kid as well. Did he at least walk her home from here?"

"He didn't come back here," Shinichi said, letting his chin fall onto the tabletop in defeat. His mother smiled and kissed Yuusaku's cheek again, then traipsed into the kitchen proper in search of food. "Ran said that he said goodnight, and to pass the goodnight on to me; then he just evaporated into the crowd." The little detective sighed. Kid had done a bit more than that - Ran had admitted, blushing, to the good-night kiss that Shinichi had glimpsed through a space in the crowd, given as the final verse of the final song of the evening had played. But his parents didn't need to know that (though his mother probably did anyway) and they certainly didn't need to hear it from _Shinichi_.

"I was surprised enough when he stayed here for two days straight last weekend. I don't think Ran or I expected him to stay long."

"I believe the restlessness runs in the family, in or out of uniform," Yuusaku said, glancing up from his notes to smile at his son. "I usually saw Toichi on his terms. It wasn't an unpleasant arrangement, but it was the easiest one. Considering his schedule, it made perfect sense."

"I can imagine," said Shinichi wryly. Ran had gone home in a taxi, looking back wistfully like Cinderella leaving the ball; he'd gotten her to promise to sleep in the next day, but she'd told him in no uncertain terms that she'd be around later that afternoon, and; that was more than fine with him. Maybe, if they were both lucky, Kid'd even show up again at some point.

He took a last drink of his coffee, folding the newspapers back into a haphazard stack in front of him. "So- what's first on your agenda today, Tousan?"

* * *

First had been a panel on _Murder Weapons In Fiction_; Shinichi'd enjoyed that one, actually. Not so much the one on _Sherlock Holmes, Substance Abuser_ or the three-hour symposium on plot-development. Ran showed up at about that time, and they spent a good deal of the afternoon in the Dealers' Room, browsing through the numerous booksellers' booths and examining the various goods for sale. Shinichi picked up a signed edition of Ellery Queen's _The Devil To Pay_ for Hattori and a reprint of Meyer's _Seven Percent Solution_ film adaptation for Haibara; for Agasa he found a coffeemug with a Holmes quotation on it. For himself, he chose a similar mug; and for Kid, a tiny tie-tack designed to resemble a very, very small magnifying-glass.

The evening passed in a marathon of movies both old and new: Christie's _Ten Little Indians_ and Hitchcock's original _Vertigo_, practically every Humphrey Bogart film ever made, old classics like_The Kennel Murder Case_ and (much to Ran and Shinichi's private amusement) Columbia Picture's 1946 release of _The Phantom Thief._ When his child's body at last wore out, Shinichi dozed off to the sound of _Clue_ reaching its climactic scene only to wake up later on halfway to a taxi, carried in his father's arms for the first time since childhood.

Sunday... dawned with a sky full of thunderclouds, threatening rain; it also heralded the last of the convention.

* * *

Yukiko had succumbed to lethargy produced by no less than three Mimosas and an enormous Sunday morning brunch hosted by the convention; she lay boneless and stretched out in a huge, overstuffed chair beside the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the Authors' Green Room, tiny ladylike snores occasionally emerging from beneath the deerstalker hat she'd placed over her face. The last panel had just closed down and her husband and offspring were also ensconced in chairs of their own, though Shinichi sat cross-legged in his. Behind them, Ran was rummaging through one of the coolers of sodas that the convention's organizers had provided.

Everything had gone well; the entire extravaganza had been a raging success. Now, though, it was all closedown and cleanup work, which from the standpoint of an invited guest and entourage was, quite frankly, extremely boring.

"-not sure if I'm interested or not," finished Shinichi's father thoughtfully. "I mean, yes, it _would_ be something to see the Night Baron books as live-action movies, but you hear so many stories about friction between the producer and writer, loss of creative control, warping of characters..." He frowned. "I've seen it happen too many times. I admit, the deal looks good, but-"

His son nodded. "So talk to some of the other authors you know, why don't you? And what about your editor, she's got to have handled this sort of thing before, right? -okay, so that's a start. Just make sure you don't sign anything before you've had it looked over by your and Kaasan's lawyers, that's what you're paying them f- _Aack!"_ Something icy-cold and very wet had just been pressed against the back of Shinichi's neck; from behind him came a giggle, and the boy swiveled around in his chair to glare at Ran's beaming face. "SOME people," he said meaningfully as he took the cold Coke that she had just assaulted him with, "are going to find themselves on the wrong end of that Supersoaker watergun of Mitsuhiko's one of these days; I'm sure he wouldn't mind lending it to me." Ran just ruffled his hair in reply (earning a mock-glare that softened almost instantly) before coming around to take the remaining overstuffed chair for herself.

As she popped open her own soda, though, the detective's daughter peered out the huge expanse of glass westward, squinting through the rain that had just begun to fall. "What's going on out there?"

"-?" Shinichi yawned.

"With the squadcars and- that kind of looks like Megure-keibu. Is it, Shinichi?"

"What?" Soda in hand, the boy slid from his chair and pressed his face against the glass wall. "How long has that been going on?" He glanced towards his mother, who had been in the room longest. "Kaasan? Did you see the police arrive? -uh, Kaasan? KAASAN?"

"...mmmmwha?... why, Depp-san, you... married woman, would _never_... maybe just one truffle..." Yukiko subsided back into sleep, her souvenir hat sliding down to rest in her lap.

Her son gave an amused sort and adjusted the tiny side-controls on his glasses with a fingernail. "Two squadcars, thr- no, that's a morgue van. And yeah, that _is_ Megure, and there's Chiba and Takagi and Sato as well." Two uniformed figures were disappearing from view as they climbed into some sort of street-level access hatch _(manhole? storm drain? maintenance-lines tunnel?_ wondered Shinichi) and barricades were being set up to block traffic.

Two hands came rest on his shoulders; he looked up to find Ran standing directly behind him, a resigned expression on her face as they watched the tiny figures in the distance. "Shall we?" she murmured. "I do know what you want to do, you know." Gratefully Shinichi covered one of her hands with his own much smaller one.

"I believe I'd like to take a look myself," murmured Yuusaku, coming up beside them and looking out the window as well. "'Kiko? Wake up, 'Kiko, we're leaving."

"...zzzzzzznrfph!... Phrgl?" Kudo Yukiko stirred faintly, eyes still closed. "NNgh. Wasn't... last piece of cake, swear I... zzzzzz..."

Her husband sighed. "Ran? Could you find me another Coke, please? A very cold one, if you would."

* * *

To be absolutely truthful, Division One was not all that enthused to see Edogawa Conan and Mouri Ran; once the four got close enough, the choking, cloying smell of a body that had been dead and underwater for some time was enough to explain why. Megure-keibu greeted them politely enough but obviously was not happy with the presence of two civilians on the scene, even such useful ones as the pair; even less welcome were the writer and the actress, and it wasn't until the description of the corpse (which had indeed been found in a storm-drain) was being written out that the first of a very strange set of coincidences came into play.

"Female, most likely juvenile; no identifying tattoos evident upon cursory examination. Hair was mid-back length, artificially colored in purple, blue, green and white, with white as the forelock." Takagi typed away on his datapad as Sato ticked off points. "Personal effects included jeans, a plain dark blue t-shirt, one black sock, a tarnished charm-bracelet. No shoes, they were probably lost in the drain-"

"Sato-keiji?" Surprisingly enough, that was Ran. "Did you say... white hair in front?" Face white with her reaction to the smell that still lingered despite the fact that the body was now on its way to the precinct morgue in a zipped bag, she looked remarkably disturbed. "And kind of rainbow colors elsewhere?"

"Ran-chan? Yes, that's correct. Why?" Sato and Takagi both paused, staring at her.

"Because... My father worked on a missing-persons case a little while back down near Okinawa, a 15-year-old girl. I think they finally decided she'd run off with her boyfriend since he was missing too-" Ran took in a gulp of air, her skin taking on a distinctly greenish tint. "I filed Tousan's paperwork in our office, and the photo of the girl showed her with hair just like that. I thought it was kind of cute, so I guess I remembered it." Her hand clutched convulsively at Conan's, and he leaned against her leg as comfortingly as was possible. "I mean, there're probably lots of missing girls with dyed hair, but... that white streak..."

"Do you remember her name, Ran-chan?" Intent, Sato's eyes were fixed directly on the young woman's. Ran swallowed once, thinking hard; her pale face cleared at last, and she looked quickly up at the officer.

"Eiko. Kimura Eiko."

* * *

"Tousan's not happy." Hands folded in her lap, Ran waited with Conan on a hallway bench in the police headquarters. Down the hall a bit and inside Megure's office, Mouri and Division One were talking intensely about the deceased.

"They probably have Okinawa on the phone, too," Conan said tightly, his own hands knotted together in his lap. "This isn't good. How long has it been since the case was dismissed?"

Ran frowned. "He was away, working on it, while I was...oh, wow. That was all the way back when you first told me," she said, looking down at Conan with one eyebrow raised. "That was_months_ ago."

"Two or three," Conan nodded, gaze going distant as he looked away into memory. "That was when I wore the red sweater, and Haibara told you about- things?"

Ran nodded. "Wow. It doesn't feel like it's been that long," she said softly. "A lot has happened, but it all seems like it's happened so fast."

"I know what you mean," Conan murmured. "And then again, not really. The time after the accident was so frustrating, because it seemed to stretch on forever. At the time I was wishing for_anything_ to get me out of that sickroom, and I did wish for another case after the cows case went out of our hands. I remember wishing for it. And now..."

"_Sh-_" Ran stopped, humphed in frustration, and restarted. "_Conan-kun,_ quit that." The boy looked up, a bit displeased to hear the '-kun' tacked on, and ended up pinned to the bench by his girlfriend's critical stare.

"It's _not_ your fault that this happened. Don't you _even_ think it."

"...How did you- I didn't even say-"

Ran tsked, tapping his skull with one pointed finger. "Shi-ni-chi," she whispered, "I _know_ you."

Conan sighed, shoulders slumping, and let his gaze wander back over to the hallway's far wall. "Thanks, Ran, but..." He put up a hand to stop her. "No, don't say anything, just listen. I've been thinking. You know the officers already talk about it, at every new scene, when they think I'm not listening. And the ones from other precincts are even worse. 'Beika again,' they say, and 'No surprise there.'" Conan exhaled, chest tight, and closed his eyes behind one hand.

"The proportion of violent deaths in Beika, as compared to the rest of the _country,_ Ran - and I'm _including_ the collection of stabbing and beheading sprees from a few years back - is nearly uncalcuable. There's outliers, of course; here and there, around the country, but in general, Beika is the murder central of this nation. I'm surprised the media hasn't made more of a fuss about it than they have.

"And do you know what I discovered about those outliers, outside of Beika, when I did a little work? Most of the big occurrences correspond to dates and locations where you and your tousan have been on vacation or traveling for work purposes in the last fourteen to eighteen months. Do you see what I'm getting at, Ran? Do you see the connection?"

"Conan..." Ran's voice was tight, and her eyes liquid with rising emotion - and the beginnings of tears - as she held his gaze and he continued, ruthless.

"Ran, every time that you've traveled _anywhere_ in the last year and a half, I've been with you. I've made myself obnoxious when I've had to, and rigged various things to ensure I'd be there, but one way or another I've accompanied you and your tousan on his work every single time, because I've been protecting you. And I'm going to keep doing it. But, gah, that's not my point." He shook his head, drawing a steadying breath. "Sorry, I get sidetracked when I think about you, and staying near you. It's hard-coded by this point. I worry about it in my sleep." He smiled, a bit of sheepish warmth peeking through the fatalistic mood, and Ran quietly returned the smile.

"My...my point, Ran. I've been with you - and your tousan - on every trip. And murders keep occurring around him. Around me. No matter where I go. If we moved out of Beika, I think our new home would suddenly take on Beika's statistics.

"I've run the numbers three times. Even when I compare _the last five years_ of the rest of the country to the last _two_ years in Beika, Beika still has too many deaths, too much violence, to make statistical sense. And when I include the data from the times that imminent murder has been prevented only because of my intervention, or Division One's? It becomes even clearer. I don't know what to call it, but...it's not good, Ran. I'm supposed to be _helping_ people and instead, I just put them in danger by being close to them."

"Shinichi, that's not-"

"How many times did you have a near-death experience before I got like this?" Shinichi hissed, taking and gripping one of her hands tightly in both of his own. "How many times had you been kidnapped? Shot at? Attacked? What about Sonoko?"

Ran's expression hardened. "You are _not_ responsible for the crazy things that bad people do, Shinichi. You don't have anything to do with people's rotten hearts."

"Obviously I do, if I understand them so well," Shinichi muttered. "I don't know what it is about me that makes people want to-"

Ran's hand whipped out faster than thought, and Shinichi's head rocked to the side, reeling from the heavy, sudden impact. The sound of the slap echoed down the hallway, and Shinichi turned his head back around to find Ran's stony gaze with utter shock in his own.

"If I _ever again_ hear you suggest that people do vicious, hurtful things _because of you_, or if you even _think_ it, I'm going to use my fist next time. People are awful, and they do awful things. And they're perfectly capable of doing horrible, awful things without your help, you baka detective.

"Haven't you ever thought that maybe, you don't cause the pain, but you find it, and you _heal_ it?"

There was a long silence.

"...so does that mean that things'd be this screwed up anyway, whether or not I found out about them?" whispered Shinichi almost inaudibly, rubbing his cheek. "And if so, why here? Why now? Why around me? If I don't cause the increase- and you're right, that was stupid, it's not like I've got that much influence on the world- what does? Statistics don't lie, Ran. Healing or not, there has to be a cause. Why?" Eyes fixed intently on hers, Shinichi began to tick items off on his fingers.

"Location, population, resources, internal stressors, external pressures. Beika's not so unusual, it's not on a major drug route or smuggling highway; it's just a subdivision of Tokyo proper, more or less. Population's a mixed bunch but mostly industrially-based, one way or another, with a relatively-high income base. Resources- nothing unusual there, really, though I think we produce more university students than most places our size. Internal stressors... I don't know. The economy's a little more fragile than it was so you've got work-stress, I suppose. External pressures? No wars or major business takeovers, nothing out of the ordinary." Shinichi sighed. "And as for the outliers... what am I supposed to think? They don't match _anything."_

He slumped back against the wall, hand coming up to cup his cheek again. "Ran, I don't have any answers, not one; all I have are questions. If these things were already here and they're just being noticed more- and yes, that's possible, though improbable- then your theory's got something to it; I can't say I heal things, but sometimes maybe I lance the wound." Shinichi's gaze was distant, staring unseeingly at the tiles. "If the crimes _weren't_ there before and something's bumped up the rate, whether it's me or something else... I'd rather not think about that, really. Because there's nothing I can do about it but keep on doing what I've been doing." He swallowed. "What else can I do?"

The question was not rhetorical, though it might have seemed that way in its phrasing; an answer, any answer, would have been very welcome just then. But there wasn't one, and after a moment Shinichi looked up with a wry twist to his smile. "You didn't have to hit me THAT hard, you know."

Ran eyed him with a stern, Don't-Try-That-On-Me,-Shinichi look. "Yes I did. And it wasn't _that_ hard, anyway."

"Child-beaters go to jail..."

"Bad little boys go to the corner."

"-I am NOT a-!"

"No, you're a _masochist,_ Shinichi. And the next time you pull that sort of thing I'll tell Sato-san, and she'll get you a nice child therapist. Won't _that_ be fun?" Ran glared down at him, but the corner of her mouth kept twitching. "Everybody in Division One'll just shake their heads and say it was only a matter of time, and then they'll send you flowers and coloring-books to cheer you up, and-"

Shinichi winced. "Okay, okay, okay! _Jeeze,_ Ran, you fight dirty!" He sighed, leaning his stinging cheek against her; she wrapped an arm around him. "Thanks."

"For what?" Ran settled her chin on top of his head, pressing his cowlick at least temporarily down. "For smacking you silly?"

"No. Yes. For... not putting up with my bullshit. Sometmes I think too much of myself."

She said nothing, but merely hugged him a little tighter.

* * *

Mouri's conference with Megure ended. The general discussion between Division One and Mouri, with Ran and Conan sitting in, began. The mood was tense - Kimura, the deceased, hadn't been missing for long enough to qualify as a 'cold case,' but still, the delay between missing and finding her was going to cause all sorts of problems, many of them related to due diligence and potential write-ups. The reason for her disappearance, whenever it became revealed - because, the group was wordlessly resolved, it _would_ be - would probably overturn a whole new nest of problems. There was her boyfriend to worry about; had he killed her? Been killed as well? Was she killed, or drowned by circumstance? The autopsy had brought back inconclusive information, and precious little of that. The drain that her body had washed up against was fed by a multitude of sources, some more directly than others; the probability that she'd floated down from Okinawa was unlikely but, unpleasantly, could not be completely ruled out. Coffee was passed around, but no snacks; nobody had much of an appetite. Ibuprofen, for headaches, made the rounds instead.

During a break, Takagi quietly asked for Ran's attention, taking her out into the hall for a private conversation.

"...which is why I'm asking you about him, Ran-san. I feel strange about it, being more worried that he'll try to help again, rather than that he'll be upset or disturbed by this case. He surely has a stronger stomach for these sorts of things than some of the other officers, but I've seen him falter before, too." Takagi frowned, his gaze earnest. "When we discovered the children's hands in the frozen cows, he didn't seem to take it well."

"Who would?" asked Ran with real horror. She remembered her own reaction to hearing about the remains of the children who had died so gruesomely under a surgeon's knife. "He has his limits... like any child would," she added a little hurriedly. "But- Takagi-keiji, you know what he's like. Short of sitting on him, it's not likely that anyone'll be able to keep him away from this case."

"Keeping him away isn't what I'm worried about," said Takagi quietly. "It's keeping him _safe_ that concerns me. Ran-san," he said soberly, "after what I just told you-"

"-I'll keep it in mind, yes. Takagi-keiji, I promise." Ran took a slightly shaky breath. "Conan-kun is... very, very precious to me." _More than you could ever know, Takagi-keiji; more than you could ever believe. And not just to me; I need to talk to Kid about this too. But I can't tell Shinichi, or not yet; or Ai-chan. Definitely not Ai-chan._ "I'll keep my eyes open, I promise." She glanced down the hall; there was a child-shaped silhouette just visible through the frosted glass of the door. Takagi followed her gaze, paused for a moment... and when he looked back at her, his eyes had a questioning, speculative light to them that she had never seen there before.

"Ran-san? If there's-" He hesitated. "If there's ever anything you or Conan-kun might want to, to... talk to either Sato-san or myself about, we, uh... Megure-keibu has given us what he calls 'breadth of discretion', depending on who we're talking to. Do you understand what I mean?" He raised his eyebrows.

She did, actually; it was something her father had discussed once back after her brief bout of amnesia: 'discretion' in this case meant that Megure-keibu trusted them enough not to demand that they tell _him_ everything, unless it became necessary. That kind of trust and professional respect was the sort of leeway that allowed officers to deal with informants and anonymous tipsters, keeping their identities secure even from other investigators... unless, so to speak, the shit well and truly hit the fan. In this case, though-

"I understand, Takagi-keiji. Thank you," Ran said bravely, though internally she quivered.

-in this case, he was offering both her and Conan something that they might need someday. And, just perhaps, that someday might not be so far off at all.

* * *

"What was that all about?" asked Conan as they walked down the steps of the precinct, carrying borrowed umbrellas; the light rain from earlier had grown up and developed muscles and was now coming down in torrents. "With Takagi, I mean?" He looked at Ran curiously, blue eyes suddenly vivid in his child's face as he wiped his fogged-up glasses on his shirt-tail. "Is everything all right, Ran?"

Her grip tightened on the umbrella's handle. "It's a murder investigation, Shinichi," she muttered. "How could everything be all right-? And anyway, it was nothing. He's just..." Ran hesitated, wondering exactly what to say. "He's just worried about you, that's all. You know, first the cows and now this." With a deliberate effort she put a little humor into her voice. "I think he's expecting you to crack under the strain or go all weird on us... well, weirder than he already thinks you are."

"Oh, gee, _thanks._" The boy scowled up at her; it only lasted a second, though, before it shaded over into concern. "Did he say anything else, like... about... you know. If I'm, um, really meor anything?" Conan made a small-to-large gesture with his hands. "Remember what I talked about telling him?"

_"OH._ N-oooooo..." Ran said slowly, seizing the conversational topic with gratitude. "Not exactly, though he did say that if we ever needed to talk to him about anything at all, he'd listen; and he'd keep it confidential." She looked at him questioningly; ahead of them, Yukiko and Yuusaku were talking together beneath their own umbrella, with Yuusaku's face showing traces of dismay. "Shinichi? Do you think he, um, knows? For _certain,_ I mean?" Alarmed, the young woman shook her umbrella, showering their perimeter with droplets. "Telling him, that's one thing, but if he found out on his own then-"

"-then someone else might, yeah." The blue eyes looked haunted, and Ran knew what with: the nightmarish scenario that was always at the back of his thoughts, the one where no-one, not parent or friend or beloved, survived the Black Organization's deadly reach. "But no, I don't think so; I'm pretty certain he suspects _something's_ up, he even asked me once- you know, back during that Tokyo Tower bomb case? But he never got an answer, and now I'm just... being paranoid, I guess." He gave her a little half-smile. "More paranoid than usual, anyway."

_Stay paranoid, Shinichi,_ thought Ran to herself fiercely. _It's more important than you think._

There was a taxi waiting at the curb; the fit was a little tight, but as they got underway Yuusaku inclined his head towards Ran and his son. "We'll be dropping you both off at your place, Ran-chan," the writer said with a certain air of defeat. "'Kiko wants to do," and he sighed, "a little light shopping." He shared a Look with Conan; 'shopping' for Kudo Yukiko was something that, had it been a competitive category in the Olympic Games, would have provided her with any number of gold medals. "Unless you'd like to come along-? No? Ahh."

His wife tsked. "Don't be a baby, Yuusaku; I _promised_ we'd go by your favorite bookstore, didn't I?" She tapped him on the nose with one delicate fingernail. "Be nice, and come watch me spend money." Long used to his 'Kiko's ways, her husband merely sighed and settled back in the taxi, resigned to his fate.

The rain had turned into a thunderous downpour complete with lightning and teeth-rattling rumbles jarring the early twilight; with hurried farewells the two splashed from the taxi's door towards the Mouri Agency's staircase. They would be alone for the evening; Ran's father had gone on to his brand-new job at the resort, somewhat more silent than usual due to his involvement in the drowned girl's case. As Ran shook the water from her umbrella and folded it, she sighed. "Finally. I never thought I'd be so glad to see this old place, but it's been a really long day. So- what'll we have for dinner, hmmm, Shi-"

She stopped, and Conan ran into her legs. There was someone sitting at the top of the stairs, their back against the door.

_**"-Sonoko?"**_

The young woman sniffled, wan-faced. "H-hi, Ran-chan. I called for pizza," she said forlornly, wiping her reddened eyes with her sleeve. Taken completely aback, both Ran and Conan _stared_at Suzuki zaibatsu's offspring in mute astonishment. She met their eyes; her lower lip quivered... and she burst into tears.

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_Thanks for joining us this week! Special thanks go to _ _**kaitou_1412**__ for this AWESOME new icon that she's made for Ysabet and me to use. It's private to us, though! Please don't steal it. *rawr* And to everybody who gave me birthday wishes (My birthday was yesterday~! Who can guess how old I am?) :D_

_Next week, it's "Gentleman, compliment, marooned." See you then! _


	39. Gentleman, compliment, marooned

_Hiya! Welcome to Three Thieves for this week's chapter. A maintenance note before we continue: last week's post icon, which both Ysa and I have been using for comments, which was gifted to us by _ _**kaitou_1412**__ and which is printed with the words "Three Thieves," is for __**our use alone.**__ It's been on the internet only one week, but we've already gotten reports that it has been stolen and reposted. So please, for the love of Benten, respect the fact that it was a gift to us and paws off. (Thank you to Pounce for the report.)_

_Now to the chapter. Does anyone know of a good background track to accompany a luxurious wank? Kid would like to know, for future reference. Suggestions welcome in the comments... The Management_

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_**Book Four, Chapter Six**__**: "gentleman, compliment, marooned"**__  
WARNINGS for this chapter: __**NSFW**__ (Not Safe For Work).  
Warning Numbers Two and Three: Contains sobbing girl, and Haibara. These facts are not related.  
by __**rednightengale**__ and _ _**ysabet**_

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"A-and... and then he buttoned my blouse back up and-(_hic!_) he looked a-at me, and (_snif!_) and he said _goodniiiiiight!_" As Sonoko's last word rose in tone, riding a pathetic, sexually-frustrated wail, Ran and Conan shared an eyebrows-up glance that split the difference between amused and dreadfully relieved. Ran curled in closer to Sonoko, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. On Mouri's coffee table in front of them, the majority of Sonoko's pizza cooled, less important than getting and giving comfort for a love weekend denied. Conan sat on the opposite couch, keeping quiet to give Sonoko and Ran a little bit of privacy while he worked on a pizza slice bigger than his head.

"There there, Sonoko, it's okay. He was just trying to be a gentleman about it. That just shows how much he cares about you!"

"I- (_snif!_) don't _want_ him to be a gentleman, I want him to- to- uwaaaaaah, Ran-chan, d-doesn't he _liiiiiike_ me?" The girl broke down into incoherent sobs once again, and Ran petted her hair comfortingly, snuggling her shoulder.

"Of course he does, Sonoko. Guys only get stressed out about sex with girls they really like. If he didn't like you, he wouldn't be trying to be considerate of you."

"Considerate?" Sonoko sniffed, raising her head to look at Ran. "If he was considerate, he'd have done what I wa-wa-_wannnnnnnteddddd!_"

Ran winced, racking her brain for yet another way to spin the situation positively. Honestly, she didn't think Sonoko had anything to worry about. Makoto-san had invited her to visit for the weekend, making a considerable emphasis on how much he was looking forward to seeing her after several months too busy to allow visits. As previously arranged, Ran covered for Sonoko to her parents, claiming a sleepover, and Sonoko had left with high hopes and determination. ("I'll have a rabu-rabu~ time! Sonoko's And Makoto's Weekend Of Love will be even better than when you saw Shinichi last weekend, Ran-chan!")

Unfortunately for Sonoko, Makoto-san seemed to be a true gentleman. And...unlike some _other_ gentlemen Ran knew and was carefully not thinking about right at this moment, Makoto-san seemed to be dedicated to a longer courtship than Sonoko was prepared to endure.

"Sonoko-neechan," Conan piped up, startling Sonoko and Ran both, "Did you get a kiss from Makoto-san? _Chu-chu-chu,_ like that!"

Ran shot him a confused expression, unsure what he was trying to accomplish, while Sonoko's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. Startled out of her despair, Sonoko poked Ran in the shoulder, wiping away her own tears even as her voice sharpened.

"Ran! (_snif_) What've you been teaching this kid, anyway? Are you being a bad influence on him?"

Ran blushed crimson. "Noooooo. Sonoko no baka, why would I- that's just-"

Conan grinned. "Is a bad influence when you have bad people around you a lot? I have lots of bad people around me all the time, murderers and even a thief! Does that make me a bad influence?"

"Oi, oi, don't look so happy about all those murderers," Sonoko said, wagging a finger. Her own troubles faded in importance - the others could see it happen - as she caught onto and chased the new thread of conversation.

"And besides! Kaitou Kid is not a _bad influence,_" Sonoko declared importantly, noticing for the first time the pizza laying lukewarm in its box on the table. Seizing on it with a ravenous appetite, she continued lecturing her attentive audience. "He is the _best_ thief ever! And he doesn't hurt anyone and he gives everything back. He's the best influence ever! Oh, Kid-sama, I wish you'd influence meeeeee~"

_Sorry, Sonoko, but he's booked. And not the handcuffs-and-rap-sheet kind of 'booked', either. He's all tied up- uh, no, doesn't work, where IS my brain going? Jeeze. He's... busy. Very, very busy._ Feeling himself growing slightly warm around the ears, Conan looked at the young woman with all the earnestness he could muster. "Oh, you don't want THAT, Sonoko-neechan. You might get arrested, ne? Or have a bunch of policemen jump all over you, like they did to him at the last heist." He frowned. "Of course, then he jumped all over them, and then they all jumped all over each other a whole bunch... What's wrong, Sonoko-neechan? You're awfully red." Expression far too innocent to be true, he blinked at the young woman.

"Um." Eyes slightly glazed over due to the internal scenario playing inside her head, Sonoko poked cautiously at the subject like a dental sufferer prodding a sore tooth. "Are... are there any female squadmembers in the Kid Task Force?" (Ran sputtered, hands over her mouth.) "Well, Chibi-chan? ARE there?"

"I don't think so. And anyway," said Conan with perfect, unflappable solemness, "I think if there were, he wouldn't just jump all over them without being introduced first. He's a _gentleman_thief. Right, Ran-neechan?" Large blue eyes met hers, wide and sincere.

"Oh, absolutely," she assured him with equal sincerity and _just_ a hint of something that told him that revenge would inevitably follow at a later date.

The conversation was gently steered onto other topics for a little while- Sonoko was following her sister's influence and considering colleges, though rather haphazardly and without any particular enthusiasm. "Maybe if I had something I was really interested in it'd be different," she brooded over Ran's laptop as thunder rumbled outside, staring at the lists of majors and courses. "But it's all so _boring,_ Ran-chan, and you'll be going off to college and things'll be even MORE boring. Boring, boring, boring; no wonder Makoto doesn't want me. I'm just a heap of boring personality with a stellar body." Moodily she poked at a key. "The only things I'm good at are shopping and noticing what other people buy... I can tell you what's the most recent fashion, what kind of shoes people'll wearing and what's the hottest movie out, but that's all." Sonoko took a huge bite of pizza. "See? That's all I'm good for, shopping."

_And gossip,_ thought Conan silently as he tapped away at his own laptop, reading the news accounts of the double heist from several nights previous. Public opinion seemed to be that the authorities had been seriously outnumbered by two Kaitou Kids and that they'd put up as good a fight as possible; the Kozen-ji Abbot had given a very favorable account of the Taskforce's efforts and their aid in cleaning up and repairing the temple heist-site afterwards, though pepper-spraying the Buddha in the face had brought out the expected letters of outrage in the Public Opinion columns.

"That's marketing, you know," said Ran unexpectedly, and he raised his head in surprise. Sonoko made a dubious noise. "No, it _is,_ look." She scrolled down several options and clicked on a drop-down menu. "Sonoko-chan, we're supposed to play to our strengths, right?" The detective's daughter tapped her screen with a fingernail. "These classes—you'd do great in them—there's stuff on current trends, the psychology of selling, mass media construction, —" Conan's eyebrows echoed Sonoko's own as Ran went down the list.

_She __would__ be good at that,_ Conan thought in surprise; but then, Ran would know. Suzuki Sonoko, despite her outgoing nature and vivacious tendencies, was not close to all that many people, not really close—she had plenty of acquaintances, yes, school friends, definitely; but not people she chose to hang out with in her spare time. And her family, while closer than many of the zaibatsu houses, did not encourage close bonds; as Conan understood it, her being sent to a public school had been considered a fairly shocking move.

Whatever; content to let his clever, intelligent girlfriend arrange Sonoko's future for her, Conan stealthily slid his own laptop out of its case while they were busy going through course syllabuses and brought it up. He tapped a few keys, enabled his hotkey (just in case a quick diversion was needed—it would load a childish game of brightly-colored racecars in mid-play, all zooming distractingly across his screen) and a secondary tab with a harmless subject, clicking onto a certain Sherlock Holmes webpage on a separate tab with a distinct sense of nostalgia.

The forums were quiet that evening, though some of the topics _('Discuss: Adler and Holmes and the King of Bohemia – who was really blackmailing who?')_ were kind of intriguing. Traffic on the site was slow; Conan let Ran and Sonoko's voices fade into the background as he perused the different emails and responses, glancing ever-so-casually at the list of online guests. A huge debate was raging regarding the recent American Holmes movie, and he amused himself for a while by following the various enthusiasts' links and leaving a few comments of his own. He_really_ wanted to see that movie…

_Wonder what Kid'd think of it? Thieves and magic and lots of pyrotechnics…_ He checked the guest list again, drooping slightly. It wasn't that he was _camping_ it or anything, but...

**yo, chibi**

The text popped up in a little neat box on the margin of his page; with a little thrill, Conan clicked the 'maximize' button on the window's vertical preview bar, sliding the whole pane out to see Kid's complete message.

**funny seeing you here. its been a while.**

A slow grin began to grow on the boy's face. _Just think of me as your own personal stalker. In a non-freakish, non-paranoia-inducing kind of way, of course._ The little green online-light seemed to wink at him. _How're you doing?_

On his end of the connection, Kid smiled, rearranging the windows on his laptop so that none of them covered the chat window. Just reading over Shinichi's words was making him grin, in the giddy, cheek-achingly broad manner of the newly smitten and freshly in love.

It had been a whole week, and he still hadn't come down from his high; even his mother had noticed, the third night in a row that Kid had taken the recon glider out for some pleasure flying. She'd commented that whoever the new somebody was, she hoped they weren't too nosy. Kid had laughed at that, assured her that the somebody was, in fact, _very_ nosy, and had gone hunting in search of radio arrays to stand on. Braced on the flexing, flimsy metal networks that rose above the skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo, one hour's long, gleeful flight away from the mansion, Kid had spread his arms wide and laughed his delight up to the moon.

In his bedroom at home, surrounded by a nest of papers, three-ring binders, and a small handful of (full) police evidence bags, the thief stretched out rather luxuriously, laptop rocking as he flexed from head to toe, pleasurable shivers running all along his body.

**I'm not really the type to sleep with creepy stalkers. Just the hot ones. I'm doing fine - tired, was working out today, and the last few days too. Saw that the news had a little blurb about a body found near the convention - made a big deal of the 'big mystery,' as you'd expect them to. So I'm assuming you've had a busy day, too.**

_You could say that._ Conan- Shinichi- felt his smile slide over into wryness. He tucked his feet up onto the couch, sitting cross-legged on the cushion, crouched almost protectively over the laptop. _Not a pretty case; looks like one of Mouri's old ones, come back to haunt us._ Quickly he typed in the details of the missing girl and Mouri's part in the investigation. His fingers clicked over the keys rapidly; the contact with Kid, even through the media of the internet, was both soothing and warming- like feeling the other's hand reaching across through the screen.

_There's something odd going on, though- Takagi's asking a few questions that're hitting a little too close too home. You remember how I said he might have a few-_ (he hesitated, wondering how to put it) _-suspicions? Be careful if you come in contact with him or Sato-san, will you?_ Shinichi paused for a moment, fighting an urge to brush the screen with a fingertip. _Phantom Thieves are kind of thin on the ground, you know? Hate to have to find me and R a new one._ Smothering a grin, he hit the enter key.

**You're clearly looking in the wrong places for them, Tantei. Whyever would they congregate on the ground? Kid grinned, biting the corner of his lip to try to tame it, or the soaring tightness in his chest that was building, thundercloud-thick, and which might soon have him doing wallruns inside his bedroom just to burn off enough energy to sit still before the keyboard. The air is our element, you know. But we're a pretty territorial bunch, and it's a small country; I don't know that you'd find any others in Japan...nor any who'd risk taking what another thief has already marked as his own.**

The thief paused, fingertips tapping lightly on the key tops while choosing his next words. He could leave it where it was, with boldfaced implication; or he could _really_ be ridiculous, and hope that Shinichi was somewhere that a fire-engine blush would be inconvenient.

...Oh, wait, was there an actual decision to be made there? Kid's fangs showed as he typed.

**Especially THIS thief. Even Chat Noir, contrary as she is, wouldn't lay a finger on you if I made it clear she'd have to cross me to do so. Of course, maybe she'd have to put a few fingers on you to get you undressed far enough to SEE my mark...but I'm sure she'd dress you right back up again once she spotted it. ;)**

A flush that was entirely inappropriate to his current body, current company (well, half of it, anyway) and current location burned its way out from somewhere deep in his chest, rising like a tide. So Kid wanted to play that game-? He was SO on. _Marked, am I?_ Shinichi typed, a glint of mischief warming his eyes. _Bet I put a few marks on you too. One on your left collarbone, one on your neck by your ear. I -remember.- _And he did, too. _I -put- them there, one after the other. But I guess I'll just have to make sure they're still there next time I see you, hm? Or I could ask Ran to. Remember what she promised?_

_And take THAT,_ he thought with a little smirk. Opposite him on the other couch, Ran sat beside Sonoko and browsed college catalogs, all unaware of how she'd just figured in his and Kid's conversation. _I'll have to tell her later._

**Mmmm. Won't you remind me, tantei? I'm afraid there were so many promises made...in such a short time. It's hard to know which one you mean.** Kid smiled, shifting in his nest to get more comfortable; the warmth and perfect softness of the blankets and pillows was very nearly matched by the warm, curled satisfaction radiating off of him with each received message. **Unless, of course, you're referring to the promise you both made me, regarding my win at the costume ball on Friday.**

A small snerk escaped him; both Ran and Sonoko looked up inquisitively from their websurfing. "What's so funny, Conan-kun?" asked Ran, eyes curious.

"Oh, nothing, Ran-neechan," answered Shinichi cheerfully, slipping back into Conan-mode just long enough to give them both an innocent grin. "Just something I found; I'll show you later." And all the while his fingers were typing:

_Not that promise, the one from the heist. Remember the sharpie-marker?_ Staring at the words, the small flame of mischief that Kid's own teasing had lit fanned a little higher, a little hotter. _She could start with you. I could watch her kiss you from your forehead to your knees, one mark at a time, slowly. And then..._ He grinned.

_...and then you could watch her begin on -me.-_

_Goal!_ In his head, Shinichi watched a soccer-ball fly past and into the net and chuckled softly. _That should do it. -shit, I wish it was next weekend. I really wish it was next weekend..._ He hit the enter key and waited to see what kind of reaction he'd get.

On the other end of the screen...

Kid squirmed against the pillows behind him, shifting his laptop a bit further down his legs to relieve a bit of...discomfort. He blinked hard, uncrossing his eyes, and had poised his hands over the keys to respond when Shinichi's last little tease blinked onto the screen. His mind's eye went crazy: Shinichi naked, hard lines arching against Ran's soft curves as she bent over him, generous with her mouth and tongue, delicately holding her hair back to let Kid get a good look. Her eyes were closed, long lashes on her cheeks; Shinichi's eyes were squinted shut, mouth open and throat stretched bare, hips raised from the mattress. Kid could all but feel the detective's chest beneath his palm; fast heartbeat, peaked nipples, damp sweat. He swallowed, remembering the salt tastes of his lover's body...and the salt taste of his _own_, on Shinichi's lips.

"Nnnhh..." Breath tight now, Kid bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to get himself back under control. It wasn't fair - Shinichi was cool and collected on his end of things, Kid _knew_he was, and Shinichi knew that Kid knew it, too. It was one big circle game, and Shinichi's unfortunate condition was his advantage in this case. It was the trump card that already had Kid pinned underneath him, five days ahead of schedule.

Kid cursed again as the thought of 'trump' pulled in all sorts of additional images - the chase and challenge of Shinichi on his tail, dart gun and card gun, kick shoes and glider. The time Shinichi had pretended to stumble off a skyscraper's roof, forcing Kid's hand - and then had sniped at him _while_ they fell together, letting thirty stories whip past without flinching, eyes like blue flint. The time Shinichi had actually succeeded in darting him, and Kid had collapsed in a heating exhaust vent on the roof, falling into unconsciousness with the satisfaction of a tooth-and-nail fight with neither winner or loser. The look on Shinichi's face when he'd seen Kid in the Kudo library, halfway through removing his salaryman disguise; the feel of Shinichi's tiny hands on his own, defying the constraints of strength or size to offer comfort. The look in his eyes as he lit a bottle rocket, a sheer veneer of innocence stretched nearly to breaking over the smugly victorious grin held beneath. ...The look in those same eyes, older but just as sharp, when he had crawled under the bedsheets, holding Kid down with hands and arms, drawing him up with his mouth, slick and tight and hot and-

_Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ Kid cursed, fists clenching at his sides, head laid back against the pillows, hips jerking restlessly. He couldn't decide whether to get a grip and bring a halt to this indulgence - painful but more considerate - or to take the situation in hand more delicately, requiring a tactful apology and a brief reprieve from the computer. One way or another, he had to make a decision, but he was having problems concentrating on anything but the thought of Shinichi's skin, his scent and the press of his limbs wrapped around Kid's.

And back at the Mouri agency, a dubious form of reprieve came (though Kid couldn't know it) in the form of Sonoko, who had finally had her fill of staring at syllabi and campus maps. "So let's see what's so funny, Chibi-chan, hmm? C'mon, let us see-" She reached for his laptop determinedly.

_Oh __**HELL**__ no._

Fingers dancing frantically across the keys (_BRBSORRYyyy_), he yanked the laptop out of reach as quickly as possible. Visions of pure horror dancing across his mind, Shinichi did a kind of shuffle-and-slide across the couch-cushions to the corner where he crouched, trapped. Sonoko blinked. "Oh c'mooooon, let us see! It must be funny if you're making _that_ big of a fuss over it." Unfairly long arms reached out and grabbed just as Shinichi crashed the tab (the hotkey took too long) and his default popped up in its place.

Sonoko stared at the photo on the small screen, sounding out the English there. "'Bad idea in...' Well, Chibi-chan, I can see why you were giggling. But you can't read that, can you?"

Actually he could, but- He gave her his best indignant glare. "No, but the pictures are funny. Can I have it back, please?" Rolling her eyes, the young woman passed it to him, and he closed the lid gratefully. "Ran-neechan, I'm gonna go to my room, okay? _Some_ people-" and he scowled at Sonoko, "have grabby hands."

"Conaaaaan..." Ran shook her head reprovingly, but her eyes twinkled just a little. "Go ahead. No surfing any weird sites, now, you know the rules."

* * *

_Back. Sorry about that,_ Shinichi typed contritely from his crosslegged position on his futon down the hall. _Sonoko's here visiting Ran & she almost got a closer look at my private life than I'm comfortable with._

Kid swallowed, breathing hard; he typed slowly, hunting for the keys with one hand, vision still a little too bright around the edges. **That's fine,** the thief wrote, slowly regaining his composure. **Wouldn't want to...get carried away with ourselves. I...** He paused, trying to choose his words carefully; but lingering sparks ran through his veins, and a small, murky pool of guilt had begun to gather in the bottom of his stomach. **...I made use of the time anyway. I didn't mean to.**

Shinichi blinked, reading between the lines. _Oh. Whoops._ That... hadn't exactly been his intention; it was too easy, really, in the shape he was to keep everything internal- a kid's body just didn't react the way an adult's did, and... _Didn't mean to start something I couldn't finish, either. Though I'm kind of flattered. Are you okay?_ He had a slightly horrified moment. _Uh- please tell me you're not out in public somewhere?_ Messing with another guy's libido through the internet was bad enough; doing it in public...

**Just...startled,** Kid typed, his buzz of pleasure fading. Well, it was more like it got caught by his growing pool of guilt, dragged into a mud puddle, kicked around with steel-toed boots, mugged, and left there to shiver. Possibly in the rain.

_Possibly nothing,_ Kid thought wryly. _I've been hanging out with Tantei too much; his sense of metaphor is rubbing off on me._ With a sigh, glad that nobody could see the burning blush that covered his cheeks, he forced himself to keep typing.

**I'm home. I wouldn't be online if I were in public - I don't trust other people's wireless.** He left unsaid the fact that he _did_ trust Shinichi's. **I...'m sorry.** Unable to force himself to say more - and struggling not to erase even that much, because as much as he did feel that he owed Shinichi an apology, the detective _would_ unavoidably and immediately ask some very awkward questions - Kid hit send.

On the other side of the screen, Shinichi stared, more than a little puzzled. "I don't get it," he whispered out loud, frowning. And typed: _Sorry for what? Kid- if I was there in my regular body and I said all that and you reacted like -that- in front of me, would you be sorry then? Why? I just didn't mean to-_ (he hesitated) _-okay, yeah, I -did- mean to rattle you, we were playing Online Chicken again. But I didn't mean to get you upset. If anything, I'm envious._ Shinichi pinched the bridge of his nose right between his eyes for a few seconds before continuing to type. _We're all new to this, remember? And we're all pretty touch-starved, even Ran. Makes things, um, more emphatic, I guess. Anyway, -I'm- sorry if I poked a little too hard._

**No, that's not...that's not it,** Kid quickly answered, chest tight as the misunderstanding grew. **It's not your fault at all, Tantei, please don't feel...**

_This is gonna hurt no matter how I say it, isn't it?_

_"Probably."_ Kuroba wandered past the doorway, offering closeness of presence and distance for privacy at the same time. _"At least we'll never have to do this again?"_

Kid groaned, face in one palm, then went back to typing. **I'm apologizing because I respect you more than that, Tantei. I didn't mean to...to act selfishly. I'd promised myself I wouldn't, when I fell for you.**

Once again, nonplussed, Shinichi frowned at the screen. _Selfishly? Okay, I'm missing something._ He did his best to follow the thief's line of reasoning, replaying the series of teases, the break between, Kid's reaction and his subsequent discomfort. _'Selfish'? Why selfish? Is it because I'm... Nnngh; and here I thought that being a wanted criminal meant no inconvenient guilty consciences..._ Thunder rumbled overhead again like punctuation; outside Mouri's window, lightning crackled around a distant skyscraper like a halo, and Shinichi began to type again very carefully. _Kid, are you calling yourself guilty because I'm not capable of- well, the same response right now? If that's it, then DON'T be, please? Baka thief, Ran'd call you. You just gave me a -compliment.-_

**A compliment?** Kid blinked, and his heart uncoiled a bit, peeking shyly up from under all the guilt. **Here I thought you'd... Oh, Benten. You're...indescribable, Shinichi, and I might be too. If we really do understand each other, and that's how you feel, Kuroba is laughing at me and you've just made me feel both very foolish and very relieved.**

Kuroba poked his head back in the mental doorway. _"So, yay, pass the tissues?"_

Kid threw a book at him.

In his room and on his futon, Shinichi... blinked. _Oh. Uh. No way, I mean, he IS a guy, a healthy (very healthy, definitely healthy) guy... didn't he know that...?_ The answer was fairly apparent when he reread the comments. He _hadn't._ Or hadn't expected his body to react with quite that much strength, maybe. Kicking himself mentally in a place where it'd hurt no matterwhat size he was, Shinichi answered back honestly and with as much lightness and affection as he could manage. _The last thing anybody, and I do mean ANYBODY wants to hear when they're_(he hesitated, wondering how blunt he ought to be) _doing their best to nudge somebody (especially somebody they care for) in the hormones is that it didn't work. Kid, I was -trying- to get a reaction. You reacted. Even with me like this, you reacted. I am -not-complaining. And sometimes I forget that, well, you're maybe the newest at this sort of thing of us all._

Not wanting to leave it at that, Shinichi bit back a grin and added, _Not that I expect that to last, given your expertise in damn well everything else. XD_

Kid read, reread, and _grinned_, shame fluttering away like so much useless prevarication. **I appreciate your faith in me, meitantei. And you can be assured that the reaction you sought was both definite and emphatic. It has gotten quite late, however, and I wouldn't want to make Suzuki-san suspicious of your bedtime, so I believe I'll leave you for the evening. I think I'll stay up a bit longer myself. A bit of a night owl, you know. **The thief grinned, shifting against his pillows and blankets, the nest of research material scattered, utterly forgotten, around him.

**I'll be sure to study up before we meet again, of course. If you have such high expectations of my expertise, well, I ought to live up to them. And practice makes perfect, and hardship is the source of inspiration, and the man who works hardest reaps the most grain, and so forth.**

_Ooohgod. That's gonna feature in my dreams. Dammit, dammit, dammit, I. Want. To. Be. FULL-SIZED RIGHT NOW._ Wide-eyed and feeling distinctly, disturbingly peculiar- the dichotomy between brain and body was putting a strain on glands and things, he supposed- Shinichi squirmed mentally. _...that is SO unfair. Think I'll tell Ran on you. No, on second thought better not, she'd be annoyed she missed out._ He thought for a second, considering; and typed:

_And then she'd demand a repeat performance to see what she missed._

And grinned.

Noises from the front room made him lift his head. _Right. Bedtime for me. Sounds like Sonoko's leaving anyway. -You mind if I -do- show this to Ran?_ He wouldn't without permission; implied consent wasn't the same as actual, no matter how much they trusted each other. Egos bruised because of the weirdest reasons sometimes, and that was _not_ the kind of mark he'd been thinking about earlier.

**Actually, I would mind, Kid answered apologetically. I feel pretty silly about it now, but I really was quite distressed earlier, so I'd rather she not see that. Have to be charming for the ladies, and all that.**

**You can, of course, tell her the best parts,** he added with a grin, fingers quick and exact on the keys - he had as much reason to want to close the conversation as Shinichi did. Possibly more. The back of his neck felt a little hot; his jeans, a little snug. Kid licked his lips, mouth dry and smirking. **As for me, I'm off. Think I'll get to practicing right..._mmmmnnn_. Right away. Sweet dreams, Tantei.**

_Urk._ Conan stared at Kid's blinking green light and swore under his breath, half in frustration and half in amused affection. What he wouldn't give to- _Shut UP, Kudo. If wishes were horses and all that. Lots of all that. Aaargh._ Trying to banish (or at least confine to something that'd definitely become a dreamscape later that night) the images that kept dancing in front of his eyes, he typed out a bit disjointedly: _...you do that. And I'll just, uh- bring Ran up to date. On things. And wish I was 18. Have a good night, Kid._

There was a light tapping on the doorjamb as the green light blinked out. Mouri Ran leaned against the frame, brown hair soft and tousled around her lovely face, one eyebrow quirked up. She crossed her arms and smiled at the boy, tilting her head. "What was that all about, Shinichi?"

He smiled up at her in return, scooting his small frame back to make room for her on the futon. "Just... chatting with a certain thief we both know." He powered down the laptop, waiting for the lights to dwindle and dim before he closed the lid, hiding Kid's words as promised. "Want to hear what we talked about?" he asked softly, watching Ran's dimples come up as she settled herself beside him.

"Please," she murmured, eyes alight; and Shinichi leaned against her and told her what could only be called a bedtime story.

* * *

Shinichi'd kept his 'story' very light, only alluding indirectly to what kind of state exactly Kid had gotten himself into and why; anything else, given his own current condition, would have felt- well, more than a little weird. And anyway, he'd promised to only tell the best parts, hadn't he? So he left the majority up to Ran's imagination (which was _quite_ good enough, considering the fiery blush it produced) and put himself to bed. His dreams were vivid and indistinct; once, he woke up with the impression that someone had brushed his hair back from his forehead with a gentle hand, only to find his room dark and silent.

School the next day was full of the usual chatter and boredom, leavened by the Shonen Tantei's welcome and Haibara's cool little smile. It felt good in a weird way, slipping back into the comfortable-if-mindnumbing routine, and at least Mondays were Library Days; he'd been working his way through translations of the American author Robert Heinlein's juvenile fiction from the older students' shelves, carefully tucked inside more childish-looking books. They weren't half bad, really, and at least they saved him from having to read _Hamtaro's Big Day At The Circus._

He was working his way through the first few pages of _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_ when a small body slid onto the seat beside him. A finger slipped between the outer book and the inner, tipping the spine up so that the title could be read. "Heinlein?" said Ai's quiet voice. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Quite a good choice, actually."

Shinichi- no, Conan, he reminded himself, he was _Conan_ at school- felt an eyebrow climb. "You read Heinlein?" he asked curiously.

"Mm. One can only manage so many Mensa articles on mitochondrial evolution before one needs a little less taxing stimulation. And besides," the blonde added, "he wrote strong female characters. And decent science, though he did have an overly-political bent." She slipped the doubled books from his hands and into her own lap, reading out loud: _"'But most Loonies never tried to leave The Rock- too risky for any bloke who'd been to Luna for more than weeks,'"_ she said softly, echoing words written decades earlier about someone born in the futuristic penal colony of Heinlein's fantasy. _"'Computermen sent up to install Mike were on short term bonus-contracts- get the job done fast before irreversible physiological change marooned them four hundred thousand kilometers from home.'_ One of my favorites of Heinlein's, his parable of the American Revolution; it was required reading in a World History class that Ak- that my sister took." She studied the print, face quiet. "Do you ever feel like that, Kudo-kun? Marooned?"

He blinked at her, following where this was going easily enough. "...a little, sometimes. Used to be a lot, before you-" Unobtrusively he tapped the small black unit attached to his hip beneath his clothing. "Why?"

She looked down at the book, resting lightly inside its oversized, brightly-colored concealment. "When the castaway begins to accept their prison as their home, is it time to rethink strategies? -not for you, of course," Ai said, waving away his widening eyes and look of shock. "I was discussing myself."

"Why? Don't you- Haibara, don't you _want_ to get back to normal?" Conan stared at her in consternation.

"That," she said deliberately as she passed his books back to him and stood, "rather depends on what 'normal' is, don't you think?" She brushed off her hands as if dusting away the thought from her mind. "You'd best finish your reading; we only have ten minutes left." But still she stood there, her blue-gray gaze studying him for a moment before she turned to walk away.

"Haibara-" he said softly. "Does this have anything to do with what Kaasan talked to you about? I know she can be a little pushy, but..." Ai had paused; and now she glanced back over one shoulder at him, a faint little smile curving her lips.

"Kudo-kun, _Ghengis Khan_ was, in comparison with your mother, a little pushy; she could have taught him things that would have tripled the size of his empire. And... yes and no. She simply made it necessary that I... think about a few things to do with my future." Still the little smile, enigmatic as ever. "And uncomfortable as those thoughts might be, I have no quarrel with anyone who can broaden my mind, even if they use the verbal equivalent of a bulldozer to do so."

She left him there then, hands full of books, head full of questions.

* * *

.

.

_Thanks for reading! Next week, join us for "Frustration, bartop, ticklish"._


	40. Frustration, bartop, ticklish

_Heya all! Welcome to Three Thieves. This week...well, it's not all fun and games, and the Real World's a bitch._

_I hope your Fridays, in all their various forms, whether officey, retail-y, student-y, or lazy (I'm jealous!), will be made easier with this SURPRAIZE!early chapter? :3 Let's ignore the part where I've got deadlines to meet and won't have time to post this evening. XD_

_My sources tell me we've got some new readers joining us; my apologies to you intrepid folk for not keeping the table of contents up to date. I'll make Ysabet fix that for you all. ^_~_

_Also, thank you all for your song suggestions last week! They were very much enjoyed (and giggled over). The winner is "Love You Madly" by CAKE, which is random, playful, bouncy, and earnest without being lewd or trashy: all the things good gentlemen thieves in love should be._

_In future chapters, we're going to work harder on including theme music with our posts; we HAVE favorite songs for many scenes that we've written, but we've been lax in attaching them to the fic. We'll fix that! :D Out of curiosity, how many of you listen to the suggested theme song while you read? :)_

_**Book Four, Chapter Seven****: ****"frustration, bartop, ticklish"**_  
_WARNING : Foul language. A lot of it._  
_Theme Music: "When You Were Young" by The Killers._  
_written by the dashing tag team of: Evil Sister **ysabet** and Evil-er Sister **nightengale**._

_._

_(**Also: My apologies for missing a week in posting this chapter. Due to this goof on my part, you get TWO chapters this week- this one and the next. I'll post that one as soon as this one's done, and so despite your missing out for a week, you get a double dose this time. Enjoy!... Ysabet The Goof)**_

* * *

Shinichi barely checked in for afternoon classes; to say he was 'phoning it in' would be giving him too much credit. _I could make a great pigeon perch,_ he thought, and even the associated thought of Kid's grin as Moku, Moona, Keeta, and the rest came to rest on Shinichi - in either size - wasn't helping the time go faster.

_The clock is going __backward__, I swear,_ the detective grumbled, covering his face with both hands. _I will shoot it with my tranq darts, and then it might stop going backwards. And then I could push it forward. And then I could __leave__ and-_

"Edogawa-kun?"

Conan - _I have to be Conan here,_ he reminded himself - jerked upward in his seat, giving the impression of waking from a nap. The other students tittered and Conan addressed the teacher. "Hai, Sensei?"

"Stay after class a little bit, okay? I'd like to speak with you about something." She cleared her throat, clapping for the attention of the rest of the class. "Alright, everyone, that's it for today! Let's clean up the classroom very well before we leave!"

As the rest of the Shonen Tantei scattered off to their assigned after-school tasks, Ai raised a brow at Conan. "Something?" she asked quietly. "Edogawa-kun, what did you do now?"

"Wish I knew," Conan muttered, slipping his books into his bag with quick motions. "I'll let you know if it's anything serious."

* * *

Glad I'm not there, then. You have fun with the crazy tuba guy in my place, ok, Kudo?

Shinichi stared at his phone in mild irritation. The text from Hattori was finished off with a happy little sprite animation, likely in self-referential humor, but either way it was altogether too cheery for Shinichi's taste, and it just made him more cranky - because honestly, Shinichi _wished_ he could go hang out with the 'crazy tuba guy', no matter what Hattori said. Chirokawa was a useful resource, and though the souzaphone had nothing to do with him, it was, maybe, an oblique indication of exactly how many random-yet-useful tidbits of information could be gleaned from fifteen minutes in his office.

Shinichi stopped in his tracks, turned, and glared over his shoulder at the closed glass doors of the Missing Persons division. Directly behind them, the polite receptionist smiled sweetly; far beyond that, Chirokawa's office - and information - remained unexplored. The receptionist hadn't let him past the front door no matter what he said, and the back corridor was blocked by a janitor, who seemed perfectly content to spend the next several hours sitting in the hallway, observing - and filtering - the foot traffic that passed by.

Shinichi scowled, turning back to his path with a childish scuff of one shoe. He'd never had _any_ trouble getting into the Missing Persons division before - he was well-known around the precinct, well-respected for his polite and mature behavior, and usually well-overlooked. But today, it seemed like everyone in the building was out to keep him from getting to Chirokawa's door.

_If I strike out this badly with my online research when I get home, I'm just going to call it a day and...and...kick something._

_("Some threat,")_ snarked a small opinion in the back of his head, which sounded suspiciously like Kid's voice. _("Much more threatening to say you'll drink yourself into oblivion.")_

_I'm eight,_ Shinichi told it, frowning. _I would be out with half a cup of sake._

_("And it would be exceedingly funny to watch,")_ said the voice, which really did sound like Kid now that Shinichi concentrated on it.

_I'm talking to myself,_ he groaned, squinting in frustration. _I'm talking to myself about underage alcohol poisoning in my boyfriend's voice._

_("Could be worse,")_ the opinion contributed. _("You could be talking to your boyfriend about alcohol poisoning in your underage voice.")_

_("Or,")_ the voice added, turning bad to worse, _("in your __girlfriend's__ voice. See? It's all relative.")_

Mentally giving the finger towards the little voice (which snickered), Shinichi plopped down on one of the lobby couches to think- hard. He felt a little growl of frustration building up inside and did his best to subdue it, turning his mind towards the puzzle of just _why_ things suddenly seemed to be so difficult. After his usual relative freedom in the precinct, this was... not right. And not just not-right, but _deliberately_ not-right; that receptionist had let him through dozens of times in the past, accompanied or not- hell, he practically had his own private Visitor's Pass. And the janitor? Wasn't doing a lot of cleaning, was he? Though he did seem to be highly interested in just who was dirtying up his clean floors.

Mentally ticking off his options, Shinichi bit his lip. _I could try Takagi and Sato, but... I'd just as soon stay clear of those two for a little while if I can. I could call Chirokawa-san directly- I have his number- but if he's been warned off me, then it won't do any good. I could investigate on my own, but I need the police findings; I don't even know exactly how the girl died, it might not've been drowning. The initial autopsy's probably been done, though toxicology'll take a while to get their results back; pity the body was in a storm-drain and not a stationary body of water, any surface evidence is hopelessly contaminated, and decomposition's probably been pushed along too._

For a moment Shinichi felt a stab of shame at treating the tragedy of a young woman's untimely death as just another puzzle, but- angsting over it wouldn't catch any murderers, wouldn't solve any crimes. His gut instinct said that this was a crime, not just some simple mistake or accident; and in lieu of any better lead, all he could really do was to go with it. After all, his instincts hadn't led him wrong yet, had they?

...except, of course, for that time he'd chased those men in black at Tropical Land...

_("Like I said, it's all-")_ piped up the cheerful little voice inside his head. "Relative, I know," muttered Shinichi beneath his breath; he kicked irritably at the table opposite the couch.

About then his stomach gave a lurch and whine, complaining about how it could really do with a bit of a snack; by now he was usually home with Ran, munching on crackers or something in an effort not to die of hunger before dinner. The gurgle, though, spawned a thought, and a useful one; Shinichi checked his watch. Was it- yes. There was enough time.

Chirokawa-san was, as Hattori had learned so painfully, a creature of very set ways and habits. And one of those had to do with his afternoon stroll. If Shinichi could just get through...

_Okay, got it._ Waving at the receptionist, Shinichi slid from his seat and trotted through the main doors again, this time turning towards a wide side corridor. "Edogawa-kun," said the receptionist in a patient tone, "Dear, I did tell you that you can't-"

"I'm just going to the snack-bar," Shinichi said innocently. "I'm hungry. I don't need a pass for that, do I?" And indeed, the precinct snack-bar was down the 'public' hallway, same as the bathrooms and resource center. The receptionist frowned, but there wasn't a lot she could do; and with a little wave, Shinichi went on his hurried way. If he'd timed it right then Chirokawa'd be along in, oh, (he checked his watch) about eight minutes...

* * *

Chirokawa Kiyoshi wasn't feeling anything like happy as he came around the corner of the main hall into the snack bar, headed for his habitual midafternoon coffee (eight sugars, one salt), but as soon as he spotted the sharp Edogawa boy waiting for him at the table just inside the door, his whole mood went from bad to worse. He stopped in his tracks out of reflex, then took an additional step to make sure he ended on a prime number of paces, scowling fiercely at the child.

"Clearly I need to have words with that receptionist," he said, biting his words off sharply. Giving the boy's chair a wide berth, Kiyoshi walked five paces of exactly point seven seven three meters to the snack counter and began preparing his coffee. As the boy addressed him, voice carrying an intelligence that was never completely masked - especially when he made the poor choice of acting so transparently younger (and dumber) than he was, Kiyoshi felt his frown deepen.

"...And I just wanted to talk with you a _little_ but neesan at the desk won't let me even though I was very nice," Edogawa was saying. "Chirokawa-san, have you heard about the girl with rainbow hair?"

"I have and you won't," the man snapped, showing Edogawa his back. "Not your business."

He could practically see the boy dig his heels in deeper; the lower lip tightened against his teeth rather than sticking out childishly, the narrow brows drew down, and the small hands that were shoved into equally small pockets tightened into fists. Bizarrely, though, he didn't whine or evince any other immature behavior; instead, Edogawa rocked back onto his heels and stared directly up at the forbidding face above his own. "Why?" he asked bluntly. "What's so different this time? You never said anything like that to me before, not since the first time I asked for help. Remember?" Edogawa regarded Kiyoshi with those penetrating eyes, all pretence at cuteness gone.

Kiyoshi glared back. He did remember, actually. That first time, the unchildlike child had slipped into his office (much to his outrage) but had simply stood there without disturbing anything, hands in his pockets in much the same stance. He'd listened to the other's diatribe against A) germs, B) children who were clearly natural walking germ-factories, C) proper procedure in regards to hygiene and D) just where were his keepers, anyway, were they expecting _babysitting-duties_ out of Chirokawa now? The boy's stare had narrowed then just as it was doing now—and without a word he had pulled out the smallest pair of forensic gloves Kiyoshi had ever seen from a pocket, snapping them on with quite professional ease. "I'm sorry," he'd said quietly and without any fuss; "they don't carry shoe-covers my size in the labs. Do you have a pair I could use, Chirokawa-san?"

And now, staring down at the intent blue gaze, Kiyoshi growled at himself, at the boy, at police procedure and at the idiots in Division One who didn't know an asset when they saw it, no matter the size. "Word from higher up," said Kiyoshi shortly, looking away. "And no, I don't know who from, and no, I don't know why, and yes, that's all I can say."

Edogawa was silent for a long moment; with a tight sigh, Kiyoshi glanced back over his shoulder, already knowing what he'd see. The boy's eyes were hard like blue flint, narrowed and full of anger. Not the sort of childish "I want my cookie" temperamental fits that other eight-year-olds were prone to performing; Edogawa's eyes held an adult, measured, and deliberate frustration, an anger directed at big, insubstantial entities such as _'need not to know'_ and _'extradepartmental investigatory protocol'_ which, at best, only vaguely existed in the minds of his brightest peers.

But - and this was the image that stuck in Kiyoshi's mind throughout the rest of the week, as bad news layered on top of bad news made its way onto his desk, and he thought often of how useful the boy's determination could have been, despite the risks - Edogawa didn't give vent to any of his frustration or anger. He simply locked it away, eyes shuttering down the bald emotion and leaving bland cheerfulness in its place, and offered a smile for the older man.

"Thank you anyway, Chirokawa-san," Edogawa said, nodding. "It was nice talking with you."

* * *

With the understandable exception of Kid heists, Shinichi made a general effort to curtail his profanity. Not only would it be out of character for Conan, but it was usually an unnecessary expression of frustration that could more productively be channeled toward a resolution of the frustrating situation, rather than a demonstrative rant against it. However... there were exceptions.

"Fuck."

That one was for Chirokawa, and whatever authority bound his hands and tongue so he couldn't give Shinichi the information he clearly wanted to.

"Fuck."

One for the precinct in general, Takagi in particular; for an excess of observation and a shortsightedness in perception at once.

"Fuck."

For his own inability to level his full resources against the case at hand.

"Fuck." For the chance that another child would die while he spun his eight-year-old wheels.

"Fuck," for protocol, "fuck," for the force or forces that left a teenager's body bloating in a storm drain; "_fucking_ fuck," for the hands that killed her, and one more for good measure. "_Gods-fucking-damnit!_"

Shinichi sagged against the brick wall behind him, cranky and more than cranky at every single thing he could see. Even the clouds, which seemed about to let some scraps of blue sky wiggle their way through, irritated him. He was facing so many different dead ends that he could barely count them all; some were obvious, some were present by implication, and some were in the wings, ready to fall into place if he pursued his investigation attempts any further. He was out of patience, nearly out of resources, and _definitely_ out of time to continue fucking around with a division - a system - that wanted to keep him from his cases and his prey.

And on top of all that, Shinichi cursed, his first-grade teacher was being troublesome as well. She had wanted to know the explanation for the box on his hip, in nice, clear, medically-sound terms. Accompanied by a doctor's note and proper paperwork, of course, for safety reasons. Deliverable tomorrow. _Of course._ Which meant that - instead of spending time working on solving a _murder_, Shinichi would have to tune in to an episode of Forgery With Yukiko that evening - wasting yet more time that he wanted to be spending on finding justice for Kimura Eiko and, probably, the as-yet-undiscovered corpse of her boyfriend, as well.

As the train screeched into the station and rain pattered noisily against the tin roof of the station shelter, Shinichi kicked the curb and cursed again, though the sound of his voice was mostly lost in the general clatter of the train's passengers, disembarking and boarding. For the few commuters who had been watching, mesmerised, as an eight year old boy methodically and rhythmically paced around the station, cursing a blue streak the whole time, Shinichi's final curses were conveyed only in the silent enunciation of his angry mouth.

"_**Fuck it all.**_"

* * *

"That won't fix it, you know," said a voice from over Takagi Wataru's shoulder.

He straightened hastily from where he'd been leaning over the bar, chin on his elbow. "Sato-san," he said, simultaneously relieved and embarrassed to have been drawing in his beer's condensation dregs on the bartop, sketching letters and little drawings out with a fingertip. "I know. It's just a bad habit." The young officer of Division One allowed his shoulders to relax a bit as his partner took her place on the stool beside his, face flushed with the two drinks she'd had to match his own.

Now she studied the bartop, tilting her head back to follow the refraction in the drops. "Is there any reason why," she asked him quietly, "you've been writing the same thing over and over?" Mortified, her partner took a swipe with a beer-soaked napkin, smearing the majority of the scribblings into oblivion. "It's not like we're waiting to meet him here, are we?" A hint of a smile hiding out in the corner of her mouth, Sato made a show of checking high and low around the small bar's single narrow room. Her smile faded into concern as Takagi ducked his head and took a drink. _"Are_ we?"

"...no."

"Good." At his dismayed expression, Sato Miwako shook her head. "Takagi-kun, you know why we can't-"... Her words trailed off uncertainly as she turned her head towards the door; a familiar figure had just stepped into view. "Uh- Megure-keibu?" Her partner sat up so quickly that he almost spilled his drink.

"Takagi-kun, Sato-kun." The older officer dragged a barstool around and in with one hand. Seeing him at the small bar (a modest establishment by the name of _'Red's Place',_ not District One's usual but a kind of secondary, quieter local for when an officer wanted less noise and more peace) wasn't totally unexpected, but... The inspector raised a finger to the bartender, pointed at Takagi's beer, raised an eyebrow at his two junior officers and then held up three fingers; Takagi hastily downed the remainder of his second drink and pushed it away, smearing his bar-scribbles even further.

"I take it you warned Ran-san," said the inspector at last, heavily.

"...more or less. I didn't want to alarm her, sir. How many-?" Takagi's eyes were unhappy as he watched his superior officer settle back on his own stool, arms crossed. The silence spoke volumes, and Takagi cleared his throat before trying again. "Ah... alright. How many _suspected_ childnapping cases of the kind we're worried about have been documented?"

The bartender passed along their beers and then left them in peace; Megure took a deep swallow of his own and sat it down with a harsh, hard _clack!_ "Fourteen total," he said shortly, tonelessly. "Eight of those were in Tokyo, three in Osaka; the other three included the missing girl, her boyfriend and one other from the Okinawa area. That's in the last nine months. It's not a large number."

Sato traced thin lines around her own glass with her fingernails; they made a tiny hissing sound, scraping against the droplet-beaded surface. "It is if you add in the other factors- intelligence, age, or rather the lack of age... How far back does the pattern range, a year? Two years?" Her eyes widened as Megure shook his head. _"More?_ Megure-keibu-"

"I know." The inspector made a frustrated sound. "I know. Don't you think I've tried to point that out? But all I'm getting from Headquarters is 'Megure, hundreds of children go missing in Tokyo alone every year.' 'Megure, you're worrying about nothing.' 'Megure, when you've got _proof,_ we'll talk.' Proof. Like what? More missing adolescents with-" He shook his head and downed half his been in one long swallow.

The three sat in silence for a few minutes. In one corner of the bar, a small TV blared out the news in a tinny, distorted voice, and a sluggish fan overhead kept the air moving. Nobody bothered them; nobody ever bothered the cops who frequented Red's because generally they didn't come there for excitement; they came there to be left alone, and all too often they'd had a little too much excitement already. It was really quite surprising, how few fights the small bar had.

"Is it possible that..." Takagi trailed off before he'd even gotten his thought going, speculation resolving into a sullen surety that there were far too many possibilities and not nearly enough concrete information.

The trio - aided by Shiratori and Chiba - had been nursing speculation and suspicion for months with no headway, until the Kimura case resurfaced. But because of the way the body had been discovered, carrying so little evidence after so many weeks of submersion, all that Eiko-chan had done was to inspire more questions. It had inspired Takagi to speak to Conan, though he'd given no hint of his true concerns when he addressed the boy; and all of them knew, considering how good Conan was at redirection, investigative conversation, and interpolation, that they stood more to risk by asking him too much than by trying to keep silent.

"It's hard," Takagi said finally, downing half his remaining beer in one long swallow. "I _want_ to tell him. Isn't that stupid?"

"He's just a child," Megure said quietly, the slump of his shoulders betraying the weight he felt across them. "I can understand why it would be difficult to remember that, Takagi-kun. I forget sometimes, too. But he's only eight years old, and he's just a civilian." Shadows under the Inspector's eyes, memories of the civilian decoy whom he still felt responsible for endangering, even after twenty years of peaceful marriage to her, let his junior officers easily understand the conviction in his voice. "We have to protect him."

Sato sighed. "Eight going on eighty," she murmured. "I can't help but think he would know how to solve this. Maybe I'm being silly, but...I have this instinct. _Not_," she added quickly, as the other two looked critical askance at her, "That I think we _should_ ask him. Definitely not. But sometimes...I'll admit, sometimes he makes me feel...well, simple."

"Hrrm. Simple. If he's like this at eight, what's he going to be like at eighteen?" The older man swirled the beer in his glass, raising three more fingers at the bartender without even glancing at his fellow officers this time.

"Kudo."

"?" Both Megure and Sato blinked at Takagi in inquiry; he flushed, sitting down his drink on the bar. "I only met Kudo Shinichi a time or two, but... everything I've heard about him, well, reminds me of Conan. Except," he added thoughtfully, "Even Kudo Shinichi wasn't solving cases this early." He frowned, tracing lines of kanji on the bartop again with a finger; Sato's gaze followed the movement and she frowned.

"Kudo Shinichi," mused the inspector over the rim of his glass, "has- or had, it's been quite a while- one great fault: he was always too sure of himself. Too much confidence, too certain he was right. Too likely to get involved in the chase to notice the cliff under his feet..." Megure paused, one heavy eyebrow rising beneath the hat that, even in Red's, he hadn't removed. "You may be right, Takagi-kun. Aren't they related somehow?"

"Supposedly. I've never been too clear on that." Three beers down and a fourth (and last, he wasn't precisely a lightweight but four were plenty) arriving on the bar, Takagi rubbed at his forehead. "Kudo Shinichi... you're right, he hasn't been involved in a case, even at a distance, since... what's it been? Never mind. You don't suppose-? But no, he's too old to fit the profile."

Sato stared moodily into her own drink. "Just as well, really. He'd be perfect if he were a few years younger, wouldn't he? That girl's age seems to be top of the range. Twelve, ten... eight years old..." Neither of the two men answered her, but her lips tightened as she reached out a finger and drew another stick-figure beside the row that Takagi had just completed on the bar: small shapes, child-shapes, some male and some female, one after the other all in a line.

One of them had glasses.

Megure leaned in, looking at the lineup, then frowned and wiped a fat palm across the last, shortest one, smearing away the dewy lines of the bespectacled figure.

"Let's not think like that, Takagi-kun. We're not going to let anything get him."

"Assuming there's a 'them' who's 'getting' anyone, which we don't know for sure," Sato muttered, but there was little conviction behind her words.

Between them, Takagi slumped on his stool, bracing his chin on both palms and trying to banish the mental images that had been dogging him for weeks. They wouldn't fade; eyeing his last beer, Takagi gritted his teeth and chugged it, trying to forget not only his gruesome what-ifs, but the stubborn, completely unswayed expression in Conan's eyes when they'd dropped him off at the Mouris' house after Kimura's body had been found...the intelligence in his attention at the roundtable, the way he handled a notebook and pen...and the report that had driven the three officers to the bar this evening, passed to them from the front desk clerk at the Missing Persons division, regarding one very determined, very squirrelly little investigator.

"It _won't_ happen, Takagi-kun," muttered his partner beside him, unexpectedly close; he turned his head as a hand clasped his shoulder, looking directly into her concerned eyes. "It _won't._We'll make certain it doesn't. What else can we do?"

"He won't stop," muttered Takagi, leaning gratefully into the clasp. "He won't give up, he'll keep on pushing and pushing and pushing and finding ways around, he'll-"

"We won't give up either, Takagi-kun," said Megure matter of factly. He drained his glass. "That's what we do."

And that would have to be enough, wouldn't it? Because, as Sato said, what else could they do?

* * *

"-take the entrance exams two months after graduation," finished Ran, leaning back on the couch with a sigh. "I've got a lot of studying to do; Kaasan'll help me, but I... Shinichi? Shinichi, are you listening at all?"

The boy rummaging through Mouri's file-cabinet looked up at her quickly. "I was," he said apologetically. "Sorry- just a little preoccupied; I need to find something. Wait, they're only giving you two months? That's not a lot; have you signed up for the prep-courses yet?" He pulled the file he'd been looking for, climbed down from the stack of phonebooks that he'd been using to reach the upper drawers and scrambled up beside Ran with a sigh. "Where'll they hold the classes? And did you persuade Sonoko to take something? If she sits around with nothing to do she'll end up living on Pocky and hassling pizza-delivery guys for a hobby, and her butt will get absolutely _hu—_" He dodged a swat. "C'mon, seriously." Blue eyes looked up at her without their usual mask of lens and frame; the glasses lay discarded and forgotten across the room. "Ran, I don't like the idea of you going into college- or these classes, at least- without somebody you know with you."

Ran gave him a curious look even as she ruffled his hair softly. "You don't usually put much faith in Sonoko. Why the change?" Leaning past the small frame, she fished out a folded set of entrance paperwork from between two of her schoolbooks. "In fact, I seem to remember you being totally willing to trade _her_ for a couple of boxes of Pocky when we were about ten." Her eyes narrowed a little. "I can take care of myself, you know…"

"I know you can," Shinichi answered tiredly. "Hell, you save _my_ ass half the time, instead of the other way around. That's not...exactly my point, though." He paused, measuring his words; Ran waited patiently, one hand drifting to touch and curl around his shoulders.

"College- law school- is somewhere I can't follow you, Ran. Not even with my weak excuses about whatever Shinichi-niisan said or told Conan-kun to do. If an eight-year-old starts spending a lot of unaccompanied time on a college campus, people are going to notice.

"Besides that, you _can_ take care of yourself, and you don't _need_ me to babysit you or coddle you, either." He made a wry smile and leaned against her, enjoying the warm cushion of her hip and side with all the nonsexual affection of his child's body. "And yes, I'm aware how ironic that would be. I would just feel better knowing that you had someone there looking out for you, even in a different program. Tokyo is a big city...I don't think I could get from this side of it to that one in time, if you needed me."

Ran frowned; her eyes were pensive. "But she won't be on campus at the same college, not when I'm there; we'll only be together during the prep classes. If she really does go into Marketing or whatever, she'll probably be at some expensive place with a bunch of other zaibatsu-family sons and daughters who're just there because their families didn't want them spending their days doing nothing. I'm _going_ to have to be on my own, Shinichi; and you'll just have to trust me to keep myself safe." She made a wry face. "I mean, I'd love to have Sonoko in class with me at Waseda University, but... can you see her going into Law? And forget about being a paralegal, this is _Sonoko;_ she wouldn't settle for anything less than lawyer."

The two shared a mutual moment of silence as they contemplated the vision of Attorney!Sonoko defending some hapless, wide-eyed defendent... "Okay, no." Snickering, Shinichi shook his head. "That's a little too much like the times I had to- um."

He shot Ran a guilty glance from beneath her arm; she intercepted it and tapped his watch with a meaningful look. "You DID dart her, didn't you, Shinichi? Thought so. And more than once, too-"

The mournful, puppy-dog eyes that he gave her in return would have done justice to a real gradeschooler. "Don't look at me like that, Ran, the first time wasn't even my fault! She just stepped in front of me and I had to, to... work with what I had. Wasn't easy, either." He snorted, sliding his hand down inside the sleeve of his sweatshirt and holding it up handpuppet-style; the 'mouth' opened and closed in pantomime. "'Hi, I'm Sonoko-sama, Girl Detective! Detect, deduct, denounce! Rawr!'" he announced in a childishly squeaky voice.

"...She would squish you, you know," Ran said after a moment, holding back snickers. "She would squish you flat. She was pretty proud of herself for that deduction! She even was bragging about how she could be the next Nemure no Kogoro. Said his brilliance for deduction was rubbing off on her."

Shinichi snorted. "Sonoko? A brilliant detective? You _do_ remember that deduction play that she had to write, right? The one that I had to figure out the ending for because she'd written herself into a corner?"

Ran winced. "I remember. Sonoko should stick to romances."

"I don't know about that," Shinichi laughed, shifting under Ran's arm to lean his back against her side, tucking his heels up onto the couch beside them. "She doesn't seem so great at that, either."

"I don't know about _that_," Ran echoed, a singsong smile turned down for him to see. "There was that one play about Princess Heart and the Black Knight..."

"Spade. I remember," Shinichi said, coloring a little bit. "I never did apologize for that one, did I? Sonoko told me I was supposed to kiss you; I had no idea that she was sending me off-script on purpose."

"You would have kissed me anyway, though," Ran said quietly. "You would have. And then I think I would have known it was you, even before you took off the mask."

"Really?" Shinichi sat up, twisting around to look at Ran straight on.

"Really," she murmured, cupping his small face in both her hands. "I think I would have known right away...that it was the kiss I'd dreamed about for so long." Without moving, he looked back at her for a long moment, cheeks still slightly flushed. If it wasn't for his eyes—if he'd been the child he appeared to be, he would've looked adorably cute; as it was, Shinichi's gaze was open and unguarded.

"Wish I could kiss you now," he murmured. "But we'd both miss out, and I'd probably blow up something internal, and that'd annoy Haibara." Very deliberately he took one of her hands and turned it over in his much smaller one, pressing a kiss against his fingertips and touching her palm in the exact same gesture that he'd made towards Kid on the rooftop of the Ghibli only a few weeks before. "Rain check? I'll even—" (and there was a hint of Shinichi's smile curving Conan's lips) "—put on the damn Spade costume and reenact the scene if you want. And someday when it's safe you can tell Sonoko all about it, and you can both laugh at me then if you want."

"I wouldn't want to laugh," said Ran softly, holding up her hand in front of her eyes as if she could see the kiss. "But someday, when it's safe… maybe I will." She brushed her lips against her own palm, a kiss traveling across memory and hope and physical distance into the future, flying like a bird set free from a cage.

Shinichi held her gaze for a long time, letting the silence between them stretch comfortably. "When it's safe," he said finally, dropping his gaze to his lap. "We have to get there first. I have to get back to work...I still haven't found everything I need." With a sigh, he rolled one shoulder, then the other, stretching out in preparation for another climb up the phone book ladder. "I guess I should feel lucky that he's _this_ organized, but that's mostly your doing, isn't it?"

Ran sighed also, getting to her feet. "Mostly. Kaasan used to do it for him, while he was still on the force. I don't think he really had to keep himself organized much ever, since I took over for her when she left. And when he gets depressed and drunk, well..."

Shinichi grimaced. "Don't get me wrong, Ran, your father is pretty smart when he puts his mind to it. But he, ahm..."

"He needs a keeper." Ran laughed. "I know. But he's my tousan and I love him, so I don't mind. And he is successful enough that he can keep this place for us to live in, and I'm grateful for that."

"You know," Shinichi mused, tapping his chin in an exaggerated posture of thoughtfulness, "_Technically,_ since I am the voice of Nemure no Kogoro, his recent rise in popularity and the number of cases coming in is due to me. So, _technically,_ I'm not the freeloader that he says I am. _Technically,_ I'm keeping the roof over our heads as well as him."

"My little breadwinner," Ran teased, ruffling Shinichi's hair. "Such a hard worker."

Shinichi swatted at her. "Raaaaan. Quit it."

She laughed, dodging the swat, and kept going. "Just imagine what Kid would think of you, hmm? Supporting our little family like that! I wonder, when everything's safe and you can be yourself again, will the money we'll get from your successful cases go toward financing his heists?" Shinichi audibly choked, eyes popping wide; Ran's laugh was strong and clear as she kept going, watching his expression the whole time. "He doesn't _make_ money on any of that, you know. He's got to buy his equipment somehow! Ooooh, the seedy underbelly of the Shrunken Detective's secret rabu-ra- Ow!"

Shinichi glowered at her, fingers twisting a bit of skin on her calf. "He _does_ actually make money off of it," the detective groused, his feathers very clearly ruffled. "He stole himself a controlling influence in some lines of greymarket Kaitou Kid action figures and memorabilia a while back. He said their sales are just trickling a nice steady income into his accounts without him having to do anything."

"Oooh, crafty," Ran trilled, grinning. "Tell him that I want a share in the Edogawa Conan line, when that comes ou-haha, can't catch me!"

Shinichi grinned and reached for her again, seeking to repeat the pinch - this time with fingernails. Ran danced away, stepping over piles of paperwork - some of it unshelved by Shinichi, most of it left out by her father. "If you pinch me again I'll tickle youuuu, Shini~chi~," Ran sang, beaming at him, hair falling over her shoulders as she paused, facing off across the coffee table at him. "And I know where your ticklish spots are."

"I know where yours are," Shinichi countered, wondering if using the kick shoes to speed his run, not his attack, would help him in this situation. He measured his girlfriend's moves carefully as he edged out from behind the table. "And I'm much more little and flexi-buh?"

Both detective and detective's daughter stared at the little red cellphone on the table between them, which was buzzing happily with an incoming text message.

"Truce," Ran said, standing up out of her attacking crouch. "See what he has to say."

"He?" Shinichi said, already reaching for the phone. "Hattori and the kids have this number too, and Ai and Agasa. How do you know who..."

"Woman's intuition," Ran grinned. "Am I right?"

_**Thinking of you, my-tantei. ;-D**_

"...Ulp."

"Ooooooh, 'my-tantei'," Ran teased her pint-sized boyfriend. "Does that make him 'my-thief'? Or maybe 'our-thief'?" Nimble fingers plucked the red cellphone from small hands and Shinichi yelped in protest as, laughing, Ran began to type in a reply.

**_This is R- our-tantei's just a little too short to reach the phone. :D What should I do with him, you think?_**

Standing, she dangled the phone face-down just above Shinichi's straining fingers and read her text out loud. "Bet he'll have a few good ideas, don't you?" she asked with a little grin, eyes merry. "'My-tantei'... 'meitantei.'" She giggled.

"You," said the disgruntled voice from waist-level, "are gonna _pay_ for that this weekend." Ran brandished the cellphone with a triumphant air.

"Oh really?" She reached down and tweaked Shinichi's nose. "And THAT's for pinching me."

Shinichi was just considering the merits of biting Ran's fingers if she tried that move again when the red cellphone went off again; he made his best leap for it, but Mouri Ran, Evil Tormentor Of Undersized Tanteis, held it mockingly just a bit out of reach and again relayed Kid's answer, doing her best in an ironic twist of circumstances to mimic _HIS_ voice for a change:

**_Oh, tickle him to death, surely! I'd suggest smthn else but we have so few options this way. Honestly, he needs reformatted._**

"'-reformatted?' _I'll_ give him 'reformatted'!" Climbing the couch in a vain attempt to reach the taunting, tempting lure of the cellphone, Shinichi followed this comment with several choice remarks regarding the thief's ancestry and personal hygiene. Laughing almost too hard to breathe by now, Ran held the phone over her own head and laboriously typed an answer.

**_Think that sounds like a good idea. Wish you could hear him, he needs his mouth washed out with soap. Says you're a asdfghhhhhhhhjjjj_**

Ran's hasty text became a jumble of squashed keys as two small but determined arms locked around her knees; she squeaked as she went down onto the couch, cellphone flying with a defiant, jaunty _BEEP!_ as the text headed off into the aether where the emails wing invisible. She squirmed, giggling; "This-aheehee, STOP!- n-never w-w-works! I'm bigger than you!" She twisted around in an attempt to avoid the terrible, deft fingers and to grab her attacker, but with an entirely childish giggle of his own Shinichi wiggled free and onto the floor.

"The bigger they are, the-" he began as he went after Ran's feet. She shrieked as he began to tickle her instep, and still snickering, he finished, "-the louder they screeeEEEEGHK!" as Ran flipped around and snagged him by the shirtcollar, dragging him back up onto the couch.

From there, things... devolved.

An uncounted number of minutes later, two very out-of-breath teenagers (sort of) lay sprawled, panting, on the disheveled remains of Mouri's lefthand couch. Half the pillows were on the floor, the books had been swept off to lie in disarray everywhere, and Shinichi flailed weakly from beneath where Ran's hands pinned him down. "Uncle?" she gasped out, fingers moving threatening against his short ribs. "Say Uncle, Shinichi, or, or-"

"-ohgodnomore- Uncle! U-Uncle! Anything!"

She flopped back, draped across the end of the couch. "Told-" (gasp, pant) "Told you it- wouldn't work-" Still giggling, hair in her eyes, Ran fished the cellphone (miraculously unsquashed) from beneath a textbook. It had beeped back at some point in the proceedings, and now she read her own text out loud to the fallen detective, following it with Kid's reply:

**_Lovely! that's one I've not been called before. I expect him to reproduce that for my benefit later...& I'll provide the inspiration~3_**

From his place flat on his back and halfway beneath the coffeetable, Shinichi snorted. "Bastard. He'll get his later on."

"Oh, I bet he will." Finger-combing her long hair back, Ran shot him a triumphant, unfair and _utterly beautiful_ grin of pure, gleaming mischief, typing into the cellphone once more. "And so will I. Won't I, Shinichi?"

**_Sorry about the delay, am now Dead Of Tickling. He's Deader, though. Says you'll get yours later. Promises, promises. :D_**

Shinichi had the grace to blush.

* * *

.

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Thanks for joining us this week! Next chapter'll be **_Book Four, Chapter Eight: "Patterns, reasons, choices."_**


	41. Patterns, reasons, choices

_Evening, all! Here we go, nice long chapter... and I suspect this should get a few interesting comments. And possibly some horrified looks, depending on what you think of Division One. **secret little grin** Shinichi's small world just may be about to expand... or maybe not; we'll see, won't we?_

_Things are getting darker._

_Enjoy, and please let us know what you think... The Management_

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**Three Thieves****, a series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by ****nightengale**** and ****ysabet****  
****Book Four, Chapter Eight****: "patterns, reasons, choices"  
Warnings: **_None  
Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _**dc_yaoi**_ , _**detective_conan**_ , _**magic_kaitou**_ and _**manycases1truth**

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Shinichi and Ran cleaned up their mess and got back down to work rather promptly after their tickle fight. As he put it to her, Mouri would be home from his contract work at the casino within the next two hours, and that would mean Shinichi would have to give up his work for the day to hide behind the Conan act. And that meant that unless he found what he needed within the next two hours, his ability to move forward with the investigation would be put on hold until the next morning, when Mouri headed back to continue his investigation at the casino.

Mouri hadn't been coming home every night, so it was Shinichi's poor luck that the night he needed unrestricted access to the older detective's files, he wouldn't be able to get it. Still, Shinichi was satisfied to work with what he had, especially since Mouri's return wasn't the only timeline he had to respect.

"Don't get me wrong, Ran, I am _very much_ looking forward to this weekend. But transforming means that I'll have to put the investigation on hold for those days. And every day counts." Bent over a spread of case notes and his open laptop, Shinichi pinched the bridge of his nose, staving off his impending headache. Ran stroked his shoulder comfortingly and he offered her a tight smile in thanks, his expression drawn.

"I _have_ to figure out what Chirokawa was told to keep from me, and why. This case is bigger than just Eiko-san and I don't think I can bring her killer to justice without knowing just what sort of "bigger" it really is. I have to gather all the information I can now, so I can puzzle my way through it later."

"Promise me you'll put it aside for at least a little bit, Shinichi?" Ran asked quietly, holding back selfish disappointment behind her smile of bravery. "You have promises to keep to Kid and me, too, not just Eiko-chan."

"I promise," Shinichi reassured her, squeezing her hand. "I'm a mystery otaku, sure, but I'm also in love."

* * *

Breakthrough came at the very end of the night. In searching for the earliest mention of Kimura Eiko he could find in Mouri's files, Shinichi discovered that the girl had come to the agency a full two years prior to her own recent disappearance. That time, she'd been asking Mouri to help find her missing friend, Ozaki Tamae, who had stopped answering her cell phone five days prior.

Mouri had taken a physical description of Ozaki, and a photograph of her and Kimura was clipped to the report. Shinichi had to stare at the photo for a moment, having trouble recognising the Kimura of Ran's recent description in either of the girls in the photo. Both were wearing their school uniforms, neither had dyed hair or excessive makeup, and from what Shinichi could see of their uniforms, the most personalized part of their appearances were their kneesocks, slouchy and loose as was the fashion.

_They said Kimura was something of a delinquent,_ Shinichi thought, mulling over the facts. _This doesn't look like a delinquent to me. Rather the opposite, actually._ Puzzled, he turned his attention back to the investigation record.

The mystery unfolded before his eyes. Ozaki Tamae wasn't a delinquent, and - at the time of her disappearance - neither was her friend Kimura Eiko, one year Ozaki's junior. The pair were at the top of their respective classes, earning very high marks in basically all their studies. They attended cram school religiously, Kimura had told Mouri, and one of the reasons she was afraid for her sempai's safety, which Mouri had written down and underlined in bold strokes, was that she had missed regular classes and cram school all week without a word.

Ozaki had been interested in the sciences, Shinichi read, organic chemistry the most. Kimura, then thirteen, had told Mouri how she aspired to be as smart as her sempai, who - at only fourteen years old - was already getting favorable offers from college scholarship sponsors hoping to draw her into their program of choice.

_They were exceptional,_ Shinichi thought, his heart clenching tight around the thought. _And they're both-Damnit! What's the connection? What made Kimura abandon her studies and run away to Okinawa? Where did Ozaki go, and who took her?_

_Wait._ Shinichi flipped through the records again, fragmentary conclusions flitting through his mind, trying to piece themselves together like a jigsaw puzzle. _Run away to? Where was she..._

He found it on the first page of the profile information. _They were both from Beika. They went to Teitan junior high. This is it. I don't know why, but this __has__ to be it. I had just shrunk around that time- I was too busy looking after my own skin to keep track of all of Mouri's cases. And Division One didn't trust me yet. It makes sense that I wouldn't have noticed Ozaki's case coming through here._

_If the girls were both from around here, Division One knows about it. This isn't a case carried over from Okinawa, like it appeared to be when Eiko-san's body was discovered. And there has to be something that connected both the girls to...to whatever or whoever it was who took them._

Shinichi had already gotten up from the couch to pace; now he popped a soccer ball out of his belt and began dribbling it, from one foot to the other and back, then to his shoulder, forehead, and back down to his heel. _What __**is**__ it? What's the connection? And what does it have to do with me, that Division One is keeping me from it?_

Shinichi was still mulling over these questions when Mouri arrived home a half hour later.

* * *

The next two days both flew and crawled by- 'crawled' in the case of school, where the hours dragged through a relentless stretch of childish lessons and childish behavior, and 'flew' in the few hours allotted to each evening in which Conan could be put aside for a little while and Shinichi could stretch his wings. Not that he flew very far- the lack of information frustrated and stunted his movements, and the shutting of previously-open doors made him grind his teeth. Even the Shounen Tantei noticed the difference; Ayumi asked him worriedly if he was mad at somebody, because _'your face is all scrunched up all the time, and you've got that line-thing between your eyebrows. My kaasan says that if you do that too much the wind'll change and you'll get STUCK looking that way.'_ Genta'd cuffed him on the shoulder and told him to eat more, and Mitsuhiko had offered to lend him a really good book he was reading of ghost stories.

Behind Conan's eyes, Shinich had thought of the drowned girl's body in the storm-drain and declined as politely as possible.

Ai had, somewhat surprisingly, listened when he discussed the elements of the case and the other missing teenager; as quiet as ever but not, he thought, quite as caustic as her norm, she'd provided a welcome soundboard for what was more a monologue of questions than theories. And when he'd finished, she'd raised one eyebrow. "Kudo-kun? _Why_ are you so concerned with one dead young woman? Teenagers vanish every day."

"Haibara, I told you, it's not just her, it's-"

"Yes, I know, her friend... But Kudo-kun, are you so certain that there _is_ a pattern? Simply because a handful of jigsaw-puzzle pieces are all the same color, that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll fit together. Could you be seeing something that simply isn't there?"

They were sitting together on the bottom-most bars of the school playground's smaller jungle-gym, right at the end of recess. Around them, above them and everywhere else, small bodies hurtled and screamed past in a mammoth game of tag. "I... don't think I am," Conan said slowly, hands gripping the metal bar in front of him tightly. "Even if Division One didn't have something odd going on, there's a connection here. Age, location, intelligence... If someone's targeting bright teenagers, then access to the Missing Persons records would allow me to confirm whether there's a pattern or not. My instincts say that there's a pattern and that it's connected to whatever Division One's investigating. But-" (his lips tightened) "-I can't get to them and nobody'll talk and it's driving me _crazy!"_ He thunked his forehead onto the bar. "Ow."

"Hm."

"Ai?"

Startled, the shrunken scientist looked at her friend; it was rare for him to call her anything other than 'Haibara'. "...what?"

"Have you ever considered what things would be like for us if we had the full cooperation of the authorities?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes, I have, and personally I don't want to be the main participant in a funeral under anything besides my original name, thank you. I'd like to grow up before I die," she snapped. At his explosive sigh, Haibara shook her head in exasperation. "Kudo-kun, I know what you want to do. It may be diametrically opposite of my own impulses, but I do understand... and I do realize that sooner or later we'll almost certainly have some sort of denouement. However, I'd like to put that moment off until we are absolutely, completely certain of its necessity, because our risk-factor will jump_immediately_ to a level that..." She shook her head again, rubbing her palms unconsciously against her t-shirt as she slid free of the bars to stand before him. They left damp smudges on the cloth as if she'd been sweating, and they closed tight in small, white-knuckled fists.

After a long pause the blonde breathed out, shoulders tight. "If- IF, by any chance, you find yourself at a point in which you believe this needs to commence, will you solemnly promise me that you'll do one thing first? Just one, without fail?"

"I..." Conan blinked; that hadn't gone quite like he'd thought it would. He'd expected- well, he'd been waiting for howls of outrage and panic, a storm of fury and total refusal. Just what was going on here? "What thing?"

She took a deep breath, fists still clenched. "Talk to Mouri-chan. Get her approval and support. _Do not do this without her agreement._ I believe- I've been brought to see..." Haibara closed her eyes briefly. "I have concluded that Mouri-chan is your anchor and your good sense. Her level of paranoia regarding your safety is more likely to keep you- and in extension, myself- safe than your own. If you believe that speaking with a member of the authorities is absolutely, utterly necessary- I'm assuming you mean Takagi-san or possibly Megure-keibu?- and Mouri-san agrees, then..." Haibara opened her eyes; they were bleak but resolute. "I... will not stop you. Neither will I vanish; it's been pointed out to me that simply disappearing would raise more suspicion than remaining in place."

Conan sat were he was, shock and possibilities tumbling around inside his mind like dice in a dealer's cup; the dice came up double sixes, and something clicked. "Who," he asked slowly, "have you been talking to?" He thought perhaps he knew the answer.

It turned out that he had. "Your mother," said Haibara very softly. "She and your father have been visiting now and then- breakfast, for instance, and dinner last night. And your mother is a very persuasive, intuitive woman; it was she who pointed out Mouri-san's ability to act as a braking mechanism on your impulses." As Conan wrestled with the surge of indignation that this comment brought forth, Haibara added a final bombshell. "She also made me an offer, Kudo-kun."

"...?"

Blue-gray eyes met his with a terrible serenity. "I can leave. As can the Professor. She's willing to remove us both to the security of your family's home in Hawaii- or elsewhere; she mentioned both Switzerland and Fiji, apparently your parents own property in both places... oh, not as an escape from certain death, and not if I believe that we've well and truly been compromised; this would simply be a stop-gap, a temporary haven to allow for a little time and distance. But do you see, Kudo-kun? I no longer have nothing but closed doors if I fear that my former employers are getting close. I have...another option."

Conan swallowed this in silence; he was going to have to have a little chat with his kaasan, and very soon. "I do see. And about Ran... I promise. But- Haibara? If Ran is my 'anchor and good sense', what does that make Kid?"

She made a face, an actual _face_ at him. "A bad habit."

* * *

Shinichi spent quite a bit of Wednesday night and Thursday's school hours mulling over Ai's words. The changes wrought in her by just a couple weeks' worth of his kaasan's..._influence_...were staggering. Shinichi had seen her cry; seen her offer medical mercy and even volunteer a bit of her personal hopes and wishes, for which - he could barely believe it - Ai had candidly expressed wistfulness.

Even her expression of guilt had changed, Shinichi reflected. It was as though Ai was no longer using her guilt as a weapon. _I Have Suffered,_ the old Ai had lectured her inquisitors. _You Dare To Question Me? I, Who Have Paid For My Crimes In Soul And Body?_

That belligerence seemed gone now, he considered, doodling clocks and pills in the margins of his childish schoolwork. Now Ai seemed willing...if grudgingly...to show true vulnerability in her guilt and in her fears. _Hell,_ Shinichi thought, _She shows fear. At all._ With the exception of any space that lay within five hundred feet of Vermouth, witnessing fear in Ai was yet another new thing for him.

_I wonder how she'd take to counseling,_ Shinichi thought, just before his phone buzzed with a text from Ran. And once he'd read it, empathy for Ai got kicked to the very bottom of his priority list.

* * *

**_Police found another body- boyfriend's, & there was something re: weird drugs. Am worried so I'll be there to meet you when you get out_** read the text. By the time the gates opened and Conan threaded his way through the salmon-run of excited gradeschoolers towards the taller figure standing over to one side, his heart was beating a staccato rhythm in his chest and he'd developed a twitch under one eye. "Ran? Ran-"

"-neechan?" he added hurriedly as Ayumi, Genta and Mitsuhiko all came pounding up behind him with the unerring instinct of pre-adolescents who, just at that particular moment, are not wanted at all. "Are we ready to go-"

"Where to?" asked Genta interestedly, half out of breath. "Is it someplace good?"

"...to my, uh, dentist appointment?"

"Awwwwww..." came the disappointed chorus. Ran, who looked like she'd been doing a little twitching of her own, took up the thread with an appropriately dire expression on her face and nodded. With promises to be brave and to keep anything they pulled (that was for Mitsuhiko), the two headed away from the school.

"I can't help but notice that we're not going towards home," muttered Conan beneath his breath, hands shoved into his pockets. "Are we meeting someone?"

"Not yet. Shi- Conan-kun, wait 'til we're someplace we can talk." Ran looked around nervously; "I just... kept thinking and thinking about what I heard at school, and I just needed to get out." Her face was pale. "I think there's some sort of little café around here- Hoshi-something?"

"I know which one you mean." With a feeling of unreality, Conan pointed down a side-street. "If we double back this way we can get there without the kids seeing us." And, wondering at the circular nature of coincidence, he led her to a small, rather private coffeehouse on a small, rather private street where once upon a time he had met with a certain Phantom Thief in the first opening moves of a very strange, very precious friendship: the _Hoshi Kissa-ten._

Somehow they made it through being seated and ordering without Conan exploding; the waiter wasn't the same, but the coffeeshop hadn't changed at all. "Your text," he said softly at last as coffee gurgled in the tiny cafe's kitchen, masking the sound. "Tell me."

She did. Shinichi grimaced as she retold the information she'd gained from Teitan's rumor mill and the brief news video that one of the other girls streamed on her phone: Yoshimoto Ken, Kimura Eiko's boyfriend, identifiable by his gaijin features and dental records, had been found dead in the same storm drain that had produced his girlfriend's body less than a week previous. Shinichi winced as Ran informed him how the body was found, snagged on a grate upstream from the runoff grate where Eiko had come to rest, at a point where the pipe bent down to follow the landscape. The storm-water fell away from his body, leaving it dry and shriveled in a patch of scraggly sunlight leaking in through the street-level grate a yard away.

Details she'd picked up from her father when she called to confirm the rumors filled in the gaps between information picked up from the newscast, and rumor rounded out the sides, adding color and sensory...flavor...to the cold details of yet another teenage murder. But the last was worst; Shinichi's face went white and blank, stomach lurching unpleasantly, when Ran, hesitatingly, added the coda:

"The police did drug tests. They found him on Tuesday, so they...they've had a couple days, and they. They tested the body, because he was in better...he hadn't...he was _'better preserved'_ than Kimura-san, even though they said he's been dead just as long. But they couldn't identify what he had taken, Shinichi. Or...had been given. The news said it wasn't any kind of drug that they recognized. Not even close."

Shinichi sat back in his chair, startling himself with the lurch of unexpected distance between where he anticipated his shoulderblades to hit the seat back, and where they actually did. He felt every day of his true eighteen years at that moment, and then some; though some corner of his mind registered that they were still, nominally, in public, the bulk of Shinichi's mind couldn't find the time to care.

_It's them. It has to be._ He reeled with the implications of it. _A third body - closely related to the other two - all three gone under mysterious circumstances. I'm sure Yoshimoto was the top of his class, too. Teitan...they were all from Teitan. All Beika teens. All gone. And the drug..._

Shinichi covered his face with his hands, curling over his lap with a choking breath. _I wasn't wrong. There __is__ a pattern. And probably bigger than these three, if Division One doesn't want me talking to Missing Persons. Ozaki has been gone two years...she surely wasn't the first. Chirokawa...he has to know about this._

"He won't talk to me," Shinichi muttered, folding himself onto his chair as he mumbled out his logic. Completely preoccupied, he didn't even see Ran's look of fearful recognition as he tucked his heels up onto the seat, knees together in front of his chin, fingers steepled before his lips. His gaze went still as he looked past the space before him into the probabilities and chances of a daisy chain of murders, one linked to the next, following each other back to the knife - or gun - at their source.

"He won't talk to me, need to... cases say. Can't corner them...can't corner me. Ai... Tell her later. ...consent already. Let know... No. Kaasan, but not... but is he under..."

With a hard shake, Shinichi rattled himself out of his daze. He frowned, exhaling slowly, and tuned back in to the rest of the cafe...including his girlfriend, sitting patiently (worried, but patient) on the other side of the small table.

"Shinichi?" she asked, very quietly, one hand reaching across the table for his. Shinichi laid his much smaller hand over Ran's, covering it with his authority of presence and purpose, if not physical ability, and looked her straight in the eye.

"Ran...I need you to be my Voice of Reason, right now. Can...Will you do that for me?" Shinichi watched her face, the confusion that creased her brow, and raised a hand, correcting himself with a tight voice, already weary. "No. First listen to what I'm planning...then decide if you can guide me in it."

"I'll try," she said in a small voice, troubled. The waiter brought their coffee at that point, and the outer door jingled softly as it opened and closed; both glanced instinctively towards the door, but as they could see no-one above the booths it seemed that they had the café very nearly to themselves.

Hunched over his cup, steam wreathing his rounded features, Shinichi spoke in a low, rapid voice as if very nearly afraid to hear what he himself was saying. "I want to talk to Division One and explain what their investigation's leading them towards. And I want to- Ran, I want to-" (He swallowed hard.) "I want to explain to them about what happened to me. I want to tell them who I really am, where I've been and why and how. I don't want them to push their way into a situation where the Black Organization will consider them too much of a risk to leave alive." At her swift indraw of breath, he closed his haunted eyes. "If they delve too deeply into the chemical anomalies- and Ran, that has to be an APTX derivative, Tokyo MPD has some of the best toxicology labs on the planet and for _them_ to announce the drug as unrecognizable- If they look too deeply, it's going to get noticed and they're going to die in an 'accident'. A bomb, a fire, one of the hazards of a policeman's life. Takagi, Sato, Megure, Chiba, Shiratori..." He recited the five names softly, leaving a silence after the last one. If they don't know the kind of risks they'll be taking, then they're all targets."

Now he opened his eyes again, looking up at her through the steam. "That's what I want to do, Ran. But I won't unless you think it's a... okay, not a 'good' idea, there's nothing good about this entire situation. But maybe a reasonable one? A necessity?" Shinichi's voice was almost pleading; the sound jarred, the emotion too far removed from the childish register that carried the words. "Is there something I'm missing, some other avenue of choice or possibility?" And now he _was_ pleading. "Please, Ran, I need to know: am I so goddamn afraid, so goddamn terrified that I'm shoving myself into this because of it? Or is this the right thing to do?"

Silence.

Behind them, the waiter spoke to another customer in a questioning tone several booths away; he passed them by and returned a few moments later with a mug of hot chocolate and a slightly confused expression. And still the two, the young woman and the younger boy, sat wordless over their own mugs, saying nothing, doing nothing.

"I... can't see anything else to do," whispered Ran at last, her gaze turned inwards even as she spoke. "They'll die, and not just them; maybe other people around them, maybe us. I don't think it's just your fear, Shinichi; I truly don't. And I don't want to do this either, but..." At his startled look, Ran shook her head and attempted a wan smile. "You didn't think you were going in there by yourself, did you? Baka. _Baka_ Shinichi. As if I'd let you do that."

He swallowed again, hard. "As if," he agreed weakly, relief so great in his voice that his words staggered and shook.

A very soft voice spoke up then; and it was a tribute to both of the pair's control that neither of them flung their cups into the air in shock at the sound. "Bravo, Kudo-kun, Mouri-kun. Bravo."

Haibara Ai slid out of her booth, carrying both cup and saucer; the scent of hot chocolate wafted up as, uninvited, she slipped onto the seat beside Shinichi and placed the cup before her. "My apologies for startling you both; I followed you here, of course, after I saw you together at the gate." Prosaic, collected, the not-a-child blew across the surface of her drink. "I suspected something of this sort would take place after our talk yesterday; and it appears that I was correct in that regard."

Shinichi shook his head. "Haibara, I..."

"Never mind, Kudo-kun; _'T'were well it were done quickly,'_ I suppose." She quoted the line from _MacBeth_ in English; the syllables rang strangely in the quiet café. "When will you do this?"

"Tomorrow." It was Ran who answered, and her voice was firm. "Not tonight; not until we've laid a little groundwork. And... tomorrow _morning,_ because I don't think either one of us could stand waiting through school. Do- do you want to come along? You can if you want-"

Haibara Ai took a deep breath; the surface of her mug trembled ever so slightly in her cupped hands, making it evident that her calm was perhaps more assumed than actual. "No, not tomorrow. But if you need me to make an appearance this weekend, I... suppose that could be managed, if it were done carefully. Kudo-kun? Just how many members of Division One _do_ you plan on telling?"

"All of them."

"...Ah."

And with that, there really wasn't anything else to be said; and so the three sat and drank in silence until it was time for them to go.

* * *

Haibara refused an escort home but accepted Ran's offer of a taxi; it pulled up just as the café staff turned off their 'OPEN' light in their front window. As Shinichi and Ran walked home together, large hand clasping the smaller, the boy looked up at the detective's daughter. "You know what I have to do now, don't you?"

Mind whirling with dread and a strange, hopeful anticipation, she frowned distractedly down at him. "What?"

"Call Kid. I _can't_ do this without telling him, can I?" Shinichi rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. "I just hope he doesn't freak out too badly." Ran gave him a Look. "...I did say TOO badly. I know he's going to throw a fit- I mean, boyfriend, police, full disclosure... Why shouldn't he? I've got to convince him that he won't be endangered by this. You, ah... think I can?" Ran gave him another Look; Shinichi winced. "Help? Please?"

She nodded; her hand tightened on his. "I'll help. You're going to need it, I think." Ran smiled a little wryly. _"We're_ going to need it," she amended her words, and they walked on together through the dark towards home.

* * *

**_Meet us at my window._**

_Welcome Holmes_ was quiet that night, and as Shinichi sat in Ran's lap, laptop balanced on his knees, waiting for Kid to respond to their text, he scrolled through discussion threads seeking distraction. The thread relating to the recent American Holmes movie had exploded in size in the time since he'd last looked at it; several spin-off threads had arisen and been locked. Shinichi picked a random page of the original thread, scrolling through arguments which made up for their logical fallacies with thoroughly emphatic language. His eyes kept sliding off the words, slipping across the screen to the corner where the little digital clock advanced, one minute at a time.

"I guess I'm spoiled," he murmured to Ran, leaning back to rest his head on her shoulder. "He never takes this long to answer a request for chat."

"Maybe he's busy," Ran offered, stroking Shinichi's hair and pressing a kiss to his temple. "In a bit, I'll make some food, okay?"

All things told, though, they didn't have long to wait.

_Tap tap tap._ Ran stiffened under Shinichi, one arm wrapping around his shoulders protectively, as both of their attentions snapped from the computer screen to the agency's broad, dark windows. Like a Cheshire's disembodied grin, Kid's smile was the first thing they saw against the black night outside; Ran yelped and Shinichi showed his teeth, grinning despite the evening's intended topic as he pushed the laptop aside and ran to the window to unlatch it.

"You didn't have to do that," Kid commented petulantly, slipping inside the window and pulling off the black cap that had held his hair down. It sprang up, seemingly immune to the hat-hair condition, as Kid zipped open his padded black vest and shrugged it off. "That takes all the fun out of it."

"I didn't want you cutting a hole in the window," Shinichi snarked up at his boyfriend, grinning even as he pointedly latched the window again.

"Oh please," Kid sighed, looking put-upon. "A circle cutter is such a linear way of doing things. Evening, Ran."

"Evening, Kid," Ran said, taking in his whole outfit - snug black jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, and the high-collared padded vest. As the thief laid his vest on the arm of the couch, its significant weight dented the cushion; Ran raised an eyebrow at it and smiled for the thief. "That wasn't exactly the window we were expecting. Were you out working?"

Kid glanced to the laptop, then to Shinichi, watching the small detective hop up onto the couch at Ran's side. Kid took a seat on the opposite couch, elbows on his knees, leaning forward with interest. "I was in the area." Shinichi snorted, and the thief grinned. "Well. I didn't say how broadly I'm defining 'area,' either, did I?"

"Kid, we need to talk to you," Ran said firmly, cutting off the others' friendly banter. "I'm sorry to be so blunt about it, but I don't want to keep you here any longer than you need to be, and this might take a while. Shinichi has made a decision, and he needed...we needed to tell you about it."

Kid's expression sobered, brows drawing down with calm focus, as he turned his full attention to his boyfriend. "I'm listening, Shinichi."

Shinichi, on the other hand, smiled a little wryly; his earlier panic had tipped over into resolution, and his quick mind had been exploring the ramifications of coming clean to Division One ever since. Fear had given way to a strange kind of hope…

…_within limits._ Very specific, very certain limits.

And now- _Please, just listen. There's only so far I'll go—I'll risk myself, but I won't compromise your safety or Ran's. I won't trade you for them or them for you. I will __**not**__._

Consciously, deliberately, he relaxed his shoulders and spine, trying to keep from broadcasting stress and anxiety. It probably wouldn't work—Kid was a past master at reading physical clues—but he made the attempt anyway. "It's not that bad, it's just… it'll make a significant change in my life, and I'm _not_ going to leave you in the dark about anything that important, so— and there's a good reason for it, and I want you to know about that too, just in case." He took a deep breath; it was, despite his best efforts, slightly shaky. "I'm going to have to explain to Division One about me—who I am, how I got this way. And I'm going to have to tell them about the Black Organization."

Silence; expression unchanging, Kid sat as still as stone, listening. If he hadn't had practice at seeing the wild range of emotion that the thief's mobile face was capable of showing, Shinichi might have missed the way his Poker Face slipped seamlessly into place. Perhaps; then again, perhaps not.

_Listen. Please, please… just listen._

Carefully, quickly, Shinichi laid out the elements of the case of the three missing teenagers, their similarities and the links between them; as clinically as possible he explained his reasoning behind just exactly why he believed it was time to speak up at last, after two long years of silence. "There's something, some link that I'm missing that they're not talking about, something they won't discuss with me specifically; that puts up a barrier between what I can say and what they'll listen to." His palms were sweating; when had they started sweating? "I've tried everything I could think of to work it out, but… never mind; if this works, if they'll listen, it'll be a moot point anyway. Not important, or not at the moment; what _is_ important is that they know what to watch out for, that they're aware of their danger. And I don't know of any other way."

Silence still; Shinichi's fingers knotted together, white-knuckled for long seconds before he forced them to relax.

"Kid? There's one thing I want to make very, very clear, okay?" He stared the thief, _his_ thief, directly in the face, blue eyes meeting blue with all the stark truth he could muster. "_I will not compromise you._ I won't trade your safety or your secrets for anything. As far as I'm concerned, you don't figure into this at all; and I have no compunctions whatsoever in doing anything that's necessary to keep you out of it, none." Shinichi's fists clenched on his knees; he was distantly aware of the tone that had crept into his voice, the one that said _You're mine and I won't risk you,_ pure and unadorned; it didn't seem important. What was important, vitally so, was the last thing he had to say.

He swallowed. This—wasn't going to be easy. And he hadn't warned Ran, hadn't been able to bring himself to. Hadn't had the courage.

"If… you think there _is_ too much risk involved in, in my—association with Division One and in their knowledge of my real identity…" He looked away. "Will you tell us? I can't speak for Ran, but… I won't hold you if you want to leave, if you believe you have to. I value you too much to do that."

There; he'd said it. And now all the strength ran out of Shinichi's limbs, leaving him sweat-soaked and limp.

* * *

As Shinichi finished speaking, Kid sat back, shoulders straight against the back of Mouri's couch, and regarded the small detective levelly.

_"So. Does this mean he loves you enough to protect you, or not enough to fight to keep you?"_

Kid turned his attention to the voice in his mind. Kuroba Kaito's normally bouncy voice was subdued, a bit cynical. While he held a neutral expression outside, revealing nothing, Kid turned an internal frown on his counterpart.

"It's been a while since you listened in," he commented, crossing the mental room to sit beside the magician. The deep windowseat Kuroba had chosen easily seated two, and Kid didn't hesitate before slinging an arm around the other's shoulders. "Been about two weeks, actually." The thief let the worry in his voice show clearly.

"About that long, yeah," Kuroba said, as though the span of time were a more random quantity than they both knew it to be; he glanced at Kid with a wan smile before turning back to the sunset outside of their window. "You're scaring him by hesitating. Go tease him for being stupid."

"I don't think he's being stupid, actually," Kid said then, voice careful. "He's thinking of my safety, too."

"Is he thinking too hard about it?" Kuroba folded his arms across his knees, resting his chin on the bones of his wrist. "You aren't an amateur."

"Yes and no," Kid answered, leaning against Kuroba. Illusory warmth, just as comforting as the real thing between them, heated the lines of contact between their bodies. "Tousan died because of them. I won't take a risk that would get us killed before we can avenge him."

"Will you live for him, instead of yourself?"

"I didn't say that," Kid countered, tapping Kuroba on the head with two fingers. "Don't jump to conclusions. I think I can balance it better than that...so I'm cautious like a cat but loyal like a dog."

"What a choice of metaphor," Kuroba deadpanned. Kid tapped him again, harder. "Hey now, it's true. That wasn't your best eloquence."

"It's just us here," Kid declared, spreading one hand wide theatrically. "No need for performances!"

"...Look who's talking." The magician rolled his eyes, grunting as his histrionic partner tilted extra weight onto his back.

"Kuroba, it'll be alright. I'll find the balance." Kid stood, patting the other's shoulder as he did, and fixed the magician with a smile.

"I chose to flirt with the law of my own free will, of course."

* * *

Outside Kid's head, the atmosphere in Mouri's office was growing tenser by the moment. Shinichi sat, still as his nervousness would allow, while Kid regarded him steadily and coolly and the seconds ticked by. Beside the detective, Ran suffered the same; not only was she waiting for Kid's answer, but judging by her reaction, Shinichi hadn't cleared that last little nugget with her before offering it to Kid.

_He's got a lion's heart,_ Kid thought, feeling more conflicted than he expected to. _He gets full marks from me, for knowing himself._

"Shinichi..." Kid began, a flash of a smile crossing his face as both the others jumped at his voice. He opened his mouth to continue, paused, and closed it again; the Poker Face faded fully away as a wry smile, eyebrows raised together in self-aware uncertainty, took its place.

"Sorry, I...I was going to say something witty and sharp that would point out an obvious truth to you," Kid said then, spreading his hands before him. "But I can't find the words." As Shinichi took in the thief's expression and tone, brows rising, Kid met Ran's eyes and Shinichi's in turn, resting on the detective's.

"Did you..._do_ you... really think I don't know that I'm dating a _detective?_ And all that that implies?"

Shinichi blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it _again,_ but all that came out was a small strangled sound. Beside him, Ran turned to look at him with a faintly accusatory glare. He tried again: "Uh- I just..." Aware that he wasn't doing himself any favors, he falteringly tried to explain. "It's just, you're- I didn't want you to- Kid. _Kid._ I don't have the _right_ to just assume that, that you'd..."

Ran placed a hand firmly across his mouth. "I think," she said very precisely, "that you've said enough, Shinichi, and now it's _our_ turn. Don't you?" Halfway between exasperation and something that might have been bone-deep relief, her own gaze met Kid's. "You first." Ran kept her hand in place; from above it, Shinichi's wide blue eyes flickered back and forth from one to the other.

Clearly amused, Kid's eyes sparkled as he regarded his boyfriend and their very-much-in-control girlfriend. "Excellently said, Ran," he grinned. A bit of the extra humor fell from his expression as he turned his attention to his conveniently muted boyfriend, and with an equal mixture of calm seriousness and amused affection, proceeded.

"Tantei - and I think I'll go back to calling you that so that you don't strain something every time you hear your given name from me - Tantei, you are not stupid. Nor am I. We both entered this relationship with open eyes. You, knowing full well that you could wake up some day with blue hair or your underwear quite literally in a knot; me, knowing that I risk a dart between the eyes every time my nimble little fingers get too near to the family jewels." Shinichi made a muffled noise, eyes wide; Kid smirked.

"No, not those ones.

"Tantei. I really, honestly, and deeply appreciate your fear for my safety and my security. I do. And for what it's worth, Kaito does as well. But please don't think for a _nanosecond_ that my feelings for you might be terminated for some silly, dismissable reason like personal fear of incarceration and trial for grand larceny. Seriously, Tantei? I might hesitate if you were offering me an escape route for some sort of _serious_ reason, such as the avoidance of death by torture, application of questionable and exotic drugs, repeated impact of a lead pipe to the back of my head, etcetera. Yes..._that_ sort of thing might make me hesitate."

As Shinichi's expression twitched, confusion and pessimism encroaching on the light in his eyes, Kid leaned forward, braced his hands on the table between their couches, and brought his face level with Shinichi's, nose-to-nose with a scant few centimeters of air between them. His eyes were brilliantly fierce, a true, unmarred cobalt blue through to their deepest points.

"The hesitation, my _idiot_ Tantei," Kid informed him, "Would merely make it easier for me to dodge the bullets."

And then, his glare sharpening for one last moment, Kid closed his eyes, tilted his head, and pressed a kiss to Ran's knuckles, right where they covered Shinichi's mouth.

The jolt that went through both Ran and Shinichi rocked them both slightly, like the tiniest lightning-bolt striking down from the stars and up from the stones. The last tension left Shinichi's shoulders and he sagged against Ran, a muffled sound that might have meant anything coming from behind her hand. But Ran, eyes determined, reached out and caught Kid's hand in her own, bringing it up and pressing it against her cheek.

He could have pulled back easily; and her grip was gentle, barely holding him there. "My turn now," she said softly, steadily.

"Shinichi? You ARE an idiot, you do know that, don't you? You could've said something to me about that last bit. But noooo, you had to go and play the martyr! When-" (and she glared at him, Kid's palm still cradled in her hand) "-are you going to learn that if you get hurt, other people suffer? You COULD try, oh, I don't know, maybe thinking about that kind of thing before you offer to _throw yourself to the wolves?"_

From behind her hand, the detective made a distressed sound. Ran ignored it. "I- don't- want- to lose you," she said, punctuating her words by nodding the boy's head with her grip. "I- don't- want to lose Kid. And I- don't- want- EITHER of you to lose _me._ Is that clear? Nod your head, Shinichi." Eyes wide and blue, he nodded (with or without assistance, it was hard to tell) enthusiastically. "Good," said Ran emphatically. "I'm glad we see eye to eye on that." Her hand fell away at last, and Shinichi huddled beside her staring at them both, shocked and tragic-eyed and seeming for all the world the eight-year-old he appeared to be. "Well? Anything _else_ you want to say, Mister Detective Of The East?"

"..."

"I didn't think so." She turned back towards Kid and her eyes softened a little. Without another word she drew his hand to her lips and kissed the fingertips one at a time, thumb and forefinger and all the rest before letting go.

Kid's expression said volumes about how he might have appreciated a relocation of those kisses, perhaps a longer duration while Ran was at it. He collected himself, making a show of a deep breath that was more of a signpost than a calming influence. One hand to the side of his mouth, he stage-whispered to the still very meek and quiet Shinichi, but his eyes flicked back up to Ran's before he'd finished.

"Lovely when she gets all _rawr_ like that, mm? Quite the fierce type, our Ran." Shinichi held still for a moment, flicking a glance over to Ran's face, then looked back to Kid and carefully nodded. Just a little.

With a cheerful laugh, Kid grinned at Ran, eyes sparkling. "I think you've scared his voice right out of him," he snickered, folding himself lengthwise onto the couch, ankles crossed. "You, my dear, are delightful, and I think I'm going to have to coax a bit of this out of you at a later date."

"I can _talk,_" Shinichi muttered, interrupting Kid's flirtation. "Just don't wanna say the wrong thing again."

"You mean a _stupid_ thing again," Ran corrected him, one eyebrow rising critically.

"Uh. Yes. That."

Kid laughed again, but the sound mellowed as he did, smoothing into a warm sound of comfortable indulgence. "Well. Now that all the scary bits are taken care of... Shinichi, I actually had a question for you, too."

Like a turtle who's decided that it's safe after all to stick his head out of his shell, Shinichi's hunched posture straightened slightly. "A question? What?" he asked hopefully. It _had_ to be better than the previous topic, right? Things were definitely looking up.

"Well, come here," Kid said, beckoning the detective closer. "Over to this side of the table."

_...?_ With just a touch of apprehension prickling his spine, Shinichi slid off the couch and edged around towards the thief. "Okay, what's the question?" he asked, one eyebrow rising as he leaned against the cushion.

Kid showed his dogteeth. "C'mere." Scooping one hand under each of Shinichi's armpits, the thief lifted the detective into the air. He counteracted the immediate squirming with the strength of his arms, setting Shinichi down on his own stomach without fuss. One arm curled around the boy's shoulders and tugged, flattening him to Kid's chest; the other hand laced its fingertips with the fingers of Shinichi's smaller hand, anchoring. Kid's eyes closed, and his expression went a bit distant, as though he were listening to something far-off. "...Hmm."

All attempts to twist free were futile, and anyway... he didn't want to, really. Tilting his head back, he ignored Ran's muffled giggle long enough to peer up at Kid. "Hmm?" he asked curiously, legs dangling against the thief's longer ones. It would've been humiliating if it'd been anyone else, but- "Hmm what?"

"I'm listening to your heartbeat," the thief murmured, expression and voice calm. His hand smoothed gently over Shinichi's shoulder, possessive. "How it sounds, how it feels. I'm going to listen this weekend, too."

Something warm kindled in Shinichi's chest; something hot, spreading out in waves and carrying a flush along with it that he felt down to his toes. "I-" He remembered waking up to breathing, both with Kid and Ran in their first times together. "I- I'll listen to you breathe," he said softly, awkwardly, a lump as large and angular as the Tokyo Tower forming in his throat. Across from them both Ran made a soft sound, and Shinichi's eyes flickered to hers. "You too," he murmured. "Both of you, breathing together. And... the heartbeats, they belong to you both too. You know that, right?"

Kid tsked, combing Shinichi's hair back from his brow with a frown. "You're always so eager to give yourself away. Why do you do that? Your heartbeats are _yours,_ Tantei. Ran and I just inhabit the spaces between them."

He shook his head stubbornly. "Why do you think? For safe-keeping, of course. It's obvious after tonight that I need a keeper." He leaned back into Kid's touch; even in his child's body he could draw comfort from it, if nothing else. "Ran, you get first pick: evens or odds?"

Still sitting across from them, watching with a little smile on her face and a glow in her eyes, Ran tilted her head to one side. "Um... evens?" she hazarded. "I get the even heartbeats and Kid gets the odd ones?"

Shinichi nodded; his interlaced fingers, so much smaller than Kid's that they barely fit together, tightened. "I'll leave it up to you two to figure out which is which," he murmured, relief making him giddy.

"Of course I get the odds," Kid snickered. "I _am_ odd. And the odds are always in my favor, too. Hmmm?"

"Punny. Very punny," Shinichi said dryly, poking the thief's chest with a finger. Beneath him, Kid's heartbeat thudded in counterpoint to his own, a sensation he felt more than heard. As he focused on it more, it began to make that weird dissonance rise in his head again, a steadily torquing sensation in which his body yanked one direction while his heart and head strained in the other. Beginning to feel the ill effects of it in his headache, Shinichi pushed himself away, sitting up to distance himself from his thief's heartbeat.

"Sorry...I promise I'll stay closer this weekend," Shinichi said, guilty.

"This weekend. Are... Shinichi, I just had a thought." Thief and detective turned to look at Ran, whose expression said her realization wasn't entirely a pleasant one. "If you're going to tell Division One tomorrow...what if they don't believe you? You could...this weekend, you could..."

Shinichi nodded shortly. "Yes. Ai mentioned that, too, when we spoke with her in the cafe. I might have to, to prove it to them."

Kid, following along handily enough, made a face. "What would you do, have them sign you in sharpie? Come back and show them their signature, enlarged 200%?"

"Heh!" Shinichi snickered. "Actually? I just might have to."

"I don't think so," Ran said, shaking her head. "All the officers are very smart. And...you even said that you think Takagi-keibu has suspicions that you're not all right."

"I'd say so," Kid snarked, earning a heel to his ribs in swift retaliation.

The look that Ran gave them both stated fairly clearly that _neither_ of them were 'all right', at least not in their heads; and the conversation turned itself to the question: just how was Shinichi—or, rather, Conan- to go about proving his actual identity if proof was demanded? "It'd be a lot worse if you were coming at it from the other direction, you know," said Ran philosophically a few minutes later, settling cups of coffee and a plateful of reheated frozen eggrolls on the table (neither she nor Shinichi'd had time for dinner, what with one thing or another.) "I mean, if you were Shinichi—"

"—I _AM_ Shinichi—"

"—and you were having to prove that you were Conan—" (Shinichi opened his mouth again; Kid elbowed him in the ribs and he subsided.) "—then you'd be going from large to small, which sounds much weirder than from small to large." She settled onto the couch opposite from her earlier seat, this time beside them both with Shinichi between, and considered the eggroll that she had just picked up. "Because normally the only way somebody larger can turn into somebody smaller is if you chop bits off—"

"Gaahhh! Ran!"

"Well, it's _true."_

"I'd like to keep all my bits," said Shinichi with as much dignity as possible, "and I'd appreciate it if we don't talk about chopping them off, especially now that certain people seem to LIKE them so much…" Kid snickered, munching on an eggroll. "And anyway, I don't think it's going to be all that much of an issue… for some of them, at least. Takagi, Sato, Megure… Shiratori'll be the hardnose, you watch; Chiba I'm not so certain about." He hesitated a moment, eyes meeting Ran's. "And… Chirokawa."

Kid stirred from his boneless, relaxed sprawl, one arm draped across the back of the couch. "I was not aware, Tantei, that he was a member of Division One…?"

"He's not," Shinichi said carefully, meeting Kid's eyes. "But even more than Division One, he deserves to know.

"He gives me information he doesn't have to. Even this time, when they told him not to, he at least told me that he couldn't. And why - he told me that there were orders. He trusts me, and he's never once asked me to explain myself. Even Takagi-keibu can't bring himself to do that - he asked me, when we were in the elevator together.

"I can't blame him, or the rest of them, either. And they don't pry and their actions do show that they trust me, too. Chirokawa does the same, but even moreso. We've never had to talk about it; I know he doesn't care what size I am if I get the job done.

"He sees me for what I am - a detective."

As Shinichi finished, Kid smiled, satisfied and then some with the other's answer. "Well then. Would you like to invite him to tomorrow's conference?"

"I think I'll tell him separately," Shinichi said, shaking his head. "He'll need a different approach than the others."

The other two talked for a little while then, while Shinichi sat more or less quietly, eating his impromptu dinner and considering what the next few days would bring. It was a pure mercy that Ran had made plans on calling them both in 'sick'—the very thought of sweating through a school-day with his own personal Sword Of Damocles hanging over his head was nausea-inducing enough in itself to turn the little white lie into truth. It was going to be difficult and terrifying and, almost certainly, embarrassing—

_-but it'll be more people that I don't have to lie to anymore. That's… so weird. First Agasa, then my parents, then Heiji and Haibara; then Kid and Ran and now Division One and Chirakowa._ He counted. _Lucky thirteen. Or so I can hope._

_I need all the luck I can get._

"Tantei, I'll be going now," Kid said after some time, startling Shinichi out of his musings; "It's not exceptionally late, but you're going to have what's fondly referred to as a "fucking royal day" tomorrow, and I think you ought to stock up on your rest now."

Shinichi snorted, running one hand back through his hair with a sigh. "I appreciate the choice of terms," he said wryly. "I think you left out the headache, the blood pressure spike, the nausea..."

Kid smiled. "As I was saying."

Shinichi and Ran saw Kid to the door - well, in his case, the window. The evening breeze washed in, smelling like sun-toasted asphalt, and quickly suffused the room with its humidity. "Did you leave the glider on the roof?" Shinichi asked, watching Kid zip up his heavy padded vest.

"Nope," Kid said, cinching a buckle with a smug half-grin. "I came by foot."

"You walked? Like, on the ground?" Ran asked, sounding understandably skeptical.

Kid lifted one leg through the open window, standing on the sill outside; his other foot and one hand braced on the windowframe's edges for balance. "The ground? Of course not." He tipped back, as though to finish levering himself out the window; then, with a thoughtful expression, leaned forward again, one finger raised.

"Mouri-san, I had one last thought-"

Ran puffed up, hands on her hips, and leaned forward, getting up in Kid's face with righteous indignation. "I've _told_ you, it's Ra-_nnnnnnnhhh._"

Kid's long lashes brushed his cheeks and Ran's as well, as his tongue slipped into her mouth, stealing a goodnight kiss without so much as a _may-I_ or a glance of warning. Standing directly between them, Shinichi stared up at the pair, craning his neck back, then stepped a couple paces back to get a better view. After a long, languid moment, Kid let Ran go gently, pulling back tenderly.

A silent moment passed, while Ran tried to get her brain back online and Kid held still, watching her eyelids flutter before finally opening. Just as she licked her lips, opening her mouth for a comment, Kid released the window frame, saluted with a grin, and tipped backwards, falling from view.

And when Shinichi scrambled to the window, climbing onto the sill to look straight down at the sidewalk below, he wasn't surprised to see that there was nothing at all there.

* * *

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And that's it for the week! Please join us in seven days for our next chapter, _**"coming clean, proof, asking a lot" **_And for all the gods' sakes, let us know what you think, okay? We'd really like to know; Division One doesn't usually get informed in mass in most fics, so we're trying something a little new here. **nerves** Ain't gonna be easy, y'all. Ain't NO way gonna be easy.


	42. Coming clean, proof, asking a lot

_Hi! Just a couple notes before we get started this week: Thank you __**ALL**__ for all the awesome excellent superb fun glee-inducing thoughtful flaily worried contradictory excited hopeful questioning comments that we've gotten, not only last week but the week before and all the time! __**We love you for them.**_

__

Really~! You love us. And we love you. And we love you for lovin' us and you love us for lovin' you. And we looooooove each other. (And if you get that reference, we loooove you even more. )

_So, ah- don't kill us, plz? *RUNS AWAY*_

_._

_

* * *

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**Book Four, Chapter Nine****: **_**"Coming clean, proof, asking a lot"**_  
by **ysabet** and **rednightengale**.  
_Warning: A little bit of cursing and one easter egg reference to another pint-size genius. _

.

It's a terrible thing sometimes, having an imagination.

Lying in the dark in Mouri's room, flat on his back on his futon on the floor, Shinichi stared at the ceiling and tried, tried, _tried_ to think of something other than potential disaster. Earlier with Ran and Kid it had been so much easier to be hopeful; but now... The dim outlines of tiles overhead swam in his vision; deliberately he attempted to focus on them in an effort to tire out his eyes enough that sleep became even more of a necessity. When that gained him nothing more than the knowledge that the next day he'd look like a victim of pinkeye, he turned in a fit of morbid perversity to the tried-and-true old standby of Making It Worse.

_Let's just go down the list, shall we, Kudo?_ _Once more, with feeling:_

__

I'm a minor—hell, I'm a minor twice over! They could yank me into custody and get Tousan and Kaasan into the kind of trouble that follows them forever.

_And there could be spies anywhere in the precinct. I'm pretty sure—no, I'm certain—that I don't have anything to worry about in Division One. But what about their secretaries, their fellow officers, the file clerks and desk personnel and… anybody? Everybody? All we'd need would be one slip-up, just one overheard phonecall, the wrong thing on one piece of paper, and then-_

(memories of a burning building scattered through his mind, scraps of lives flung upwards, ignited, obliterated, chaff in the wind)

_Or maybe they won't even believe me, or maybe they'll want to call someone else in; or maybe they'll insist on a proof that I can't supply. Or—oh God, this is actually fairly likely—maybe they'll insist on witnessing the damn transformation themselves. I—no. Even without Haibara going homicidal over the idea (and she would) I just… no. No._

(he gripped the sheets, fabric bunching up between fists that squeezed tightly enough that he would find red crescents in his skin the next day)

_If they __do__ believe me, what can they do? They won't drop the investigation; I wouldn't either. What if this makes them block me even worse? What if they decide that I'm too much of a risk—what if they—oh. Oh no. What… if they decide to shove me into protective custody? Relocation? I've built a LIFE as Edogawa Conan, and even though I want to be myself again, I don't want to sacrifice all this just because they—_

__

-and the kids, Ayumi and Mitsuhiko and Genta—

_-and Haibara—_

(there were steps coming down the hall, almost silent)

_And what about my association with Kid? What will this make them look at, and what will they see? I said I wouldn't risk him; was that a lie? What have I done, what am I doing, why am I even th-_

The door opened, just a little, just enough… to show the silhouette of Mouri Ran, robe clutched close at the neck. In the dimness Shinichi couldn't see her expression; but she moved forward, dropping down silently onto the futon and curling around his small frame without a word.

"Couldn't sleep, huh?" Shinichi whispered, turning sideways to tuck his head against her; making a tiny noise in her throat, she wrapped her arms around his narrow shoulders and shook her head, muscles tense, still silent. "Me either." All the stress, all the terror and hope and uncertainty funneled into the space between them: water going down a drain, smoke up a chimney. Words surged up and fell away, useless and worse than useless; what could he say right then, in the dark, that would help?

That… was for tomorrow.

Lying on top of the covers, Ran's chin rested on the crown of Shinichi's head; her arms cradled him closely, as closely as she might someday hold the body of a real child, theirs—for comfort, for protection, maybe just because one of them (both of them) needed the other one to be there. Little by little, the rapid-fire thoughts in Shinichi's mind ceased their hammering; little by little, Ran's rigid muscles lost their tautness…

(he stroked her hair over and over, small fingers sliding through the silk again and again)

…and when the sun came up, that was how it found them, curled together in a tiny island of peace.

* * *

As the sun rose, lighting the morning's mist with thin warmth, they dressed and headed for the kitchen. Ran cooked a basic but filling breakfast for them both, and they ate it quietly, making little conversation.

As Ran was putting the dishes into the sink, the clack of the apartment door opening made both her and Shinichi tense. "Shinichiiii..." she hissed, turning in place with wide eyes.

"My watch is in my room," he answered, voice tight. "I'll try to..."

Footsteps in the hall made them both tense. Ran waved a hand back, warning Shinichi off, and dropped into a guarded, attack-ready stance. The seconds ticked by as they listened to the unknown person shuffle closer, feet dragging. Shinichi catalogued the rhythm of his steps (_no discernable limp, heavy footfalls; male, tall, somewhat broad_) and tried to think of anything he could use as a weapon, tried to think whether he should act like a child or whether it mattered. And he held his breath, as in another moment, the man stepped into the doorway...

...and yawned.

Stupid with relief, Ran sagged against the stove, gasping for air. Shinichi looked torn between a stress headache and cursing. And their 'intruder,' her father, stood in the doorway, mouth wide in a jaw-cracking yawn, one fist knuckling sleep out of his eyes.

"Morning, Ran," Mouri said, blinking foggily at his daughter and her ward. "Are you feeling better, bozu?"

"Ah - uh?" Shinichi - Conan - managed; Ran could easily watch his mental guardedness reorganizing itself into chibi-mode, but doubted her father would be so attentive. "I'm, ah, I'm staying home from sick school today. Uh. From school sick."

Mouri nodded, clapping one hand on top of Conan's head, probably hard enough to rattle his skull, and yawned again. "Good. You looked pretty pathetic last night. You should feel bad about making Ran sleep out of her bed like that all night! Is there coffee?"

"We hadn't gotten that far, tousan," Ran said carefully, beginning to prepare it even as she said so. "We didn't expect you home last night. Did things at the casino go poorly?"

"Oh, no, it's all fine," Mouri said, waving a hand dismissively. "Yoko-chan has been very happy with my work so far! She even talked about giving me a bonus out of her own pocket~ Money from Yoko-chan's sweet hands...!"

Ran twitched, closing the jar of coffee grounds with a loud clack. "Tousaaaan..."

"Ah, I was just saying how lovely it would be to get some more money for paying our bills," Mouri amended, waking up quickly with the inspiration of his daughter's glare.

_I swear, except when I'm in mortal peril, __I'm__ the parent around here._

"That will be nice," Ran agreed, shelving her more homicidal thoughts in favor of her paranoid ones. "It's very early, though. When did you get in?"

"Only a few hours ago," Mouri mumbled, pawing at the coffee basket, with its filter of finely ground nirvana-in-the-making. Ran smacked his hand away, settling the basket into the machine and filling the pitcher. "I saw you in my room with the midget, so I slept on the couch in the office."

Ran flushed. "Sorry, Tousan, I didn't mean to inconvenience you. It's just that Conan looked so...he...I needed to comfort him," she said, choosing oblique truth rather than a lie where she could. She shot a glance down to her boyfriend's level, furtive, and was rewarded with a tight smile, eyes-only, from the boy. "We're both feeling a bit better today, but I made us doctor's appointments. We're going to leave soon."

"So early?" Mouri harumphed, scraping the bottom of the rice cooker to find leftovers for his breakfast. "Did the kid get you sick?"

"I'm sorry," Conan piped up, 'Cute' factor on full, "I think she caught what I did."

_Caught...nice choice of words, Shinichi,_ Ran thought, biting her lip to hold down the flush that wanted to rise. Kid's kiss the night before, even despite the hours of sleepless fear and anticipation that followed it, was still a sweet, vibrant memory for her. She knotted her fingers in her apron strings, breathing deep and slow.

_One day. One day, and no matter what happens today at the precinct...we'll all have each other. We just have to get through today...and then we can try to patch each other back together._

* * *

Mouri finished his breakfast and coffee. He headed up to the office, while Ran and 'Conan' headed down the stairs to the street. Shinichi was fully suited up in the gear that Agasa had given him as weapons; shoes, belt, bowtie, glasses and suspenders; and though he didn't want to have to use it, his watch as well. _Sorry, Takagi-keiji, but this has never been a toy,_ he thought grimly, clutching Ran's fingers tightly as they walked. _But I think...you know that, already. You just haven't let yourself admit it._

_...No time like the present._

The commute to the precinct proceeded relatively without incident; on the way there, Shinichi sent a text to Hattori, advising him that he was about to do something relatively stupid, and he might, in two hours or so, need Hattori on the phone to reassure some people that Shinichi was not, in fact, insane. Hattori texted back quickly and bluntly, asking Shinichi exactly _how_stupid he was planning on being, and would there be a news team?

_Hope to hell not,_ Shinichi texted back, gallows humor inspiring him to share the joke with Ran. _If so, the last time you see me may be on the television screen._

_...I'm gonna hit the temple to pray for your stupid ass,_ Hattori answered after a pregnant delay, his tone of voice sounding clearly in his words. _And you're gonna explain what the hell's going on later. After it's over & you're still alive._

"Will do, Hattori," Shinichi murmured. "Ready?"

"Ready," Ran said, squeezing his hand.

They stepped forward, the automatic doors of the precinct opened for them, and calmly, the pair stepped up to the front desk.

"We'd like to speak with Megure-keibu, please," Ran said clearly. "We have evidence that pertains to the current case that we must give to him alone."

* * *

They weren't allowed back immediately; it took a little time for Megure to be located. Shinichi spent every second of the wait sweating.

"He's in conference," said the receptionist after a few minutes, putting down the phone; this time it was a thin young woman who neither of them recognized. She gave Shinichi a curious look as he signed in and then offered him a supercilious little smile. "Here you go," she said brightly, passing him his badge. "Have a nice day, bozu!" He looked at her, unsmiling, and wondered if it was paranoia or common sense that made him flinch.

Megure and the rest of Division One, Section Three, were currently involved, apparently, in the sort of skull-session that you pull when your leads all run dry. Shiratori came down the hall from the other direction just as Ran and Shinichi arrived, a slightly startled expression on his face; he opened the door silently, however, following them through. When they stepped through the door to the small conference room that they'd both been in so many times before, four tired faces looked up with varying expressions of dismay, mulish stubbornness and pure, simple weariness. "Conan-kun, Ran-san," said Megure tiredly. "We weren't expecting to see you here today. I understand you, ah, have something you need to tell us?" He made an attempt to sit up a little straighter as Shiratori slipped past him to take the seat to Megure's right, nearly elbowing over one of the half-full paper cups that littered the table. Wadded balls of notes lay on the floor beside a trashcan, a scatter of papers and folders covered nearly half the surface and several cans of soda showed that Sato was off her diet-drink kick at last.

The senior officer of Division One, Section Three lowered the angle of his gaze until it rested upon the boy's face; "Conan-kun," he said quietly. "I understand that you want to help, but perhaps you should wait outside-"

Headshake; methodically Shinichi tugged off his glasses, folded them and tucked them into his jacket pocket. With the distinct feeling that he had folded his false identity away with the lenses, he pulled out a chair for Ran and then for himself, scooting up onto the seat beside Takagi. "I can't do that, Megure-keibu," he said deliberately. "I really can't." And for the first time he stared the officer directly in the face, all masks off.

All gloves off, too.

Beside him, Takagi stirred uneasily. "Ah- what did you want to talk about us to, Conan-kun, Ran-chan?" The detective sounded nervous; at the corner of the table his partner leaned forward, her shoulder brushing against Takagi's. "If it has to do with the case, you... could pass it along to..." He looked at Ran and then at Shinichi again, question-marks rising in his eyes._"Did_ you have evidence regarding the Kimura case?" There was a strange note in his voice.

"Yes. No. Not exactly." The boy beside him drew a very deep breath; Ran touched his arm lightly, her face calm. "It relates to the case, only it's... I..." He reached up and touched Ran's hand before continuing. "...I'd like to tell you a story."

Megure shook his head, moustache drooping. "Conan-kun, maybe at a later t-"

"Megure-keibu, please listen," said Ran quietly. "It's very important. He's risking a lot to tell you this." Her hand remained on his arm. Megure looked at her, then around at the other members of Division One. Chiba made a weird little grimace back, slipping a candy-bar out of one pocket; Takagi and Sato looked at each other, eyes telegraphing wordless conjecture back and forth.

Megure pinched the bridge of his nose. "Go on, Conan-kun," he said.

"Not long ago- 'once upon a time', in fact," said the boy softly, "there was a young man named Kudo Shinichi..."

He got further than he'd expected before the first interruption- all the way to the end of the roller-coaster murder case; Shinichi expected that this was more due to the section's current state of overwork rather than his storytelling skills. "Yes, I do remember that one," murmured Megure, his forehead wrinkling beneath his hat. "Kudo-kun must've told you about it, ne? It was right after that when he-" (the officer frowned) "-vanished for some time. I've meant to ask him about that, but we've seen him so seldom since then." One bushy eyebrow rose. "Conan-kun, is this about-" The words trailed off, and Megure came to a full halt, eyes widening.

"...no," he muttered. "No. He'd be too old-"

Perplexed, Shinichi scowled. "Megure-keibu, it's not precisely... well. Just listen, please?" The inspector jerked himself back from whatever unpleasant place he'd been in and nodded shortly. "Thank you." Picking the thread back up again, he described the two men in black who'd ridden the coaster with them and their odd actions afterwards. "I- Kudo chased after them, mostly on instinct," he said, grimacing. "If he hadn't, if he'd just ignored them and gone on, everything... would probably have stayed the same; he'd be starting college prep classes maybe, or-" He looked up at Ran; she was pale but she smiled down at him encouragingly. "Or something else, some other route; who knows? But he didn't; he followed them, watched them take part in an illegal blackmail exchange with a third man, and ended up being struck on the head from behind and stunned." Shinichi closed his eyes briefly, remembering; he'd never quite lost consciousness- he'd been horribly aware of everything, the helplessness, the bitter taste of the drug, the unspeakable, unstoppable pain kindling deep within. Remembered... "And then everything changed."

"Changed, Conan-kun?" asked Sato slowly. "Changed how?"

Ran's hand brushed his beneath the table, took it, held it. _"__Changed__."_ Regret harshened his voice, gave it a roughness that no eight-year-old's should carry. "The two men were transporting an untested drug, a chemical designed to be used in assassinations; they shoved a pill down Kudo Shinichi's throat and left him to die. Only," he said softly, seeing the memory at the distance of two years' time and at the immediate closeness of nightmare, "he didn't die. He... regressed. Transformed, mutated, lost body-mass and the effects of age- ten years' worth, gone."

"He became a child, Megure-keibu." Kudo Shinichi looked around the table, meeting four pairs of eyes one after another. "He became _**me.**_ Where did you think I came from?"

Dead silence.

Listening, waiting, feeling Ran's hand tighten around his own almost painfully, Shinichi became abruptly aware of how strange it must have been, listening to his story; whether they believed him or not (not, almost certainly, at least just then), hearing the tale told in his young-child's voice and unchildlike mannerisms had to be bizarre beyond words. No glasses to mask his expression, no act to cloud their judgement; that was all over and done with- and when they _did_ believe him at last, Shinichi wondered, how long would it take them to understand and forgive him his lies?

First, of course, he had to get them to believe him. Understanding (and hopefully forgiveness) would come later.

Shiratori was the first to speak.

"Ran-san, forgive me, but we're in the middle of an important investigation. Is this really the right time for us to be entertaining Conan-kun's idol worship of -"

"He's not lying, Shiratori-san," Ran said firmly, her frown sharp. "We can provide proo-"

"Ran-chan," Sato interrupted, her smile a bit pinched, "please think about what you're claiming. Conan-kun...used to be Kudo-kun? You have to know that's not actually physically poss-"

"_'Water, 35 litres. Carbon, 20 kilograms. Ammonia, 4 litres. Lime, 1.5 kilograms. Phosphorus, 800 grams. Salt, 250 grams. Saltpeter, 100 grams. Sulfur, 80 grams. Fluorine, 7.5, iron, 5, silicon, 3 grams, and trace amounts of 15 other elements.'_" All heads in the room turned to look at the boy at Ran's elbow, who sat with both hands flat on the table's edge, gaze turned down.

"Even the alchemists of the seventeenth century knew and studied the chemical composition of the human body. Modern medicine knows the formula even more precisely. And in laboratory experimentation, today, in this world we live in, researchers are learning how to stimulate the proliferation and anorexia of muscle tissue and lipid matrixes in mice with simple application of proteins. What used to be science fiction is now simple pharmacology.

"A transformation like my own produces a thick, oily residue, partially vaporized by the heat of the change, as well as large quantities of carbon-bearing steam, with an appearance similar to smog. Or so I've been told; I'm unconscious during the process. In the reverse direction, there's less lipid and liquid product and more gases."

Shinichi looked up, meeting the eyes of each officer one by one. He came to rest not on Megure, but Takagi, his own expression profoundly stripped of pretense or guards. Shinichi's eyes, which even in his teenage face were too canny, too old, now gazed out of Conan's face, unflinching. The pride and arrogance that Shinichi had always carried were still there, but tempered and dimmed under a heavy layer of hard-won wisdom.

"It's a fantastic story, but it's not a lie."

Silence again, this time longer. Beside them, Takagi sat still as stone; around the table, the others did too. All but Takagi were staring at Shinichi as though they'd never seen him before._Maybe,_ he thought, _they haven't._

Megure was the one to break the quiet.

"Please prove it." Ran and Shinichi turned to the senior officer, startled by the subtext of his tone. It wasn't quite resignation and it wasn't fear; Megure sounded kind of like a person who stares, unflinching, at a gruesome sight with the determination to find hope within it. "Please prove your claims, Conan-kun, if you'd like us to believe them."

Shinichi looked to Ran, looked back to Megure, and nodded.

"I've been thinking about this," he said quietly, "and I believe the only way to prove what I'm saying is to handle it in three stages. For the first stage, I'll tell you about two cases—one I handled before my initial change and one that came afterwards, only from my viewpoint—not 'Conan-kun's'. The first was a few years back, and it took place aboard a plane." Shinichi nodded as memory raised flags in the man's eyes. "You and Takagi-keiji were flying to Los Angeles to pick up an extradited criminal- I never did learn his name- and Ran and I just happened to be on the same plane, flying to meet my parents in New York. I was fifteen, full of myself and sure I was always right." Shinichi spoke clinically, precisely, but his gaze was turned inwards, tracking the thread of memory down with sure and certain steps. "There were a handful of photographers flying together, and one of them happened to be carrying with him a very valuable negative..."

The case had been unusual in every respect: a locked-room case several thousand feet above the earth, one in which the victim had died violently from a weapon that could not be found. "I remember," said Shinichi with a wry twist to his lips, "you didn't recognize me for a moment there; and then you said I looked exactly like Tousan when he was younger, and that you hadn't seen me since I was in sixth grade." Megure blinked at this; Shinichi eyed him quizzically from behind Conan's childish face and then shrugged. "Anyway- the victim had only one mark on him: a small wound at the base of his hairline in the back. One of the stewardesses found him in the bathroom, screamed and woke the whole plane." He glanced up at both Megure and Takagi, a satisfied gleam visible. "By the time you were both out of your seats I'd already borrowed a camera, taken shots, examined the body and discovered the wound."

"That still didn't keep you from missing why the victim's pockets were damp- errrhm. That is... _Kudo-kun_ missed that." Megure-keibu frowned, visibly unnerved by his own reaction.

Shinichi laughed a little despite himself. "Yeah, I remember; you shoved me out of the way when I didn't catch that little detail fast enough." The grin he gave the officer was sharp. "Give me a break, I _was_ only fifteen."

"An overconfident, dorky fifteen," put in Ran beneath her breath.

_"Anyway."_ Shinichi rolled his eyes. "The killer turned out to be one of the other photographers, who'd given him a sleeping pill instead of Dramamine and then stabbed him in the back of the skull with the wire from her bra. She hid the wire back where it had come from but she wasn't careful enough in the end..." Shinichi sighed. "The motive was simple revenge; a photograph her victim had taken of a burning building years before had led her to learn that he'd begun the fire himself, killing her brother in the process."

"I remember that case," muttered Takagi from the next seat over. He was staring at Shinichi with a strange, fascinated expression; there was, perhaps, a trace of vindication there as well as his eyes flicked to his partner's.

Sato, on the other hand, still looked extremely unconvinced. "Conan-kun," she said in a half-scolding tone, "just because you can parrot back Kudo-kun's story to us doesn't mean you're... you're... anything other than a very good-"

"-actor?" The boy laughed, and this time there was a sarcastic edge to his laughter. "I've had to learn to be an _extremely_ good actor, Sato-san; you'd be amazed. Fine, then. Let's move onto another case, one where 'Kudo Shinichi' wasn't present at all, hm? Let's see... oh." The annoyed amusement faded from his gaze as he regarded Takagi's partner steadily. "Let's talk about bombs, a serial bomber, and the Tokyo Tower, hm? Do you remember how it all started?"

An expression of revulsion flashed across Sato's face, and Shinichi shook his head. "I'm not going to take it back to its ultimate beginning, Sato-san; there's no reason to put you through Matsuda-san's death all over again. No, I'm talking about the day that Shiratori-keiji's car exploded, the day you received the tip about the bomb in the restaurant. Sato-san, do you remember kneeling beside Shiratori, just before he passed you the note that he'd found in his car?"

Sato's face was blank, carefully controlled. "I- of course I remember."

"I realized you were listening after a moment, but by then it was too late," Shinichi said softly. "I forgot myself, you know- I was upset too, and... I explained to Genta and the other two about how the bomb had been set off, how the bomber had targeted police... I saw how you flinched. And after that, at least that day, you seemed to forget too; I wasn't 'Conan-kun', I was-"

"You helped with the case," she said sharply. "You always help with the cases. You pick up on things nobody else sees. I know what that is, Conan-kun, I know perfectly well what you are, you're a _prodigy._ Just a, a-"

"Yes," he said softly. "Just... not as young as you thought, Sato-keiji. Experience does count for something." He glanced a little sideways, smiling slightly at Takagi. "And it helped later that day when we were trapped in that elevator with the bomb. It wasn't my first bomb or my second or-"

Beside him, Ran gave what might have almost been a snort. "It's _not_ my fault!" he protested, turning huge, wounded eyes on her.

"Don't give me that, Mister Mystery-Otaku. I put up with your stupid 'I'm On A Case, Ran, Don't Wait Up' phone calls for _more than a year_ before you finally came clean to me. You never used to draw that much trouble when you were your full size, but ever since you shrank you've been a complete weirdness-magnet." A muffled snort from just beyond Shinichi made her look up, and she waved her hand at Takagi in appeal. "It's true, isn't it? Have you EVER seen anybody attract so many psychos, serial-killers, people nursing secret grudges and just- just- It's not _natural,_ Takagi-keiji." Ran sighed, regarding the diminutive form beside her. "And neither is he, now. Takagi-keiji? Shinichi told me that you... might have had a clue, so to speak, before this. Suspicions, I mean. Did you?"

Takagi Wataru suddenly looked very, very uncomfortable. Running one finger beneath a collar that had already been loosened earlier, he hesitated. "-erm- If- that is, I... might have wondered about- things." He refused to meet Ran's eyes. "Things."

"Like?"

"...just things..."

Shinichi sat back in his chair, arms crossed. "Things. Really. Like- my disarming the majority of the bomb in the Tokyo Tower ahead of what you read to me, maybe? Or my proposal that we wait it out? Or my promise to explain who I was, and you _**asked**_ me, Takagi-keiji, yes you did- if we died?" He regarded the detective sardonically, one very unchildish eyebrow raised. "I said I'd explain _in the Afterlife._ Yeah, that's the kind of thing a seven-year-old does, hm?" He shook his head. _"'Things,'"_ he said with heavy sarcasm. "Like when you asked about my wristwatch after the last Kid heist? …..I think we're ready to move to Stage Two of my burden of proof now."

"And what's that, Conan-kun?" asked Megure warily, with the air of a man who has just discovered that the very small tiger he has gripped firmly by the tail has very big teeth.

Shinichi smiled. It wasn't the nicest smile in the world, but it wasn't little Conan-kun's engaging grin either. "Questions, your pick. Ask me whatever you'd like; I'll do my best to answer- _me;_not 'Conan-kun', just... myself." He took a deep breath. "Fire away."

Silence yet again. Shinichi looked around the table, challenging the officers with his gaze, but they all seemed somewhat...frozen. The muscles across his back and shoulders, already tense, tightened further, and the headache that was hovering at the back of his attention began to sidle its way up to the forefront, right between his temples.

_I can't believe this...I'm asking them to interview a witness, basically, and they're __still__ stuck on my child's face._ Shinichi sighed, frustrated.

"Fine," Ran said, startling everyone with her exasperated tone, "I'll start." She scooted to the side of her chair, turning so she could face her boyfriend a bit more directly, and grinned.

"Where did you learn to fly a plane, like you did that time that the movie star died and Kid helped us not to crash?"

Shinichi grinned back, showing his dogteeth, and relaxed a little. "In Hawaii, from my father Kudo Yuusaku. He also taught me to drive a speedboat, like I did to get us away from the suspect in Tropical Land, while you had amnesia; and he taught me to shoot a gun, like I did while I was normal-size, the first time I crossed paths with Kid at the clocktower...

"And while I was still like this, when I shot you in the leg during the fiasco involving the underwater hotel and restaurant, Aquacrystal."

Ran's hand covered Shinichi's on the table, squeezing gently. "It's okay."

The boy took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and smiled back, a little crooked. Then he turned to address Shiratori, his gaze critical.

"What are the odds that your gun would have gone off by accident, but hit Ran so perfectly, even in such an unstable place as that collapsing building? And did you think about why a seven-year-old child would know how to absorb the kickback from a handgun without getting knocked over by it?"

Shiratori's normal calm had broken down a little during the discussion of the Tokyo Tower bombing case; now shutters went up and barricades were kicked visibly into place, barred doors of disbelief slamming into place. "Coincidence does happen," he said severly. "And I'm certain, Conan-kun, that you've watched enough police dramas to see how a gun is held, not to mention seeing such things in person." Those dark, impersonal eyes stared the boy down; of the five officers, Shiratori had always been the one that Shinichi had had the toughest time warming up to- he respected the man's integrity, persistance and intelligence, but his personality had always seemed somewhat lukewarm.

"I do have one question for you, though, Conan-kun," said the man coolly, startling Shinichi out of his thoughts. "Why are you telling us this so suddenly? Why now?"

Shinichi stared levelly back. "Well, aside from your obvious belief that I'm suffering from a psychotic break or similar, why would _you_ think I'd pick just this time for my little talk?" He wasn'ttrying to be aggressive, but these were people who were used to questioning what they saw- they knew, gut-deep, that both the eyes and the brain lied. Backing down at any level was a mistake.

Shiratori, thankfully, decided to play along. "Ah, well... a change in your circumstances, stressors in school or home, fears promoted by our recent decision to omit your help from our investigation- but you don't mean that, do you?" At last a questioning look broke through the defenses, trailing disturbance in its wake. "You'd like me to consider this in the light of your little drama being real, ne? Certainly. In that case, I'd posit that you've noticed a danger to yourself or to others; that seems to be quite the motivator in your case." Almost visibly, Shiratori became aware that he had not been speaking or being spoken to on the level that he (or any of Section Three) was accustomed to with Conan; the questioning look gained reinforcements and the barricades began to weaken.

Shinichi half-smiled; "Excellent deduction. But that's for later, after we've gotten past all this. Next question?"

Chiba was next to speak up, startling everyone; he'd been all but silent throughout the whole conversation so far. As the member of Section Three who kept the most to the background, Chiba was less of a known quantity to Shinichi than the others, but the question that he had for 'Conan' made the ersatz boy smile fondly, pleased.

"Conan-kun...what do you think of the other children? The ones who follow you around."

Shinichi nodded. "Excellent choice, Chiba-keiji. Yoshida Ayumi, Tsubaraya Mitsuhiko, and Kojima Genta are perfectly normal, good-hearted seven-year-olds, and they are very teachable. I've taught them proper procedure to follow when handling evidence - they carry child-size latex gloves and evidence bags, usually ziplocks if they run out of the real ones. They have learned not to move a dead body and not to step in the blood; just the same, they also look for tracks or marks in blood spill to indicate disturbance of the body, and they know to be very careful around anything carrying an almond smell, just in case it's cyanide, since we - or I - run into that particular method of murder so frequently. They're comfortable around all of you; they've gotten used to seeing you around since they started hanging out with me. They respect me as a leader of our little 'detective club,' and they are canny enough to use technology effectively - including the communicator radio badges that Professor Agasa, a longtime friend of my family, has made for them, for recon, coordinating their movements as a group while on a case, and calling for help for themselves or for anyone else nearby.

"But they're still children; they get distracted easily, like the time at Tropical Land while Ran had amnesia. If they'd kept on guard instead of watching the parade, things might have turned out differently. And they do foolish things sometimes, like the time Mitsuhiko ran off into the forest in Gunma prefecture, searching for fireflies. They aren't as easily scared as they used to be, but they'll still scream and draw attention to themselves when it would be smarter to stay quiet and hidden, and they can still be paralyzed with fear instead of controlling their emotions in critical situations.

"Nevertheless, they've got a lot of potential, and they've saved lives, just as I have. Inspector Matsumoto might have starved to death, or been killed by an associate of the man who originally captured him, if not for the kids' intervention. And I would have died from my gunshot wound, if they hadn't kept their heads about them and found a way to escape from the underground labyrinth of caves at the campground where Agasa likes to take them for weekends.

"I wouldn't be surprised if some of them become your kouhai, one day," he finished, with a little smirk.

That last remark made a thoughtful little expression flit across Sato's face; Ayumi had, he knew, something of a case of hero-worship for the young woman. Chiba, somewhat to his surprise, grinned back at him. "You never know," said Megure's chief assistant, his slightly pudgy face relaxing slightly. "So what's it like, being a kid again?"

Shiratori gave Chiba a scandalized look. "Surely you're not humoring the boy's claims, Chiba-kun?"

His fellow officer hiked one shoulder in a shrug. "Why not? You did, at least for a minute. And anyway, I'm curious. What's it like?"

Shinichi shrugged as well. "Frustrating. Terrifying, especially at first- you don't know how to _move_ right, and everything's out of reach. All your proportions are wrong, the ground's too close, everybody's heads look too small, people run you over on the sidewalk and only pay attention to what you say when it suits them. Or when you scream; no wonder little kids' voices are so loud." He sighed. "Next question."

The next one came from Takagi, and it was one that Shinichi had been expecting... and dreading. "Conan-kun," said the dark-haired officer soberly, _"why_ didn't you go to the police immediately? Why didn't you tell someone in charge? And... who does know about this, about you?"

The youngest detective in the room dropped his gaze to the table; his crossed arms tightened, and Ran leaned against him, brushing his shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Because I was afraid," he said at last, flatly. "Afraid, embarrassed, shell-shocked... and, well, there are other considerations; I'll explain those later. But- everything happened so fast; I was found by Tropical Land security, bleeding from a head-wound and wearing oversized adult clothing; they scooped me up, I got away as soon as I realized what had happened to me and just... ran. I ended up meeting an old friend, someone who's helped me ever since; and then Ran came looking for me- Shinichi-me, I mean- and it just snowballed from there." When he raised his eyes back to Takagi's, apology and regret darkened the blue to twilight. "As for who knows... I'd rather wait until we get through this first, if you don't mind. And you know, sometimes I do wish I had gone straight to the authorities; but I was advised not to, and since then I've discovered that the advice had good foundations. But that needs to wait until-"

"-later?" asked Takagi with a lopsided smile. "You're asking us to take a great deal on trust... Kudo-kun."

"Takagi-keiji!"  
"Takagi-kun!"  
"_Wataru!_"

Everyone at the table winced, but none so sharply as Takagi, as Sato's exclamation caught them all by surprise, louder and clearer than everyone else's. Megure and Shiratori looked doubly scandalized - by Takagi's acknowledgment and Sato's slip-up both; Chiba was blushing and Ran was too, but she shared the smile that, despite being cowed by the reprimand, Takagi wore as well. Shinichi, just to the side of all the fuss for the moment, just sat quietly, regarding Takagi with deep, effusive gratitude.

_I always knew he would believe me,_ he thought, nearly glowing with relief. _I didn't even realize it until now, but...I always knew, somewhere deep, that I'd be able to show him._

External to Shinichi's moment of relief, things in the conference room proceeded noisily. Sato sat with both hands clapped over her mouth, redfaced but sulking at Takagi; he, with waving hands, was trying to appease her and simultaneously talking over his shoulder to Megure, who was making stern faces at his junior detective about gullibility and insufficient evidence and wild claims. Chiba was grinning across at Ran; they had - if Shinichi didn't miss his mark - just shared a moment of sympathetic affection for Takagi and Sato's 'adorable' relationship. And Shiratori was looking even more conflicted than before.

"I _am_ asking a lot," Shinichi said then, raising his voice as much as he could to carry over the commotion. Quickly, the officers quieted and turned their attention to him again. "But I wouldn't be asking this of you at all if I didn't have good reason. Ran and I were not lying when we said we have evidence pertaining to your current investigation, but it's the firsthand observer's account sort - not material, and definitely not enough to hold up in court. If we had anything more substantial than that..." Shinichi paused, choosing his words carefully.

"I would be very lucky to actually be able to present material evidence to you," he said finally, looking pained. "And I know that's far from a satisfactory explanation. But please be patient with me and listen just a while longer. There's so much that I have to tell you, two years' worth, and I'd skip straight to the important bits except that you wouldn't believe me if I didn't explain myself thoroughly, and it's all important anyway.

"Please...keep asking questions. I have to convince you all of who I am before you'll believe what else I have to say."

The morning wore on, mostly on Shinichi's and Ran's nerves. The detective's daughter sat quietly for the most part, occasionally adding in one remark or another and at one point describing her own suspicions regarding her ersatz ward. When her father's involvement was brought up, both teenagers looked at each other uncomfortably before admitting Mouri's ignorance. That got some surprised and then alarmed looks, mostly from Shiratori (which said that his level of belief was higher than even he was allowing himself to recognize) but only a resigned sigh from Megure.

"Conan-kun..." said the Chief of Division One, Section Three, at last after more than two hours of very intensive discussion (calling it 'torture' wasn't PC and was unkind to his officers), "I will admit that you've both presented some, hrrrm, very telling and convincing arguments. But..." His voice trailed off, slightly protuberant brown eyes narrowing as the boy at the table nodded.

"-it's not enough, I know." Shinichi grimaced, looking up at Ran with a very unwilling twist to his lips. "We have a solution, it's... just not one either of us really wanted to use. But it'll give you all the proof you need and then some, I promise you." They'd discussed this on the way there; it was all arranged, they'd worked it out, nothing to worry about and hell, he had deep suspicions of at least one unexpected guest...

But it felt like ashes in his mouth. It felt like his skin was going to be peeled off, examined, and then put back on. It felt horrible in a completely illogical way, and he was- they were- _still_going to have to go through with it. "We'd like," said Shinichi carefully, "to invite two of you to dinner this evening. Megure-keibu, and-" He glanced up at Ran questioningly.

"Sato-san," she said, addressing the officer in question politely. "At about five o'clock, please. ...Do you both like Oden?"

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*whispers from underneath her blanket-fort* Next week, it's _"Dinner guests, record, nice bits,"_ and um, again, pleasedon'tkilluskthxbye~!


	43. Dinner guests, record, nice bits

_Helloooo? Don't shoot!_

__

Welcome to another episode of Three Thieves; tonight we hit part three of four of our Tell-Division-One-All. Yes, three of four; there's still one part left to go. Remember, no killing the authors! We've even brought in a guest with this chapter, one that maybe you've been expecting (or maybe not; did you? Tell us! And speaking of telling, thank you to every one of you for your kind comments; we read them all, and we'll make sure that they get answered- we're working on it.)

_We hope you've all been enjoying our little dance with Division One; we were of the opinion that it was about time. So settle back, put your feet up and enjoy... ____The Management_

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**__****Three Thieves****__****, a series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels written by ** _**nightengale**_**__**** and ** _**ysabet**__  
_**__****Book Four, Chapter Ten****__****: "dinnerguests, record, nice bits"**_  
Warnings: squicky awful transformation stuff, some gore, traumatized detectives  
Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

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At the kitchen counter, knife poised over a daikon radish and her cutting board, Ran paused to reflect on what the next few hours would entail. The clock read about three pm; Shinichi had dozed off in the back of Takagi-keibu's car on the way home from the precinct, and it wasn't from simple interview exhaustrion. When he'd come to again, his eyes spoke volumes, and Ran's answered back. Five PM would be just early enough for their guests to arrive, she hoped, and might even be cutting things a little too close. There were no sensors on Shinichi's little black box, no helpfully blinking lights turning from green to yellow to warn them that the transition period was approaching.

_I should ask Ai about that,_ Ran thought wryly, looking down at her boyfriend with apprehension.

There were so many things Ran had to be afraid of at that moment; of Shinichi's change, and whether it would go well, painlessly, and quickly; of Megure's and Sato's critical observance, and what they would think after witnessing it; of the consequences of telling Division One about Shinichi's secret, and the consequences of arming them with knowledge that - rather than warning them _away_ from the threat - might make them do something even more stupid. She feared for their lives, for Shinichi's and Kid's, and, in a little, secondary way, for her own.

Ran feared Shinichi's worries about the process; she knew that he was dreading meeting Megure's and Sato's eyes when he woke up again, vulnerable and freshly...grown...and she didn't know how to reassure him. Shinichi didn't want to let his guards down that far around people who interacted with him on a basis not of affection, but professional respect; though Ran respected that, she just knew, somehow, that it wouldn't be an issue. But convincing him would be the difficult part, and she didn't think she had enough time left in the afternoon.

The oden was nearly finished; Ran had sliced up the fish cake, carrots and potatoes beforehand, and the tofu was already in the slow-cooker pot, simmering away. The dish had been picked for its ability to cook itself, without needing tending; Ran and Shinichi both knew that they, and Megure and Sato, would be plenty busy with _other_ considerations for most of the evening. The last ingredients that they needed were the daikon, which she'd nearly finished slicing, and the egg.

"Shinichi?" At Ran's foot, perched on a little stool in front of a small trash bin, Shinichi was studiously shelling hard-boiled eggs. "Almost done?"

"Second-to-last one, here," he said, handing one egg up to her. The other, pinched in the palm of his other hand, still had half its brown shell clinging to it. "Sorry I couldn't help with more."

"It's okay," Ran said, smiling encouragingly. They hadn't really had to discuss it, when they began to cook; Shinichi had dozed off twice more in the single hour since they'd gotten back to the agency, and both of them could clearly see that Shinichi wasn't to be trusted with anything sharp for the time being. "Did you call Tousan?"

"I did," Shinichi said as he finished the last egg. Wiping it clean of all little shell fragments with one palm, he stood with a small yawn and offered the egg to Ran. "-I'm okay, just tired. Normal-tired, I mean. This morning was brutal."

"It was," Ran agreed, frowning. "And this evening's not gonna be fun either, but it's all going to pay off, Shinichi. This is to save them."

"I know," the boy answered, folding his hands behind his head with an unchildlike huff. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." He bent to collect the trash can, replacing it where it belonged, and continued the conversation as he did.

"Your tousan was _really_ happy to stay right where he is, by the way." Shinichi looked over his shoulder at Ran with a small smirk. "I think I might have overdone it just a little with the bow-tie. I sounded less like _'strep throat'_ and more like _'brb, dying.'_"

Ran snickered. "Well, just so long as he _stays_ away, that's all that matters. It's just too bad that our doctors' appointments this morning brought back such awful results, you know," she deadpanned, eyes sparkling. "He daren't get close, for fear of bringing our germs back to the casino with him and getting sweet Yoko-chan sick!"

Shinichi raised one eyebrow, impressed. "That was almost as good as Kid could do," he praised her. "But anyway, this morning's excuse ended up paying off. This way, there's nothing suspicious about keeping him at a distance, and we can still use this place instead of compromising one of the others."

"Does Kid know they're coming over?" Ran asked after a moment, turning from the counter to face Shinichi. "I know we haven't filled your parents in yet, which, um, maybe we really should do? But also Kid. And um, Hattori. And-"

Shinichi held both hands up to quiet her, eyes squinted shut and shaking his head fiercely. "No. Nonononono. Let's just...let's just _do this,_ and then afterward, tell all the people who would want to tell me what a monumentally stupid idea this is, so that they can't talk me out of it."

"All I was saying was that Kid should know, at least, so he doesn't come by. After that, um. Last time."

Shinichi opened one eye, mischievous. "You liked that, did you?"

Ran flushed, waving her (very large) knife at him. "You stop that right there, mister. It's bad enough that we'll have an _audience_ when you come back, so I can't greet you with a kiss like last time. And even worse that you'll be at the precinct for half of tomorrow, talking to them about the...the people in black. Don't you go teasing me _now_, when I'm not going to be able to do anything about it for a day, and when I have to be a good hostess! You'll get yours, mister, don't think I've forgotten about the Sharpies."

Shinichi made a show of being cowed, gulping in (mostly) put-on fear. "Yes, Ma'am."

Ran puffed up, knife flashing in the light. "I'm a _miss!_"

Duly warned, Shinichi washed up and took his usual place at the table, cellphone in hand; it was weird, he reflected as he composed the text in his mind, that in a few hours he'd probably be back in the same seat but taking up more space- not the sort of thing you usually measured normalcy by, but then he and any pretense to 'normal' had parted ways long ago, hadn't he?_Just look at who I'm texting,_ he thought wryly as he typed in a number; _'normal' probably sees me, screams, and takes off at a dead run these days._

He sent the text: '_Hi. Guess who's coming over for dinner tonite? Hint: they wear badges, one's in charge, and the other one's dating Takagi.'_

The answer he got only a few minutes later came through clearly enough that, as he read it aloud to Ran, he could hear Kid's voice underlying his own. _"'I take it they didn't take ur word? I'll stay clear UNLESS u need my aid, & if u need it but don't call 4 me, I'll smack u,'"_ he quoted; clattering dishes at the sink, Ran raised an eyebrow at him.

"Heiji-kun?" she asked him pointedly. "And your parents?"

"Yeah, yeah..." A second text to Hattori _('Explained All (OK, most) to Megure; went reasonably well, got dinner-guests with badges tonight, wish me luck')_ went unanswered; a quick phone call to his father produced better results ("-no, it's okay, we'll be fine... She's doing what? Tousan, that's not... Oh. Really? I- Yeah, yeah, you'd better. Jaa.")

As he pocketed the cellphone with a groan, he glanced back at his girlfriend. "Kaasan's looking at motorcycles again," he reported gloomily. "She always does this when she gets itchy feet. Bet they don't stay in Beika more than another week or two at the most; if it hadn't been for everything going on and the convention, they probably would've been long gone as it is." He pushed away from the table, scooting up onto the couch.

"Mmhmm... Doesn't she have some sort of filming project?" Ran dried her hands on a towel, checking the oden briefly before plopping down onto the couch beside him with a relieved sigh.

Shinichi flipped around, small socked feet up on the arm of the couch and his head resting comfortably in Ran's lap. "Which one? Between the company that wants to do a two-season series based on the _Tale of Genji_ and the ones who want to film an all-Japanese remake of _Gone With The Wind_ adapted to the Warring States era, she's pretty busy. Might even stay in-country for a while, but I doubt she or Tousan'll hang around here much longer. In fact," (and he tilted his head back to grin up at her mischievously) "I bet this'll be the longest period you'll see either of them for... until their first grandchild comes along. Or okay, maybe the wedding."

It was worth enduring the spike of atavistic male terror that the word 'grandchild' gave him, Shinichi reflected, to see the way Ran blushed like a rose at those words.

They talked for a while, comfortable and easy and relaxed, putting the evening's impending inevitabilities as far at a remove as they could for as long as they could. Shinichi occasionally dozed; at one point he awoke to find himself wrapped in Ran's arms, half upright and settled into her lap like the child he appeared to be. Time passed; nerves settled, at least a little... and it wasn't until half past four, when a fidgety Ran was setting the coffee to perk and dithering about whether or not the oden had simmered long enough that the knock at the door broke the peace that they'd found and jerked them both to sudden, rigid attention.

"..."

Shinichi had already changed into an oversized yukata (it'd be tight on him later but not too tight for decency) with the length tucked up into the belt, looked at Ran apprehensively; "They're early," she muttered, starting for the door. But he held up one hand in warning and Ran paused. _What?_ she mouthed at him silently; he only shook his head.

"Kudo? Neesan? You in there? You _better_ be, been sweatin' bullets thinkin' I wouldn't get here in time-"

Minutes later, shoes off and a cold soda in hand, Hattori Heiji glared mutinously at his friends, large and small. "Y'didn't think I was gonna miss this, didja? It didn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out what you were gonna do, y'know," he announced a little grumpily. "Kudo, honest to God, you honestly thought I was gonna sit up there and wait for you to show up on the news? What the f- what kind of friend would I be if I just sat back'n let you two take the heat for this?" he demanded, cap flipped around as if he were confronting a case head-on- which, Shinichi supposed, in a way he was.

"You've never even seen me change," pointed out Shinichi, relief and annoyance (and, he had to admit, a new level of trepidation) sweeping through him. "Are you sure you want to? It's not pretty, you know." Beside him, Ran winced.

"Yeeeeeaaah, well..." Heiji rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand. "Kinda figured it was about time. And if your girlfriend-" (he grinned at Ran, who reddened) "-and goddamn wanted criminals can take it, so can I. 'S okay, Kudo. I won't throw up or anything. -um. Will I? I mean, it can't be _that_ bad, can it?" He blinked. "You just sort of... expand, right? Like one've those sponge things you soak in water? They get bigger, y'know, like that?" He held out both hands, pulling them apart in mimicry.

"You'll just have to see, won't you?" Shinichi grinned a little evilly. "And anyway, how would I know? I've never seen it happen myself, I'm always in the middle. That time with Haibara, I was on the other end of a radio." He spread small hands wide. "Other than what I've been told, I have no idea what it looks like from the outside."

"You will after tonight, though," interjected Ran soberly; he gave her a hangdog look. "Don't fuss, Shinichi... It's something Ai asked me about when she dropped by earlier just after we got here," she explained to Heiji. "We'll be taping the whole change." The whole evening, actually; Haibara had shown up with Agasa for all of three minutes to drop off a bag full of nutrient drinks, a dry request that Shinichi not kill himself over the weekend and a small device that she and Ran had conferred over, which had turned out to be a very tiny, very well-made video unit. It would sit discreetly on the bookshelf back of the couch, filming everything; and if Megure, Sato or the rest of Division One ever needed reminding of just what the Black Organization's chemists were capable of...

...or if proof was needed someday (and they were both certain it would be) for other, higher up authorities, well- it would exist.

Heiji shook his head, cradling his soda. "Am I gonna need a barf-bag, or is this gonna be along the lines of Speilberg special effects?" He seemed morbidly curious; Shinichi flashed him a dirty look as Ran rather tartly informed the Osakajin that if she could take it, he could too. "And if you _do_ throw up, I'm telling Kazuha-chan," she said grimly.

"Yeah? You gonna explain about Chibi-han here too?" At Ran's twitch and balled up fists, he backtracked quickly. "Not that y'wouldn't have reason to, but you won't, 'cause I'm not gonna. Fair?"

Ran was saved from answering, however, by heavy footsteps on the stairs. The three looked apprehensively at each other, frozen, as a polite but unmistakably _policeman's_ knock sounded on the door. Twice, heavily, pause, then twice more, again heavily. "As Kid would say," muttered Shinichi, "'showtime.'" Hattori gave him a Look, said something very quietly that was distinctly _not_ 'showtime' beneath his breath, and stepped back to allow Ran to answer the door.

* * *

"Err. Hattori-kun, we... weren't... expecting you to...?"

"'S alright, Megure-keibu. I already know about the chibi- about Kudo, I mean." Forty minutes into the meal and so far, so good, thought Shinichi. The oden was filling the room with a mouth-watering aroma, Hattori'd already stolen an entire shiitake mushroom and Sato-san had shown an unsuspected preference for simmered daikon. "I've known since early on," explained the Osakajin, eying a piece of chikuwa. "Why d'you think I keep calling him 'Kudo'? Never could get myself to stop that, 'Conan-kun' just sounded so..."

The detective in question raised one eyebrow, then the other. "So WHAT, Hattori? I had about _two seconds_ to come up with that name; let's see you do better." Megure stifled a chuckle behind his mustache.

Shinchi glanced to Megure, one brow optimistically raised. Humor was a good gateway to belief, he figured, and at least if the facts of his claims seemed impossible to credit, the seriousness with which he had made them - to the point that Ran and he were hosting police officers for dinner, and Hattori had taken a 20,000-yen Shinkansen trip to Tokyo to witness the proof himself - was hard to discredit.

Sato helped herself to more daikon, eyeing Hattori across the table. "You said you've known for a long time? How did you find out, if you haven't seen him change yourself?"

"Logic," Hattori said simply, smiling. "I _am_ the Great Detective of the West, after all."

Ran, on Shinichi's other side, easily reached over his head to flick Hattori's skull chidingly. As Hattori squawked at her ("Neechan!") and Ran looked prim, Shinichi rolled his eyes and offered a smile for Sato and Megure.

"I've gotten used to this."

Sato muffled a snicker. "The, ahm, familiarity?"

"Some of that," Shinichi snickered, taking thirds for himself. His body temperature had been rising over the last half hour, and it wasn't because of the generous amounts of hot sauce he was using; the change was coming soon, and he figured he might as well be as well-fed as he could be for it. _I'll have to ask Haibara what sorts of foods I should - or shouldn't - bulk up on before each of these changes,_ he mused, before turning his attention back to the conversation.

"Some of this," he said, raising the blunt end of his chopsticks to poke Hattori's elbow just as his friend reached over Shinichi's head toward the hotpot. "When you're small you get treated like furniture a lot. Or like baggage."

Sato raised one eyebrow. "Baggage?"

"Picked up, tossed across a room, tucked under someone's arm, carted around by whatever part of me makes the best handle, shoved into small spaces..." He deadpanned. "It's a good thing I bounce."

Shinichi surreptitiously wiped away a sheen of sweat from his forehead- or tried to; Ran's eyes sharpened, tracking his movements and gauging the level of distress he was having; it must not have been alarming, because a moment later they softened and she turned to answer a question from Sato about how they had managed 'Conan-kun's' school paperwork, immunization records, permission slips and all the other ephemera required for educating a child. He opened his mouth to add in a detail of his own-

-and there were hands holding him, and a loud voice was saying "Kudo? KUDO? Say something, dammit! Neechan, he-"

Shinichi blinked dazedly; he was... lying back on the couch, halfway across Heiji; Ran was next to him, wiping his face with what felt like a damp napkin, and Megure and Sato were on their feet at the other side of the table. Each had a cellphone in their hand but neither was dialing yet. "It's... okay," he said faintly. "It's okay. That was- I passed out, huh?"

"Goddammit, Kudo, you didn't tell me you were gonna-! Your eyes just rolled up in your head an' over you went. Is that-" Heiji swallowed. "Will that happen a lot more?" he asked incredulously.

"No," answered Ran for him; her voice was unsteady. "It's almost time." Moving quickly, she cleared the table in a haphazard fashion, shoving dishes methodically onto kitchen counters with very little care as to where they went. Shinichi, drenched in a sudden, clammy sweat, remained limp against Heiji, but one hand clung almost unconsciously to the other detective's sleeve.

He turned his head a little; it was hard, everything seemed to weigh too much, including his eyelids. They dragged, solid and insistent as lead, but he fought the encroaching darkness enough to murmur, "Glad... you're here, Hattori." His voice was almost inaudible; the other teenager had to lean down, straining to hear. "Glad s'not just me and Ran. Th-" His last shred of energy ran out on the final word, and Heiji bit his lip.

"Shuddup, Kudo. Just- kick back n'sleep, okay?" Heiji's green eyes seemed further and further away with every word. "Just-"

Further and further away...

"-sleep-"

This time, Shinichi was almost fully under the thick, muffling cover of unconsciousness when the first lightning-strike of red pain hit. But before he could even recoil from it, the black claimed him, and he went happily.

* * *

He woke up warm.

Shinichi stretched his shoulder, trying to roll onto his side; several things of varying softness stopped him, holding him down and still. The scent of Ran was thick around him, so he didn't fight the constraint, simply flopping onto his back again. One arm flopped further, falling off the edge of the - Oh, he was probably on the couch.

_...Ugh. Hope they put down a dropcloth,_ he thought fuzzily, even as one hand - a big, wide one - wrapped tightly in his own and squeezed gently.

"Kudo-kun? Kudo-kun." Megure's voice was quiet and reassuring. "Can you hear me, Kudo-kun? Are you in pain?"

Shinichi opened his mouth to respond, winced, and closed it again, rolling the muscles in his jaw back and forth to loosen them up. When he tried again, it twinged a lot less. "Megure-keibu. Mmmh. This was the _easy_ version," Shinichi mumbled, trying to open one eye. A thin, cool hand covered his eyes, encouraging him to keep them closed.

"Sato-san?" Ran's voice was close, vibrating in his ear despite its softness. _Ah,_ Shinichi concluded. _Head in her lap. That's my Ran._

"Sato-san, could I have a cool washcloth, please? It's in the kitchen, the drawer just to the right of the sink." Ran's voice pitched lower as she continued; Shinichi could hear that she'd tucked her head down to look at him. "How're you feeling, Shinichi?"

"Sore. I need a bath. And..." He tried to move his right arm, discovering a firm resistance at the elbow where he expected flexion. "...What's wrong with my elbow?"

"That arm grew too fast," Ran explained, petting his bangs back from his forehead as Sato returned with the cool cloth for his brow. "The skin ripped. Hattori called your doctor, but she said it's okay, just glue it together and apply a bandage. We used the super glue in the kit she brought us."

Shinichi nodded vaguely, unable to really care about petty little details like rends in his tissue. The thick, numbing mindlessness that always followed a change was burning off slowly this time, and what it was revealing weren't exactly things he wanted to concentrate on...things like what Megure's face would look like when Shinichi opened his eyes, or whether Sato would ever be able to treat him the same way again. Things like why he hadn't heard a single thing from Hattori, yet.

Shinichi lifted his left arm, freeing his hand from Megure's clasp to reach up toward his girlfriend. "Ran. Hattori, where's he-"

A broad, tough-tendoned hand reached from above to clasp his hand suddenly and firmly, clenching tight. "Kudo?" Shinichi could hear Hattori draw a deep, steadying breath. "That was_disgusting._"

Shinichi gripped back, feeling a tension spring of worry in his heart quickly unwind. "Do we get to tell Kazuha on ya?"

"Hell no," Hattori returned, adjusting his grip but not letting go. "Megure-han looked a little green, though."

With a monumental effort, Shinichi propped himself up, head and shoulders, against the arm of the couch and Ran's arm, and creaked his eyes open one at a time. He found Megure-keibu and Sato-san sitting seiza at the side of the couch, extreme concern writ large on both their faces.

"Konban wa, Megure-keibu, Sato-san," he managed, voice watery. He coughed, swallowing a bit of bile that had risen in his throat sometime while he was unconscious. The taste made him shudder, but he forced a smile for the officers as he opened his eyes again. "Sorry I can't greet you properly."

Megure shook his head, his voice grave. "Kudo-kun, please. You... You should just rest."

Shinichi smiled a little more steadily, his brows drawing up in wry concern. "Megure-keibu, I'm okay. I've done this before. ...Usually more painfully, too. How many times would you say it's been, Ran?"

His girlfriend, her strong arms supporting his body and even his head, keeping strain off of his weak-as-water neck (and everything else), hummed thoughtfully. "Oh, I don't know, really. Maybe a dozen? More than that, maybe?"

"I think it's more," Shinichi murmured, coughing again. "A few of them didn't last long at all...the antidote didn't stick."

Megure and Sato both reacted strongly to that, but what _sort_ of reaction was hard to say precisely. A dozen or more emotions flew through their eyes, shifting and shuffling around as both officers tried to decide how to react. Shinichi, unused to seeing either of them hesitate even half as significantly as they were doing, began to fidget himself, until Ran's fingertips dug in to his biceps, warning him back into stillness.

"Really, I'm okay," he tried again, looking from one to the other with worry. _Shit. Shit, shit, they're never going to be able to look at me straight again._

Megure, big hands knotted together on his knees, looked down to gather his thoughts, then back up at Shinichi with a determination that had nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with pure guts and tenacity.

"Kudo-kun, I would like you to come back to the precinct tomorrow, if you're feeling better. I would like you to tell us what it is that you couldn't tell us today, and about the warning that you meant to convey."

Slowly, Shinichi nodded, feeling the joints in his neck creak and scrape in protest. _I guess I woke up sooner than last time,_ he thought, filing the idea away for later use. _Feels like everything's still shifting into place._

"I'll be there. Do you trust me to bring anyone else that I might need, to help explain?"

Sato shifted in place, glancing to her superior officer; Megure glanced back at her, then looked to Shinichi with a nod. "Yes. Sato-san, did you have something to add?"

"Yes. Con- Kudo-kun, may I ask one favor of you?"

_Favors?_ Shinichi thought. _I do Miracle Gro tricks for you and that's not enough?_ Outwardly, he nodded carefully, forcing a thin smile. "Yes?"

In response, Sato rose from seiza, smoothing her skirt down, and walked the two strides between her position and the couch. Sitting down again, skirt neatly tucked, directly to Megure's right and in front of Shinichi, Sato looked briefly to Ran.

"Excuse me, Mouri-san."

And then she reached forward, slipping her arms carefully around what bit of Shinichi's shoulders and neck she could reach without moving him, and hugged him tight, face buried against the yukata cloth that covered his shoulder.

"You're still Conan-kun, in there, along with being Kudo-kun," she said quietly, muffling the words in his shoulder. Shinichi knew he had to smell like sweat, acid, and worse things, but Sato didn't seem to care. "I can't stop seeing you as the bright little child whom we work so hard to protect. Even though now I know you're also the bright young man who works so hard to protect others."

Ran's fingers threaded through Shinichi's hair, stilling as (he thought) she waited for a reaction that indicated pain on his part. But, startled, he instead managed to very cautiously hug back with his free arm; he'd never really been hugged by Sato-san, and it was rather nice. "I'm... still me," he murmured; "Still Conan. Always will be, I guess." When she drew back, Sato's eyes were overbright, and Shinichi knew his own were as well. "Thank you," he said quietly, his voice still a little thready, "for being here. You didn't have to come, neither of you, and you did."

Sato shook her head wordlessly; Megure put a hand on her shoulder and she rose, pulling away as gently as possible in order not to damage the thin skin that Shinichi knew was still tight across bone and newly-grown muscle. "I believe it'd be best if we said goodnight, Kudo-kun, Mouri-chan, Hattori-kun," said the senior officer gravely, his own voice carefully controlled. "Kudo-kun? You... _will_ be feeling better by then? Well enough to move around?"

Shinichi felt the fingers in his hair suddenly knot, and wondered if the new skin of his face had flushed. He hoped he'd be capable of moving around by then... "I'll be fine," he assured Megure. "Just need rest, that's all, and about fifteen vitamin pills that're waiting to be taken- don't worry. Tomorrow," and he attempted one of his old grins, "I'll be a new man, wait and see. Good night, Megure-keibu, Sato-keiji. And... thank you again." He allowed his head to drop back against Ran's lap, exhausted. It _was_ more difficult to settle in this time; he wondered why.

Heiji, who had been sitting beside him all this time and hanging onto one hand, let go long enough to see the two officers out. Closing the door and locking it with perhaps unnecessary force, he leaned his back against it and breathed out. "Whoooooooeeeeeeee... Kudo? You do that _HOW_ often these days?"

Ran's fingers slid down to curve around his jaw on either side; firm and yet petal-soft, they felt amazingly good on his oversensitized skin, and he closed his eyes briefly at the touch. "Every two weeks. Haibara's trying to get my body to accept this as 'normal' and the other as 'sick', but it'll take a while, she says. Was it really..." He opened his eyes again. "...that bad?"

Silent for once, Hattori just grimaced horribly; the expression said it all.

* * *

And, outside...

"Sato-san? Are you certain you'll be alright?" Still shaken, Megure watched his subordinate steady herself with one hand against the painted brickwork at the bottom of the Mouri's staircase. A squadcar was parked across the road and had been for some time; the chief of Division One hadn't wanted to leave anything (though 'anything' in this case had covered a very broad spectrum) to chance. "I'd be happy to drop you off..."

She shook her head, face pale. "I- no, Takagi's... He'll be here in a moment." Megure'd seen her fumble with her cellphone as they came down the stairs, hitting a preset number. From down the block an engine started, showing that her partner had never been very far away at all the entire time. Megure approved; being able to rely on one's partner was key to survival. He glanced up at the lit windows above and nodded to himself.

Survival came in some very strange forms sometimes.

The older man vanished into the Beika traffic in his squadcar, and, door closing behind her, Sato Miwako huddled in the front seat of her own ride. Beside her, Takagi glanced at his partner questioningly. "Bad?" he asked in a low voice.

"...bad," she whispered back, and leaned across the gearshift to cling to him fiercely, shuddering. It was some time before either one could let go enough to drive.

* * *

It was several hours before Ran and Hattori attempted to move Shinichi to the bedroom for the night. Ran wasn't sure she could carry him by herself; the last time she'd done so, he was halfway through shrinking before she picked him up, so her burden had grown lighter as she went. And Hattori wouldn't touch Shinichi, afraid to break him; when pressed, he said as much, vehemently, with expletives. So Shinichi remained on the couch where he was, and Hattori brought him his vitamins, juice and water. Once Shinichi's stomach had somewhat settled from the combined effects of the anesthesia and the change itself, he nibbled on some plain bread, supplementing it with a lot of lukewarm water to help keep it down.

Even three hours after the change had begun, two hours after he'd woken up to greet Megure and Sato, Shinichi's body was still working hard to reassume the form that Haibara's antidote dictated for it. Every ten minutes marked a significant improvement in his appearance, as the muscle beneath his stretched-tight skin plumped up and the skin continued to slowly grow. The creases and soft parts of his hands returned to their normal appearance, his skin no longer pulled so taut that making a fist would have split it open, and the skin of his neck and throat gentled in appearance as well, smoothing over the ridged column of his trachea with a layer of healthy fat that helped to dispel the detective's skeletal appearance.

Shinichi could feel his face rounding out, too; as his cheeks filled out, speaking no longer pulled so sharply on the skin around his eyes and ears, which - by making it less painful - meant he could do more of it. Ran had remained in place, stroking his hair and face and hands, throughout the whole process, and Hattori had fetched her tea, food, a washcloth, and anything else she needed, while Shinichi rested. But, three hours after she'd taken vigil at Shinichi's side, there was one thing that Hattori _couldn't_ do for her, and so Ran and Hattori very carefully helped Shinichi sit up, supporting him with their hands, while Ran slipped out from under her boyfriend and Hattori took her place.

As the bathroom door clicked shut behind Ran, Hattori stroked one hand hesitantly across Shinichi's shoulder, smoothing the yukata sleeve that didn't _quite_ fit right. His other hand, which had supported Shinichi's head and neck as they lowered him back onto the couch, carded tentatively through his hair. Shinichi sighed, brow smoothing out, and smiled up at Hattori, eyes closed.

"Glad you were here," he murmured, quiet not because he lacked the strength anymore, but simply because he wanted to be.

Hattori had been uncharacteristically silent himself over the last few hours; now he settled himself as smoothly as possible, attempting to shift himself without jarring the other at all. "Yeah, well. Me too." He smoothed the sleeve again, fingers pausing at the ridges of bandage beneath the thin cloth. "Is this gonna be a problem? It was pretty messy- there wasn't much over the bone when the... when it ripped." The last words were a little shaky; apparently seeing something very much like a horror-movie special effect had bothered Heiji rather badly.

Eyes still closed, Shinichi tried an experimental flex and winced hard. _"Nnngh..._ Let's just say- aagh- that I won't be using it much this weekend." He didn't particularly want to see what lay beneath the bandages; the images floating behind his eyelids were bad enough. Had it been only the skin that tore, or was there muscle and tendon damage as well? It had never happened before; he had nothing to base it on, only what they'd told him and the simple truth that it currently hurt a _lot._ Things did, after his change, but-

"Hattori? Check that stuff Haibara left, will you? See if there's anything like painkillers, okay?" As his body filled out, the strain on his elbow lessened; but the damage was done, and with muscle and fat growth came nerve conduction as well, and the joint was steadily moving from 'bearable ache' to 'napalm'. The pills that Heiji dug out, however, went down easily enough and would with any luck dull the pain. Shinichi sighed as the cup of water was pulled away from his lips. "Thanks. This went a lot easier last time," he muttered.

Behind and beneath him, Hattori took in a long breath; he could feel it. "So why'd it go worse this time?"

The transformed detective didn't really feel up to shrugging, so he did the best with his voice. "No idea; or- well, Haibara's still working out the dosages. Last time, heh; Hattori, you should've seen me, changing back..." He paused for another sip of water; his friend's hand was steady, holding the cup just long enough. "There's this bit where I'm supposed to be kind of out of it- 'intoxicated' is how Haibara put it. 'Stoned' is what I'd say, though." Shinichi remembered the fuzzy, euphoric effect only vaguely, though he did recall what had happened during it, pretty much. He also remembered the circumstances and decided not to go into details. "Didn't last long, but- I think this time she's cut back on some of the preparatory medications." He reached across with his more flexible arm, testing out the shape of his damaged elbow with the other hand. "I'm sorry you had to see that, though."

The warm body behind his was still. "Kudo? You understand what 'masochist' means, right? Yeah? Good. Now how 'bout 'shut up'? That ring any bells?" In contrast to Hattori's rather harsh tone, bronzed fingers smoothed the sleeve a third time.

"It's okay, Hattori, talking doesn't hurt anymore," Shinichi said, a bit impatient. Hattori's hand tightened on his shoulder, and he realized that saying 'anymore' implied that it _had_ hurt to talk earlier, and there really wasn't any way to make what Hattori had just witnessed sound nice and harmless, and with a sigh, Shinichi slumped back in Hattori's arms, deciding to just shut up like he was told, and try not to make things worse.

Ran walked back in at that point. Apparently, she'd taken a detour from the restroom to the kitchen, because she was carrying a cup of shaved ice, a small dish with a spoon, and the bottle of melon flavor syrup that they kept in the refrigerator. She nudged Shinichi's knee aside, perched on the edge of the couch, and handed Shinichi the cup of ice.

"I didn't know if you'd want syrup or chocolate shavings on it, so I brought both. You need more water and nutrition, and I figure sugar is a good way to start giving you energy."

Hattori gestured to the glass that he'd been holding for Shinichi, which was mostly empty. "Good thinking, Neechan." He held the cup for Shinichi, helping the detective pour a little syrup on top of his ice, trying not to think too hard about the heavy, slow thud of Shinichi's heart, which he could feel through his ribs. "How long's he gonna be like this?"

"I'm right here," Shinichi muttered, carefully handling his spoon. Ran, meanwhile, answered Hattori as though Shinichi hadn't spoken, her hands folded in her lap around the cup of chocolate shavings.

"Last time, he slept for hours after it happened, and most of the next day too. He only woke up for a little bit when Ki-" She stopped, confusion clear on her face; Hattori waved a hand resignedly, putting his shrug in his voice to keep from jostling Shinichi.

"I don't get it but I respect it," Hattori said simply. "Keep goin'."

Ran nodded. "He only woke up for a little bit when Kid came, and we all slept through the next morning. When Shinichi woke up finally, he was just fine." A slight flush rose on Ran's cheeks, and Hattori flushed as well, waving his hand anxiously to divert the topic away from the ways in which his friend had been _just fine._

"Okay. So...Y'need more sleep, then?" He addressed this to the detective draped across him; around a spoonful of shaved melon ice, Shinichi nodded and swallowed.

"Combined with the lower dose of relaxants in this batch, that would be a pretty good recipe for me feeling like crap," he commented dryly, smiling weakly at Ran. "Looks like we're not going to get a full sixty hours out of this one, either."

"What I'm worried about is if it's going to get harder every time," Ran said, one hand gripping Shinichi's knee through the blankets draped over him. "I was also wondering...Shinichi, do you think maybe your emotions have to do with it? You were afraid of showing your transformation in front of Megure-keibu and Sato-san. Maybe that fear made the resistance that Ai-chan was trying to get rid of with the relaxers and the sleeping part of it? Maybe your emotions made your body fight the change more, and that's why you, um." She gestured to his elbow.

He pondered the thought. Emotions... well, why not? Adrenalin changed the constituency of the blood, sparking a climb in glucose and certain fatty acids; it allowed the body to create resources of energy for the flight-or-fight response. His system was still reacting to the enlarged 'Shinichi' form as an illness, it hadn't yet tipped over past the point where it would see that as an optimum outcome, so maybe his fear and anticipation _were_ fighting against the transformation, shoving against it just enough to make things slower and more painful.

He said as much to the other two between bites of crushed ice as the painkillers that Heiji had found for him slowly took effect. His elbow began feeling less like it had been flayed and more like something that would actually heal in time, and as he worked his way slowly through a second cup of ice he and Ran brought Heiji gradually up to date on the drowned girl case, second body, third missing teenager and his own theories regarding the unidentifiable chemicals in the boyfriend's corpse. "...not good," was the Detective of the West's verdict, dark brows drawn down. "And somebody's gonna notice this in the news, somebody specializin' in cleanup. You think?"

"Definitely." Shinichi swallowed a last bite, lassitude creeping through his veins and dragging sleep in its wake. "You see why Division One had to know? I had to give them solid reason not to go barging in, pushing an investigation through of the families. We already know the first victim, Kimura, has at least some family left; but I'm wondering about the boyfriend and the second case, the one from two years ago." His voice slowed. "Time to... talk to Chirokawa-san. He'd know. Needs to know anyway, because..."

"...because Missing Persons is probably gonna get corrupted first thing," finished Heiji with a frown. "Somebody's already been in there once; this time they'll alter the records, cover up their tracks. Heh. Now, I'd bet you anything y'can think of that your clean freak's got backups of damn near everything."

"Mmhmm." Shinichi yawned, wincing as the movement pulled at the still-tender skin of his face. "Hey, Hattori? When're you heading back?"

The Osakajin pulled out his railpass and considered the tickets. "Got 'til tomorrow evenin'," he reported, and then grinned a little. "So hey, you'll get at least one evening of privacy with-"

"-Ran _and_ Kid?" His fellow detective shot him a rather dry look. "Uhuh. I'd invite you to stay longer, but unless you want to see more of all three of us than you probably w-" Heiji, much to his amusement, went into a positive flurry of handwaving (upside down from Shinichi's viewpoint, which made it even funnier) and sputtering. "So... that's a no?"

"...that's a no, Kudo. Big no."

Ran giggled, crossing her lips with one finger as though contemplative. "Oh, but Hattori-kun, Kid has such _nice_ bits-"

Both Hattori _and_ Shinichi sputtered at that, Hattori in abject embarrassment and Shinichi in disbelief. Meanwhile, Ran levelled a friendly but no-nonsense look on Hattori, now that she had his clear and undivided attention.

"He's our boyfriend," she reminded him, though her voice softened with a touch of sympathy for the admirable way that Heiji was clearly smothering his instinctive reaction to that statement. "And he's very good to us. _Try_ to like him, Hattori-kun?"

Uncomfortable under the pressure of Ran's baldly straightforward request, Hattori nodded, his grip on Shinichi tightening as he did. "Yeah, okay. I already told him, though, he hurts you...two... and, well." Ran beamed at him, and Hattori relaxed a little. "So, okay."

"Okay," Ran agreed.

Ran opted to sleep out on the opposite couch to keep an eye on Shinichi for the night; given a choice between her bed, Shinichi's floor-futon and Mouri's, Heiji went for the floor-futon without hesitation but volunteered to split the watch with Ran, waking her up and sending her to her own bed halfway through. Shinichi was only minimally aware of this, as sleep had steadily begun dragging him down in an inescapable hold. His last few coherent thoughts, however, prompted him to make a drowsy request. "Ran? Hey, Ran? C'n you... could you text Kid? Tell 'm things went okay?"

"...'okay', yeah right. Masochist..." Ran poked Heiji in a shoulder with a fingernail, prompting an 'Ow! Neechan!'; and pretty much the last thing Shinichi remembered after that point was the quiet sound of a cellphone being dialed.

It had, after all, been a very long night.

* * *

.

.

_...and that's it for the week! Well? Whadja think? We'd like to know. And please join us next week for ____"playback, disclosure, long day." __And, um, some more talking to Division One. Yes, more. 'Cause it ain't over 'til it's over. **RUNS AWAY**_

_(But hey, we brought Heiji back! Right? Right!)_


	44. Playback, disclosure, long day

_Helloooooooooo!_

__

You know how we said last time that there were actually four parts to the Division One story? What would you say if we told you there were actually five instead?... Uh, WAIT. Put down the chainsaws! Joking! Joking, honest!

_Yes, there are only four parts, and tonight is the last part of the four. We hope you enjoy this week's offering... and it's time to let you all in on a little secret of Division One's, one we've been building up to for a long long time. Don't kill us, okay? Wow, we're having to ask that a lot lately... Anyway, enjoy. Screams of outrage will be answered cheerfully while wearing kevlar...____ The Management_

___._

___

* * *

_

_**Three Thieves**__**: a series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by **_ _**nightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
**__**Chapter Eleven**__**: "playback, disclosure, long day"  
Warnings:**__ Squickiness of the videotaped kind. Many, maaaaaaaany questions. Haibara-trauma. Heiji-baiting.  
_**_Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _** _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

__

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_**Book Four, Chapter Eleven**__**: "playback, disclosure, long day"**_

"...Nnnngh. Do I _have_ to?"

"Mmmph. Five more minutes, Neechan."

"_Yes,_" Ran insisted, tapping Shinichi on the head with the blunt end of her wooden spoon. Turning to reach across to the second couch, she thwapped Hattori with the other end of the spoon, harder. "And _no._ We're due at the precinct in an hour and a half and Shinichi needs a _bath._"

"I need more than that," Shinichi grumbled, shifting his shoulders against the cushions of the couch. He wasn't ready to open his eyes yet, but what he _did_ feel ready for was a full-body stretch, and maybe a massage, with scented oil, or maybe hot rock treatment... Murmuring something indistinct, he tried to curl deeper into his blankets.

"A-**hemmm.**"

Okay, _much_ deeper. Shinichi burrowed his head under the covers, using his good arm to hold them over his head. "Ran, take pity! I'm a poor defenseless sickling! I'm so weak. Feed me broth from a spoon? -Ack!"

The covers went flying, revealing Shinichi to Ran, and Ran - looking very domestic in her kitchen apron and wielding her wooden spoon - glowered down on her victim. "Shiiiiniiiichiiiii," she growled.

"...Kid would make some sort of smart remark about being fed straight from your mouth right now, but I value my physical integrity, so I'm not going to say it."

Ran stared, holding back the snicker that wanted to work its way into the corner of her mouth, and then abruptly deflated, arms flopping to her side, spoon whacking Shinichi's shoulder anticlimactically. "Get up, you big idiot. I made eggs and rice, but I'll let Hattori eat it all if- Heh! There we go."

As Shinichi urgently wobbled his way to the restroom, cradling his damaged elbow in front of him, Ran turned her attention to Heiji. Or rather, the couch where he used to be. Pleased, Ran located him in the kitchen, already finishing off a modest portion of her scrambled eggs.

"Sorry I didn't wait, Neechan," Hattori said, swallowing a big mouthful in a hurry. "I figure he's gonna need help in the shower, or at least I wanna be able to stand there in _case_ he needs it, so I went on ahead."

Ran nodded, a light of relief brightening her eyes. "Thank you, Hattori-kun."

"Nothin' to thank me for," he countered, setting down his empty plate. "The food's good. Thanks." He ducked out into the hall, heading for the bathroom.

Shinichi made it through the shower intact, emerging much refreshed and without crashing into any walls, doors, fellow detectives, girlfriends, etc. After cleaning up the remaining rice and eggs in record time, his steps were definitely steadier; if still noticeably thin, the face that he presented to Ran and Heiji was very much his own and very far away from Conan-kun's little-boy cuteness. "'Cept," said Heiji as they were making their way cautiously down the stairs towards the taxi that they'd called, "you _do_ look the same. I mean, you did before- hair color, skin tone, eyes, yaddayadda, but this was... like watchin' somebody grow up in time-lapse photography." He paused. "...with, uh, added agonized groans and moaning."

"At least he didn't scream," said Ran significantly. "He _did_ say this was the easy version." Heiji looked a little green at that.

On the way to the precinct, one quick phonecall allowed them permission to be admitted through a heavily-locked and guarded back entrance, generally used for prisoners, informants and the coming and going of those attached to the police community whose identity is safest not publicized; a second call, made shortly after the first, picked up another vehicle which when parked looked very much out of place among the official vehicles of the secure police yard that it was allowed to use. Megure met them all there- Shinichi, Ran and Heiji, as well as Haibara Ai and Professor Agasa in the yellow Beetle; the presence of the latter two made him frown slightly, until his eyes suddenly widened and he looked from Shinichi to Ai's small, slight and above all _childlike_ shape and size with a visibly paling face.

"Not here," murmured the Detective of the East; Ai crossed her arms defensively, her face as pale as Megure's, and the officer led them silently through the halls back to the previous day's conference room.

The four people already in the room were conferring together in low, agitated voices when Megure opened the door. "-understand that, Shiratori-kun, but I was there," Sato was saying heatedly even as the sound of the knob turning made her look up. "I wasn't born-" (her eyes widened, fixing on Shinichi's face) "-yesterday..." Sato trailed off, half-rising. "C- Kudo-kun? How are you feeling?" Beside her, Takagi's distinct expression of vindication underwent a metamorphosis into concern and, perhaps just a little, fear.

"Much better." Shinichi sat down gratefully; he might've been gaining ground rapidly, but even the small walk from taxi to room had taxed his resources. Ai had given his bandaged elbow a hard stare from her place beside Agasa, muttering something that sounded like 'see me after class.' Her pointed face had been set and expressionless since her arrival; Agasa's had been resolute, moustache bristling, with perhaps just a trace of guilt when he glanced down at Shinichi's wristwatch. As if at a distance it occurred to Shinichi that yes, Agasa _had_ committed the crime of arming a minor with a projectile-shooting weapon. Something to consider.

After everyone had been seated in the suddenly rather undersized room and supplied with coffee or water (under Haibara's gaze Shinichi had continued downing a vitamin drink as if a desire for coffee had never even occurred to him), Megure-keibu cleared his throat and began.

"I won't go back over what was discussed yesterday," the senior officer of Division One announced gravely, dark eyes sober; "and I'm certain that Sato-kun has, _with my approval,_ been informing you all of what we both witnessed last night." This last was directed to all there, but a rapid-fire flicker of a glance towards Shiratori-kun accompanied it. The tall officer merely shrugged, looking particularly bland. "However..." Megure continued, clearing his throat, "heresay, even from myself and Sato-kun, is not evidence. Ran-chan, if you would...?"

Without a word, the young woman drew Ai's recording device from her purse and set it up in the middle of the table; Megure edged over, opening out a folding wallscreen. The proper buttons were pushed, the proper place in the recording was located, focus was corrected, projection levels adjusted... and for the first time, Kudo Shinichi witnessed his own transformation from a viewpoint outside his own body.

The first few minutes were slow; in the film, Shinichi's body..._Conan's_ body...shuddered and twitched, his face contorted. Ran and Hattori flitted around him, arranging his body and supplies; Ran took her place at one end of the couch, Conan's head in her lap. Megure and Sato were visible on one side of the frame. The film's lack of sound made their actions seem theatrical, distant, and Shinichi's concentration drifted, playing with the realisation that Ran had sat still, cradling his head, through his whole change and most of his unconsciousness thereafter. It was a warm thought, and distracted him from the next minute or two of unremarkable footage.

Just as Shiratori and Chiba began to fidget, bored, a faint haze began to rise around Conan's body on the screen, and he went suddenly limp. In the film, Hattori and Ran folded his hands across his chest; in the room, Ran politely spoke up. "Megure-keibu, may I set the playback to three times speed?" she asked, careful to be precise.

Megure nodded. "Noted. The section of footage I want to show you is roughly an hour long," he explained to Shiratori and the others, though he didn't look away from the screen as he explained. "The speed of the footage won't affect its effect."

Ran notched the playback speed up, and events onscreen began to unfold more quickly. Quick, abortive motions from Conan showed him twisting in pain despite his unconsciousness, and onscreen, Ran continued to wipe his brow with cool cloths. The watchers sat silent and still for another minute, as Conan progressively looked more tortured and everyone else in the image sat still, waiting. In the room, Takagi discreetly took Sato's hand, squeezing for support; on the other side of the table, Shinichi was doing the same for Ran. Ai and Agasa sat still and attentive in the middle, focused on observing the change they had not witnessed in person.

And then, suddenly, it happened; onscreen, Conan twitched, mouth opening in pain, and half the watchers drew in a breath as his body elongated before their eyes. Six inches in as many minutes; it had been a sudden, violent beginning to the change, and Ran squeezed Shinichi's hand tighter as the video displayed, clearly lit and in perfect focus, the way that Conan's skin stretched taut over his cheekbones and across his wrists and forearms. His throat hollowed out, becoming almost cadaverous in the way the skin, too small and strained for the frame that it now had to span, was sucked flat against his trachea, and the ridges of cartilage cast harsh shadows beneath the thin points of his child's jaw. In the room, Ai's pencil scratched as she took quick, displeased notes.

Shiratori and Chiba sucked in a breath as the next visible change occurred; it had taken about ten minutes in real time, which meant that over three minutes of video replay, Shinichi's right arm stretched long and longer, completely out of scale with the rest of his body. All four of his attendants showed distress onscreen as the growth proceeded; with big, sharp gestures, Ran in the video shouted something at Hattori. He left, running offscreen, and returned with a fat, soft towel just in time to cup it under Conan's - Shinichi's - elbow as the skin rent open, showing glossy white cartilage and a quick-flowing sheet of blood so bright red, from the smallest, most oxygenated capillaries, that it appeared neon-hued.

"Megure-keibu!" Chiba said, glancing with distress to the far end of the table, where Shinichi sat bracketed by his supporters. Shinichi raised a hand to him, reassuring and quelling him, and after a moment of hesitation, the youngest of Megure's men settled back in his seat, green around the gills, to continue watching.

Onscreen, the towel in Hattori's hands was quickly suffused with Shinichi's blood and Megure was hastily handing a cellphone to Ran, which she dialed one-handed, pale but still in command of the situation. In her lap, Shinichi continued to grow. Sato rose from her seiza position to help stretch Shinichi's growing body along the length of the couch, reducing cramping in his spine and neck, and found a blanket to cover his torso and upper legs as the next stages of the change continued. His face began to fill out a little, losing a little bit of the skeletal appearance that it had taken on, and his hair moved through Ran's fingers, slithering across her skin and Shinichi's face as it grew at super speed, lengthening and thickening as quickly as it could.

Clumps of hair came loose in Ran's hand as she carded it through Shinichi's hair onscreen, and with a businesslike detatchment she simply placed it on the shoulder of the couch beside her, and turned back to tending her boyfriend. In the room, Shinichi leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

"Does my hair always do that?" he asked, halfway between curious and irked.

"Every time I've seen," Ran whispered back, leaning close. "Well, every time in this direction. It's always the finest hairs that fall out. Conan's hair, I think?"

"Makes sense, I guess," Shinichi murmured back, squeezing her hand tight, as he settled back in his seat.

The rest of the change continued much as the first third had; Shinichi's body grew in spurts and fits, only mostly evenly distributing its expansions and additions throughout its frame. His torso broadened and gained depth; his arms thickened, and his face took on new shape, making the same eyes that were so large and charming in his Conan's face into the sharp, attentive eyes of his features as Shinichi. He showed pain throughout the process, but never woke or even stirred very much; his motions remained small, aborted, and Ran tended and soothed every one of them, intense in her attentiveness. Hattori helped as well, stroking Shinichi's shoulder and hand with distressed, focused motions, until the skin across Shinichi's knuckles became drawn so thin that the blood vessels beneath it formed ridges between the skin and knuckle bones and the Osakan detective became visibly afraid to touch his friend.

Eventually the change slowed down, and Ran asked for and received permission to speed the video further, so that the hour following the transformation would go faster. Without interrupting the video, pausing or stopping it, the continuity of the night's events was displayed; the boy on the couch had transformed from Conan, to an unconscious Shinichi, and finally - at the very end of the recording - a slowly-waking, very groggy, and very much eighteen years old, Detective of the East.

The video went blank and Ran stopped it, turning the little machine off with quiet, deliberate motions. Around the entire room, stunned - or sickened - silence weighted everyone's tongues. Instead of focusing everyone's attention again, Megure seemed to be centering his own concentration; he sat, gaze distant, facing the screen at the front of the room, fingers steepled.

Shinichi looked around the room, seeing some faces unable to meet his own, and some unable to look away. _Aw, hell,_ he thought, putting on a smile. From Ran's other side, Hattori glanced pointedly at Shinichi, and the newly transformed detective sighed and cleared his throat.

"So, ah. Any questions?"

It seemed to take a long time before anyone spoke; but predictably, it was Shiratori who broke the ice. "Kudo-kun... your elbow?" Mutely, the detective, pushed back the sleeve of the loose shirt he'd worn over his bandages to show Ran and Heiji's handiwork from the night before. Methodically he began to unwrap the bindings; but Shiratori shook his head. "How is it? Will it... heal?"

To the surprise of five of the remaining nine persons at the table, it was Haibara Ai who spoke up; businesslike and clipped, she spoke directly to Shiratori without the usual constraint that hedged her usual responses to any of the officers. "As you saw, the skin relaxed and stretched enough to allow adhesion with surgical glue; there will be some scarring, certainly, and I suspect a certain amount of subdermal damage may make movement stiff for a while. However, Professor Agasa and I have developed a topical salve that should help." Shiratori blinked at the girl, his eyes growing larger and larger with every word; silently he nodded his thanks and sat back, watching Ai as if he expected her to grow fangs and a second head any second.

Megure was watching her too. Composed now, he also nodded. "I take it that you're also-?" he asked slowly. The girl regarded him calmly- but there was a tiny muscle twitching below one eye, and Shinichi shook his head.

"Let's just... I don't want to rush through this," he explained a little wearily, "and there's so much you don't know yet. For right now, does anybody else have anything more they want to know about last night before we move along?"

Chiba leaned forward. "That looked like it _hurt,"_ Megure's assistant muttered. "I mean, it had to. How much were you aware of that?"

"I wasn't- or not at first. But- Hattori? You said I groaned? made noises?"

The Detective of the West sat back in his folding chair, arms crossed. "Yeah. Sounded like- kinda like somebody havin' a pretty bad nightmare, until your arm split open." He shuddered._"Then_ you made a little more noise, but after that you just mostly went limp. Good thing, too." His green eyes were haunted as he glanced up at the table. "You just remember that," he added abruptly. "Every time you've seen Kudo in the last two years, he's been through that first." There were appalled nods around the table as the officers considered this. "-anyway, yeah. He groaned, acted like it hurt him. Kudo, you said it's been worse in the past?"

Shinichi nodded, pushing himself up from the table and pulling up his shirt; the small black box on his hip and its tiny cables absorbed the light of the room, a black blot against the pallor of his skin. "This was designed for me just recently; it controls the change, forces it to happen every two weeks. Before this, it was pretty haphazard; none of the cures stuck, or not for very long, and none of them had anything in them to inhibit the pain." Memory made him look away from any of the eyes in the room, and for a moment Shinichi's mind was awash in memories of scorching, unbearable pain. When the memories receded, he became aware that his audience was looking on in concern. "It's- much better now," he said a little lamely; and from either side, hands drew him back down into his chair.

"Kudo-kun, _who_ designed that for you?" asked Takagi quietly. "And how did they know what to make?" The young officer's sharp, inquisitive gaze was tempered with the concern that Shinichi had always thought of as such an intrinsic part of his personality, and the question itself led him to the next part of his explanation.

"Okay. To answer that, I'm going to have to tell you about something a little far-fetched first-" Shinichi stopped as Megure actually chuckled.

"'Far-fetched...? Kudo-kun, after what we witnessed last night, I think you could convince us that the moon was made of green cheese."

"Yeah, well. Hold onto that open-mindedness, Megure-keibu," the young detective answered back grimly. "You're going to need it."

And he told them about the Black Organization.

Told them about Gin and Vodka and (never quite looking towards Ai) Sherry; about Korn and Chianti and Vermouth and all the other agents. Told them about the Organization's slash-and-burn policies, about their fondness for bombs and fires and the complete eradication of any links back to the source, about what happened to Pisco, and Irish. Told them about- and this was hardest, this was truly difficult- his suspicions regarding their placement of agents among the authorities, government and industry. Division One took it in at first in silence and then in a flurry of questions; over and over again, Shinichi was asked for proof-

"Have you actually _spoken_ to any of these 'agents', Kudo-kun? When and how?"

"You're certain that this is as wide-spread as you say? Why are you so certain? What makes you believe that they could get away with this for- how long has it been?"

"Assassination, new drugs... how do you _know_ this, Kudo-kun?"

"Why are you so sure? What leads do you have?"

"Kudo-kun, where's your proof?"

And Ai sat silent, sat mute, her eyes fixed on the trembling surface of the cup of water that sat in front of her, seeing her own reflection in the colorless mirror. At last, when the questions had ground to a frustrated halt against Shinichi's refusal to name his main source, she rose to her feet and knocked one small fist gently against the table.

"I'm Sherry," she said softly. "And I was, yes, once an adult. And an 'employee' of the Black Organization. And lastly, one of the creators of the drug that brought both Kudo-kun and myself to this sorry state." She spread her child-sized hands wide, displaying them; her face was hard as granite, composed as a statue's.

Ai's statement was met with initial silence and, directly afterward, the loud rush of questions that were, considering her claims, truly inevitable. But in the small moment between the shock and the uproar, Shinichi stared at the girl at his side with an effusive, terrified giddiness.

Somehow, Ai's announcement was all it took to put it all in focus. The current room's mixed roster of faces, the previous night's revelations, and _especially_ the inevitable path which the combination of those two things was about to send them down - all of it abruptly became much more real and immediate to him. Telling his own secrets to Division One, even showing them the transformation, and confiding information he'd gained about the B.O.'s operatives over two years of hiding, hadn't quite registered. After all, he was constantly throwing himself into deadly situations _anyway_; this had merely raised the stakes.

But to see Ai - reserved, intensely private, bite-my-arm-off-before-I'll-show-you-weakness Ai - willingly volunteering information not only about her current circumstances but also her_past_? Shinichi had extended one hand toward her shoulder for support before he even thought about it, and it was only her sharp sidelong glare that made him withdraw it. Even still...

_Haibara, thank you for trusting me. Or my judgment, or both. I'm glad I'll have you with me in this, because as much as I don't know what's about to happen to us next..._

_...I know it's not going to be pretty._

* * *

Two hours later-

"Takagi-keiji? Why didn't you ever ask?"

They were in a tiny, pocket-sized breakroom somewhere far beyond the more public hallways and offices of the precinct building. It had a small fold-out couch, a single table, a connected bathroom and a mini-fridge full of sodas and had only been reachable via a maintenance-area door to which Megure-keibu had produced a key. Shinichi suspected it to be the kind of place where witnesses with a possible short life-expectancy might be temporarily stored.

They'd all agreed that a break was needed: for food, for fresh air, for the simple necessary pleasure of being neither interrogator nor interrogatee, even if only for a little while. Ran and Heiji were with Ai, still in the conference room but paying more attention to the containers of take-out Chinese that had been provided for them than anything else; Shiratori, Chiba and Sato had stepped out to make phone calls, Megure had gone to check on something in his office and the Professor had excused himself in the direction of the bathroom.

And Shinichi? He'd needed to work some of the cramps that kept biting at his calves; hence the short walk, following Takagi back to help ferry an armload of much-needed sodas to the conference room.

"Ask?" The dark-haired detective flicked a wary but friendly glance at Shinichi before stooping and beginning to pull out cans. "Does Ran like diet, Kudo-kun? We're out, but I can-"

Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, Shinichi made an impatient sound. "Takagi-keiji, you know what I mean. Why- if you were suspicious about me, and I _know_ you were, didn't you ever ask? Aside from that time with the bomb, I mean." He tilted his head, sharp blue eyes curious.

Takagi sighed, hands full of sodas. Slowly he rose, carting his burden over to the small table. "Kudo-kun, I- don't really know. In the Tower, at the time, it all seemed plausible. Afterwards?" He gave the younger man a half-grin, still a little uncertain but less so than it had been earlier. "Afterwards I kept wondering if I'd imagined it all. Except, well..." He gestured with one can at Shinichi's wristwatch. "...that. And the things you- 'Conan-kun', I mean- did." He ducked his head, looking embarrassed. "Half the time I thought I'd lost it, half the time I was almost certain, _almost._ There's a lot of room between 'really sure' and 'almost'."

"Don't I know it," answered Shinichi feelingly, leaning down to rub at the back of one leg. He wavered briefly, but waved off Takagi's offered hand. "But- Takagi-keiji? Just so you know? If you'd ever asked, I probably would've... okay, I _maybe_ would've told you the truth. Not Shiratori or Megure or Chiba, but..."

Takagi blinked. "Really?" he asked thoughtfully. Then, as if he couldn't quite help himself: "What about Sato-san?"

Shinichi grinned. "She wouldn't have asked; she would've pinned me down and grilled me within an inch of my life. Sato's more the scream-and-leap type, isn't she?"

"Um. Yes." The officer had a rather sappy grin on his face for a moment; however, glancing back at Shinichi, it gained a glint of mischief. "Sort of like Ran-chan, huh? You two seem to be getting along pretty well now, though... it has to be kind of strange, the two-week schedule." He'd obviously been thinking a little about that from the way his cheeks flushed, and Shinichi had to wonder just what kind of schedule Takagi and Sato had worked out for themselves.

"...ah... yeah," he murmured. "She's only known for a few months now, but- we're managing. And it's not like we don't see each other inbetween; I _live_ with her, you know-" As Takagi sputtered, Shinichi waved his hand in the air. "Not like that-! I mean, it's, it's- _complicated,_ Takagi-keiji."

The young officer gave him an amused look. "Kudo-kun, is there anything about you that's not complicated?"

"Gnngh... No, not really."

"My point." Grinning, Takagi passed over a few cans. "Ready?"

* * *

The group slowly reconvened in the small conference room, settling into the seats they'd taken before. But a different sort of air filled the room as Division One took their seats. The line across the middle of the table, between Shinichi and his supporters, and Megure and his men, seemed greater. Tense, Shinichi tried to discern what had changed so quickly; the officers didn't seem hostile so much as...chill. Even Takagi had (perhaps unconsciously) moved his chair closer to Sato-san and Megure's end of the table when he returned to his seat; the humor he'd had in the breakroom had bled out of his eyes as the group had settled down. At the opposite end of the table from Shinichi, Megure sat very still, wearing a grim expression.

"Megure-keibu, do you have more questions for Ai and myself?" Shinichi asked, keeping his tone professional, even though he intensely wanted to simply ask what was going on.

"Actually, Kudo-kun, now it's our turn to tell you a story," Megure said, glancing to Sato. "If you would, Sato-kun."

"Kudo-kun," Sato began, wearing a weak smile, "There's a few cases that you don't know about yet."

A stack of photographs and profiles was passed down the table, from Megure to Sato, Takagi, and then to Hattori. The Osakan detective glanced at the top sheet, stared, and scowled, handing it on to Ran who passed it to Shinichi. As he began to leaf through them, Shinichi felt queasy, staring into the eyes of fourteen cheerful, healthy-looking young children. Most of them were preadolescents; the last few, two of whom he recognized, were young teenagers.

Shinichi set the photos of Kimura, Ozaki, and the others back on the table and looked up to meet Megure and Sato's eyes. "What does this mean?"

"Those are from the last nine months," Megure said heavily. Another packet of photos was passed down the table, vastly thicker than the last; dozens more children, most of them eight to twelve years old.

"Those are from the last nine years."

As Shinichi looked up, eyes wide, stomach like a stone, Megure nodded sadly. "Thank you for telling us about the Black Organization, Kudo-kun. You've filled in the final pieces of the puzzle we've been working on for quite some time now."

* * *

"A 'few,' he said." Shinichi was incredulous. His fist thumped down hard on the seat of the unmarked squadcar that was currently taking them by a very, _very_ roundabout way to the Kudo residence. "A _**few!**_ Not eleven more! And who knows what others haven't been unearthed? Goddammit-"

Heiji was equally angry, though a fair share of his fury was self-directed. "-woulda realized if I'd yanked my head out've my ass long enough to look, I could've-"

"-could see the signs if I'd looked, they were there! All this time they've been picking and choosing-"

"-pickin' the ones who wouldn't be missed-"

"-didn't miss them as much, they weren't from the right backgrounds-"

"-background-checks, yeah, we need to-"

"-need to talk to-"

"-gotta talk to-"

"-Chirokawa-san!"

"-the clean freak!"

Strong fingers gripped two collars at the nape and yanked upwards. "What you two need to do RIGHT NOW," said Mouri Ran severely from between them, "is to _calm down."_ She added a shake for emphasis. "And stop yelling. You're scaring the nice officer!" And indeed, a pair of rather wide eyes could be seen from the rearview mirror as the plainclothes patrolman who was driving them back did his best not to turn around. "I'm sorry," apologized the young woman in a concilatory tone, not letting go of her matched pair of detectives. "They still need a little housebreaking. Keep driving, please? Thank you." Ran smiled at him sweetly...

...for a given value of sweet. "Uh- yes'm." The young cop swiveled his eyes back in their sockets to the road ahead.

Choosing a place to return to after dark would have been easy; in the daytime, though... it had been decided that, as the Mouris' residence/offices had nothing like a concealed entrance, there was no use in pushing their luck any further. Shinichi had shown his face once that morning; hopefully it hadn't drawn any notice, but just in case they were going to make use of the backyard tunnel-entrance. After all, what else were secret tunnels for but clandestine comings and goings?

...and besides which...

There was an invisible presence in the unmarked car in the narrow space between Shinichi and Ran. Resolutely they had both managed to keep their minds on the much grimmer topics at hand, but they both missed Kid sharply, and only the scrutiny of Division One had kept Shinichi from texting the thief _(their_ thief, his mind prodded him wistfully, _their_ thief.) The contrast between his weekend so far and that of two weeks earlier was...

The words that came to mind to describe _that_ were mostly not the sort of thing he could say out loud, though he had an idea that both Ran and Kid would agree with him.

_I know this was necessary; I know it was the right thing to do. But I- is it selfish that I'm ready to stop now, just for a little while? Enough already._ Fourteen dead faces rose up in Shinichi's mind, bright dead eyes haunting in their photographic cheerfulness; the sunlight filtering through the car's tinted windows felt alien after so many hours beneath the conference room's flourescent glow and he just wanted it all to go away, just for a little while-

"-we're there, Shinichi. Shinichi?"

"Mmm. Ran. Sorry, I was..."

"Spacing out, yes," she said, but her eyes were gentle. "Let's get you inside."

The long extension of the Kudo mansion's underground tunnel opened under a series of wobbly flagstones, ten houses down the block from the house itself. The flagstone path, and the house it belonged to, were both owned by the estate of an elderly couple whom Yukiko and Yuusaku had befriended when Shinichi was small. When the couple had passed, the executor of their wills conducted an examination of the grounds, including the tunnel beneath. They had discerned a simple trapdoor opening which led to a short, dirt-walled tunnel that ended, within fifteen feet, in a dead end. Exploration of the walls and terminus of the tunnel had uncovered no support system, no other paths, and nothing at all of interest. So they had left it be, concluding that it had been some sort of little-used pantry or perhaps bunker; the property was old, built before the bombing of Tokyo in the war, and so a bunker made sense.

"Which," Shinichi concluded, as he finished digging away a three-inch plug of dry soil in the wall at waist height, revealing a shiny aluminum handle, "was exactly what they were supposed to think." He dusted his left hand off on his jeans, his right arm held close to his body to keep strain off of it. "Hattori, if you would?"

"Your kaasan gets more nuts the more I hear 'bout her," Hattori muttered, grabbing the handle with both hands and leaning back. The "dead end" dirt wall shuddered, heaved, and abruptly popped open, showering the Osakan detective in a sheet of dirt dislodged from the top of its frame.

Silence, while dust settled and Shinichi looked awkward. Hattori wiped dirt from his eyes, spat it from his mouth, and cursed.

"If I didn' like your mom so much, Kudo, I'd be sayin some pretty choice things right now."

"Actually, it was my dad's idea," Shinichi said sheepishly, reaching forward to brush some dirt out of his friend's hair. "...Sorry?"

Grumbling inarticulately, Hattori stomped his way down the tunnel, one hand on the wall to feel for direction. Shinichi sighed, clicked his watch light on, and followed, trailed by Ran's clucking disapproval.

"You really should have warned him, Shinichi," she scolded.

"I forgot!"

"_Forgot_?" came Hattori's growl, and with a meep, Shinichi hastened to catch up with him.

"Honestly," Ran sighed, tugging the heavy door tight behind them.

Reassuring his friend with promises of a shower and clean clothes, the three trudged down the shadowy passageway in silence only broken by Heiji's muttered swearing as he continued to brush off dirt and dead grass. About fifty feet in, though, Shinichi paused for a second as lights began to appear a little further ahead. "There we go- thought for a minute something was wrong with the power. Ran, I don't think you ever saw these, we weren't allowed to play in here when we were kids-" He clicked off his watch light.

Ran squeaked, grabbing at her boyfriend's arm. The flickering, pallid lights had apparently been automatically brought up by the opening of the passageway's door, and now both Ran and Heiji staaaaared at them. And then at Shinichi. And then back...

"Uh- forgot about those too, 'til just now" said Shinichi apologetically, rubbing at his head; a headache had begun right between his eyes. "I think Tousan was going through one of his Fear-Me,-I-Am-A-Mysterious-Mystery-Writer phases when he had those put in. He had 'em designed straight out of some old black and white movie, _La Belle et la Bête."_ The lamps were something right out of a horror movie, sure enough; cast of resin and mounted firmly along the walls, each one resembled a human hand holding a torch. A flickering bulb terminated each 'torch' and provided the light. The effect was, to say the least, gruesome.

"I... take back what I said about your mom," said Heiji feelingly, prodding a lamp with a cautious finger. "Your dad's way weirder." He sneezed, wiping at his face and leaving a black smear across his nose.

"At least these don't move," muttered Shinichi. "In the original film, they _did._ But Tousan could never get the effect right." Dragging his feet more than a little by now, he led the way.

The door at the end was... what one would expect, given the surroundings: large, thick, apparently of ancient wood and bearing a heavy wrought-iron gargoyle door-knocker. Solemnly, Shinichi gripped and then raised the knocker in one hand. "You're kiddin' me," said the Detective of the West incredulously.

"Actually," replied the Detective of the East, "I am." And he pressed a well-hidden button hidden beneath the gargoyle's chin. "But it won't work unless you raise the knocker first." The door opened smoothly (minus the expected creak of hinges) onto a prosaic and very short flight of steps, leading upwards.

Shinichi's hand was actually on the knob when Heiji put a hand on his shoulder. "Kudo? I- uh-" He hesitated. "Just how likely is it that you're gonna have company waitin' in there? Company," he said ominously, "that likes to put me in a dress?" Behind him, Ran made an indescribable noise, hand over her mouth. Heiji glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised and the other hiked down. "Well?"

"I honestly couldn't tell you," Shinichi said candidly, shrugging one shoulder. "I haven't had a chance to contact him all day, not since last night actually, so I don't know what he's been up to or if he's been busy today. He knows where we were, though, and he knows I'm 'back,' so he may be worried for us."

"Or impatient," Heiji muttered. Ran made that noise again, kind of like a squeak, filtered through her hand to muffle it. "Neechan, no offense," Heiji said, turning to address her, "But neither'v your boyfriends seem like the patient type. The loony one especially."

"Yes, Shinichi _does_ tend to get antsy," Ran quipped cheerfully, ignoring the glare Shinichi sent her. "And, um. Dress? You mean other than the-"

Hattori grumbled. "Other than the pink one at the temple," he muttered, "There haven't been any other frilly incidents. So far."

"_Anyway,_" Shinichi emphasized, trying to get the conversation back on track, "I don't know whether he'll be here or not. I do know he's not likely to pop right up to see us; if he's here, he'll likely stay out of the way until he's sure who's with us. And I don't even know if my parents are home right now, either. I don't think he was even aware of the extension of this passage before now."

"Was?"

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "It's going to be a bit hard to miss this." And he tugged on the door, which opened, rather anticlimactically, on smooth and silent bearings.

Hattori and Ran followed Shinichi up the stairs into the house, peering around at the room they'd entered into; as they turned in place, taking in the whole room, their surprise showed on their faces as they realized what Shinichi had meant.

The tunnel had brought them up into the grand library's antechamber, where smaller bookshelves, newer chairs, a fireplace, and a fishtank made the small space feel lushly filled, like a traditional smoking room or den. The secret door was built on the back of the bookshelf that carried the aquarium and two speakers from an as-yet unnoticed stereo system; the dark gaping hole in the wall, leading down into the "candle"-lit dirt tunnel they'd come from, was all the more conspicuous for the way that the fishtank, lit and heated, spilled fluorescent glow through the rend. All three teens toed off their shoes as they came up through the doorway, hesitant at first to make noise until the lights in the hallway and library beyond the study's doorways showed that the house was likely already inhabited.

"I see whatcha mean," Hattori muttered, turning in place to take in the whole of the small room. "Which way's the kitchen?"

"I think you need the bathroom before the kitchen," Shinichi said, steering Heiji off of the Persian rug onto the hardwood floor at the room's edge. "You can borrow my clothes once you get a shower."

"Sounds like a plan," Hattori nodded. "Though I really got an urge to rub some'a this grit in _your_ hair, Kudo."

"I said I'm sorry!" Shinichi protested, pushing Hattori through one of the room's two doorways and down the hallway leading toward the stairs. "Use the bathroom in my parents' room if they're not up there; it's a lot bigger and nicer than mine. There should be towels on the stand near the vanity, and just drop your dirty clothes on the floor in there, we'll deal with them later."

"You got it," Hattori nodded, setting his shoes at the side of the hallway and heading upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. "I'll holler if I get frillified again."

Laughing along with his friend, Shinichi watched Hattori disappear upstairs, then turned to the quiet woman standing just behind him, shoes in hand and fraying patience on her face. "Ran."

She reached to take his shoes from him in her free hand, moving them delicately to keep from knocking dirt off of the soles onto the Kudos' valuable carpets. "I'll go put these in the- Shinichi, you're in my way."

"I know I am," Shinichi said, voice rich and deep; startled, Ran jerked her gaze up to meet his and immediately felt herself drowned in it. His expression was beyond words; a profound, radiant desire rolled off of her boyfriend in waves, and despite herself Ran felt her knees begin to buckle. "Forget the shoes."

"Shin...ichi..." Wide-eyed, she didn't resist as he slipped his good arm around her waist, tugging her body against his; his warmth, the pressure of his lean muscle and the bone too thinly covered by it, fogged her head; her concentration dissolved, eyes sliding half-shut, as his scent surrounded her. Sweaty and tired from a day of stressful interrogation, Shinichi still smelled absolutely _delectable_ to Ran's senses, and she melted against his support as he embraced her, lowering his head the small distance to meet hers.

"I haven't kissed you all day," he said, the lowest tones of his voice purring a smooth, rich baritone against her cheek as his lips caressed her skin. "I've been back for a full twenty four hours and I haven't even kissed you, Ran. I can't hold off any longer. I don't care if my mother walks down the hall this very minute - that wouldn't stop me."

Heart pounding, Ran let the shoes drop to the carpet below, wrapped her arms tight around her boyfriend, and squeezed hard, letting her self-erected barriers of _priorities_ and _good behavior in public_ and _necessary for the case_ crumble like dry leaves underfoot. She surged against him, mouth opening to take his; when, several dizzying seconds later, she felt her shoulderblades and hips hit the hallway wall, she simply used it for support and hooked one knee around Shinichi's, hands in his hair, breath in his mouth, head spinning with the kiss she'd been anticipating all day.

Shinichi's head was spinning as well: part dizziness, part the intoxication of the moment. It was a pure, vast relief to let his body take over for a few minutes, to trust in the physical over the cerebral. Warm and strong, Ran wrapped around him like a vine that both clings and supports, taking and giving in the simple act of a kiss.

Not that there was anything simple about the way her hand was insinuating itself up beneath his shirt in the back… Shinichi closed his eyes, tracing a path from lips to the curve of Ran's ear and exploring there. Her nails bit into the skin of his back as she pressed herself hard against him, breath sweet and hot against his skin. For a long moment they leaned into the wall, balance tilting, Ran's free hand climbing into Shinichi's hair and cupping his head—

And then things tilted sideways, and suddenly _she_ was pressing _him_ against the wall, the kiss still tender but decidedly insistent. Other things were insistent too, though a tiny part of Shinichi's brain kept hinting that Hattori probably'd be a little perturbed to find them _in flagrante delicto_ on the library couch when his shower was over…

Lips finding and latching on to the base of Shinichi's neck, Ran licked the taste of him into her mouth, sucking and nipping with the salt of his skin on her tongue. She murmured and moaned against his skin as the fog of want rose higher in her mind, beginning to whittle away the innocent tenderness of a reunion's first kiss. One-handed, Shinichi was holding her as close as he could, favoring his wounded right arm, but Ran's thoughts wandered in a similar direction to her boyfriend's as she considered logistics and whether they really did have time for a quickie, or at the least a better position, where Shinichi could safely brace his arm and cup both hands around her-

_**Oh.**_ Ran shuddered, melting against Shinichi as she inhaled deep, pressing her chest against the warm touch of nimble fingers on her breast. _God, are you psychic, Shinichi?_ Thighs clenched together, lips seeking Shinichi's, tongue slipping between, Ran showed her appreciation with her fervor, swallowing Shinichi's pleased groan into her own mouth. His scent wrapped around her, strong and musky, with a note of rooftop breeze mixed in...

_Wait._

Almost at the same second, Shinichi froze against Ran, mouth going still, as they both tasted the new scent that had slipped between them. Eyes closed, Ran nosed against Shinichi's throat, breathing heavily, as the satisfaction of a minor mystery's answer settled in her gut, clicking into place with the surety of an accurately placed puzzle piece. Shinichi breathed out across her cheek, heart thudding hard; the hand on Ran's breast gentled its touch, stroking thumb across the pointed tip of her nipple through her bra and shirt. With the redundancy of someone who's figured the puzzle before they're told the clues, Ran noted that the wrist attached to said hand was headed the wrong way, pointing away from Shinichi rather than toward. She held still, eyes ever so slowly opening, head pillowed on Shinichi's collarbones, and smiled at the grinning cobalt blue gaze that greeted her.

"Grabby," Ran murmured, smiling as Kid leaned forward for a friendly kiss on her cheek.

"You know," Shinichi said breathlessly, from just above Ran's head, "We're kind of busy here."

"Oh," Kid murmured, wearing a smarmy grin as his free hand crossed under the other and slid taunting fingertips up the crease of Shinichi's inner thigh, "Should I leave you be?"

"Hell no." Shinichi turned even as Ran did, one moving one direction and the other in the opposite; however it happened, they ended up with a thief between them in a tangle of arms. "Glad… to see you," whispered Shinichi against Kid's collarbone, breathing deeply, a little jolt of something too intense to be just contentment settling in the pit of his stomach. Ran slid fingers through Kid's hair, around his shoulders and then sent her hand palm-flat down the length of his spine, both pulling him in and pushing him towards Shinichi; her lips curled in a smile as she tucked her head against him like a cat, watching as her two boyfriends greeted each other properly.

The kiss they shared was eager enough, but there was as much relief in it as anything, even passion; Kid drew back just a hair, question marks in his eyes. "Tantei?"

Shinichi leaned into him, Ran's arms around both of their necks; he turned his head to one side, kissing the tip of her nose gently and then leaning towards them both at an angle where all three faces touched gently, cheekbone against forehead against jawline. "It's nothing," he said quietly. "Just—it's been a long day. We missed you." His one useful arm tightened, and Shinichi couldn't have honestly said just who it tightened around, so closely were all three wrapped together.

After a moment, Kid's arms around both of his partners tightened, supporting the whole triangle. "I've got you now," he murmured, rolling his cheek against Shinichi's brow with a feline possessiveness before tipping his mouth up to lip at the detective's jawline, where the beginnings of evening stubble roughened the smooth skin.

"Are you okay, Tantei? I assumed no news was good news, but..."

Shinichi _hmmmed_, his body rolling against Kid's in gentle waves, as Ran's fingers in his hair and Kid's mouth on his throat melted his concentration and revitalized his spirit, like cool rainwater filling a deep well. "I made it through okay," he said, shrugging his left shoulder and holding his right still. "My elbow kind of busted, but Haibara gave me something for the pain."

Kid raised an eyebrow, mistrustful. "Heavy drugs?"

"_And group hugs!_" Ran added, squeezing both her boys closer. Shinichi snorted at her while Kid smiled.

"_Which reminds me,_" the thief quoted back, grinning. "_We have a detour to make tonight._" He paused, eyes sparking as his attention tuned toward the staircase behind their bundled embrace, and leaned back, letting Ran's and Shinichi's arms around him help support him while he grinned down the hallway at the damp newcomer with a leer. "_...Anyone who wants to __can come along__._"

Fresh from the bathroom, wearing a pair of snug borrowed jeans, a bit of dew from his shower, and nothing else, Hattori Heiji stopped in his tracks much like a woodland critter in headlights, or in the gaze of a predator.

"...Hi," he managed weakly.

With a low whistle and a wriggle, Kid detangled himself from his lovers and moved to the center of the hallway, facing Hattori from a distance of twenty feet. The thief looked the detective over, head to toe and back up again, his appreciative gaze lingering on the detective's chocolate latte-rich skin.

Under this scrutiny, Hattori shuffled a little, addressing Shinichi with an apology. "None'a your shirts would fit," he said, "and I didn't wanna rip one by tryin' to tug it on." Hattori sounded like he suddenly very much wished that one of them _had,_ if for no other reason than to have avoided inspiring an internationally-wanted jewel thief to check out his abs. "Ah, m'sorry I couldn't find another one, I didn't wanna help myself t'your tousan's..."

"That's perfectly alright," Kid reassured Hattori, waving one hand at him with a sort of _Shh, that's unimportant_ attitude to the gesture. "Turn around, won't you? I'd love to see how that looks from the-"

"_THAT_," Shinichi interrupted, bringing his left hand down over the thief's eyes to block his view, "Will be **enough.** Sorry, Hattori, he's not completely housebroken."

As if to prove the point, Kid _grinned,_ using one of his best, the completely-unhinged let's-go-jumping-off-an-airplane grin. With his eyes and brows blocked by Shinichi's hand, only the brilliant, startling, _completely unnerving_ scimitar of his teeth and lips was visible to Hattori, who - despite himself - took half a step back before he'd even thought about it. That grin just didn't belong on a human face.

Kid, though, heard the slide of Hattori's feet against the floor and his grin widened. "Heee."

"Kid!" Ran gave Kid a generous smack across the back of his head. "Jeez, seriously! Stop _trying_ to freak him out!"

Obediently, the thief's lunatic grin faded from his face, replaced by his usual smart-aleck one. Without moving Shinichi's hand, the thief shrugged, clearly completely at ease with being blindered around his current company. "Well, I was only trying with the grin. I was entirely earnest when I said anyone who wanted to could-"

Shinichi's tone was testy. "Kid, seriously-"

The thief, completely unrepentant, turned to face his boyfriend, intentionally moving his body and his head in order to _keep_ from removing Shinichi's hand. "Tantei, in the case that you are_utterly blind,_ I feel compelled to inform you that your best friend is-"

"LALALALALAAAA-" announced Heiji, hands very firmly over his ears. "NOOOT LISTENING, LALALALALAAAA-" Pure dismay at the prospect of being checked out by his fellow detective's significant other (one in a set of two) was enough to overrun the Osakajin's usual impulse towards confrontation. He eyed the blinkered thief with trepidation. Hands still over his ears, he looked beseechingly at Shinichi. _Make him stop?_ he asked, green eyes pleading. Ran put her own hand up over her mouth, snickering, and Shinichi couldn't help but picture the three as the see/speak/hear-no-evil monkeys in that moment.

"Hang on a minute," he told Heiji firmly. "And YOU can just hold your tongue. Or better yet-" He cupped his good hand under the angle of Kid's jawline, turned the thief around to face him, and quite effectively shut him up.

Heiji boggled at his best friend and International Criminal 1412, locked together in a very definite, very involved kiss. His eyes, already wide, enlarged to almost ridiculous levels. Kid very willingly abandoned his teasing of Heiji for this new diversion, and, moving backwards, Shinichi towed him down the hall towards the library's hidden door. It closed behind them.

"See?" remarked Ran cheerfully. "I told you he has nice bits."

The Detective of the Westi slowly, slowly lowered his hands from his ears. "..."

* * *

In the small passage, two pairs of feet carefully felt their way down the three steps down to the tiles and the short passageway beyond. Breathing hard, Kid swayed in place, long arms wrapped around Shinichi; one set of fingers danced up the detective's spine as if palming a coin, moving delicately from waist to shoulderblades. The other hand cupped his boyfriend's ass, pulling the other hard against him. "You... mmm, come up with the _best_ diversions," murmured Kid, biting Shinichi's lower lip gently. The detective's shirt rode up his thin torso, clever fingers slipping between them, stroking skin. "If that's the way you- aahh- react to-" Shinichi nipped his chin, his neck and the angle of his shoulder in return; "-to flirting- I'll... have to try that again-"

_"Don't."_ Fingers knotted in the thief's dark shirt, and Shinichi raised his head, locking eyes with Kid and breathing hard; "It. Has been. A very long day. And right now..." (his hand loosened, slipping up to caress his thief's face) "I'd rather think about other things than Hattori." He pulled the other's mouth back down to his even as it curved in a triumphant grin.

* * *

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_...and that's it for this week. Next week, you get a double treat: ____Chapter Twelve, "what's he like, protection, lasagna".__... plus a special bonus chapter which, ahem, has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot but which we suspect you'll enjoy anyway, posted on LJ only (I'll post the link here, promise.) Don't say you weren't warned. _


	45. What's he like, protection, lasagna

_Hiya, everyone! Welcome to a nice, early, tasty double helping of Three Thieves :D How've your weeks been so far? Is everyone in the Northern hemisphere enjoying the onset of cool fall weather? What's it like Down Under right now? Who's got time off from work coming up, and who wishes they did? Let's hear a bit about your lives, my dear Thievians._

_Today there's a few notes before we begin the chapter, __**so I hope you'll all give me your attention for just a moment.**__ There, did the bold help? :D Thank you._

_1• Next week there will be no standard chapter of TT. Instead, we will post a series of Omakes, outtakes, and other humorous and (maybe) thoughtful pieces to amuse and entertain you. These treats will be posted throughout the week, not just on Friday, and like all our bonus material, they won't be crossposted! So please __watch the TT community__ (which you can find at html colon slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash) so you'll see them when they go up!_

_2• This week's postings will be the last ones for Book Four. Book Five will begin, as normal, on __**October 15th**__ with Chapter One, "You just can't go on a date looking like that." This will be the first chapter posted with our new chapter naming scheme, which we're implementing so that the story's chapter titles can adapt appropriately to its content :D_

_3• Next week's one-week interlude break is carefully timed for a very good reason. On October 16, 2009, Ysabet and I posted the first chapter of Three Thieves to the internet. Book Five, Chapter One, will therefore be posted on TT's __**one-year anniversary.**__ And if you needed another very good reason for you to put TT on your watch list, if you haven't already, this is it:_

__

Ysa and I will be throwing a Birthday Celebration for TT during the next two weeks. We will have discussion post(s?), minor quizzes, and one main contest for you to play in! These will be announced and held on our TT LJ community only, and they will not be crossposted nor announced outside of the TT comm. So if you wanna play, come on over! :)

We don't want to open up an opportunity for the few trolls we've run into in the past year to play havoc with our fun. :) SO, participation is limited to LJ readers who have TT listed in their watched communities on LJ, readers on FFN who have TT on their watch list, or Open ID users who sign their reviews on LJ with their OpenID. Anonymouse participation won't be allowed, sorry. 3 (Yes, you can still play/compete/win if you add us right now. But I mean it, right now. Go on! You've got two minutes. 3)

So! We've got some fun things coming up for you, in thanks for your support and squee and the lovely conversations and questions we've gotten from you all in the past 12 months.

But for the moment, we've got two chapters for you this week. One is a normal chapter (4.12); it progresses the plot of TT and is necessary to read as part of the storyline. If we were to rate it, it'd probably get about a PG-13 or PG-16 rating for reasons of mild innuendo and gruesome implications regarding children/minors.

_The second chapter we have to offer you today is a bonus chapter. For those of you who are just as much of a lecher as __I am__ - we are, it'll be a lovely __little__ treat. For the rest of you, don't worry, you won't be missing a single scrap of plot if you skip it. Chapter 4.13 is titled "Shower, Sharpie marker, successful" and __**is rated a solid NC-17. You have been warned.**__ And you can find it right here after you fix the html: http colon slash slash __slash slash community dot livejournal dot com slash threethieves slash 20421 dot html. Enjoy!__ But remember the rating!... The Management_

_._

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**Book Four, Chapter Twelve****: **_**"what's he like, protection, lasagna"**_  
Written by **ysabet** and **nightengale**.  
Warnings for some innuendo and some gruesomeness. Probably rated about PG-16.

_._

__

In the small passage, two pairs of feet carefully felt their way down the three steps down to the tiles and the short passageway beyond. Breathing hard, Kid swayed in place, long arms wrapped around Shinichi; one set of fingers danced up the detective's spine as if palming a coin, moving delicately from waist to shoulderblades. The other hand cupped his boyfriend's ass, pulling the other hard against him. "You... mmm, come up with the best diversions," murmured Kid, biting Shinichi's lower lip gently. The detective's shirt rode up his thin torso, clever fingers slipping between them, stroking skin. "If that's the way you- aahh- react to-" Shinichi nipped his chin, his neck and the angle of his shoulder in return; "-to flirting- I'll... have to try that again-"

_"Don't." Fingers knotted in the thief's dark shirt, and Shinichi raised his head, locking eyes with Kid and breathing hard; "It. Has been. A very long day. And right now..." (his hand loosened, slipping up to caress his thief's face) "I'd rather think about other things than Hattori." He pulled the other's mouth back down to his even as it curved in a triumphant grin._

* * *

Not very far away at all, Hattori was having a crisis of conscience.

"Are you _sure_ he's- Kudo's-"

Ran eyed him warningly. "Sure that he's...?"

The green-eyed Osakajin waved his arms. "Safe?"

Sprawled on the couch, mournfully staring at the bookcase that concealed the hidden door... Ran remembered warm, nimble hands and infrequent kisses that matched and delighted both herself and her detective; remembered graceful strength and appreciative glances, remembered Shinichi's face racked with pleasure and her own body glowing, glowing...

"Oh no, Heiji-kun," she said wistfully, and fought down an impulse to see if she could find the hidden door's latch from the inside, "he's not safe. Not at _all._"

Heiji, no incompetent when it came to implication and suggestion, followed Ran's train of thought all too easily. His mind filled in the details sketchily, but even that was too much for his comfort; rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes, as though to scrub away the image of Kudo backed against a wall, the nutcase thief kneeling between his legs, Heiji sighed in resignation.

"You told me you guys are really happy with him," he said tiredly, dropping one hand to peer at Ran from that eye. "I'm...I'm tryin' hard to understand it. What makes you happy with him? What's he...like? To you, I mean?"

Ran sighed as well, tucking her legs up underneath her and pressing her knees tight together, trying not to think about what was going on behind the door. "He's very smart. And that means that he catches on to your moods really quickly...he almost never puts his foot in his mouth, if you know what I mean. He understands what living a secret all the time means, and what it does to your head. He gives Shinichi the challenge and the rivalry that he needs, and it's...his heists are a safe place for Shinichi to just let go and have _fun,_ because nobody dies there. Even though Shinichi always seems to just magnetize dead bodies to show up around us, Kid...he's got some sort of luck field over everything he touches, I think. Just having him around means Shinichi doesn't have to worry about the danger to anyone else; he can just have fun and go crazy trying to catch him. And Kid only uses nonlethal methods, like Shinichi.

"And when it's just us...he's really quite calm." Ran smiled as Heiji's eyebrows climbed up, his disbelief plain, and she shook her head. "No, really, he is. He's still...well, Shinichi has lots of fancy ways to say it, but basically Kid is..." She waved a hand, trying to work her way around the words. "He doesn't think like anyone else at all. He's like...a crazy person who's sane. I know, it makes no sense, but...I don't know how to explain him. But he's calm while it's just us. Crazy still, but calm. Reassuring, and warm, and very affectionate." Ran blushed, hunching down in her seat. "Very."

Heiji covered his face with one hand, holding the other out to stop her. "Awman. That's...uh. I appreciate it, Neechan, but that's not...uh...any of my business. And anyway, that all sounds great, but why're you talkin' about what Kid is for Kudo? That's not really what I asked.

"What's he like for _you,_ Neechan?"

Ran dropped her eyes to her lap; it was something she'd wondered about herself- how she'd ended up as one corner of something that was less a triangle as a three-sided structure, odd-shaped angles matching. She shaped the outlines of tripartite geometry with her fingers as she spoke, slowly and thoughtfully. "When- when we first... When I brought him into this, brought him in with both of us- and it _was_ me, Heiji-kun, I texted him when Shinichi changed back- I trusted him because Shinichi trusted him. And I was willing to like him for the same reason, you know. But then the reasons started multiplying, and every new reason made more other reasons make sense, and-!" She shook her head, still engrossed in watching her own hands try to make sense of something that was both senseless and shockingly, wonderfully inevitable. "He... _focuses_ on people, Heiji. If he says something, it's the truth; if he tells you you're beautiful or wonderful or, or... anything... it's the truth. He doesn't lie, and he doesn't give you half-truths, and he knows how much Shinichi means to me. Heiji-kun, do you know-" Ran had to stop for a moment and take a deep, deep breath. "Do you have _any idea_ how good it is, just knowing that somebody else values your most precious person as much as you do? That they'll be there for him if you can't? And that you can be there for both of them, and they _want_ you? Both of them?"

"What's he like for me? He's... brilliant and wicked and wonderful; he makes me laugh and- and want things I've never wanted before, never would've thought of wanting. He makes me love Shinichi even more, if that's possible, because he reflects it back at me. Back at us both." Now Ran did look up, and there was a mischievous gleam in her eyes that made Hattori Heiji very nervous. "...and he has _incredible_ hands, Heiji-kun. Incredible lots of things, especially his imagination." She giggled, then sobered a little as her friend's cheekbones reddened.

"But most of all? _He makes us happy._ Stronger, better... more _us_ than before." Ran smiled down at the three-sided form that her fingers were shaping, thumbs touching, forefingers touching. "A lot more us, and I think a lot more him too."

She regarded him, that little gleam still there. "And he's such a tease, you know. The more you jump, the more he's going to pick on you-"

Heiji rolled his eyes. "Kinda figured that out, Neechan. Got a great big fat target painted on me, ne?"

"I'm afraid so. Though..." Her eyes twinkled. "He _IS_ right, you know."

He blinked at her. "Huh?" He looked down at his shirtless self. "WHUH. Uh. I'll just, I'll just, uh, go and... shirt. _SHIRT._ Somewhere upstairs. I'll... just." Flame-faced, the flush burning against his bronzed skin, the Detective Of The West fled upstairs, bare feet thumping noisily.

In his wake, Ran curled up in the corner of the couch and wondered when she'd become such a...well, a...

_"Scarlet woman," Sonoko would probably call me,_ she thought wryly. _I'm not...like __that__._

_...I just have two boyfriends._ Blushing crimson, Ran scrunched down and let her mind wander, past the secret door, down into the tunnel where her boyfriends were busy. _I wonder what__kind__ of busy they are,_ she mused. _Maybe..._

* * *

Wiping off the corner of his mouth with the back of his good hand, Shinichi coughed and sat back on his heels, breathing hard. He looked up at his boyfriend with heavy-lidded satisfaction. "Don't fall down now," he scolded the thief, letting his roughened tone of voice wander all across the spectrum, from smug to sated. "You'll get dirt on your ass."

Breath rasping, mouth hanging slack and head tipped back, Kid pressed his fists against the wall behind him, scrambling for a shred of focus which would keep him vertical. His knees - hell, his whole body - felt like water, and the jeans pulled awkwardly down around his thighs were possibly the only thing keeping his legs under him. "Y-you...you..."

"Me?" Shinichi prompted, smarmy and understandably proud of himself. "What about me?"

"Nnnnnghhh," Kid answered helpfully, sucking in big lungfuls of air that shivered on the exhale. "That...y-you...I, ngh, Benten. Mmmgh, gods. _You._"

"Why thank you," Shinichi preened, pushing himself to his feet with a little creakiness of his knees. "C'mere, you limp noodle."

"Mnnguh." Kid let himself be folded against Shinichi's body for support, purring a little as the detective rubbed his good hand up and down his back.

"Come on, put yourself together. We've gotta go back in there - it was pretty rude of us to just leave Ran and Heiji hanging like that. And I want to kiss Ran before very much longer." Kid raised his head, the question in his eyes; Shinichi smirked and patted his thief's head cheerfully. "She'll probably want to taste for herself, but a little preview can't hurt. Come on, put yourself together."

Kid goggled at his detective, regaining motor control and balance through pure force of will, and let Shinichi help put him back together, tucking bits away and straightening everything up. With a few quick pats against his back, to try to dislodge the dinginess from the tunnel's wall, Shinichi turned Kid toward the short stairs and doorway they'd come through and gave him a pat on the ass to get him moving.

"Come on now. Do you want to show that face to Hattori?"

* * *

Ran jumped a little bit, startled, as the secret door clicked and swung open, revealing both her boyfriends - Kid, who was bracing himself heavily on the rail as he came up the stairs and through the door, and Shinichi, looking very smug just over Kid's shoulder.

"...Hi?" she ventured, turning in her seat to face them more directly. Kid's wobbliness gave her pause, and she had her mouth open to wonder at that, when Shinichi crossed the short distance between them and, with an exceptionally smug smile, bent to kiss her, slipping his tongue - and the thick taste it carried - into her mouth.

Startlement turned into wide-eyed shock; Kid leaned against Shinichi's shoulders, grinning past them as Ran's expression went through several permutations that took her all the way from the kiss into a muffled, astonished giggle. When she drew back from Shinichi, she was scarlet. "I _wondered_ what you two were up to in there," she murmured, and then kissed Shinichi again with a considering air. "Mmm. Needs salt. -joking, I was joking!" Still bright red, Ran squeaked as the more law-abiding of her two boyfriends attempted to develop the taste further by adding Neck Of Mouri to his palate while the one with the talents in larceny tried to steal her breath with clever, tickling fingers.

That led to more kisses, and to Kid's enthusiastic greeting to Ran as well, and when Heiji came cautiously (VERY cautiously) down the stairs again, the three were seated on the larger of the two couches, looking somewhat mussed but noticably pleased with themselves. Heiji, tugging on the hem of one of Yuusaku's sweatshirts (which he'd borrowed anyway on the principle of any port in a storm) eyed the trio warily.

"Hey, Hattori," Shinichi said, his attitude indicating casual unconcern for the bright, purpling spot, curved in the shape of Ran's lips, displayed clearly on the side of his neck.

"Sorry to tease you like that, Heiji," Ran offered, smiling winningly from her place on Shinichi's right side. "But the sweatshirt looks like it fits well?"

"Don't look at us like that," Kid added, languidly sprawled across Shinichi's other shoulder. "There's nothing to be worried about."

Hattori snorted, meeting Kid's suspiciously satisfied gaze with his own incredulous one. "You three're _trouble,_ you know that?" he declared, taking a seat on the arm of the chair furthest from the trio's couch. "Trouble. Kudo didn't used to be trouble before, yanno. Well, he was a _different_ kind of trouble. And Neechan's gone and gotten..." Heiji flapped his hands, gesturing indistinctly in the general direction of Ran's comfortably intimate curl against Shinichi's side, and the love-bite on said detective's throat. Turning his focus back to the thief among them, Hattori's eyes narrowed; he extended one finger accusingly.

"_You_ are a, a bad influence."

From his seat, Kid dipped his head and spread one hand out to the side, mimicking a curtsy. "Thank you, Tantei-han," he purred.

"Heiji," Ran interjected, lifting her head to fix their friend with a cross expression, "It's not _bad._ We're just...like I was saying."

"It's a nice feeling, Hattori," Shinichi added, his eyes gentle. "I get that you're having trouble understanding it, but...it really is a nice feeling."

"The sex is nice too," Kid volunteered cheerfully. "You should try it sometime. Don't you have that lovely little friend of your own? What was her name, Toyama-"

"_Yeah,_" Heiji cut in, holding a straight face and unflinching tone through an admirable effort of will, "We'll get there eventually. Thanks for the suggestion."

Kid blinked, taken aback by Hattori's complete refusal to rise to the bait. With an impressed smile in his eyes, he settled back against Shinichi, ceding the point to the Osakan detective.

Allowing himself to slide into the chair, Heiji eyed the thief's peaceful aspect with mistrust. "You tell him about how this morning went yet?" he asked Shinichi, indicating Kid with a thumb. "'Cause if you three're so close, he'll need to know what to watch out for. Not," added the Osakajin with a scowl, "that I'm expecting him to get _too_ involved, what with all the 'wanted by the police for Grand Larceny' crap and everything-"

"Not yet." Shinichi sighed, running a hand through his own hair and making it stand on end; with his hair fluffed up and sitting so closely beside Kid, the resemblence between thief and detective was startling. "I was... kind of enjoying not having to think about it; but you're right. You're right. Hey, you-" He poked a finger into the shoulder of the individual who was currently attempting to make his hair stand even _further_ on end by dint of careful finger-combing. "Want to know a new way to make the authorities twitch?"

"I'm pretty damn sure he knows just about every way there IS to do that, Kudo," remarked Heiji dryly; Kid turned his head very deliberately to look at the detective, produced another high-wattage grin, raised one hand and monocled his own eye with thumb and forefinger. _"Aaack!"_ said Heiji, subsiding hastily.

Pleased, Kid turned an inquiring gaze on his boyfriend. "So how does one make the authorities twitch, Meitantei?" he asked politely.

"You tell them the truth."

"Reeeeeally? I do that all the time." Flipping himself around lengthwise to the couch, Kid clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back to rest it in Shinichi's lap; his neatly-crossed ankles settled in Ran's, who ran one hand along the sole of one foot and began to massage it gently. "Proceed."

The next little while was spent outlining the morning's events, with plenty of side-trips into the previous evening. Kid was silent as both Ran and Heiji gave a graphic description of Shinichi's transformation and injury, the Kansai detective's parts accompanied with much grimacing and gratuitous hand-gestures. Shinichi's own account of Division One's unwilling acceptance of his identity, history and current state made the thief give way to a long whistle. "Clever, Meitantei; but keep that recording close at hand," said Kid thoughtfully from his boyfriend's lap. "It's not the sort of thing one'd want to see on YouTube."

The fourteen missing and dead teenagers, however, made him go silent, and the files full of older cases brought a stony look into the deep blue eyes, darkening them. "You do realize now why they blocked you out of the investigation?" asked Kid gently, peering up at the face above him.

"Because they're territorial idiots who would rather completely overlook further evidence or aid just because it comes from someone younger than them," Shinichi groused, glowering at the bookshelf to the right of Heiji's head. "If the people above Megure - and hell yes, I mean Matsumoto-keibu, Megure-keibu himself, hell, all the freaking way up! If they think just because I'm not badged, that means I don't have good leads or good information? After _years_ of me doing _serious_ work toward getting the right people behind bars, saving civilian lives, and police lives too? If this is the beginning of their new policy to block me out of... everything... " He trailed off as the weight of the other three's stares registered in his attention, and he looked from one glare to the next to the next, two blue and one green, with irritation.

"_What?_"

In answer, Kid looked down the length of his body, ignoring Shinichi, to address their girlfriend at his feet. "Thick as a brick, isn't he?"

"And I thought _I_ was good at missin' obvious things every once in a while," Heiji agreed. Ran waved a hand at him.

"No, Heiji, you don't miss things at all! Not like _this_ blockhead." She glared at her beloved boyfriend with one pretty eyebrow raised sharply. "Are you just playing with us, Shinichi? Seriously?"

Truly irritated now, Shinichi glared right back. "No, I'm not. What, if you three would be so kind, am I missing?"

"They were protecting you," Kid murmured. Hattori and Ran sat back, leaving the explanation to the thief; and Shinichi looked down to the man in his lap, mistrust in his eyes.

"They were protecting a possible _victim,_ Tantei. What's the profile, again? I know I know it. Tell me anyway, Tantei. Humor me."

Shinichi did, his voice softening with each word as the lights clicked on upstairs. "Young...prodigally smart...from a background where they wouldn't..."

"Be missed, yes," Kid nodded, his eyes sad. "Such as an uncreditably bright eight-year-old whose parents haven't come home to visit him in two years, who is staying with a friend of his distant cousin Kudo Shinichi, because nobody else can or will take him in? An eight-year-old who voluntarily puts himself into so many dangerous situations that it would be a piece of cake to make sure one of those situations became fatal for him? An eight-year-old who, even compared to the gifted teenagers who've gone missing and have been ground under the wheels of whatever-it-is that's been destroying brilliant young lives for over a decade, is _blindingly_ intelligent, insightful, and sharp?

"You were thinking of yourself as Shinichi, Tantei. They saw you as Conan - and they didn't... they _don't_... want to see your body washed up against a storm drain grate."

There was a moment of silence after Kid's explanation, in which Ran curled into a small ball, tucking herself around Kid's foot and holding on to it like one might a teddy bear, Hattori sat grim and still in his chair, fingers digging into the upholstered arms, and Shinichi stared, startled, into Kid's eyes while all the facts slotted into place.

"...Oh," he said finally, voice small.

The silence in the room rang like a bell. At last Ran stirred, fixing her eyes on Shinichi's face. "Why-" She had to start again, her throat attempting to close up in tension. "Why _haven't_ they gone after Sh- Conan-kun yet? He brought himself to media attention a while ago, after getting involved with all those cases of Tousan's... and all those Kid heists." The foot that she was clasping twitched ever so slightly. "Why haven't they tried to kidnap him? I mean, I don't WANT them to, but..." Shinichi reached out with his good hand and smoothed Ran's hair back, fingers lingering; she caught them and squeezed them once, eyes dark with worry. "Why?"

"Maybe _because_ of all that media attention," said Heiji thoughtfully, "and maybe because've your dad. Y'know, famous detective, Magnificent Sleeping Kogoro whatsis. And he used to be a cop, and he knows cops, and cops stick together, and... too much possible trouble?" Heiji rubbed at his jaw thoughtfully. "Only, if the rate of disappearances've picked up over the last few months, that means greater demand, so greater risk won't be so much've a deterrent anymore. But- Neechan, you've got a good point there. Why not?"

"Perhaps it's you, Tantei-han."

"Bwuh?" Heiji blinked at Kid.

The thief raised an eyebrow. "You are," he stated calmly, "the son of a well-known, highly-placed figure among the authorities. You also have quite the reputation yourself of being tireless in pursuit, unwilling to let go of a lead, intelligent, resourceful, capable of feats of excellent logic..." Ignoring Heiji's flatly astonished stare at hearing himself _complimented_ by Kid, the thief paused and looked consideringly towards the front door. "You're also a known friend of our little Chibi-tantei and would, quite certainly, throw yourself whole-heartedly into an investigation involving his disappearance. The game, as the English say, would not be worth the candle. However... if as you've also surmised, the demand is growing..."

"Fuck. He really _is_ at risk."

"As you say."

Shinichi sat silent during all this, eyes shadowed, turned inwards. At the last words he stirred, a look on his face as if he tasted something bitter. "So- when I'm Conan, I'm at risk. And when I'm Shinichi, I'm at risk. I can't go out in public as the former without fear of being kidnapped, and I can't go out _any_ goddamn where as the latter without fear of seeing everybody I know die." Rage and distress made his voice jagged, sharpened it to a saw-edge of anguish. "Where the hell _**am**_ I safe?"

"Here," said Ran instantly, and uncurled enough to reach an arm out and drag him down with her to Kid, who was already halfway sitting up.

For a few minutes the three clung together, arms around each other: for comfort, for contact. After a second or so another hand rested lightly on Shinichi's arm, and he half-turned his head from where it was buried against the other two's to see Heiji leaning forward in his chair, arm outstretched. "Anything I can do, Kudo," said the other detective, voice a little shaken. "Anything you need, you let me know, okay? Tousan, he has a lot of contacts outside the force; if you need hidin', we'll find a way. Neechan, you too. And..." He nodded at the thief, still more or less in Shinichi's lap but with arms tight around both of the others. "...you too. No strings, no surprises, no captures; this ain't a heist."

"No," said Kid softly; his hands tightened. "It's not."

* * *

It was a quiet twenty minutes before Yukiko and Yuusaku peeked around the corner of the library anteroom's normal doorway, worry on both their faces - though you had to look for it harder on Yukiko's. Hattori had slid out of his chair, taking a seat on the floor at Shinichi's knee; with Kid sprawled across the detective's lap, Ran laced underneath the thief's legs, laid across or under as much of her boyfriends' bodies as she could reach, and Shinichi's hand resting on Hattori's shoulder just inside the arm of the couch, the four of them made a rather complex tessellation of body parts and concerned faces. Yukiko edged quietly into the room, perching on the arm of the chair Hattori had vacated; Yuusaku took its seat.

"Welcome home," Shinichi said quietly, turning his head to look at his parents.

"Hello yourself, Shinichi," Yukiko murmured. Shinichi replaced his head on Ran's shoulder, eyes hollow and dull; Kid rolled his head to face the elder Kudos next, freeing one hand from their tangle for a small wave. "Thank you for giving us a little privacy when you came in," he said, addressing himself mainly to Yuusaku. "We appreciate it."

Yuusaku nodded, his brows drawn down and together with worry. "We heard serious voices from in here when we came in, so I thought it best to let you sort out your discussion before we intruded. Is everyone alright?"

"Kinda," Hattori said, his voice resolute but cold. "Kudo's...your kid's got issues in both sizes, now." As alarm lit Yukiko's face, Hattori held up a hand to forestall her panic. "Don't freak, won't do anybody any good. I'll tell ya what we were talking about."

* * *

Halfway through Hattori's explanation, Yuusaku briefly removed himself to the kitchen and returned with a tray full of six hot chocolates and two sample-size bottles of brandy. He dosed each cup to its recipient's desire and passed them around, placing coasters on the inlaid mahogany table in front of the teens' couch but otherwise making no suggestions toward formality. Ran picked up the story for a little while when Hattori ran out of coherency; she couldn't last long, though, dissolving into the same furious, terrified, wordless shivers that had wracked her earlier. So it was Shinichi who finished the story, explaining to his parents what Kid and the others had explained to him; both the current investigations of the young geniuses plucked out of their lives in the past nine months...and the dozens, maybe even hundreds, of similar faces who'd fallen in the last decade, their case files neatly kept, preserved, and dead cold.

"Cold until now," Shinichi added, resolution lighting his voice for the first time in his whole story. "My information about the Black Organization...and Division One's information about the trail of missing children...we can _do_ something with this combination. Together, we can get further than either side did on our own, and maybe uncover what they want these children for...what information they're being shown, or exposed to, that means APTX is the only way to kill them.

"And hell, maybe we'll discover more about APTX itself. I think Ai would feel that the risks I took in telling Division One would be all worthwhile if she could get new data about the APTX versions that they've made since she escaped...or, I guess, _whether_ they've made more versions."

"Shinichi," his father cautioned, reaching out a hand to touch his son's where it covered Kid's, "Don't lose track of the other dangers, please. I don't want to see you save someone else's life at the cost of your own. It's selfish of me, I know it is, but I've no apology for it. Kid and Hattori have showed you what was right in front of your nose, what you couldn't see on your own. Please don't forget it simply because it's more convenient to you to forget about your own vulnerabilities."

Blinking, Shinichi rocked back a bit, taking in his father's words with a slow, sober nod. He was used to his father being candid, but candid and afraid? Not so frequently did Shinichi see Yukiko's husband showing that sort of vulnerability. So he turned his hand over, squeezing his father's tightly, and nodded firmly.

"I won't forget," he promised. "I'll remember that _this_ eight-year-old would have a grieving family, too, just like the missing kids' families are already grieving."

"You'd better," Ran and Yukiko said at the same time, startling each other. With a tittering laugh, Yukiko curled against Yuusaku's side, holding out a hand for Ran to proceed.

"You'd better," she repeated, squeezing hard on the nearest part of Shinichi's body she could reach, which turned out to be his leg. "I...we... Just, just don't get yourself killed, Shinichi. I-"

"Neechan, it's okay," Hattori said, reaching a hand up to soothe her with worry on his voice. "He's not gonna get himself killed, he knows we'd kill him again if he did. And, um, don't cry, please, cause I don't know what to do when girls start crying around me."

With a fragile laugh, Ran smiled through unshed tears at him. "Okay, Heiji. But only cause you asked nicely."

Watching quietly, Yukiko and Yuusaku laced their hands together, and Yuusaku's wedding band glinted between Yukiko's fingers as she squeezed hard, drawing shallow, steadying breaths that nobody was supposed to notice.

"I think it's lasagna night," Yukiko declared, drawing everyone's attention with a huge smile. "But lasagna takes such a long time to make. Hattori-kun, will you help Yuusaku and I make it? You other three, you stay out of our way." She pointed a finger at each of them, settling longest on Kid. "Especially you," she grinned, winking.

"I'll keep them out of your hair, Kudo-san," Kid promised, slipping out of the tangle of arms and legs and hands with minimal difficulty. He somehow managed to hold and keep one of each of his partners' hands throughout the readjustment; once he was sitting on the couch between them, Shinichi's left hand and Ran's right gripped gently in each of his, he glanced to Hattori with none of the usual pettiness.

"Think you can handle lasagna with them?" he asked. "I was thinking I'd take these two upstairs and wash them off, looks like they've both been crying."

Beside him, Shinichi puffed up. "I wasn't," he protested indignantly, before Ran leaned forward to look around Kid and gave him a glare that challenged him to say more. "...Not," he added cautiously, "That there's anything _wrong_ with crying, I mean, um, oh hell."

Yuusaku chuckled warmly, standing and tugging his wife up with him. "Hattori-kun, do you know where the third pantry is?"

"Third?" Hattori pushed himself to his feet, clapping one hand on Shinichi's shoulder and squeezing hard before turning to address the elder Kudos. "And I thought _my_ folks' place was big." He followed them out of the room, talking amiably as they went.

Left alone, Kid crossed his hands behind himself, ducked, twisted around, and somehow managed to end up standing in front of the couch, facing the other two, without letting go of their hands. He glanced at each of his hands in turn, blinked, and smiled small, as though he hadn't expected that trick to work either. Then, with a bigger grin for both his lovers, Kid gave their hands a gentle tug.

"I'm really never going to get sick of this 'kaasan-sanctioned sex' idea," he told them, grin widening as they both flushed a little crimson. "And I have _ideas._ Don't you two owe me a Sharpie and a lot of free reign?"

"Um," Shinichi said, while Ran blushed deeper but her mischievous grin grew. "Are we allowed to submit ideas, too?"

"Only if they involve my cock in some way, shape, or form," Kid announced magnanimously, backing up as he led them both toward the doorway by their hands. "Or your cock, or Ran's-"

"_I heard that and really DID NOT WANT TO,_" came Heiji's strangled yell from the kitchen, perhaps fortunately cutting off Kid's cheerful announcement.

"Um. Kid?" Shinichi, now as red as his favorite sweater, glanced from his equally-crimson girlfriend to their boyfriend, who was more than they could both handle on a _good_ day. "Can we take this upstairs?" He tugged their triangle in the direction of the stairs with embarrassed force.

"Oh, certainly," Kid grinned, releasing Shinichi's and Ran's hands to spin in place and hop onto the lowest tread of the staircase. But instead of ascending, Kid leaned across the rail and shouted toward the kitchen.

"Kudo-san, are the supplies in the same-_mmmph!_"

"_NEVER MIND, KAASAN, WE'RE FINE, GOING NOW,_" Shinichi called back, his hands - _both_ of them - layered with both of Ran's across their thief's mouth. As another tortured, strangled noise indicated Heiji's long-suffering feelings on Kid's particular brand of oversharing, Ran towed Kid toward the upstairs bedroom, Shinichi following gratefully behind.

"At this rate, he'll want to televise us eventually," he muttered darkly, immediately regretting the impulse when Kid, eyes gleaming over Ran's hand, made an interested purring sort of noise and grinned.

* * *

_._

_Thanks for joining us today! For those of you continuing on, please leave us a comment here, then continue on to Book 4, Chapter 13, __here.__ And just in case you ignored the chapter notes, please do note before clicking that Chapter 13 on Livejournal is explicit._

__

For those of you choosing not to, thank you for reading! What'd you think? Questions? Comments? Ideas for Hattori's next Frilly Incident?

_Keep your eyes peeled next week for our pre-birthday treats posts; make sure to watch _ _**threethieves**__ for the latest, and take care! _


	46. Can't go on a date looking like that

_**Three Thieves**__**: a series of crossover Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid fan novels, written by **_ _**nightengale**__** and **_ _**ysabet**__**  
**__**Book Five, Chapter One**__**: "You just can't go on a date looking like that"  
Warnings:**__ Nudity and embarrassment, Yukiko, brain-breakiness  
_**_Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _** _**dc_yaoi**__ , _ _**detective_conan**__ , _ _**magic_kaitou**__ and _ _**manycases1truth**_

* * *

An undetermined time later...

_THUMP! THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP!_

Shinichi jerked awake, nearly smacking Ran in the jaw as his head came up. There was sudden stillness at his waist as Kid's breath caught in his lungs for a moment before being exhaled out slowly and soundlessly. "Bwuht?" said the thief groggily, and "Ow," as he discovered that Shinichi had been lying on his arm and that it was full of tingles. Ran yawned and buried her head against the pillow she was hugging, her hair tangled across the sheets like the tendrils of a very attractive octopus.

"Five thuds," explained Shinichi, his own hair doing a creditable imitation of Kid's own permanent bed-head. The noise had come from the kitchen below by way of the floor, and Shinichi felt around on that selfsame floor, coming up at last with a tennishoe that had probably been there for at least two years. "No way, not j'st five, Kaasan... need at leas' fifteen..." With the dogged, sleep-drugged persistence of someone who _really_ wants a few more minutes, he smacked the shoe onto the floor repeatedly, dropping it with a smaller thud after the last. "There." Wrapping his good arm around Kid's head and tugging him close, Shinichi curled himself back into a loose ball and lapsed into a doze once more.

It was very short-lived.

_THUMP! Thump-thud-thump! THUMP THUMP! WHUMP-thud thud THUMP!"_

"Ten," groaned Shinichi, hiding his eyes against his forearm. "Don' wanna, Kaasan..."

"Gnnnrgh. Ten minutes? And you sound about twelve, Tantei," mumbled Kid, beginning the slow process of extricating himself from their tangle. "Do we _have_ to?"

"Mmph. Lasagna," muttered his boyfriend, pointing rather randomly at the floor. "Kaasan said five minutes, I-" (yawn) "-said fifteen, she said ten. Cook always wins." He rubbed at his eyes, yawning; beside him, Ran made a determined effort to Become One With Her Pillow, face first. Shinichi rolled over with another yawn and tried to remove the pillow; Ran, however, was persistent and hung on like a leech, half-audible comments that no good detective's daughter should know proving that she was, however reluctantly, at least somewhat awake.

A small amount of tickling won the day (and the pillow), however, and all three lay back side by side, blinking blearily at the overhead light. "Mmmm... jus' little longer," Shinichi murmured, attempting to bury his face between Ran's breasts. Kid squirmed around, assuming the position he'd wanted to try earlier, his head happily resting on their girlfriend's soft belly. She stroked their hair, fingers moving slow and slower and eventually stilling as three sets of breathing evened out...

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that they had kicked the sheet to the foot of the bed quite a long while earlier. And that they hadn't locked the door, and that Hattori Heiji could move fairly quietly when he wanted to. And that sleep tends to make one's time-sense go out the proverbial window.

Faint sounds of socked footsteps at the door were all the warning that they got. "Hey Kudo? Lasagna, hot outta the oven!" Heiji caroled as he pushed the door open. "Getcher ass-"

He froze, jaw dropping. Kid blinked at him sleepily from his naked, relaxed sprawl across Ran's body; "-ass-" repeated Heiji, eyes growing impossibly wide. Yawning, the thief waved two fingers in a little salute as Shinichi's and Ran's heads popped up in horror.

Several things happened all at once:

There was a scramble for the sheet; the sheet won, slithering over the end of the bed onto the floor. Overbalanced, Shinichi followed it halfway, bare to the world and Heiji's eyes as he vainly grasped at the fabric.

Ran squeaked, pulling at the first things she could reach to cover her breasts and the delta of her legs; unfortunately for her (and for Heiji's peace of mind), the first things she could reach were Kid's hands. The thief, not in the least put out, merely nodded politely at the Osaka detective. "A few more minutes, perhaps?"

"Ass," replied Heiji dazedly, backing out and closing the door heavily behind him. His slow, unsteady footsteps could be heard descending the stairs.

Silence. "Well," remarked Kid after a moment, _"that_ should gain us a little time." He beamed at the other two. "Now, what could we do in ten minutes, hmmm?"

Shinichi, however, was having none of it. After finally achieving the sheet, he pulled it over his head and refused vehemently to come out. In the end, it took the combined efforts of both Ran and Kid to remove it, persuade him to get dressed and to follow them down the stairs.

* * *

Dinner, unsurprisingly, was delicious. The trio, neatly redressed, arranged themselves in a row, Shinichi on the end, along one side of the Kudos' dining table; Yuusaku took the seat at the head of the table next to Shinichi, and Hattori and Ran bracketed Yukiko at the other end. Yukiko guided the conversation toward the topic that all of them, especially Hattori, had been avoiding all night - the subject of his return.

"Your trip back is scheduled for a few hours from now, isn't it?" She cut a bite free from her lasagna and smiled sweetly. "Bit early to break off such a nice weekend."

The fleeting expression that crossed Heiji's face showed that he was still suffering a little trauma from the unfortunate events earlier ('nice' was probably not the term he would've used), but he still looked morose as he muttered, "Yeah; kinda hate it, but what else can I do?" He stirred the meager remnants of his second helping of lasagna with his fork- Yukiko had insisted that since it was a European dish, it should be eaten with the proper utensils- and sighed. "'S not the cost, I'm okay with that- I got a travel fund set up years ago, when I first started really handlin' cases outside Osaka." Shinichi made an inquisitive noise, and Heiji looked at him sidelong. "How'd you think I managed to visit you as much as I do, Kudo? Yeah-" He glanced back at Yukiko. "Little legacy from my _daifu;_ he died when I was twelve, and my parents socked it away for me t'use later."

"So... if it's not a money problem, then why go so early?" Shinichi wondered out loud. "We could drive you back; then you wouldn't really be out anything."

Heiji took a large bite, concentrating on his pasta long enough to make it obvious that this wasn't something he really wanted to answer. "...third wheel," he muttered at last, reluctantly, and then glanced at both Kid _and_ Ran. "Um. Fourth."

"Hattoriiiii..." Shinichi heaved a sigh. "Look. How many times've we had the chance to hang out together while I'm my real size for more than a few minutes and without people after our heads? Kazuha-kun's right, you are an idiot. Stay, okay?" He dropped his gaze to his own lasagna, chopping it into bites with the side of his fork. "Just because things've changed for me in, well, relationships, doesn't mean I don't want to see my friends. Being like this isn't all, all-" he waved his fork, groping for the right phrase.

Kid, of course, helpfully found one for him. "-isn't all hot monkey sex all over the house, you know. -wait, it isn't? Why not?" The thief looked absurdly disappointed, or at least he did until Ran's elbow impacted his side. "OOF! Masher. And anyway, wouldn't a fourth wheel make us more stable?" One mobile eyebrow went up as he awaited the Osakajin's reply; it drooped a little after receiving a highly dubious look from Heiji, and Kid rolled his eyes.

"Oh, for- If it'll make you feel better, O Tantei-san of the West, I promise sincerely not to dress you up, pants you, or otherwise change your attire in any way, shape or form while you're visiting; no full geisha costumes, no maid's outfits, no frilly pink dresses or ruby slippers or grass skirts or thongs, though-" (he glinted at Heiji) "-I do believe you'd look quite, _quite_ incredi- okay, okay!" He narrowly avoided another elbowing. "In short," Kid finished primly, _"I'll be good._ While you're here, at least. And... I do believe that you'd be very welcome." He settled back, expectant.

"You really would, Heiji-kun," Ran cajoled him. "We don't get to see you outside of cases. And do you really want to go back so soon?"

"...well..."

"And if you stay," smiled Yukiko, "...you can go with me to pick up my new bike."

All heads (with the exception of Yuusaku's, who merely sighed) swiveled in her direction. "Kaasan, you _didn't,"_ groaned Shinichi.

"Oh yes I did!" His mother did a very juvenile little dance in her seat. "A Vulcan 2000 Classic LT. I've wanted one for _ages."_

"She was practically licking the glass at the dealership window," explained her husband mildly, serving himself thirds from the lasagna pan, "and I did promise her an early anniversary present. We made a young man at the dealership very happy indeed as well." Yukiko openly gloated over her new toy, and Yuusaku gave her a fond smile. "And who knows? I might even pick up a matching bike myself."

Heiji visibly wavered in his determination to leave that night, licking his lips. "Is it... brand new? Not a rebuild?" he asked, a little hushed.

"Straight from the showroom floor," Yukiko purred. "Completely untouched. Untried. _Road-ready."_

"Oooh..."

Shinichi traded amused glances with Ran and Kid as Heiji teetered on the brink. "Stay, Hattori," he said with a wry little smile. "And if you hang around 'til Monday morning, you could even," he hesitated, "even- welcome Conan back."

Green eyes met blue ones, sobering as the meaning of Shinichi's words sunk in. "Yeeeeeaahhh... I guess I could, at that. Can't leave you alone with these two, can I?" He poked a thumb in Ran and Kid's general direction. "Y'never know what kinda trouble they'd get you into."

"Well," said Kid brightly, "I could write you a list if you wanted... First there's this thing with honey and a feather I read ab-" Ran's elbow impacted this time with greater force, and the thief gave her enormous wounded puppy-eyes as he rubbed the injured spot. "Ow. Or maybe I could just shut up-?"

With that decided, the dinner eventually segued into bowls of adzuki-bean ice cream and a rekindling of the earlier Playstation games, with Yukiko declaring that she would take all challenges and beat them with her Zen-like automotive skills. Against the roar of engine-noise that eventually resulted, Kid, Shinichi and Ran curled together on one couch and talked quietly among themselves as the hour grew later and later.

It was well past midnight by the time everyone headed upstairs for bed. Kid, Shinichi, and Ran had a bit of embarrassed scrambling to do, seeking new sheets for Shinichi's bed; conveniently, by the time they were done with that, the others had finished in the bathrooms.

Goodnights were said as Yuusaku settled Hattori into the guest bedroom beside Shinichi's; Hattori tossed a mistrustful glance at the trio as they puttered in and out of the hallway, but when Yuusaku asked if Hattori would prefer a different room, the teen detective simply asked for earplugs, just in case.

Soon everyone was in bed. The light in the master bedroom went out, followed by the light in Shinichi's room; Hattori left his on for a while, flipping through a volume of Ellery Queen reprints. He had just started to doze off, the pages blurring before his eyes, when the sudden sensation that he was no longer alone in the room drove his attention to the window.

Perched in a strong beam of cool moonlight, the white-blue hue of which strongly contrasted the warm golden tone of Hattori's bedside lamp, Kid rested on the inner windowsill with the attitude of a passing cat, only pausing to talk as long as you hold its interest. He wore a matching set of pajamas borrowed from Yuusaku's drawers; white, printed with small fluffy blue clouds and sheep.

"Long day, Tantei-han?" Kid's voice was soft and without archness.

"I've had longer," Hattori shrugged, despite the sheer distance, in temporal and emotional senses, that the morning seemed to hold in his mind. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Won't stay long," Kid promised, tipping his head. The moonlight spilled across one cheek, tinting it a different shade than his lamplit one. "Just wanted to wish you a good night. Sleep soundly, you'll need the rest."

Hattori raised an eyebrow, holding back a snort. "Thought you made me a promise."

"Oh, I'm not going back on it," Kid assured him, singsong with a smile. "By the way, what size shirt do you wear? Mens' large?"

Hattori eyed the thief levelly. "Yeah," he admitted, guarded. "What're you planning?"

"No, not telling," Kid grinned, standing smoothly and making his way to the door. "That goes against one of Thurston's rules."

"Never stopped you before," the detective grumbled, watching the thief leave. "And _knock_ next time, why dontcha?"

"Same to youuu~," came the thief's voice lightly, followed by the quiet click of a closing door.

Feeling a strange mix of comfort and unease, Hattori rolled over, clicked out his light, and went to sleep.

* * *

Sprawled across a bed that really wasn't meant to hold three bodies (but seemed to be managing just fine), Shinichi shifted experimentally; beneath him, the frame squeaked. "_Thought_ so," he reflected, bouncing one leg lightly on the mattress.

"Hmm?" Ran was also stretched out full length; she was playing with his hair. "Thought what?"

He eyed her with a little grin. "We were making _noise_ earlier. Terrible, obvious noises," Shinichi teased, turning so that he lay lengthwise against her body. "LOUD noises, and now you know why Heiji's face turned that funny color when we came down the stairs—"

Ran made a muffled shriek as _evil, tickling fingers_ found her ribs and soft belly; she was wearing an old t-shirt and sleep-pants, and the thin fabric was no barrier at all. She twisted around, trying to gain leverage, but only succeeded in tangling her hair across her face. "Squeak! SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK—" Reverting (mentally, at least) to about twelve years old, Shinichi dodged an elbow and continued his torment. "And we'll do it again, 'cause I plan on—"

"What _are_ you two up to?" asked Kid, slipping back into the room soundlessly. "Do we have mice? I like mice," he added cheerfully. "though I like bats better. I see a lot of them when I fly." Easing onto the bed well out of reach of kicking feet, the thief leaned back on one elbow and regarded the mass of flailing limbs. "What's this about squeaking?"

From halfway beneath Ran's body and a pillow, Shinichi grinned at the thief with one visible eye and the corner of a smile. "My bed—" he huffed as their girlfriend attempted to suffocate him, "—squeaks— AHAH!" His one good arm had snagged a free pillow, which he swung; unfortunately, he missed Ran's head and the object thumped squarely across Kid's chest. "Oops…"

The thief sprawled across the end of the bed raised one eyebrow. "_Some_ people," he said archly, tugging the pillow free of Shinichi's hands with a quick motion, "Don't realize how _very_ much they're going to need their rest tomorrow." He lifted onto his knees, leaning forward and pressing one hand to each of his lovers' sternums. They flattened back onto the bed, driven partially by his hands and partially by his gaze. "They would do well to remember that the hour's back to being in single digits again, and that they're going to be waking up tomorrow morning much earlier than they think they will be."

Shinichi glanced at Ran and then back at Kid, failing to complete the sums. "...What are you planning, Kid?"

"You will find out tomorrow, _if_ you're not so tired that you fall asleep in your cereal. And as you had a rather...strenuous day today, and as your body is rather...susceptible..." the thief added, running a heated, appreciative glance down his detective's body. When he looked up to Shinichi's face again, it was to see his brows drawn together in frustration. Kid snickered as Shinichi scolded him.

"You say that, then look at me like _that?_" The detective squirmed under Kid's gaze, eyes darkening in what he knew was probably misplaced hopefulness. Still...even in ridiculous, oversized flannel pajamas, Kid looked...he looked..._God._

Shinichi came down to earth again as Kid scooted forward, shifting his balance precariously onto one knee so he could fold the other leg over Shinichi's lap, straddling him. With a smile at Ran, Kid lowered his weight onto his boyfriend, crouching forward over Shinichi like a possessive big cat.

"Don't get me wrong, Tantei. I would _very_ much like to keep playing with you tonight, until we pass out in each other's arms. I'd like to bury you in me." Shinichi's breath caught, and Kid smiled, kissed his collarbone, and let his weight fall more heavily across Shinichi's hips. "I want...to slide onto you...and ride you into the mattress...and discover what it's like to take you inside me." Kid breathed out, and even his own voice, though he was the one teasing the others, was a bit rough. "I very, very much want to spend every moment that we have remaining in your arms, in you, with you in me, tangled together with you and with Ran both." Kid paused, wetting his lips, and glanced briefly aside to smile at Ran; eyes glazed over, Ran nodded vaguely, preoccupied by the mental images that Kid's words had conjured.

"I want... you to _hold_ me, Tantei, and hold me close."

Beneath Kid, Shinichi was already breathing hard; with that last confession from Kid, Shinichi's whole body jerked reflexively, muscles tensing from jaw to curled toes. Between Kid's spread legs, the heat of both their bodies was too warm, too singularly intense; the insides of Kid's thighs squeezed Shinichi's hips and the points of Shinichi's hips rocked against the curves of Kid's; between these, the pair's erections lay pressed against each other between their bellies, though the touch was kept chaste, in a way, by layers of pajama cotton. Kid pressed a ragged, open-mouthed kiss to the side of Shinichi's throat and breathed out in a hiss.

"Whoops. I...was just supposed to be teasing you with that one," he admitted, all the more sheepish for how rarely he liked to - or ever could be forced to - admit to his miscalculations. "I definitely thought I was still too intimidated by that idea, so that was supposed to be...a safe one to taunt you with."

Kid pushed himself up on both hands, smiling down at his boyfriend's black, dilated gaze. "Apparently...I'm, ah, more interested in that than I thought?"

Eyes lidded halfway, aware of Ran's soft curves pressing tight against his body and Kid's leg and thigh, Shinichi rocked his hips up underneath Kid, gasping softly as the thief's thighs flexed around his waist. Even the irritating pressure of the APTX pack's hard corners pressing into his soft side wasn't a distraction; Shinichi rocked again, baring his neck, and let his eyes slide closed in anticipatory bliss.

Then there was cool air, too much of it, washing over his body, over his waist, and the weight across his hips was lifting. Shinichi's eyes popped open in time to see Kid rocking himself back onto his heels so he could crouch over Shinichi without touching.

"That...didn't go as planned," Kid said, slightly out of breath. "You are becoming a _very_ bad habit, Tantei, if you can distract me that badly, that quickly."

"What about me?" Ran asked. She sounded like she was fake-pouting, but Shinichi couldn't tell; his body was preoccupied with a very loud, very insistent mental repetition of _Sex now sex now sex __now__ damn it_, and he had to concentrate to make sense of Kid's words.

"Ran, your assets are...truly extraordinary," Kid reassured her, sliding one hand along her muscled thigh, through the smooth cotton knit of her sleep pants. "It's simply a mood, not a preference; chocolate or vanilla? But I got a bit carried away...I was _supposed_ to be saying," he clarified, turning his attention on Shinichi, "That as much as I _want_ to and _intend_ to do those things with and to you, and many more... tonight, right now, is not the time."

With that said, Kid seemed to relax a little; the erection between his legs was still quite visible, but his resolve showed more clearly in his eyes, and his words came more steadily. "I wasn't teasing when I said you'll need to have strength tomorrow. I don't want you to wear out early, not with what I've got planned for you. As much as I want you right now, Tantei, and I _do,_there's more important things that I want to gift you with, tomorrow, and for that, you and I and Ran all need our rest."

With an apologetic smile, Kid rocked forward onto one knee, beginning to stretch out in the narrow space between Ran and Shinichi. "I'd promise not to go too far with my teasing in the future, but we all know that I couldn't keep that sort of promi-eeek!"

"_Kid,_" Shinichi rasped, his good left hand knotted in Kid's collar right at his throat. While Ran looked on in wide-eyed overload, the detective held the thief still by his collar, nose-to-nose with his boyfriend, and growled: "Either you fuck me, I fuck you, or at the VERY least someone gets busy with their hands. _Now._ You are _not_ going to leave me like this."

Ran and Kid were very quiet for a moment, kind of just staring; then, with a nervous, breathless chuckle, Kid yanked the drawstring of Shinichi's sweatpants open and slipped his fingers, slim and smooth and cool, under the waistband. Shinichi moaned, already close, and Kid smiled.

"Yes, _sir._"

* * *

"Tantei?" Kid nudged Shinichi with the blunt end of a chopstick. Just past Ran's shoulder, the alarm clock was cheerfully - or sadistically, depending on your perspective - still beeping; Ran and Shinichi lay tangled together, Ran with a pillow under her head. Standing beside them, fully dressed and grinning, Kid balanced his bowl of breakfast rice in one hand, poking his boyfriend in the shoulder and his girlfriend in the side of her breast.

"Come on, get up, or I'll have to sic the tickle-doves on you."

The muttered response he got involved an avian maneuver which, no matter how well-trained the doves in question were, wasn't likely to occur any time soon. Kid, however, mere chuckled. "I don't think they'd like that very much, Tantei, and it'd be terribly hard for me to walk, don't you think? Ah-ah-ahh, none of that..." Shinichi's abortive attempt to yank the covers over his and Ran's heads was foiled by the thief's quick snatch at the sheets, dragging them entirely off both bodies. Agonized swearing and muffled groans were the results, but eventually the two were lured out with the promise of breakfast.

Halfway down the stairs, Shinichi caught the sound of Heiji arguing on the phone. "-d'you always have to pick at me? I'll be home tomorrow mornin', and I don't have classes until the afternoon anyway. What're you so big on me comin' back today for?" Leaning over the banister, Shinichi could just catch a glimpse of his fellow detective's face; Heiji stood by one of the tall windows, frowning, cellphone in hand; he wore what looked to be a borrowed Oxford shirt of Yuusaku's, rich chocolate brown and open at the collar. The light spilling through the open blinds gilded his face, glossing the curves and angles of his dark hair and catching in his green eyes like candleflames as he glanced up and waved a preoccupied hand at the group on the stairs.

"I did say he was hot," murmured Kid beneath his breath; Ran opened her mouth, thought better of whatever reply she'd been about to utter, and closed it.

"-yeah, well... Oh, don't start, 'Zuha. Look, I'll make it up to y-" Heiji's brows knotted together and he sighed. "Thursday? I... okay. Yeah, I'd- kinda like that, I was already planning t'go anyway. When's the show, seven? And, uh, maybe we can grab some pizza or something after?" They smoothed out, replaced by a slightly preoccupied expression. "No, no, just... Right, thinkin' with my stomach as usual." He scrubbed at his hair, then rooted around in the pockets of his jeans and pulled out his usual cap. "Speakin' of which, I gotta go, breakfast is ready. See ya tomorrow, okay? -uh, no idea, but I'll text ya when we're on our way, okay? Jaa, Kazuha." One tap of a finger signaled the end of the conversation, and he stuffed the cellphone back into a pocket as the three descended the rest of the stairs.

"Maaaan, give her an inch and she'll take a mile..." Heiji settled the cap into place with a sigh. "She's all freakin' out because I wasn't back when I said I'd be. I _did_ call," he added in an aggrieved tone, "an' if she'd check her damn voicemail once'n a while-"

Ran bit back a yawn, both hands busy tucking freshly-brushed hair into a high ponytail. "Did we just hear you making a date, Hattori-kun?" she teased him; "It sure sounded like it... dinner and a movie? Or the other way around, but _still."_

A bit flustered, the Osakajin shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. "S'not like that. I mean, it's not a movie or anything, it's... there's just this thing at the Kansai University Museum she wants t'see, and... I just thought..." At the three amused looks he was receiving, Heiji ducked his head. "C'mon, quit it, guys. It's an exhibit of _samurai blades,_ okay? Real ones, no replicas. And they've got a guy who knows all about Masamune blades, he'll be giving a talk-"

Ran flapped her hand in the air. "It's okay, it's okay! I didn't mean to- I mean," and she fought back the giggle that kept wanting to sneak out, "you two'll have a great time. Won't they?" she asked her two boyfriends.

Kid's eyes were dancing; Shinichi gave him a warning look. "Yes they will, and you do NOT get to tease Hattori about it," he informed both thief and onlookers; both he and Ran bracketed their boyfriend, shoulder to shoulder.

"Wouldn't _dream_ of it, Tantei." The thief gave Heiji a plaster-saint smile; it didn't reassure the other in the slightest.

Breakfast lay waiting under lidded dishes; to everyone's surprise, it had been prepared by Kid and not the Kudos - he had simply risen earlier than his hosts, helped himself to their kitchen and perpetrated rice, eggs, miso and a rather enormous pile of toaster-style waffles. Noises from the stairs behind them announced the presence of the elder Kudos, resplendent in matching indigo yukata with _Nakamuraya Ryokan_ emblazoned along the collars. "Moooorniiiiing," yawned Yukiko, and "Ooooh, breakfast!" Shambling along behind her, Yuusaku grunted, still at the pre-verbal/pre-coffee stage.

"So just what do you four have planned for today?" inquired Shinichi's mother, stealing the cream-pitcher from beneath her husband's fingers. "Staying in, going out- Shin-chan, you'll have to do something clever to hide that face of yours if you do- or...?" She left the question hanging in the air as she liberally dosed her coffee. "My bike won't be ready 'til this afternoon," Yukiko added sadly, "and we're due at a meeting about those _Night Baron_ scripts in an hour, so I'm afraid we'll be out for a bit. Not that I don't think you can't keep yourselves amused, because I'm sure you can, of course, though not, well, like- anyway." Blue eyes two shades lighter than Shinichi's blinked soulfully at them. "What _DO_ you plan to do with yourselves today?"

"I...wish I knew, actually," Shinichi admitted, glancing at Kid with a mistrustful look. "_Somebody_ was insistent that we be well-rested for today, but he wouldn't say why..."

Ran looked Kid up and down, then glanced at Yukiko with a sheepish expression. "Is it bad that I'm not worried about whatever he's got planned?"

Yuusaku rustled the newspaper he had folded under his arm out onto the table, squinting at it; Yukiko smiled and nodded. "You're very right, dear."

Shinichi, used to his parents' oddities, paid them no mind. "Kid, what _are_ you planning to do to us today?"

"Well..." The thief looked perturbed, but turned to smile at Heiji warmly. "It's unfortunate, but I'm going to have to break my promise to you, Tantei. I said I wouldn't dress you up...or down...but you just can't go on a date looking like that.

"Well. Not on _this_ date."

Taken aback, Heiji stopped with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. _"No dresses,"_ he said firmly. "Or skirts, or, or... anything like that. Just NO. And WHY do I need to dress up? I mean, Kudo's the one who's gotta worry about being recognized-" He ground to a halt. "And wait, DATE. What?"

"No," Kid said, his cheshire fangs beginning to show, "You need to dress _down_. You're going on a date with Shinichi."

Yukiko and Yuusaku sat, plates before them, heads swiveling back and forth like the spectators at a tennis match; it was wonderful entertainment, and they remained in expectant silence, awaiting Heiji's reaction. "Aaack," said the Detective of the West, blinking rapidly. "I, uh..." He shook his head hard once. "No, not makin' sense here. I mean, first off, I am NOT trying to... I mean, don't get me wrong, but- oh hell. Kudo?" He turned to his friend helplessly. "You got any of those sedative-dart things handy?" It was uncertain if he meant for himself or for the thief. "I don't DO dates. And 'specially not with Kudo."

"Oh yes you do," Kid grinned, crossing his arms in smug confidence. "_This one_, you do. I couldn't get the Sax to play in Tokyo on such short notice, so you're going to see the Yomiuri Giants play the Yokohama BayStars. From first-base dugout seats...at Yokohama Stadium. And then you two are going to go to Chinatown and get dinner, on me, and do some of that talking that us _menfolk_," Kid snarked, falling into a Southern United States -accented falsetto, "Are so gosh darned good at."

"...you what? No, no, got it. HOW did you get tickets to..." Staring, Heiji wound down like a toy whose batteries were slowly losing charge. "You said 'dugout seats'? First base?" he asked faintly, and then looked at the other detective at the table. "Kudo?"

Shinichi spread his hands wordlessly; he hadn't a clue, not even one- not that this was a particularly unusual thing where Kid was concerned, of course.

"Oh." Heiji's eyes narrowed for a minute as he stared at the thief's guileless blue ones. And then, rather unexpectedly, he looked at Ran. "Neechan? You said he always tells the truth, right? Even when he's doin' the Big Time Crazy, he won't lie?" Ran nodded, eyes amused if a bit wary; she seemed to be taking this fairly in stride. "Riiiiiiiight... okay," said the detective to the thief, crossing his arms as well. "Tell me why I'm takin' Kudo on a date. Why you'd SEND us on a date. Give me a good reason to go- besides," he added with a trace of longing, "getting to see the Giants and BayStars play from," (he swallowed) "first-base seats."

And he sat back, one eyebrow raised.

Kid shrugged, at ease, and swallowed his half-mouthful of rice (he hadn't touched the eggs). "Because you're important to him, and he's important to me. I'm not his world - and he only gets one weekend every two weeks to live in his world, anymore. Could I really keep all sixty hours to myself?

"I'm not so selfish as to keep him from his world; he can't live in his world without help; there are things outside of the bedroom to see and do and feed the soul. You are currently standing out on the tippy-tiniest of tree limbs for my sake, or for his sake, but either way, you're out on a limb to reach me and I appreciate that. I have the means; I have the opportunity; is that sufficient motive?"

Heiji sat motionless; something in the quality of his stare altered, however, and as it sharpened and took on new focus he seemed to _see_ Kid, not merely as a rather weird (and regrettable) facet of his friend's current life, but as a person- not just the thief, not just the situation. Heiji studied him for a long moment, and something important in his gaze softened; not a breaking, but definitely a bending. "Yeah," he said with a little crook of one corner of his mouth. "It's... I'm good with it."

He turned to Shinichi and Ran (who was watching with slightly overbright eyes by this point). "So, Kudo," he drawled, "ya wanna go on a date? Just so happens I, ah, managed to get hold of these tickets...?"

Shinichi's mouth twitched. "Just this once, I guess."

"Neechan? Can I borrow your -other boyfriend for a few hours? Promise I'll return him with all his parts attached." Heiji hesitated, then, and amended this with: "...or I'll do my best to, anyway."

Ran considered the question with every evidence of sober gravity; schooling her face to serious sternness, she nodded. "Be back by ten. No hickeys."

"Awwwww," Shinichi pouted, unsuccessfully acting disappointed. He shifted his manner quickly, looking to Kid with one eyebrow raised. "Can I be a blonde this time? I've always wanted to see what I'd look like as a blonde."

"But redheads have more fun," Ran quoted, grinning. Heiji looked amused for a moment, but it flickered quickly toward worry.

"Can he, um. Not be, yanno. A girl?"

Kid's grin was anything but reassuring. "I didn't make any promises about not dressing _him_ up," the thief pointed out. "But I'll see what I can do."

From one end of the table to the other, Yukiko and Yuusaku shared a communicative glance. "So I suppose Ran and Kid could come along to get my new bike?" Yukiko asked hopefully.

"Are you sure we'll be done with the meetings before the dealership closes?" Yuusaku said; his wife puffed up with an overdose of puppy eyes and a distraught voice.

"You're saying that just to tease me!" she accused him; unrepentant, Yuusaku nodded.

"'Kiko, of course I was," Yuusaku said, smiling comfortingly at her. "But..." He looked to Ran, frowning. "That will leave you two here alone quite some time, Ran-chan. Do you have anything planned to keep you busy while Shinichi and Hattori-kun are at the game?"

Also frowning, Ran had her mouth open to answer in the negative and Shinichi was looking concerned when Kid held up a hand for attention.

"Actually, I had some ideas about that," he said quietly. "Ran, would you like to go on a date with me?"

She blinked.

Shinichi blinked.

Heiji blinked.

Kid waited, eyes calm. Mouri Ran considered the idea, blue gaze turned inwards; rather tellingly, she did _not_ look at Shinichi for approval, permission or acceptance. "I'd like that," she said thoughtfully. And, dimpling with a fine haze of pink on her cheekbones: "Where shall we go?"

Then she grinned teasingly at Shinichi, laughter in her eyes. "I bet I'll have a better date than you will~!"

Her other boyfriend snorted, still looking slightly surprised. He eyed her speculatively over the table. "Maaaaybe, maybe not," he murmured. "We'll just have to compare notes later, won't we?" Shinichi's gaze shifted to Kid's, and a wry little quirk of a smile curved his mouth. "'Back by ten,'" he quoted; "'No h-'"

Quick as thought, Kid's finger had been placed across his lips. The thief said not a word, just tilted his head sideways with a little grin of his own.

Shinichi's smile softened, and he let Kid's fingertip fall from his lips without protest. "Alright, then. But you _had_ better be back by ten; I want to see you again before things go pear-shaped again."

"Chibi-shaped, you mean," Kid quipped; Shinichi leveled him with an unamused glare while Hattori grinned.

"What I _mean_ is, please come home by ten? We will too. That way we'll still have time."

"...Auuuuuhhh."

The dramatic, airy sigh from the foot of the table drew all four teens' attentions, and inspired a small, quirked smile from Yuusaku. "Troubled, 'Kiko?"

"Everyone's going out to play by them_selves,_ and I wanted to have company to play with my new bike, but if you're all home so late, that'll just leave no time at _all_ for anything fun, and Yuusaku? Can't we be young and energetic and ignore our mothers' simple little wishes, such simple little requests, like we used to never do, too?"

Eyebrows raised with some mix of 'impressed' and 'not my problem,' Yuusaku turned the control of the conversation over to his son with a glance. Shinichi bounced it to Hattori, who waved his hands to try to put off his friend; Yukiko set in on him with puppy eyes and a wheedling chain of rationale that was probably less logical than she was making it sound, and Hattori crumpled.

"Uh. Um, what 'bout if we come back after the game an' go for a ride with you? I mean, it's an awesome bike, and I kinda _would_ like to see how it handles, and, well, a ballgame and dinner won't take _that_ long, will it?" He looked back to Shinichi, practical.

Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "We haven't even left the _house_ yet and you're trying to come home early? Am I that bad of a date?" Beside him, Ran snickered; he glanced warning at her. Meanwhile, her mother had made her decision.

"Okay!" She clapped her hands together, dropping her wounded-puppy look in favor of a sunny grin. "Shin-chan and Hattori-kun, you two come home after dinner, alright, and you can see my bike and Yuusaku's too and maybe I'll even get a new jacket... And Ran-chan and Kid-san, you two just..." She waved a hand vaguely, unconcerned. "Have _lots_ of fun."

* * *

"Kid, um, could you tell me if-"

"Shh."

"..."

"Turn your head to the left a bit."

"Like-?"

"That's fine. Don't talk."

In the large, well-furnished bathroom attached to his bedroom suite, Shinichi held very still, eyes closed, chin tipped up and to the side, neck stretched out taut, hands fidgeting but carefully not clenching at his sides as he tried to breathe without moving. This was made harder than it should have been by several factors.

One, there had been a very soft, deliciously tingly brush that had stroked all across his cheeks and throat, smoothing over the prosthetics which Kid had applied, and Shinichi's skin, with expert accuracy; Kid had told him it was made from goat hair, which (frankly) ruined the romance of it a bit. Another one, even softer, sleek as it had pressed in small curving strokes against his eyelids and around his nose, Kid shortly informed him was squirrel. Now Kid had a narrow, fine-tipped one that looked more like a paintbrush than a makeup brush; with a dark, thick head of bristles that narrowed to an indistinguishably tiny point, it tickled Shinichi's throat and ears intensely as it made wet, cold tracks across them. Kid leaned away, dipping the brush into a small jar of something that smelled rather acidic and strange; then he leaned back in, his hands unfalteringly sure.

"Um..." Shinichi resisted the urge to swallow noticeably, glancing down out of the corner of his eye to try to see his boyfriend's face. "What's that one do?" Kid was currently crouched a very little bit, face upturned to peer at the underside of Shinichi's jaw and behind his ear. His breath was shallow as he concentrated, switching out his narrow paintbrush for a fat, handle-less brush in one hand, the knuckles and thumb of the other smudging details as he went, Kid worked along the line of Shinichi's neck and throat with rapid precision.

"The thin one is mink. This fat one is Takelon. I'm giving you warts. Stop talking."

With his head tipped to the angle it was, Shinichi couldn't see their reflections in the mirror, but he didn't really need to; Kid was far enough along in his makeup process that Shinichi knew he didn't look like himself any longer, and so he was kind of glad to not see the new stranger's face that he would wear for the day. He was bare to the waist, hands and arms held out to the sides to let the makeup on his skin, liquid and powder, "cure" underneath the strange spray that Kid had applied. They looked different too, skin tone and texture; he even seemed to have a few wrinkles he didn't have before, and even the color of his nailbeds was different. Kid moved him around like a doll, using verbal orders, Shinichi's nape, or when all else failed, the top of his head to turn his face to the exact angle that the thief needed.

_Not just a thief,_ Shinichi reminded himself, trying to think about something _other_ than the heat of Kid's body so close to his bare chest, or the pressure of Kid's intent gaze that had been focused on Shinichi's skin, and little else, for the last hour and a half. It was like a heavy marble, or a warm, smooth-polished stone; wherever it rested, Shinichi felt a pressure, an awareness that Kid's eyes were looking at that _particular_ square inch of his skin.

_I guess it's...a boyfriends thing?_ Shinichi wondered, a bit at a loss. _Or maybe it's just an us thing. I've always known when he was around...I wonder if he has, too?_

Of course, the vague but insistent sense of proximity that Shinichi used to feel as Conan, while he chased Kid across rooftops and through the inner labyrinths of buildings, was a far, far cry from the intensely personal awareness of each other that they now shared. With Kid's innate sense for physical coordination, Shinichi supposed it would be hard to tell when - or whether - they were able to acclimate to being in each other's close company like he'd heard so many couples did. But there was no question that, even now, there was a...a transaction going on.

It was an exchange of nonverbal, nonphysical cues; an interaction with the cushion of air rolling between their bodies at close range; a warmth borrowed from knowledge, not touch. Knowledge. Right.

_Not just a thief,_ Shinichi repeated to himself, trying to keep his thoughts on track. His whole skin felt flushed, a little too tight (though that could have been the latex and glue drying). _He's a master at disguise, too. He's a makeup artist, a costumer, a student of human behavior, an amateur psychologist, an actor, a writer of false backstories for every one of his roles..._

_God. I sure feel like a one-trick pony._

"Head right. Chin down. Look at me straight on."

Shinichi did as he was told, resisting the urge to blink, though he quickly realized that Kid wasn't even going to notice. The thief's eyes were focusing anywhere but Shinichi's own, studying his every feature, all the way out to the edges of his hairline and well past the point where the collar of his shirt would lie. The folds of Shinichi's throat, the pull of skin at the base of his neck or - ("Smile. Wider. Teeth, Tantei.") - at the corner of his jaw; every detail, every stress point of the makeup and prosthetics was noted and analyzed by his intense blue eyes. A professional examining his work, Kid didn't even see Shinichi; he was looking above the layer of truth hidden under the makeup, instead focusing on the disguise that he was crafting.

"Okay. Follow me with your head. Don't move your shoulders. And stop clenching your hands."

Kid continued to work, rapidly, intensely, precisely, and Shinichi kept his eyes closed for as much of it as he could, concentrating on following Kid's orders and not on the way that his blood was pounding, his thoughts straying too often to the way that Kid's jeans hugged his thighs as he crouched to examine Shinichi from every perspective.

* * *

"Okay. You're done. You can look now."

Shinichi tipped his head down, rolling his stiff shoulders, and cracked one eye open to examine himself in the mirror. What he saw made him snap the other open too, shock suffusing him. The face he saw in the mirror wasn't a mask, and it didn't look like makeup. From the way that his eyebrows had been spread, tiny individual hairs extending their lines toward each other, to the way that the tone of skin on his cheeks was naturally colored, slightly uneven in the way that anything organic will be, and complete with little moles, stubble, and one or two warts growing a single longer hair each...it wasn't a mask, it was a face.

"I have this weird urge to grab a pair of tweezers or a razor," Shinichi said, looking at himself more carefully, as the initial shock wore off. Now that he took a second look, he could see the face for its whole image, not its individual elements. Shinichi now wore the face of a man only a few years older than him, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, but of a very different aspect. Where Shinichi was naturally gifted with a handsome face, the face that Kid had crafted for him was gifted with only plainness. Where Shinichi took very careful care of himself, in either size, fully aware of the impact that appearances could and did have on others' treatment of you, his new face didn't really care - or know how to care - so much. So his face was scruffy, like a yard that has nothing wrong with it save for neglect. His hands and forearms, Shinichi noted as he looked down, spreading them to test their new feel, were a deeper color than Shinichi's own skin, but considering that Shinichi, in his larger form, carried a constant sickly pall from the strain of the transformation, his new skintone was simply...pale, that of an individual who didn't get much sun or time outdoors.

Looking at his throat and cheeks, Shinichi could tell that Kid intended to put a bit of padding in his clothes; this was no surprise either, as again, his 'illness' took a harsh toll on his body in terms of weight and muscle tone as well. His eyes looked tired, with wrinkles around them that, on someone else, would have made him suggest they lay down for a quickie nap. His brow and jaw were lightly traced with thin, delicate worry lines; Shinichi touched them, then touched more strongly, trusting the strength of Kid's work as he examined.

"_Real_ wrinkles? Not just lines painted on?"

"That was what the paintbrush and solutions were for," Kid explained from his position behind Shinichi's shoulder, standing patiently while his subject examined his work. "Put on a thick layer with high surface tension; break the tension as the layer is setting, and the edges will pull away from each other, rolling onto themselves. Powder the whole area for texture and you have a wrinkle."

"What're they made-" Shinichi stopped as, in the mirror, he saw Kid shake his head with a smile. "Right. Trade secrets?"

"Yup. Is it to your liking?"

Shinichi nodded vaguely, still fascinated by his features. The disguise that Ran and he had put together months before, even with Kid's instructions, seemed to be the stuff of Halloween diversions in contrast to this masterwork. Finally, giving up on trying to notice or study every detail of the disguise, Shinichi turned to face Kid.

"I have just one question," he said. "Why do you always choose ugly faces?"

"I don't, Tantei," Kid chided him, one finger up in reprimand. "Look again. You're not ugly at all. You're just plain. There's not a single thing wrong with being plain; most of the world is, really. Some of us dress ourselves up to look less plain. And some of us don't bother. I've dressed you up as one of the ones who has more things on his mind than looking beautiful. There's no crime in plainness; it's one of the misconceptions that the world has, I think. Everyone assumes that plain people are ugly people just because they're not beautiful. There's a wealth of faces in the space between those two extremes, you know. But everyone glances right past them.

"That's why I choose them for disguises...they're underestimated."

Shinichi turned back to the mirror, studying his new face in the glass, and committed the thief's words to heart. _Just one more way that I can improve as a detective,_ he decided firmly. _One more assumption that I can discard._

* * *

.

_Stay tuned for next week's chapter (Book Five, Chapter Two: "Our chariot awaits.") And have a wonderful week, all!_


	47. Our chariot awaits

_**Book Five, Chapter Two**__**: "Our chariot awaits."**__  
by _ _**ysabet**__ and _ _**nightengale**__  
This chapter contains: horrible singing, baseball, eveningwear, jewelry, bright flashy lights, greymarket merchandise, and cuisine hailing from the far experimental reaches of carnivorism. Nothing truly disturbing this week (we'll make up for it next week) :D_

* * *

_"'Take! me! out! to the baaaaallgame- Take! me! out! with the crooooooowwwwd-'"_

"K- Kurou-han, you sure as hell can't sing."

_"'Buy me some peanuts and craaaaaaaaackerjaaaaack-'_ Who cares? Everybody else's singing too, and anyway it's not even in Japanese. /i'-if I ever get back-'"/i

Japanese baseball fans being what they were, the entire crowd was indeed singing, and in English; it didn't matter whether or not the individual singers knew the meaning of the lyrics,everybody knew That Song. And everybody, but EVERYBODY sang at baseball games in Japan, it was just something you did- the BayStar's themesong _Beautiful Flowers_ by BoA had already thundered through the stadium several times, and they all knew they'd all be hoarse from yelling their way through the Fight Song over and over by the end of the game. Nobody cared. NOBODY cared. It was just what you _did._

In the midst of this aural clamor, Shinichi, currently 'Kurou Seiji', (as 'Kurou' was close enough to 'Kudo' for Heiji's brain to at least occasionally click on it) was having the time of his life.

It was more than a little surreal. For nearly two years he'd had to see and experience everything from a child's-eye-view; everything, but everything, had been filtered through the lens of his transformation and assumed identity. And now? He'd just _bought a beer_ from one of the stadium's Beer Girls, for crying out loud- his temporary identity had come with ID listing his age as twenty-three. He'd yelled along with the rest of the crowd, crowed over two consecutive home runs, argued with Hattori heatedly over the merits of the top players from each team, commiserated with the people sitting beside them over how This Season The Giants Weren't Into Their Game, Were They? and bought a hot dog. Granted, he'd heard that the hot dogs at the American games were better, but _still._

Hattori cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled. "HEY! KINJOH-SAAAAN! PUT YER BACK INTA IT!" Around him, fans screamed and cheered as the BayStar's leading pitcher sent the ball down the pitch. "MY OLD OBAAHAN'D DO BETTER!" A Kinjoh-fan from a few rows down turned and gave him an annoyed look and a rude hand-gesture; Heiji just waved at him dismissively and went back to his own particular version of cheering.

The seats they had- oh, the seats. Kid had _outdone_ himself. Third row in, just high enough to give a beautifully unobstructed view and just low enough that they got excellent detail. And flatly between Home and First... Hattori'd speculated briefly on the way over just how the thief had managed to acquire them, and then at his friend's suggestion ("Do you really want to know? Sometimes it's better not to ask, believe me,") he'd let the subject slide. And somehow the whole awkwardness from the night before had managed to diffuse itself-

(They'd called a taxi; Hattori had spent a fair chunk of time staring at his friend's altered appearance but had accepted it well enough. The kiss between the three had rocked him slightly, but they'd headed out anyway with only a little constraint between them. It hadn't been until they'd gotten to the stadium that things had come to a head, when Shinichi'd been lagging behind a bit and his fellow detective had turned and yelled:

"Kudo! C'mon, ahou, getcher ass in gear-"

-and Shinichi had frozen on the spot and turned beet-red behind his disguise, remembering the last time he'd heard that particular phrase... Hattori had done the same, the flush less visible in his darker complexion but most definitely there; they'd made quite an awkward tableau of embarrassment there on the sidewalk, with people streaming around them in all directions. Blue eyes had dropped; so had green ones. But... after a moment... the green ones had slid back up, and Hattori's mouth had twitched.

"Ass." A snicker, muffled but definite.

Shinichi'd jerked as if struck and then raised an eyebrow and his gaze, sloooowly. "...ass."

"Yeah, well. Not like I could miss it, Kudo."

A snort. "-not like I was TRYING to moon you, Hattori."

Louder snickers now. "ASS. I'll always think've you that way, Kudo. S'kinda a lasting impression, y'know?" The Osakajin grinned openly now, tension draining away as humor lanced the memory and turned it from something horrifyingly embarrassing into something funny. "Though I gotta say, you're a skinny little-"

Shinichi held up a warning hand. "-let's leave out the word 'little', okay? And I'm not getting any complaints."

"Yeeeeeeeeah, could see that." Hattori laughed like the twelve-year-old he had once been and then eyed his friend sideways, still grinning. "Sorry about, um, getting an eyefull of Neechan, though; think she was kind of put out about it. Kid didn't seem to mind much, he just... carried on."

"Yeah, well, he's _good_ at that." They fell into step again together, hands tucked in their respective pockets. From behind his disguise, Shinichi watched Hattori sidelong. _"Ass,"_ he murmured one last time, snickering, and his snicker began to escalate into a full-blown laugh, the kind that isn't satisfied until it's infected everybody around and collected a few friends. The two laughed like crazy people, and by the time they'd passed through the gates into Yokohama International Stadium, the whole thing had become an entirely different kind of memory.)

-and now the game was in full swing, three innings in, with the BayStars leading the giants by five runs, and everything was _great._ Down on the field, the BayStars' costumed 'Hossy' mascot was trading shouts with the Giants' rabbity-looking 'Giabit'.

"You wanna 'nother hotdog, K- Kurou?"

"Yeah- no, stay there, I'll get them this time." Shinichi rose to his feet, stepping over the random popcorn containers, drink cups and assorted game-debris that tends to pile up. As he did so, he glanced at his watch; three p.m., well into the afternoon. "Wonder how the other two're doing on their date?"

Hattori was scowling at the pitch. "KINJOH-SAN, YOU GOTTA ARM LIKE'A GODDAMN WET NOODLE! GET INTA YER GAME, WILLYA?- Neechan's a big girl, Ku-, um, Kurou. She can take care of herself. And as for... Well, he tends t'land on his feet pretty well, doesn't he? Just like a cat."

Shinichi breathed out. "Yeah," he agreed softly. _Just like a cat... soft and oh-so-pettable, but with claws when he needs them; and Ran's got claws of her own. They'll be fine, and later on they'll tell you all about it._ He wasn't jealous; in a way, it was more than a little shocking, realizing just how un-jealous he was. Mostly, he was looking forward to finding out just what they'd gotten up to... which, he rather expected, would in fact include hickeys.

And in the meantime, he was, quite literally, having a _ball._ Beneath latex and powder and all the rest of Kid's elaborate preparations, he grinned a bone-deep grin. "Just like a cat. You're absolutely right, Hattori. You want a soda with that?"

His friend nodded, attention returning to the diamond. "Yeah, yeah. An' double mustard on my dog, okay? Thanks. -OUT, THAT WAS _OUT,_ YOU GOT EYES'RE WHAT? DAMMIT, THAT WAS A-"

* * *

Back at the Kudo house, Ran and Kid were just getting ready. Stymied on how to retrieve something nice to wear from her own place without either running into her father or looking suspicious, Ran ended up relying on the resources, yet again, of Shinichi's kaasan.

"This, um." Ran shifted her weight from one foot to the other, fidgeting as she looked herself over in Yukiko's full-length mirror. "This is...nice," she managed finally. "Very nice."

'This' was a little black cocktail dress, embellished with subtle beading at shoulder and hem. The neckline dipped shallowly below her collarbones, pleasantly framing them and the satin ribbon choker she wore, and maintaining a level of modesty that Ran was very comfortable with.

As for the modesty of its hemline, however...

"Are you sure, um, I can bend over in this?"

Yukiko smiled sweetly. "He's certainly going to hope you'll _try,_ darling. Mmm... needs a little something." She went to her dresser, rummaging around in a jewelry-box for a moment and coming back to Ran with something in her hand. "Here we go; just the right touch." She pinned a small, shining thing onto the choker and turned Ran back towards the mirror. "What do you think?"

The brooch nestled against Ran's throat, a startling, luminous sheen of color against the black ribbon: enamel in opalescent shades shaped like an orchid, centered with a moonstone. Ran touched it wonderingly with a fingertip. "...I... it's _beautiful._ Where did you-"

Shinichi's mother smiled a secret little smile. "Oh, somebody gave it to me once, almost twenty years ago; we were going out on a date, you know, and... he told me that this was one corsage that would never wilt. And it never has. It's just costume-jewelry, but I've always loved it." She touched the orchid with the same gesture that Ran had made. _"Tonight,_ I'll let you borrow it. But maybe someday," she whispered, leaning in close, "I'll pin it onto your wedding dress." She giggled at the young woman's flush and squeezed her shoulders once before spinning her around to face the door. "Now out you go, and have a lovely time, hmm?"

As she moved towards the door, Ran considered the irony that the date which she was so enthusiastically being sent on was, actually, not with Yukiko's son. It didn't seem to matter; and really? She was fine with that. _This,_ she thought with a fluttering in her stomach, _is going to be... interesting._

_Very, very interesting._

Settling the orchid brooch into place, she straightened her shoulders, raised her chin, and stepped through the bedroom door.

* * *

At the base of the Kudos' gently curved staircase, Kid stood waiting for Ran's appearance with a funny little knot of anticipation in his gut.

Kid had gone back to the Kuroba mansion for clothes and to clean up; by the time he returned to the house, Ran was ensconced in the doting preparations of Yukiko's attentions, and Kid took a seat beside Yuusaku in the library. The mystery writer was rereading a well-loved copy of Kipling, and Kid climbed the rolling ladder to retrieve a volume of Hegel before sitting down in the opposite chair.

"Wouldn't've picked you for _Just So Stories,_" Kid commented with quiet amusement, smiling over the edge of his book of philosophy. "I definitely prefer Kipling, but you seem more of an_Aesop's Fables_ sort."

"I am," Yuusaku acknowleged, answering Kid's smile with a fond one of his own. "Your father loved the _Just So Stories_, and he gave me a new appreciation for Kipling's whimsy. It doesn't surprise me at all that you can appreciate them, too."

"He did," Kid said, voice soft. "He used to read them to me."

"'Just so,'" Yuusaku agreed. His eyes were sad. "I didn't mean to upset you before your date."

"No, I'm alright," Kid answered, setting aside his book unopened. "Thank you - I think I'll wait for Ran by the stairs."

"Have a good evening, Kid." Yuusaku's smile was paternal and warm. "I'm no replacement for him, I know. But I..." He stopped, his vocabulary failing his emotions.

Kid smiled as he stood, meeting Yuusaku's eyes.

"Thank you, Kudo-san."

* * *

So Kid stood by the foot of the stairs, waiting for Ran to descend, his thoughts tangling and twisting through him. Not upset, not calm but also not worried, Kid let his vague and imprecisely vulnerable feelings float unhindered through his mind. The luxury to let such thoughts percolate freely, especially as Kid stood idle, doing little but waiting, was a novel one, and he liked the opportunity to _not_ box up his thought processes but instead let them flow. It was very relaxing.

The click of Ran's silver ring on the banister drew Kid out of his reverie, and gently, without the force or paranoia that normally motivated his act of concentration, he looked up the curve of the stairs to meet her eyes, crystal blue against the deep matte black and satin shine of her outfit. There his gaze stayed, and as she descended to him he extended one hand, palm up, to receive hers.

* * *

_I feel like I'm in some sort of movie,_ she thought. _One of the old black-and-white ones from the 1930's. Only if I was, this dress'd have a lot more skirt._

Cool fingers took her hand and Kid's eyes sparkled at hers as he bowed, brushing the back with his lips. When he straightened, she could feel the warmth in her cheeks and knew she was blushing. "You look... really nice," said Ran softly, the fluttering caged inside her growing from a single butterfly's wings into that of an entire flock. It was a peculiar feeling- not a bad one, though; not bad at all.

-although it doubled when Kid smiled like that. "So do you. Delectable, in fact."

_Delectable_ was a word that would linger in Ran's thoughts throughout the evening. She hadn't been quite certain what to expect, except that- knowing her date- he would be stylish, creative, and possibly flamboyant. This almost-stranger in the dove-grey charcoal pinstriped suit, cream shirt and black tie was... she kept coming back to that word again. Tiny points of sapphire and pearl shone in his tie and ears; an old-fashioned black silk umbrella leaned beside the front door like a servant, and his dress shoes gleamed, mirror-glossy.

Oh yes. _Delectable._

That little smile widened as she took in the view and her blush increased. "Shall we?" Kid drew her down the last few steps, tucking her arm quite naturally into his and increasing the movie-feeling tenfold. "Our chariot awaits."

"...chariot?"

"No," Kid grinned, squeezing Ran's hand as he led her to the door. "I just wanted to say that. Bye, Kudo-saaaan!"

_"Back by ten!"_ came the giggling reply.

Outside, a simple black sedan, American make judging by the massive size of it, sat silent at the curb. Kid helped Ran into the backseat, then slid in the opposite side. "Shall we?" The driver, elderly and nondescript in black and white formalwear, started the car and pulled smoothly forward; in the back seat, Kid took Ran's hand gently.

"I didn't have a lot planned," he admitted, the blue of his eyes still vibrant in the early evening sun. "How do you feel about dinner, and a walk through Odaiba afterward? We could see the Rainbow Bridge, or the Venus Fort? There's lots of nice shops there. We could go somewhere different if you'd like."

His fingers were comforting: familiar, despite the unfamiliarity of Kid's suite and tie- and the situation, come to think of it; Ran could count the number of dates she'd actually been on on the fingers of one hand. "I'd like that," she beamed, secretly glad she'd chosen something a little more comfortable than the rather spiky heels Yukiko'd picked out for her earlier. Pretty as they'd been, walking any distance in _those_ would have turned a pleasure into an ordeal. "Are you sure that you'd want to see Venus Fort, though? Most of the shops there are pretty girly."

Kid snickered, showing just a hint of his dogteeth. "And this is a problem for me, why? I could do a quick makeup, if you want...I could be your handsome _tachi_," he suggested, tugging her close. "Slick my hair back, add just a little bit of strategic padding to make it look like I was binding...what do you think?"

Ran flushed, waving a hand quickly. "No, no, I like you as a boy," she reassured him. "But if you don't mind Venus Fort, I would like to go. And see the bridge, and the beach." She grinned, impish. "...And the aquarium?"

Kid turned a little green at that, but notably did not say a word.

They talked on the way to the restaurant, shyly at first and then with more animation and less constraint. Kid soon had her laughing over something he'd seen at Shibuya Station, at the Hatchiko monument. "-and then the dog _behind_ the statue barked, vwoom! splat! went the guy's ice-cream, and both of the dogs ended up sharing it right there on the sidewalk." He chuckled. "I have to say, the original Hatchiko probably would've approved."

"I remember reading about Chūken Hatchiko when I was little," said Ran, still laughing. "I wanted an Akita _sooo_ bad... And only a few months ago Sonoko and I went to see that American filmthey did about him. Kind of funny, how the story got turned around."

Kid leaned back, relaxing against the car's wide seats. "'Imitation is the sincerest flattery'?" he quoted at her.

"In that case," she teased him, "maybe you _should_ be wearing a dress too?"

Kid grinned back, looking down the long expanse of Ran's silk-stocking clad legs where she'd crossed them demurely. "Maybe," he murmured, his voice low and vibrant. "But if I had, then I'd be thinking about my disguise, and I couldn't focus on you completely."

_As if I needed any more reason to blush...!_ Maybe Kid's impudence and Shinichi's boldness were wearing off on her; or perhaps it was Ran's own spirit that made her raise her chin, meet his eyes, smile back and assure Kid with all sincerity that she was certain _he'd_ look just as good in a dress as she did. That startled a laugh out of him, and the look of approval that accompanied it warmed Ran right down to her elegantly-painted toenails.

* * *

The car brought them to Minato-ko, at the base of the Rainbow Bridge; they got out, and Kid walked around to have a quiet word with the driver. Then the car pulled away, and Ran and Kid began a leisurely walk across the brightly-lit suspension bridge. Cars and a light rail zipped past the pedestrian path they walked on; other couples and groups wandered back and forth, grinning and laughing, but traffic was comparatively light. A Sunday evening, with work the next day, was enough to deter much of the crowd, or at least make them choose the rail rather than the footpath to cross over to Odaiba island.

"It's lucky that the weather's nice tonight," Ran commented, shivering slightly; she had a light shrug on over her sleeveless dress, but the sheer length of exposed leg that this particular dress involved gave more than adequate opportunity for the cool, salty breeze blowing off of Tokyo Bay to make her shiver. "It's okay," she said, as Kid wrapped one arm around her shoulders, "I'll warm up once we get moving."

"But I should have warned you I was planning on us walking," Kid countered, shrugging his suit jacket off. Underneath, he wore a grey satin vest that hugged his body with the familiarity of an excellent tailoring job. "Here."

Ran smiled shyly as Kid settled the jacket around her shoulders; she looked at him with some spirit, stepping one pace ahead and turning to look him over as they proceeded.

"Well, okay. I'll keep it for now...just because it's a shame to keep that vest hidden."

Kid laughed, raking one hand back through his hair with a satisfied candor. "Fair enough. So, where to first?"

By mutual agreement, they settled on AquaCity, the enormous entertainment center just over the bridge; six stories tall and sitting directly on Tokyo Bay with a magnificent view of the bridge, it held enough shops, restaurants, bars and other diversions to satisfy even the most self-indulgent hedonist. The _Toys R Us_ alone kept their interest long enough for the sales staff to get slightly jumpy (Kid's ventriloquism among the _Hello Kitty_ merchandise had them looking suspiciously at the stuffed toys for hours after); moving along to the _Shazbot_ hat-shop very nearly ended with Ran acquiring a rather Humphrey Bogartish fedora, just because. "Though really," she said thoughtfully as she tipped it forward in the mirror, "it should be worn by Shinichi, not me-"

...and then she winced a little internally; she'd planned on- well, not exactly _avoiding_ mentioning Shinichi that evening, but... What kind of etiquette did you follow when you were out on a date with one of your two boyfriends? Did you steer the conversation away from them, or just relax and let it go?

If Kid noticed her momentary lapse, he made no mention of it. "Whyever not? You're a detective's daughter, aren't you?" He tilted the brim of her hat at a slightly more rakish angle. "Besides which, it suits you. And as for our tantei..." (he flashed her the smallest grin, just a glimpse of teeth) "...I'm sure there's something here that'd fit him _perfectly."_

There was a deerstalker behind the sales counter among the specialty hats; Ran followed Kid's gaze and giggled.

The cap he'd chosen for himself was interesting; it harmonized with the charcoal-gray suit as if it had been made for it, a flat newsboy's cap done up in velvet rather than the usual cotton or linen. It sat on his head as if it had a right to be there; involuntarily Ran reached up to smooth the velvet, her hand slowing as she saw the smile in his eyes. "I- really like velvet," she offered rather lamely.

"Hmmm. I'll remember that for later," was all he said, but the smile remained when he put the cap away.

The light filtering through from the occasional glass-paned view of Tokyo Bay was fading into sunset. Examining the restaurants available at a handy information kiosk, Ran gravely informed her date that they would _not_ be dining at _Sushi Kyotatsu_ (specializing in seafood), _Red Lobster_ (self-explanatory) or _Aqua Dining_ (four gigantic aquariums… filled with sharks.) He thanked her just as gravely, a faint quiver in his voice. "But..." said Ran, tapping the list, "this one looks kind of nice. What do you think?"

The thief gave her choice due consideration, one eyebrow arching. "I like it, but... I thought perhaps you'd want something a bit fancier? _Sizzler,_ or one of the places serving Kobe steaks?"

"...not after the cows case, no." She shuddered.

"Oooh; point. Then, by all means-" Kid bowed an elaborate bow, hand over his heart, before escorting his companion with every courtesy to the _Longboard Café California Drive-In._

If Elvis Presley's ghost had happened to feel like taking a vacation from his otherworldly Graceland, he would've felt right at home among the shakes, burgers, hotdogs and fries, not to mention the surfboards, diner-style signs and '60's memorabilia. He might have poked a chubby inquiring finger at some of the toppings— the pickles were whole and on skewers and most American establishments, even retro Californian ones, do not include fried eggs or the hot chili-sauce so beloved of Japanese bistros. However, the ice cream floats were just right, the cheeseburgers were fat and juicy, and the cokes… were the Real Thing, even if they did cost more than 300¥ apiece.

And… there was a _car_ parked in the middle of the restaurant. A _car._ Some sort of—"Is that a…" Ran paused halfway to their booth, staring at the sleek, cream-colored vintage auto. "…I think they call it a 'Mustang'?"

"Mmmmhmmmm. Yes. Yes, it is."

That tone of voice did NOT inspire confidence; Ran looked at her date with foreboding. The fascinated gleam in his eyes didn't help much either. "Don't do anything until we've eaten, okay? I don't want to get thrown out." she muttered as they were seated, Kid's head turning to follow the location of the Mustang as if pulled by strings.

He beamed at her, steepling his hands on the pale green table-top. "Why, Ran, whatever would I do with a parked car?" Kid's teeth gleamed white and ever-so-slightly carnivorous as he smiled.

"…"

"Just think of it as the floor show," he soothed her, tipping up her chin with one finger and tapping her nose lightly with a second; the lambent blue eyes were amused and unworried. "and don't worry, it'll be perfectly harmless."

"…." She kept her eye on the car, just in case.

They weren't the only couple there on a date, not by a long shot; and quite a few of the others were even as nicely dressed. As their aproned, carhop-costumed waitress took their orders ("What's a Texas Burger? I thought Texas was a separate country?") and brought them their Coke Floats ("Could you please make my Chili Hot Dog with extra chili? Thank you,") they spent a little time surreptitiously people-watching and guessing at their fellow diners' backgrounds. It was all as silly as they could make it and as light-hearted, and it fit their mood perfectly.

"…obviously a Yakuza underling on his night off. See the full-sleeve tattoos? Steeped in a life of crime, spends his evenings menacing poor _combini_ managers and brushing up on his street-slang."

"I _think_ that's a printed t-shirt, not tattoos. What about his date, though? Wait, no, let me- Okay, she's wearing a white dress under her jacket and she's got plain white sneakers and a book-bag. I'll bet… she's a nursing student."

"Oooh, very good. What about that charming couple over there? The girl first."

"—which one's the girl?"

"The one on the left, in the black— never mind, they're both in black. But see how the elbows bend? Women's elbows are angled differently from men's. The larynx is usually a dead giveaway too, though not always… Well, Meitantei-chan?"

"…vampires? Vampires out slumming?"

"Ran, that's not kind. Goths are people too, you know, and just because they don't have the least clue how to do their makeup correctly and look rather like undead, shambling, zombie pandas, they do still deserve your respect."

"Alright. Reformed vampires?"

"That's much better. My turn now, the ones over by the window…"

The skyline outside slowly deepened in hue as they talked, downshifting through the spectrum from the high haze of a Tokyo spring day into the coldwater-blue of twilight. The Rainbow Bridge began to shine like architecture on acid, its changing colors reflecting off the quiet bay. The two admired the view—they'd gotten a good seat, inside but right by a window—and with a reminiscent smile in his eyes Kid described (very quietly) what it was like to skim the underside of the bridge on his stealth glider, cutting between the neon-lit pillars as if her were just one of the innumerable seagulls that shared the airspace there. He told her about what the underside of the bridge looked like and how someone, somehow, had managed to spray-paint some very elaborate graffiti halfway across; he told her what it was like to bank sideways out over the water, watching your own reflection pursued by your shadow in the dark sea below as you flew.

And in return, Ran told him what it was like to be born as a cop's daughter, the scary nights when you waited for your father to come home for far too long and the exciting times in gradeschool when a squadcar had sped past her school, sirens blaring, and she'd jumped up and down and waved her small hand frantically just in case it'd been Tousan. She told him about the sad days (though only briefly) when her mother had left: learning to cook for him, clean, keep him out of trouble… watching him change from from public detective to private. And then Ran'd talked about her karate, and the cases she and Shinichi'd seen, and New York and Hawaii and the other places she'd been.

They matched experiences and meetings: Sunset Mansion, when he'd pretended to be her father; the Black Pearl case, when he'd pretended to be _her._ "It doesn't seem fair," Ran mourned; "I never get to pretend to be anybody but me."

Kid's eyes deepened in color at the prospect, as dark as the navy sky outside; he brushed away a strand of her hair from her forehead. "Now, how could anybody surpass that?" he teased her, his hand lingering. "But anytime you want…" He grinned, but there was a soft edge of fondness to it. "You'd make a lovely canvas."

Their food arrived at that point, and Ran looked at Kid's chili-sauce heaped hotdog in alarm. "Are you _really_ going to eat that?" she asked, examining her own burger with certain misgivings; it was huge and decked with various kinds of greenery, including pungent-smelling sliced jalapeños. She took a tentative bite and then a larger one; the mix of flavors were strange but tasty.

"Mhrmf-" A thoughtful expression on his face, Kid took a large bite. "-mmaaaaybe with a bit less... I think possibly they got 'chili' and 'chili sauce' mixed up." The thief tasted his denuded hotdog; "Better... not bad; not bad at all."

He took another bite.

* * *

"Kudo? You eat another hotdog, you're gonna burst," said Heiji, leaning back in his seat. "That's _five_ now." He stretched; the game had just ended, with the BayStars winning 9 to 8. It had been a busy, hard-fought game, and they'd enjoyed every minute of it- every hit, every run, every fight-song and shouting-match with the rival fans. It had been great; it had been _better_than great.

Shinichi swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "-urph. Yeah, sorry; I stay really hungry while I'm like this," he said apologetically as he crumpled the wrapper; he'd forgotten the napkins. "Don't worry, we can still go for Chinese. And it's 'Kurou', remember?"

The Osakajin wiggled his hand in the air; "Yadda yadda, whatever. Hard enough gettin' used to yer face, let alone a new name. Again. You tryin' to set a record?" The two climbed to their feet; all around them the crowd was streaming towards the exits, laughing and swearing and yelling to each other at each other in the usual noisy post-game frenzy. "C'mon, this way-" They followed the crowd, arguing the merits of the various players and plays as their feet took them out beyond the din of the stadium into the open air beyond.

Tokyo's version of Chinatown wasn't at all far— it was only fifteen minutes' walk from Yokohama Station East, and the night was, if not yet really warm, not cold. Spring had settled in and the scent of sunwarmed asphalt was all around them, mixed with exhaust and food-smells and the general sensory fugue that shouted _Tokyo!_ at passersby. Still arguing amiably, Shinichi and Heiji passed through the enormous gates and into the light and color of the neon-lit streets.

Around Hattori and 'Kurou', the noise and yammer of Chinatown surpassed even that of the loud Tokyo streets that they were used to. Grown tall like his tousan, Hattori cut the path through the crowd, with Shinichi, slightly less of a beanpole only thanks to Kid's handiwork, following briskly.

Chinatown was a district of strong scents and sensations; vendors' brightly-lit displays and shopkeepers' voices rose and fell in doppler sequence as the pair passed them by: clothing shops and shoe shops and shoes-made-from-clothing shops; shops crammed full of DVDs and CDs, their back walls stacked high with dust-laden towers of VHS; sweets shops and knick-knack shops and jewelry shops, all packed close on top of each other, were tangled in with electronics shops filled with locked plexiglass display cases, and home goods shops filled with the same.

"Ku- ...rou," Hattori called over his shoulder as they proceeded through the crowded streets, more like outdoor shopping mall aisles than places to take anything more high-powered than a bicycle. "C'mere! Found somethin'."

Shinichi ducked out of the flow of traffic, following Hattori into the shop; t-shirts, hanging from an overhead grid like the trailing vines of a forest canopy, brushed against Shinichi's face and shoulders as he proceeded. Though he knew Kid's work wouldn't smudge, he put his hands up to cover his face, instinctively afraid of leaving telling marks on the cloth.

Further in to the shop, Hattori's voice summoned him. "C'mere." Shinichi brushed the last of the shirts out of his line of sight and frowned at his friend.

"How could you have possibly seen something this far in from the street?" he challenged him. "And what is it, anyway?"

"It was on the far side," the Osakan answered, grinning. "Lookit."

Shinichi took in the shirt in Hattori's hands, reading the print across the chest. _You Don't Show The Fighting FACE!_ it read in questionably clear English block print, laid out as though it were a section of newsprint, with filler nonsense words surrounding the larger "headline." "FACE" was decorated with swirls and printed three times as large as the rest of the slogan, thanks to the 'lens' of the hand-held magnifying glass drawn in sketchy, graphite-like emphatic strokes across the body of the shirt.

"I think it suits ya," Hattori beamed.

It did, actually; Shinichi grinned at the other. "You," he informed Hattori cheerfully, "have weird taste. But... yeah." He held the shirt up to his chest, judging for size; and a flash of bright red caught his eye from among the rows of hanging shirts. A tanned hand snagged the 'FACE' shirt from him; and before he could protest, Hattori was making his way towards the nearest sales-clerk with a smirk on his face, his intent clear. "Hey!- okay, fine, fine," called Shinichi in amusement. "Don't blame me when you see the one I found for you-"

Red wasn't a color he normally associated with the Osakajin, but somehow the one he'd just spotted worked as well as the other shirt had for him. Scarlet and patterned with a faint old-fashioned floral design, it was overlaid with mirror-images of the original Godzilla, with the monster's name drawn in katakana down the center. The black-and-white design work framing and complementing the bizarre design only added to it; checking the size and waving at another clerk, Shinichi carried it over to his friend.

And when he saw his shirt... Hattori grinned until Shinichi thought his face was going to crack. "Yeeeeeeeeaaahhh," he murmured. "Heh; 'Zuha'll love that, y'know? She's a huge Godzilla fan."

"Don't let her steal it," advised his friend, tucking away his own shirt with a little internal jolt of contentment. It was the first- the very first- article of clothing that he'd gotten new to fit his adult shape in over two years; the red sweater, while very precious, would only fit him for eleven and a half days out of fourteen. Of course, he had the original for the other times... He mentioned this fact to Hattori as they walked down the noisy, crowded streets; the other teenager hiked one shoulder in a shrug, looking thoughtful.

"So- when this's all over, when ya get your life back, when... things return to normal..." Hattori tucked his thumbs in his pockets, ambling along beside him. "...what're you gonna do?"

"Do?" Shinichi raised an eyebrow, dodging a somewhat drunken tourist.

"Yeah, 'do'. Back t'school, on to college, what?"

Shinichi sighed, scratching at his injured elbow through his sleeve; the bandages itched. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said with a wry smile. "We talked about it a little last weekend; going back to school's pretty much out, though... I guess there's remedial courses. And college? I don't know, Hattori. Kind of a moot point, though, isn't it? It may be years before it's 'all over'. I'm not gonna hold my breath." They walked on a little further, following the main street down into an area where the spicy scents of the myriad styles of Chinese cuisine began to overpower the street smells- Cantonese, Szechuan, Hunan... Shinichi's ever-demanding stomach grumbled. "What about you?"

"Me- yeahwell. Good question." Hattori tucked his chin down, a frown darkening his green eyes. "Tousan's still pokin' at me to consider the Force, and I _did_ look inta it back while you were sick in bed, you remember? It's not a bad idea; I just... dunno. Seems too restrictive." He shrugged uncomfortably. "And I don't wanta be 'Oni Heizo's Son' all my life, ya know? With both of us in the same field, it's not somethin' I'll be able to crawl out from under any time soon."

Shinichi shot him a sideways glance. "...not without doing something insanely dangerous and successful, anyway."

Hattori gave him his own glance back. "Yeah. So- I dunno."

"What about Kazuha-kun?"

"Oh man, _I_ got _**no**_ idea. Who knows? She's talked about college, she's talked about joinin' up with her cousin and helping her run her courier service, she's... I don't know." Hattori's shoulders slumped. "I keep feelin' like she's waiting for something- and don't YOU start, Kudo, everybody keeps expectin' me to express my undying love for her all over the landscape." He growled beneath his breath. "If she's waitin' for that, she's gonna have a long wait. Ain't my style."

Shinichi ignored the use of his proper name and raised one eyebrow. "Yeah? And what if somebody else does it first?"

Hattori... said nothing. Very loudly. The nothing went on for quite a while, long enough to take them to the restaurant that Kid had mentioned to them both before they left. And if the Detective of the West seemed more than a little preoccupied for the next hour or so, it didn't seem to affect his appetite by much.

* * *

_._

_Gouchisousama. *taps napkin to lips, smirking behind it.* See you next week, for the other side of the date...and a bit extra. :) _


	48. Then I want you both to listen

_Good [time of day] to you all, Thievians._

_For several weeks now, many of you have been asking about Kaito - what's going on with him, what his opinion is, what he feels. Well, this is the chapter you've been waiting for._

_I want to state up front that __**I**__ am the one who writes Kaito and Kid. Ysabet does not. Therefore, __**my**__ interpretations of Kaito and Kid and their relationship and their psychology are what you see in Three Thieves. As may already be evident, I have a very different view about either of them than (nearly?) all of the rest of the fandom._

_So I don't promise that you'll like what you'll read tonight._

_But I do promise it's as honest and as real as I have been able to make it, and that the questions and worries raised by tonight's chapter will not go unanswered in the long term._

_I'd also like to thank Ysabet for writing a lovely, heartbreakingly real Ran. – rednightengale_

**Book Five, Chapter Three****: **_**"Then I want you both to listen"**_  
A Three Thieves chapter by **nightengale** and **ysabet**.  
_Warnings tonight: Language._  
Music:  
"No More Room To Breathe," There For Tomorrow  
"Between," Vienna Teng

* * *

Just outside AquaCity's massive footprint, Kid gently took Ran's hand, lacing her fingers together with his own. Full of a good meal and pleasant conversation, they walked quietly away from the busy entertainment complex, which didn't slow its bustling pace til late night, into the relatively less-manic areas of the reclaimed island. With the Rainbow Bridge as backdrop, they wandered unhurried toward the edge of Odaiba, following sidewalks that curved gently under the branches of carefully placed and tended sapling trees.

The island's edge was traced by footpaths and a waist-high fence, latticed loosely so the view from the benches that were set back from the path was unobstructed. Kid led Ran to one of them, brushing it off with one hand before leading her to sit.

The silence between them was still comfortable, so, parting it only for murmurs of _'can I-'_ and _'please'_, the pair curled close together, Kid's arm around Ran's shoulders. They watched the water change colors, reflections shivering and splitting across the surface of the bay, and as they sat, the light chill of the evening began to settle in around them. Ran pulled Kid's jacket closer around her shoulders.

"Ran?" The thief's voice was light and soft, alert but at ease. Comfortable though chilly in his arms, Ran snuggled her shoulder closer into the curve of Kid's arm and smiled.

"Hmmm?" She tipped her head back, questioning. "What is it?"

Kid's eyes were a rich, quiet dark blue on the edge of Ran's vision. "May I kiss you?"

"Oh, yes," she laughed. Turning to face him, slipping one arm around the back of his waist, she tugged Kid close, bringing her face up to level with his. But once they were eye to eye, Ran slowed to a stop, taking in the features of the man beside her with careful, cautious deliberation.

Kid, hesitating the same way, lifted one hand to gently thread his fingers into Ran's hair, palm cupping her cheek with tenderness. They studied each other for a little while, waiting out the sudden frission of nerves that had sprung up between them.

The tension melted on its own, fading away as Kid stroked Ran's cheek with his thumb, bare skin contemplative against bare skin. And once the elastic tug between them returned, anticipatory and unafraid now, Kid leaned forward and gently kissed Ran's cool lips with his own.

She responded: slowly at first, delicately and then ardently, her own hand coming up to cradle the sweep of Kid's jawline and then to card through the soft spikes of hair at his nape. Her kiss was deliberate, still gentle; when she drew back for a second, it wasn't to pull away, it was to breathe in from the shared tiny space between them as if tasting his kiss on the air before moving in again.

Across the water, the luminous spill of geometry that was the Rainbow Bridge continued to dance with its reflection; Ran's eyes, wide open, reflected the changing colors when she shifted back a little. "...you taste like chilis," she whispered, a catch of laughter in her voice.

"Do I? Is that bad?"

She answered him with a shy kiss, lingering. "...I like chilis. What do I taste like?"

"You. And a little of avocado."

The wind picked up just a little; Kid's arm tightened as Ran shivered slightly, leaning into his warmth. "I'm kind of surprised you didn't do anything to that car," she said, stretching her other arm around Kid's waist too, lacing her fingers together to hold him tight. "I really thought you'd try to spook everyone with it."

"I could have, I guess," Kid said, resting his head on top of hers gently. Her perfume, which he'd only absently noticed earlier in the evening, was stronger now, either from the heat of her pulse or their closeness. Kid could discern Ran's sweat beneath the floral scent, an innocent mix of freesia and lilac that he was certain she, not Yukiko, had picked out. It didn't suit her outfit, but it suited her.

The enameled lily at Ran's throat pressed against Kid's collarbone through his vest and shirt as she slid her head up to kiss his earlobe. "You should have set it free!" she teased. "Undo the brake, send it crashing out the windows of the restaurant..."

"Then I'd have to give it wings," Kid chuckled, walking his fingers spiderlike down Ran's back. "We were on the third floor." His arm slid off her shoulder and to her side as she moved; his elbow rubbed the back of the bench as he turned his wrist, fingers stepping from the bone below the small of Ran's back out to the side, crossing the tight curves of her rump. Much sooner than he expected, Kid encountered the hem of her skirt, then the bare skin of her inner thigh where her leg had lifted up to allow her to lean against him; he jerked his hand away, heart beating fast. Both he and Ran sat still, not moving, and Ran's heart was an equally fast rabbit's pace against his ribs.

"Ahm." The strong heat that Kid could feel at his throat was surely the brightness of Ran's blush; his own was probably comparable, but he was trying not to think about that right now.

_"Why not?"_

Internally, Kid smacked his own forehead with a sigh. _I should have known you wouldn't keep quiet._

_"Naturally."_ Kaito Kuroba smiled at the other, one brow raised in mild confusion. _"Why're you flustered, though? It's not like you haven't seen everything down th-"_

_YOU,_ Kid glared at him, _Will be shutting up now._ He sighed, running one hand through his hair; it made little impact. _I want to be a gentleman to her,_ he tried to explain, expression pleading._Does that make sense? I want to treat her right._

_"You are a gentleman by definition, Fool,"_ Kaito reminded him, walking up to the thief with one arm opened wide. _"You suck just as much as I do at this 'interpersonal' thing, don't you?"_

_You've always had a way with words, Magician,_ Kid acknowledged wryly, wincing even as he accepted the offered embrace gratefully. _Why is it that you're always plying me with advice, but I never seem to offer the same to you when you need it?_

_"I'm more private than you,"_ Kaito answered. His chin was hooked over Kid's shoulder still, as they stood pressed together in the hug. Kid couldn't see the other's expression as the magician continued. _"And I'd rather be lonely and in pain than show the weakness of feeling lost. Even to you."_

Kid had no response to that. He tried to pull back, needing to read Kaito's eyes since he couldn't read his voice, but the magician held him tight, limiting his view.

_"Go put your hand back,"_ the magician said. _"And find somewhere cosy and private, and take her there. You know what to do from that point, I hope?"_

_I do,_ Kid said, closing his eyes, as Kaito released him. Kid kept his eyes closed until Kaito had left, giving the magician his privacy, and then turned his attention back to the outside world.

Though the conversation between the pair had taken barely a few seconds of real-world time, the change it had effected in Kid's mood was undeniable, and in fact even more noticeable_because_ it occurred so rapidly. Beside him, Ran pushed herself up and tugged her skirt down, releasing Kid's waist to touch his chest with one hand, fingers gentle on his necktie above his sternum.

"Kid?" The thief opened his eyes, showing Ran his unguarded mood as he looked back at her, and smiled softly.

"Sorry. I got a bit distracted."

"Distracted?" Ran sat up straighter, leveling a no-nonsense glare on her boyfriend. "'Distracted' doesn't make your eyes sad like that. What's wrong? What happened?"

Kid considered Ran's expression for a moment, deliberating carefully. His decision aligned itself in his mind: how much to reveal, and how much to keep to himself. The leaden feeling in his gut made most of the choice for him.

"I'm worried about my...brother," Kid said carefully. The words, strange on his lips, jangled his nerves further, like a second impact on an already struck gong. "...That's the first time I've said that."

Ran leaned closer. "Worried?"

"No." Kid shook his head, a little dazed. "Brother."

Her expression softened as she considered the word. "You both have the same mother," Ran said softly, "and the same father... even if you weren't exactly 'born' at the same time. I've only met him twice, at the park and that night we met up with Nakamori-san, remember? But I like him." She tilted her head back, eyes meeting his. "Is it something I can help with? If I can, I mean; I..." Ran hesitated, fingers still brushing his chest. "...I don't want to intrude," she finished a little uncertainly.

Kid's voice tightened, eyes squeezing at the corners as he threaded one hand into Ran's hair and gripped her nape like an anchor. "If you could, if you can, I won't turn you away," Kid said, clearly strained. "Every time I think that he's okay, or every time that I choose to respect his boundaries, his choices, I don't know if I'm making the right decision. It's been...a while...since I've started wondering if I know how...

"If I really know how he feels," Kid finished lamely, shoulders slumping in a sigh. "I always assumed I did know. We never really disagreed about anything major before. And we don't...he doesn't disagree with me about anything now, either. But I disagree with him. But I have no leverage...because I'm the cause of the decisions he's making that I disagree with..." The thief waved one hand, sighing. "Argh. It's really complicated."

Ran bit her lip. "You'd think that since you're... I don't know, sharing the same head... that there wouldn't be the same problem with misunderstandings; I guess not. This- it's about Nakamori-san, isn't it?" At the tightening of his eyes, she nodded. "Thought so. He never talked about her, not at all, that night he came back with us; but we saw her leaving, and then we met up with him, and neither one looked very happy."

She leaned in, resting her cheek against Kid's chest; her hands tucked themselves familiarly in his belt-loops beneath his jacket, but her embrace was meant more for comfort than anything else. "Is- does- I don't know how to really say this," she muttered, and then sighed. "Does our situation, the three of us, make things worse?"

"...It does," Kid said, closing his eyes. His whole manner was already grave, but with those words, something seemed to fall out of him, a quantity of positive energy that left the thief feeling hollow and cold. "He always says it's not my doing; that his choices are his alone, that he wouldn't have... that even without me, or you, he wouldn't have taken the chance.

"That's true, but..." Kid gritted his teeth together, fist clenching on his knee. "He's killing himself, strangling his own heart. And I'm just carelessly helping to twist the garrote wire tighter."

Ran's hands tightened, the fingers knotting; "Does he see that?" she asked quietly. "If he does, then... maybe he's punishing himself? And if he doesn't, then maybe he needs to see it." She was silent for a long moment, thinking hard. When she spoke again, her voice was very quiet but there was a thread of steel running through it, thin but strong. "I don't regret anything we've done," she whispered into his shirt. "I don't regret _any_ of it, even though I don't want to hurt him. How could I? But... sometimes people do more damage by trying to protect themselves. If he can't see what he's doing to himself, maybe you ought to tell him. It won't fix anything, but...but letting things fester won't either."

Her hands slipped free, slid around his waist and she hugged Kid tight. "And I can't see you doing _anything_ carelessly."

Kid was silent for a long time, trying to think back through the conversations he'd had with Kaito. Had he ever directly questioned Kaito's ability to think well for himself? Kid couldn't remember. The memories squirmed away like wet fish, slipping through his hands with greasy unpleasantness, and Kid gritted his teeth and _shoved_ back against the wall of aggressive static that Kaito was throwing in his direction, piscine imagery and all.

"Stop it," Kid whispered, teeth still pressed together. He leaned harder against the black mental wall, temples strained with the pain of a headache that was building like a thundercloud, produced by the head-on collision of his and his brother's contradictory pressures.

"_Stop it,_" Kid repeated, louder now; against him, Ran tensed and held tight, somehow sensing that the thief's tension was not directed at her. "I don't attack you, so _stop it_ and _**listen!**_"

The silence - and lack of pressure - was deafening. Kid's ears actually _popped_, as his inner-ear equilibrium returned and the tension within his skull, both biological and mental, receded. Curled against his chest, listening to his harsh, thudding heartbeat, Ran lay very still, and very quiet, waiting to see who had won.

_"For Benten's sake!"_ Inside Kid and Kaito's shared headspace, the thief was screaming at the magician. _"Did you hear a single word she said? Can you __feel__ this?"_ He pounded his chest with an open fist, fingernails scratching through the cloth. _"Are you __trying__ to be a miserable little shit, or are you so lost that you don't know yourself anymore?"_

_Very unlike you, Thief,_ Kaito commented dryly, sitting in his windowsill with his face turned toward the glass. Outside the window, the sun burned a firey, furious red, its belly flirting with the surface of a vast and still ocean. _Rage? Name-calling? My my, gentlemen shouldn't-_

_"Stop it,"_ Kid interrupted, stepping forward with his hands in fists. _"Just stop it. Do you do this on purpose? __Have__ you been doing this on purpose? Distracting me from our conversations, smoothing them over with your careful touch? Making me feel confident that you've got it under control, that you're okay, that I can keep on being selfish with no regard to what pain it's causing you? Have you been slipping blinkers on me this whole time?"_

_What if I have been?_ Kaito challenged him, gaze venomous as he glared back at Kid. _What if I have been? What would you do, Thief? What could you do? Does it even matter if I have? It doesn't. You've been happy - you've been blissful. And now you're __mad__ at me for that? You really __are__ the most egotisti-_

_"__Fuck you,__"_ Kid hissed. The thief moved fast, quicker than Kaito could counter; Kid was up and in the magician's personal space, his strong hands like iron on his brother's wrist and shoulder, before a counter-reaction could be prepared. Twin sets of blue eyes glared at each other; while Kid's were clear, absolute, and incandescent with fury, Kaito's were sullenly resolute, firm, and opaque, revealing nothing but the faintest shimmer of uncertainty, far back in their blackest depths.

_"You are not an island,"_ Kid growled at Kaito, shaking him in his anger. _"You think I can be happy, really happy, if I know you're doing this to yourself? If you have to hide yourself from me? How long? Has it been since we fought over him? In the mansion, __when he dropped the coffee__? Has it been longer?_

_"I have never hidden from you. The Poker Face is not FOR that. How could- how __dare__ you think that you could do this? That the pain of us both was for your shoulders, and the joy for mine?"_

The thief's voice was resonant, sounding and resounding within the walls of their mind with the compelling force that a deep, sonorous bell's tone might have. Its power was doubled and trebled with every rebound it made; Kaito was held trapped by Kid's hands at the center of it all, and his eyes grew wide as the thief continued, his whole being luminous with the power of truth in his words. The magician wasn't listening idly, however; the mental pressure he'd been exerting on Kid since the beginning only strengthened, a static and a pressure that sought to scatter the thief's concentration and break the mental headlock that he held over Kaito. Kid simply leaned harder, mouth pressed tight in a line as he hammered his brother's attention with furious censure.

_"Did you think you would save me from our pain? Did you mean to sacrifice yourself so I could be happy, or was it just easier to do that, to distract me from your pain, because of what Nakamori-san feels? Did you forget that I __am__ our task?_

_"I __**became**__ because of your pain, Kaito. I exist because of our mission. Because of __**Tousan**__."_

Kaito was, finally, silent; the pressure he'd been exerting against Kid's mind dissipated, and like the sudden tangled wind that would follow the wake of a thunderstorm, the roar of Kid's energy faded and skirled away in gusts, skittering into the corners of the room and fading back into the floor and walls as their shared body's energy reabsorbed Kid's strength for more mundane uses.

The thief sagged against the magician, and though he was still held captive, Kaito supported the other as he was supported. Propped against each other in the empty ballroom that was their mental sanctuary, the pair just concentrated on breathing for several long moments. Then Kid pushed back, cupping Kaito's face in both hands, and with eyes full of fury's tired embers, repeated:

"I exist because you needed me to, Kaito. You came first. I became to be the other half of Tousan, continued in us. Thief and Magician. We're his two halves, and we'll avenge him. I don't know what will happen after that. But this is not _my_ task. This is _ours._

"So the next time that you feel like walking off of a mental cliff because you think it'll protect my happiness...just look me in the eye first, and then just _try_ to go through with it."

Kaito blinked, eyes reddened and dry. He swallowed, and between the pair passed all the half-arguments that could be said, and their counters.

_She doesn't love me.  
-She does, just not like that._

_The triangle has no room for me.  
-The triangle is not the sum of my - or your - world._

_One of us has to-  
-__Both__ of us have to do whatever you were about to say._

_It hurts too much.  
-No. It's not irreparable. Nothing is._

They were left with quiet, resigned understanding. Kid tipped his head forward, leaning his forehead against the other's, and wrapped his arms around Kaito tightly; the magician hugged back, with the tiredness that true, bone-deep depression gives to a person's every motion.

"And if you _ever_ try to snow me again," Kid added, a growl in his voice now that the immediate crisis was past, "I will leave you in control, in your boxers, on the roof of Nakamori's offices. In the winter."

With a dry, hoarse chuckle, Kaito nodded, sagging against Kid. The thief held his brother upright, resting his chin on Kaito's shoulder as his brain cranked its way through the first wave of contingency plans and schemes. He'd gotten through to Kaito through sheer, literal force, but he had no surety of how long that sanity would last before Kaito's depression swayed him again.

And if he couldn't even trust his own memory of his conversations with Kaito, Kid wasn't sure how he could be certain that he did more good than harm. He needed help to help his brother. Whether Kaito would accept that help, Kid didn't know...

...but at least, he thought with relief,

_He braced Kaito against his right arm, fist clenched against the small of the magician's back, and extended his left arm, curling it out and down-_

-and around Ran's shoulders, fingertips digging perhaps a bit too hard into her strong bicep.

_...he knew where to get the help._

Head tipped down, Kid kissed the top of his loved ones' heads, shivering as the bisection of his attention, inside and outside, strained his already worn-out concentration. Still he clung to both of them, feeling like he'd been through a hurricane, and wearily aware that no more than five minutes had passed in real time.

* * *

_He's shaking. Are they arguing? Please don't, don't hurt yourself.… your selves… Don't, just don't._ Ran held on hard, feeling strange little tremors and jerks as muscles attempted to respond to something that was (and wasn't) entirely on a mental level. She could feel the heat of his body, feel his heartbeat accelerate and jolt beneath her cheek, and she didn't have to see the struggle that was happening to be aware of it.

What was it like, she wondered, to not be alone in your head? Any doubts of the difference between Kuroba Kaito and Kid had vanished like smoke the night that she and Shinichi'd brought the magician home, soaked through and quietly despondent. They were too different—and at the same time, they were _too similar,_ in the way that siblings might reflect each other's occasional movement or turn of phrase. If they'd been totally different, it might have felt like an affectation, but it hadn't and it wasn't and…

…and the body against her swayed and then yanked itself upright as if hands had tightened on its shoulders; conversely, Ran glanced down and saw Kid's fingers clench so hard the knuckles stood out bony-white. The tension in his frame made her think of Shinichi in mid-change this last time, fighting against it and against being seen.

_That's what I mean by doing more harm protecting yourself,_ she thought, anger tingeing the fear in her mind. _Why don't they understand? Why, WHY are guys so—so stupid sometimes? And I have two of them right here, right now, butting heads over just that, protecting themselves and protecting other people, just like Shinichi. Sometimes I think smacking them hard enough to leave a lump would be a __really__ good idea._

_…except that they'd probably go right back to the same idiotic behavior once the lump went down._

It really didn't take all that long, the whatever-it-was that was happening; it _felt_ like it did, but no. Ran felt Kid relax against her all at once, going boneless for a slightly scary moment in which she wondered if she could keep him upright. Awareness seemed to bleed back in fragments; his hand slid up—it was trembling, just a little—and welded itself to her shoulders, gripping tight enough to hurt. The rest of him was shaking too, a fine tremor almost too subtle to feel, like the final lingering aftermath of an earthquake; but his lips brushed her hair, and Ran wrapped her own arms around her thief and held on.

_I'm here, I'm here-_ "Kid?" Barely a word, more of a breath against the cloth of his shirt. "Are… are you both alright?"

"I... don't know," Kid said quietly, his voice tight, hoarse, and quiet. "He...he was hiding from me."

More than just hiding. Kaito had been...and was certainly going to _continue_...actively deceiving Kid, hiding his own pain and Kid's own insensitivities from the thief.

_Because he thinks I can't handle it?_ Kid bit his lip and threw the Poker Face that he'd instinctively readied, slim degrees from locking it down over his lost heart, to the floor of the mental ballroom. A fake face was hardly what he needed right then...and it would ensure he could find no comfort at all, for himself or for Kaito or for Ran.

The mask hit hard, insubstantial and without a defining appearance of its own, but weighty enough to clang with the upsettingly off-key jangle of a tin plate. In Kid's arms, Kaito flinched, then curled suddenly close, burying his face against Kid's chest; outside, Kid buried his head against Ran's shoulder, folding Ran and Kaito "into" each other's space, each on a separate plane, so he could wrap both arms around each of them and hold on for dear life.

His brother had been lying to him. For months. And the only reason Kid could think of for Kaito to do so, the only reason that made any sense to him, was as simple as it was wrenching.

"He doesn't trust me," Kid whispered into Ran's hair, holding her tight and shaking a little as his breathing sped up, ramping toward panic. "Have I not showed him he can trust me? I haven't..."

"Kid? _Kid,_" Ran said, at first gently and then harder, more insistent, as the thief's fear really began to grab ahold of him. "Kid, stop it. Shh, stop, it's okay, don't- Kid, stop it, you're panicking. Kid, _stop!_"

He froze in her arms; Ran tugged him tight, squeezing with all her considerable strength, and laid one hand very heavily against the back of his head, forcing his cheek down to her shoulder to rest. "Shhhh, okay? Just..._both_ of you..._shhhhhhh._ I'm here."

She held him- them- for a while, hoping that her touch would filter through whatever barrier separated the inner self from the outer; there was, Ran thought a little wildly, no way that she could even _know_ if it did or if Kaito could even hear her, if she was making it better or worse or-

_Wait. Wait. It won't help if I panic too... and oh my gosh, of __**course**__ there's a way I can know! Baka Ran, it's right under your nose, or rather it's in your arms... you can just __ask__._ "Kid," she said as steadily as she could, "can your brother hear me too? I can't know unless you tell me... or unless he talks to me. Can he?" There was a brief, wordless nod against her shoulder. "Good. Then I want you both to listen. Please? I really d-don't-" She swallowed, her fingernails biting into Kid's shirt as old grief rose up in her throat. "I really don't talk about this a lot, and it's... kind of hard."

The head against her shoulder was still; encouraged, Ran closed her eyes and went on, wading reluctantly through the swamp of tired misery from years past. She knew the paths, she knew where to find everything she was looking for; she just hated to have to do it.

"When... when my parents split up, for a little while my tousan just- he was angry and bitter, and he, he tried to show everybody how little it mattered to him that my kaasan was gone. Of course, that was a lie; it _did_ matter, it mattered so much that he couldn't think about it, couldn't let himself feel it or say it or show it. He- lost the best thing in his life, and all he could do was wall the pain away... because if he let himself care, then he'd have to face _why_ Kaasan left and, and why he couldn't be what she wanted."

(Ran swallowed again; those had been dark, hurtful, horrible days. She hadn't been old enough to understand or young enough to ignore what she saw, and it had wounded her in ways that even now could hardly bear to be touched. Most of it was cold: sullen and leaden and heavy as a dead body that needed to be buried. But there was a part that wasn't-)

"So he shoved me away, and his friends away, and everybody away... and he crawled into a bottle, and part of him never crawled out. He'll always be less than he could be no matter what he does; and... he'll always know that." She didn't realize that she was crying until the tears that soaked Kid's hair wicked back down against her own cheek, cooling; it didn't seem to matter. "And I will too. And he'll always disappoint himself, and her, and me, for the rest of our lives. And why?" Bile rose up in her throat. "Because he was _trying to protect himself._ He couldn't face the hurt, so he- he hurt himself more, in different ways, ones that he COULD stand, like... biting your lip to keep from _screaming..."_

The figure in her arms was silent; it was a listening silence, though.

(-and there it was, the part that blazed up in unfair, hateful fire whenever she let herself stir the coals.) "He hurt himself and he hurt me. He wouldn't listen to anybody and he wouldn't TALK to anybody, he j-just thought that if he acted like he was okay, he would BE okay. He lied to himself and me and the whole world. How do you think it felt, watching m-my bright, clever Tousan turn into a d-drunk?" Ragged, raw, the bitterness choked Ran for a moment before she could go on; when she did, her voice was a little steadier.

"Kuroba-kun, you... Do you even know how lucky you are? Do you have _**any idea?**__"_

"You've got somebody who'll listen to you any time, no matter what. And he'll tell you the truth, won't he? Maybe if my tousan'd had somebody who would've listened to him and, and not let him drown himself in beer and guilt... he would've stopped. Maybe if everybody had somebody who'd listen this world'd be a better place. Maybe if I'd been older, or he'd trusted more..." Ran's arms tightened. "But he didn't, he just crawled into a bottle and pulled his pain in with him so nobody could see it. And after a while, nobody could see him either; all they saw... was the drunk."

"He's better now, but he can't undo what he did, not ever. _Ever._

_**"Don't do that to yourself. Don't do it to him either.**_ You're trying to crawl into a bottle too, and it doesn't work, Kuroba-kun. It doesn't ever work, all it does is drag the people you love down with you. Do you want to do that, _do you__?"_ Ran's voice hardened a little, the blaze burning higher. "Because if- if you do, then you're a goddamned _coward,_ and you're going to hurt yourself and your brother and me and Shinichi, because you ARE part of this triangle, just like Tousan's still my tousan no matter what." Her fingers bit into Kid's back, the cloth rasping beneath her nails. "And if you don't believe me, come out here and tell me to my face. We don't have to, to _love_ you to love you, you baka!

"So quit! trying! to shove your brother away! and TALK to him, or, or I'll- I'll kick your ass, even if I have to kick his to do it!" Face wet, flushed with fury and hurt and the fierce desire to_make it better,_ Ran thumped her fist between Kid's shoulderblades. She hoped Kaito could feel it whereever he was, and she wished it was twice as hard.

There was a silent, still moment, while nobody moved or even breathed; then, with a long, rushing exhale, the brothers in Ran's arms deflated, tension spiralling out of their shoulders and stiff back like a mainspring unwinding. Both arms lifted, curling around Ran's back and drawing her in close, in a soothing embrace instead of a desperate one, and the voice that came out of him as he murmured into her hair wasn't quite Kid's.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, holding Ran tenderly even though she herself still held her body tense and angry. "I'm... sorry.

"It hurts," he said. "I've always been the popular one, I have fanclubs- and I can live with that, I could live with that, until now he's got not only fanclubs, but a boyfriend, and a girlfriend too- and Aoko doesn't see him that way, she told...him, us, and also that she's keeping secrets from him; and I've tried to give him distance and privacy, but- it just ended up letting me curl up even further, and until ten minutes ago I thought that not even he could understand, anymore, that he'd lost sight of Tousan- that I'd gotten so distracted by my happiness that I'd somehow forgotten- that he'd left me to fight everything, alone."

The voice that spoke rippled, shifting back and forth across the median of mental division in quick, fluid moments. The brothers tumbled over and over each other as they confessed their fears and worries to Ran, towed continuously forward by the current of an emotional dam finally breached. They talked, and talked, and talked, voices low, flipping back and forth almost seamlessly, leaving only the use of pronouns and context to help Ran keep up. They shifted position, curling Ran against them, shifting on the bench to ease numb arms or legs. They tangled their fingers with hers and held on tight, and tugged Kid's jacket tighter around Ran's shoulders, shielding her from the chill of the evening.

And, gradually, the tears and pain left their voices, and soon...they were just talking. About their father, what it was like to attend his magic shows and about the first time that he taught them Poker Face. About dinner at home, Kaito and tousan and kaasan at the table, the excellent food she used to cook before Toichi had died, and about playing tricks on their mother with his encouragement, about meeting Aoko for the first time, before Kaito knew that their tousan - _his_ tousan at the time, long before Kid's birth - was the reason behind their meeting. About doing homework, learning to share duties to each of their strengths; about how shocked Kid had been the first time Kaito had used his magic during one of Kid's heists. About the monocle's clover charm, and the significance and symbolism that it had for them.

And Ran listened, asking questions occasionally. But mostly she just sat beside them, holding their hand, and listened to stories that had never, not even for Shinichi's ears, been shared with another human being.

* * *

There was a cruise liner passing along the shore, full of tourists; its bright lights and engine noises broke the silence that had fallen some time past. Among the cherry trees along the beach, the two (or three, depending on your viewpoint) on their bench sat curled together, leaning so closely each on each that not even the rising wind could slip between. After a little while Ran stirred; the body against hers had grown still enough that she wondered if he—they—had fallen asleep. But when she shifted ever-so-slightly, the fingers wrapped around her own twitched and then tightened.

Ran felt… odd; both weighted down and peculiarly light. The things she'd heard, all the secrets and quiet confidences, they were like keys unlocking doors that were chained and padlocked and wrapped in iron bands—who had Kaito had to talk to since his father's death? Not his mother; from what Ran could glean from all she'd been told, Kuroba-san was… reclusive at best, silent and… well, most of her son's reminisces had been just that, past recollections. He'd talked to Aoko, of course; a lot of his focus and love seemed to spring from her willingness to listen and to distract him from his pain. But she'd been the only one, the _only_ one who'd listened… until Kid had come along.

No wonder he felt like he did about her.

Isolation could allow a person to grow; it could also poison them, send them spiraling inwards and downwards like a broken-winged bird until there was nowhere else to go and they drowned in their own loneliness. Ran'd watched her own tousan sink in his sea of alcohol, self-aggrandization and depression; the fact that he'd pulled himself out to a certain extent was a credit to his own character, but then he'd had reason: a daughter and a fledgling profession. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened to him if Conan hadn't come along when he had; the business would almost certainly have failed, and perhaps Mouri Kogoro would have fallen with it. Suicide by neglect and carelessness was still suicide.

(There was a part of Ran that knew she'd be taking the brothers' secrets to bed with her, alone, and maybe crying a little; nobody should've been that isolated, nobody should've let the silence drag them under. Sonoko, despite her many failings, had listened to Ran when she'd needed to talk... and now she wondered if her friend had ever wept for her as well. If she had, she'd never said.)

Above and around them the dark-barked, sighing trees gave them a certain privacy; the shoreline walk, normally a favorite among couples, was very quiet that evening. The gusts of wind had stolen Ran's hairpins, tugging at the soft knot she'd fashioned until, distracted by the trailing tendrils, she had tugged it free in exasperation; now it drifted over her shoulders and her companions' both as she straightened just a little. "Feeling better?" she asked quietly, not bothering to specify which of the two she was asking—it was a moot point, she wouldn't've asked one without the other. The quiet nod she got in return was answer enough. "Then—let's go someplace. We can walk if you want, but," (and she shivered slightly, tugging the jacket closer) "we could all do with something hot to drink. Okay?" Ran attempted a little smile. "My goosebumps are getting goosebumps."

Kaito nodded; Kid stood, extending a hand to Ran to help her up. Once standing, he pulled her close, holding her as the boyfriend and lover that he was to her.

"I'm sorry, Ran; I'd wanted to treat you, and instead you ended up taking care of me. And us."

Ran hugged him back hard, tipping her temple against his reassuringly. "It's alright. But really? I'm _freezing._"

Kid laughed, and Kaito released Ran, stepping back but keeping his hand on her shoulder. "There's a Starbucks in AquaCity," he said, visibly awkward in the fine suit that Kid wore so effortlessly. "Our treat?"

She grinned. "Better believe it is," she challenged them, relieved and encouraged to see their eyes light with amusement, unworried by her playfully aggressive attitude. _Resilience is good._ "I also want to see the fireworks. There was a sign in the restaurant that said they were going to have fireworks at one AM tonight. I want to watch them."

"We're due home before then," Kid reminded her, stepping closer as they walked. He stroked her loose hair back from her ear, smiling softly. "We have a curfew, remember?"

Ran sighed, leaning her cheek against Kid's shoulder briefly, squeezing his hand tighter. "Too bad. I really love fireworks." They walked in silence a few paces, Ran with a little quiet smile growing on her face. "I have another idea, though," she added, looking over at Kid with a smile that, though it couldn't rival his best, still carried a significant inspiration for hesitation. "Can I pick where we go?"

"Sure," Kid promised, feeling - for a rare moment - the particular unease that is seeded by being on the wrong end of a surprise.

* * *

"Oh, Kid, look at _this_ one! It's so beautiful, look at the colors!"

"That's...very...nice."

"Oh, psh, you're not even looking. Oh, and this one's got gold bits in with the orange!"

"Gold is lovely. The price of gold is up, isn't it?"

"Mmm, maybe. Look, though, it's in little whorls."

"I'd...really rather not."

"Are you sure? It's really very - oh, there it goes. Wait, you can still see it! Look up."

"I-oh. _Oh dear._"

"What's wrong?"

"Well it's, it's just...it's very large."

"Hmmm? Oh. Well look, the little gold one's right behind his fin."

"_Ohgod._"

Ran giggled, tugging on Kid's hand and leaning in close. The thief stood, very still, in the center of one of the many winding walkways of the Odaiba Aquarium. Above him, a large lemon shark slid slowly across the glass tunnel tank which arched over the walkway.

"Well," she offered, grinning evilly, "Sharks aren't _quite_ fish, are they?"

Fish to the right, fish to the left, fish above them... A school of glittering silver minnows sheeted over and around, following the shark like mobile bits of tinfoil; the entire shoal rippled sinuously, enfolding the entire tunnel and its occupants. They were enclosed in fish, wrapped by them.

"You know," said Ran brightly, "when we're done here-"

(Kid perked up, hope swimming towards a sandbar in his heart.)

"-I think I'd like some dessert. Maybe a little taiyaki?" Large, lovely eyes full of what Kid considered to be _pure, unadulterated evil_ crinkled with laughter as Ran leaned in, smiling sweetly. "You know, the little pastries? Look-" and she pointed; "-that blue one looks just like a taiyaki! Don't you think so?"

(Kid drooped. Sharks ate the hope and grinned up at him from the water, smiles full of teeth.)

Ran snuggled close. "I'm really enjoying myself," she told him sincerely, leaning against his shoulder and tucking one arm through his.

* * *

_._

_Thanks for reading. Opinions, squees, complaints, wails, and death threats can be submitted via reviews. Next week, we'll have another chapter for you, titled __"I'm a natural."__  
_


	49. I'm a natural

_Good evening, all! This week we have a somewhat longer chapter than usual; it covers a lot of ground and brings our two mutual dates to a close. We hope you've enjoyed our little excursions out, and you find tonight's feats of culinary exploration, arcade legerdemain and shopping frenzy to your satisfaction. **grin** We certainly did. Have fun! We did some dreadful things to poor Takagi-keiji, but you'll forgive us for that, won't you? ^_^... The Management_

_(P.S.: I freakin' ADORE trying new foods. I would totally try any of the ones listed in this chapter at the drop of a hat. - Ysabet)_

**_._**

**_._**

**_Three Thieves, Book Five, Chapter Four_****_: "I'm a natural."_**

**_A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by _** _nightengale_**_ and _** _ysabet__  
_**_Warnings:_**___ Duck's tongues. Drag. Kid-smackage upside the head. Possible almost-smexin' inna dressing-room. And again, Hattori-bashing (though he really holds his ground this time. Go Heiji!)_

___Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**____ , _ _**detective_conan**____ , _ _**magic_kaitou**____ and _ _**manycases1truth**____ ._

* * *

An untold time later- one which included Kid's unfortunate encounter with a tank-full of puffer-fish, several oversized sea bass and the fact that God or Benten obviously has a sick sense of humor- they had left the aquarium, located a taiyaki-vendor and found a nice bench nearby. His eyes firmly averted, Kid nibbled on melon-pan and tried to ignore the crunching noises beside him. Ran sighed happily. "Are you _sure_ you don't want any? They're awfully good-"

"Quite sure, thank you." He shuddered, wiping his fingers with a napkin. "Dare I ask where you'd like to go next?"

The crunching noises stopped with a final bite, and the detective's daughter dusted crumbs off her hands. "Mmmm, you pick this time. You said something about Venus Fort? Or somewhere else?" She leaned comfortably against him, her long legs crossed at the ankles. The tiny bows on her shoes gleamed beneath Aquacity's florescent lights.

"Mmmm, Venus Fort _would_ be nice," Kid mused, perking up. "I've wanted to go dress shopping together for a while."

Ran laughed, tossing away her taiyaki wrapper with a grin. "I bet we wear the same size," she teased.

Kid's eyes sparkled as he beamed back. "I'm sure it flatters you better. Besides," he added, looking over his shoulder as he stood with mischief in his every motion, "My shoe size is definitely bigger than yours."

Blushing, Ran stood too, leaning in close to the thief's chest. "I think I know why it is, though," she whispered, gaze flicking down the length of his impeccably tailored suit with a smirk.

Now _Kid_ had the grace to blush, taking Ran's hand as they stepped away from the bench. But his eyes told volumes even as his voice remained gentlemanly.

"Shall we?"

* * *

In the little Chinese restaurant which Kid had selected for Shinichi and Hattori's dinner, things were also proceeding...swimmingly.

"Are you _sure_ that's an edible type of...um, Kudo, what _is_ it?"

Shinichi stared at the other's plate. The contents stared back. "I- have absolutely no idea, Hattori. It- wait, did it just twitch?" Their meal had been pre-paid (by Kid) for and arranged (by Kid); it might have been something of a warning-sign that, when they'd arrived and asked if there'd been a reservation for 'Kurou', the hostess' eyes had widened momentarily before she recovered herself and escorted the two to a corner table. After that, things had just... gotten very strange.

"I don't _think_ it moved, Kudo. Kid wouldn't do that to you, would he? To ME, yeah, but to you?" Hattori prodded his own plate's contents warily. The contents (arranged in pleasing contrast with fresh greens and a light sauce but containing far too unidentifyable bits for comfort) wobbled. The flavorful scents were enough to make him attempt a bite, though, and he chewed thoughtfully. "Hm. Bit rubbery but tasty," the Osakajin conceded. "So whatcha think _that_ one is?"

The plate before Shinichi had a somewhat more traditional-looking dish, with what might be thinly-sliced beef and pickled vegetables; there was a small dish accompanying it containing a salted spice-mixture, either for dipping or as a condiment. Taking a cautious bite, Shinichi blinked at the mixture of tastes. "It's... mmm, a little fatty but good. I like it." He examined the dishe's components curiously. "Funny shape for the meat, though. Maybe it's some sort of cutlet?"

"Mmpf." Heiji swallowed; he'd tried out a third dish. "Now THIS I _like!"_ He dug in with enthusiasm. "Definitely pork, damn near bacon. Hong Kong Bacon, but y'can't- mmm!- go wrong with bacon."

"Huh..." With an internal shrug, Shinichi returned to sampling the array of bowls and platters that their smiling waitress had brought them.

There were green things, and brown things, and pale things that went _gloop!_ and submerged when you jiggled their platter; they were all, for the most part, tasty and quite unidentifiable. Chinese was distinctly not something that either the Detective of the East nor the West happened to be proficient in, and not for the first time Shinichi considered all those other investigators- the ones who specialized in this cuisine or that, or who were master chefs. Maybe, he thought as he checked something that he was relatively certain was Bird's Nest Soup, those guys were on to something.

The dishes just kept coming; by Round Three, they were both full to bursting and ready for dessert. As their waitress, a very pretty young woman in a blue cheongsan, began to clear away the platters, Shinichi drew her attention to several of the more delicious of the lot. "Err- could you tell me, please- what was this?"

She beamed. _"Duck's Tongue_. Very good Taiwanese delicacy!"

"...oh. Okay. And this one?" He pointed to the dish (now empty) that had held the pickled-vegetable-and-oddly-sliced-meat mixture.

_"Crispy Fried Intestines._ Did you like? Must have, all gone!" Efficiently she stacked the many platters and bowls. "You have good taste, try new things. You friend, he say give you interestingdinner!" Her Japanese was strongly accented and broken to an almost artificial standard, terribly stereotypical. "He must be good friend, no?"

"Uh. Yeah-" Hattori's dark coloring seemed to have lightened a shade or three. "He's, he's, uh. So... what was that, then?" Shinichi nodded towards a scraped-clean platter, the one Hattori had dubbed 'Hong Kong Bacon'.

"Ooooh, _very_ traditional dish! _Fragrant Pig's Ear In Aromatic Sauce!"_ With another of her sparkling smiles, the waitress vanished around the corner into the kitchen, leaving them alone for the moment. The two avoided each other's eyes.

"...Urp. well... _Said_ it tasted like pork," muttered Heiji.

"Intestines. I ate intestines."

"An' we both ate duck's tongues. Those were the chewy bits, I guess... Hey, Kudo, you s'pose they tasted us back?"

As they contemplated this awful thought, the waitress appeared again. "You like dessert? House Special sweet dish tonight, very good!" she enthused.

"-it doesn't have any duck'r pork in it, does it- or, or intestines?" asked Hattori warily; the young woman giggled, one hand over her mouth.

"You FUNNY man! That only on Fridays! No, tonight we have _Cassia-Flower Crystal Jellies._ Very pretty, very good." She leaned over the table, her center-fastened cheongsan giving them a very nice view. "Try? You like, I sure!" she wheedled, large dark eyes smiling at the two.

"Ulp. Um... okay."

Hattori glared at his friend as soon as the waitress had vanished into the kitchen. "Kudo!" he hissed. "What'f the damn thing has, dunno, snake milk or cow's feet're somethin' in it?"

"Can it, Hattori. It'll be okay-"

"Oh right, like the intestines were okay? You oughta be ashamed've yerself, you just didn't wanna disappoint her 'cause she's got her top frog unfastened!" Shinichi yelped, but Hattori wasn't finished- though an informed watcher could have told from the twitching at the corner of his mouth that the Osakajin was far from serious. "You got two, count 'em, _two_ Significant Others an' yer still lookin' down women's dresses?" Fiery red, Shinichi opened his mouth to respond indignantly, only to be ridden right over. "I mean, what'd Ran think? And Kid? Don't tell me they wouldn't have somethin' to say about you ogling Chinese college girls!"

"-you caught that too, huh?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, her books're stacked over by the register. Biochem major, probably in the Honors course, she's got some tough classes goin' on. An' anyway, nobody does a pidgin-Japanese accent that perfectly without tryin'."

"Mmhmm. And anyway, I was NOT ogling her-"

"Kudo, you damn near had to fish yer eyeballs out've her dress. I _said_ that guy was a bad influence-"

"-and I- wait." Incredulously, Shinichi pointed at Hattori. "You're saying that getting involved with Kid has made me notice the opposite sex _MORE?"_ Nonplussed, the other detective stared at him. "I suppose it could have, though," Shinichi conceded graciously. "I mean, I've seen him in drag before- he made a great librarian. And a twelve-year-old girl, come to think of it. Once as that maid, and then a nurse when I was in the hospital. And there was that time he dressed up as Ran, no, that was TWICE he did that..."

Hattori closed his eyes, allowing his forehead to smack down into his palm. "Kudo? I. Do. Not. Wanna. Know, okay? You win, prize's all yours, I give up, whatever. Just- aaagh! Now I got that in my HEAD! He- Kudo, he never- Oh god, please, PLEASE tell me he's never... never disguised himself as Kazuha?" Green eyes pleaded between Hattori's fingers. "Please?"

"Not that I know of. Yet, anyway. But Hattori?"

"...yeah...?"

"Don't kiss her unless you're _absolutely sure_ it's her, okay? Kid's got wandering hands."

"..."

Mercifully, that was when their dessert arrived.

* * *

Less distance away than Hattori would have liked, had he been aware of it, Kid's 'wandering hands' were fully focused on the task he had set them to, and Ran - among others - was duly impressed.

"Oh, wow, Kid. Oh, wow! Don't stop, keep going, you're amazing! How - how do you _do_ that?"

Kid looked over his shoulder at Ran with a grin, his face lit by the multicolored glow of the Pachinko machine in front of him. "I'm a natural," he said modestly, just before the machine rumbled, dinged, and cashed out the twelfth significant payout of the evening.

Ran already had three ball baskets on her arm, and as Kid's payout rattled down into the collection dishes, she crouched carefully, trying to be mindful of her extremely short skirt, to begin ladling the balls into the least full of the baskets. Kid was playing on an 'old-school' type machine, where the odds of falling into a sequence of jackpots - known as "fever mode" - was less likely than on the majority of the machines in the Chinatown pachinko parlor that the thief had chosen. Most of the machines were glittery and noisy, bells going off every once in a while as players won a payout of fifteen or twenty-five token balls; Kid's machine, more mechanical and less digital than the rest, only lit up when he hit jackpot. Which, Ran considered, wasn't really saying much.

Kid pulled the throttle on the machine, sending a large quantity of balls through the pin network as he worked on a _jitan_-mode payout; Ran blinked and blinked again as several of the balls seemed to _leap_ between pins, guiding themselves down toward the blossom-shaped ball catcher at the base of the machine. The blossom was a little aid which appeared after a certain pattern of successes and misses, designed to make it easier for players to win a second or third jackpot after earning one through determined work, but Kid barely needed it. He'd already had a chain of eleven jackpots before this one, most of which had triggered the machine's _kakuhen_ mode, a system by which the odds - and amounts - of gaining subsequent jackpots increased with every successive payout. Even considering the aid of the _kakuhen_ mode and the _jitan_ blossom, though, Kid was doing far better than logic or odds said he should.

"I'm very sorry, but I must interrupt." Ran winced as the pachinko parlor manager spoke severely. He had taken up a position behind Kid's opposite shoulder after the thief had achieved three jackpots in his first six minutes at the machine; the manager had remained there, eyebrows climbing, as Kid showed no evidence of cheating the machine, but his payout continued to rise exponentially. Ran tried to look harmless as she began to fill a fourth ball basket, listening to the manager as she did.

"Honored customer, I am afraid there is another guest whose favorite machine is this one, and I am dreadfully sorry to even suggest such a rudeness, but he truly looks forward to his appointment with this _particular_ machine each week. I would be most grateful if you would not make him wait very much longer to have his turn?"

Ran caught the fangy side of Kid's crooked smile as the thief turned away from the machine's bright display, offering a pleasantly vapid expression in exchange for the manager's thin excuse to kick him out. "Surely I don't want to keep another customer waiting," he said cheerfully, standing and bowing lightly to the awkward-looking man just behind the manager's shoulder. "And I would hate to take all the luck which his favorite machine has stored up all week for his sake! I will take my leave, with my thanks to you." Another little bow, and he stepped away, offering his arm to Ran as he did.

The manager, with superfluous gratitude that everyone present knew was a facade, did Kid the 'honor' of personally counting his winnings and reluctantly presented him with a voucher for the total quantity of balls won. Voucher in hand, Kid led Ran away from his machine toward the token exchange counter.

"What did you _do?_" she hissed, as soon as they were far enough enfolded into the noise of the parlor to ensure relative privacy. "Did you rig it?"

Kid's smile was mellifluous as curled her fingers tighter around his elbow. "Of course not. I'm just very lucky with Pachinko, I suppose."

"You _suppose?_" Ran intended to continue, but Kid quickly stepped ahead, leading her to the payout counter of the parlor briskly and foregoing further conversation for the moment. He offered his voucher to the attendant with a casual air, but couldn't keep the smirk from his face as the man blinked, reread the value, and stared at Kid with a somewhat dumbfounded expression.

"I...I'm sorry, honored guest, are you...sure that this is the right amount?"

"Your manager wrote it out for me himself," Kid answered, smiling blankly. "Did he leave out a zero?"

The attendant boggled, wiping his brow self-consciously. "No, I believe it's all appropriate," he said, bowing. "I am so sorry, I simply thought I'd...check."

"Well, as long as it's alright," Kid shrugged.

"What...would you like as your prize, sir?" the attendant asked gamely, his smile a little awkward.

Kid scanned the displayed list of prizes with feigned boredom. "Oh, I don't know. What's your highest ticket item?"

The clerk rallied himself, drawing his shoulders up and addressing the thief with forced enthusiasm. "We have some excellent prizes for you, sir. You may be interested in our excellent miniature computers. They're netbooks by Samsung, model XKC-" He trailed off as Kid waved an unimpressed hand.

"And how many of them can I get for what I've won?"

"Ahm, sir, that would be...about six. And, ahm, 14000 yen's worth on your voucher remaining."

"I'll take six of the computers, then, and several of those knockoff Bulova watches to make up the difference," Kid decided. "Could you give me a bag for those?"

The clerk did his best to look confident. "Ah, yes, sir."

* * *

Kid led Ran out of the pachinko parlor and into the trade shop two storefronts down, where a disarmingly pleasant and unsettlingly cloying young lady of the yakuza purchased his six computers and four watches for just a bit below the full sum of their market value. With around ninety thousand yen tucked in a snug bundle in his breast pocket, Kid led Ran into the cooling night air of Yokohama's Chinatown, a smug little grin on his face.

"...What?" he asked after a block or so, as Ran continued to follow him in silence, her stare rather fixated.

"What?" Ran repeated, her voice a little strident. "That was a 2500-yen-payout pachinko parlor! You walked away with 90,000¥! And you want to know _what_?"

"You're squeaking, Ran," Kid chided her, slipping his arm around her waist to pull her close, his expression hopelessly smug and his voice shamelessly velvet as he laid a soft kiss on her cheek, just past the corner of her mouth. "Where did you think I got all my money from, anyway? I'm not about to fritter away my kaasan's fortune on my own private little ventures."

"But! B-but but-"

"And now you're making charming motorboat sounds... Is it really all that terrible?" He slowed their steps as they moved out of line with the crowd, stopping against a brilliant backdrop of neon signage that silhouetted their every move. "I _didn't_ cheat; much too gauche. And really, unnaturally good luck and the skill to apply properly it isn't cheating in the least." Kid's breath tickled along Ran's skin, lips tracing a slow path back to just below her ear. "I danced with Lady Luck," he half sang, half whispered, "and She danced with me..."

Ran shivered; against the changing lights she should have felt exposed and vulnerable, but the confusion of colors seemed to conceal as much as reveal. "B-but they- that was- it was so_much-"_ He was warm, arms rising to tighten around her; she drew in a sharp breath as Kid nipped her earlobe and then kissed it.

"Yes, it was. And they'll make it all back before midnight, riding on the rest of the hopefuls that will crowd their parlor. Some of _them_ will win too." She could feel him smile against her skin. "Word travels fast around here; and Benten is reluctant to leave a temple where she's been so well received."

There were skillful fingers toying with her hair; she felt them flicker and twist, felt something cool and infinitely delicate slide along her cheek. "-what- _Oh!"_ The orchid that Kid had produced out of nowhere was deeper in color than the one that Ran wore at her throat but deliciously soft against her skin. Still carried by the high that his run at the pachinko machines had given him, the thief in her arms pulled back a little as she examined the flower, neon spilling across his face and burning like lightning in the depths of his eyes. _"Not_ really so terrible, you see?" Kid murmured, and he tucked the orchid into her hair before suddenly drawing back, spinning her around in the curve of one arm like a dancer to catch her in the other and dip her back and back and _back,_ low to the pavement before he kissed her.

From the sidewalk crowd came a wolf-whistle or two; when they broke apart, Ran's earlier thought came back to her as she regained her balance with heat burning in her cheeks: _It really IS like being in a movie._

_And it's not over yet!_ "So," she said a little breathlessly, "where to next?"

Ran's date beamed at her, slipping his arms around her again and leaning in close; little devils of mischief danced in his eyes. "How," he breathed into her ear, lips just grazing the soft skin below, "do you feel about dessert?"

* * *

When two more servings of the jewel-like jelly dessert arrived at their table, the two detectives (who had each made their peace with intestines, tongues and other parts of the animal kingdom on the grounds that a) they'd been tasty and b) what was done was done and at least they hadn't been cow-shaped) sat upright, simultaneously looked at the two empty seats across from their own, looked at each other and then at the restaurant door. This exercise in synchronized deduction was rewarded with a payout of one International Jewel Thief and one Detective's Daughter; the latter looked somewhat mussed and flustered, but the former seemed remarkably pleased with himself.

"Anybody here not see this comin', raise their little hands," remarked Heiji to the air as Kid and Ran reached the table; he seemed resigned to the situation. "You two have a good date?"

"Oh, _excellent,"_ purred the thief; if he'd been any smugger, canary feathers would have decorated one corner of his mouth. "And yourselves?"

"It's been interesting," murmured Shinichi, his eyes glazed slightly over. It was hard to know where to look, really- Ran was flushed and glowing and gorgeous, wearing an outfit that ran remarkably close to a few fantasies he'd had in the past; and the cut of Kid's suit was doing significant damage to Shinichi's composure. The words _legs_ and _shoulders_ and _oooh_ kept wandering through his mind as he tried to gather enough braincells to formulate a further response... only to come to a full stop as he caught sight of the way Ran was fidgeting with how her hair lay along the side of her throat. One look was all it took, and he fixed a wounded gaze onto Kid's.

_"Hickey._ That is SO unfair."

"Mmmwell, you could ask Hattori-han if he'd cooperate and give you one in return," said Kid, sincerity dripping from his voice. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind-" As Heiji's reaction to this suggestion resembled what could only be called 'interpretive dance', it didn't seem likely that his services would be required; Kid cocked his head to one side, watched him for a moment and then added smoothly, "-or you could make an appointment with me for later. I believe I might possibly have an opening."

"You know, I don't think I've thoroughly investigated that previously," Shinichi returned, volleying the innuendo unflinchingly back at the thief. "We'll have to invest some significant resources into exploring those sorts of opportunities in the near future."

"Um, _guys?_" Ran's interjection was emphasized, perhaps a bit strained. She glared from one to the other, one eyebrow raised. "We're in _public,_" she reminded the pair, "And it's _impolite_ to have foreplay across the dessert table." Ran tugged on her hair, finger-combing it more thickly over her shoulder and neck where Kid's hickey peeked out from beneath the edge of her ribbon choker. "And it's rude to Hattori."

"Thanks, Neechan," the fourth wheel in question said gratefully, looking like he was sincerely considering crawling under the table to get out of the booth and out from between Kid and Shinichi's smoldering repartee. "All that intestine an' pig's ear seems to be settlin' a bit on the uneasy side."

"Don't complain. At least I didn't feed you _Emperor's Potent Rod and Jewels_. Or fugu," Kid replied offhandedly, holding Shinichi's eyes across the gap between them.

"You wouldn't!" Ran, horrified, slid into the seat next to Shinichi. "You wouldn't feed them fugu. Would you?"

Now Kid turned his gaze to her, brows raised in gentled disapproval. "You should know I wouldn't," he chided her, reaching across the table to stroke her hair back from her neck and tuck it behind her ear. The purpling mark just above her collarbone was bared for their view; while Ran fidgeted and resisted the urge to blush further and Kid turned back to Hattori, Shinichi's gaze swung left, fixated on the bite mark so close he could almost taste it, and began to glaze over again.

"Of course not, Tantei-han," Kid was saying, at ease with the Osakan detective now that he'd set aside the one-upmanship games of flirtation or ego. "I wouldn't even eat fugu, and I trust my own luck very strongly. There are some risks which only the rich, disillusioned, or excessively egotistical ought to undertake, and at that, it's only in the hopes that they'll fail and kindly remove themselves from our company."

Hattori snorted, reaching for his drink with a wry grin. "Wouldn't'a picked you for a Darwin Award subscriber," he grinned. "Gotta say I agree to some extent. I don't think it's right to set 'em up for any of that business, but if they walk in on their own, well, I'm not nobody's babysitter, you know?"

"My thoughts exactly," Kid grinned, purring around the rim of a dewy water glass. "Isn't it a treat to actually agree on something for once?"

While Hattori figured out what response he could offer which wouldn't land him in a fundoshi or a pink maid's dress (again), Shinichi leaned across the table in front of his friend to snag Kid's glass out of his hand.

"That's mine," he informed the thief, cheerfully glaring at him.

"_Was_ yours," Kid corrected him, daintily lifting the glass back out of Shinichi's hand and draining it. "What do you take me for, anyway?"

"Anything I can pin on you," Shinichi answered, with fangs.

"_Boys,_" Ran reminded them firmly, with the _Tousan, if-you-touch-that-beer-can-I'll-dent-your-hand_ tone of voice in which she specialized. "_Anyway,_ after we finish our desserts, would you two like to come shopping with us? Kid and I had thought we'd like to see Venus Fort."

"Oooh, ooh, I know! _We_ dress up, and _you_ thin your wallets!" Kid trilled, before a trio of equally unimpressed glares - the strongest one coming from Ran's direction - made him smirk his way into silence.

* * *

The trip was a fairly short one; Kid's nondescript driver and sleek black car showed up with suspicious promptness. While three in the back seat made a rather tight fit (Kid obligingly sat up front), the drive was enough to settle Heiji's nerves and reassure him that he wasn't about to be dumped somewhere/locked in the trunk/dressed up and put on display. It wasn't that Kid let up on him- anything but- it was merely that the topics of conversation remained light enough to be entertaining without entirely stomping all over the Osakajin's ego.

They had perhaps two hours left if they were to make it home before ten as promised; and then...

Wedged in between the door and Ran, Shinichi listened to Hattori's play-by-play description of the _Giants_ vs. _BayStars_ game, and thought silently about the nature of time. Before... before Haibara's black box, before Ran's knowledge of his changed state, before Kid... Before all that, his time had dragged; cases had helped, of course, but time spent as Edogawa Conan had equaled time wasted pretending to be a child and doing childish things.

But now he was on a schedule of 276 hours of Conan-time and 60 hours of Shinichi-time, more or less; his clock had two alarms, two phases... Hell, his _life_ was bisected in two. And, watching Ran and Kid's faces as they talked idly with Odaiba's lights reflecting onto their features in fantastical patterns...

...he couldn't find it in himself to be sorry. Not any more.

_I want- I wanted- my old life back. Now? I don't. I want to make something more of __this__ one._

"Yen for your thoughts, Tantei?"

Startled, Shinichi blinked and looked at Kid, who was leaning one one elbow at an improbable angle between the seats. The thief's gaze, blue and bottomless as the deepest waters in the Sea of Japan, laid lightly on his own: curious, thoughtful. And Shinichi could only smile wryly and shake his head.

"They're not even worth that much." And they weren't, really; all he was doing was paying attention to something he'd already realized long since.

* * *

"So, tell me; does this-" (Kid turned in place) "-make me-" (he placed one hand on his hip, extending the other over his head) "-look fat? Honestly now."

"Humongous," deadpanned Heiji. "HUGE. Y'could use yer hips as auto airbags. And your ass looks wide enough t'need an extra seat've its own on an airplane."

The thief looked at him chidingly over one chenille-clad shoulder and tsked. "Behave, Tantei-han, or I'll be forced to remember that my promises to you did _not_ preclude your acquiring temporary tattoos in highly visible places. Or do you truly wish to spend the next few days decorated with bright blue graffitti?" Hattori ulped and held his peace.

Somehow, in some mysterious fashion known only to Phantom Thieves... their party had now gone from a 3/1 male-female ratio to a 2/2 balance. They had been wandering through the first floor of Venus Fort when Kid had simply vanished for a few moments; he'd rejoined them quite unobtrusively bare minutes later, and had in that interval acquired what could only be deemed Accessories Of The Female Kind. His jacket and tie had vanished; his dress-shirt had been opened a few strategic buttons to display quite realistic if modest cleavage; his walk and the swing of his arms had changed. And his face- it was a very subtle thing, but somehow the cast of Kid's mutable features had shifted indefinably from male to female.

He looked... as if 'he' did not necessarily apply. Or perhaps did, but only if 'she' applied as well. And moreover, he looked _hot._ Sleek, stylish, rakish; poor Heiji had nearly gone into cardiac arrest.

And now Kid and Ran were trying on things at a ladies' boutique and showing them off. In tandem. The SAME outfits, at the same time.

"What do you think?" Shyly, Ran turned in place before the two detectives as well; the dress that she and Kid were both displaying was teal blue chenille knit, softly draped and on the fluffy side. The lines of the dress gathered at one hip; as Shinichi's girlfriend peered into the full-length mirror beside the dressing-rooms, the slit below the soft folds moved with her distractingly, and she smoothed the fabric into place. Beside Ran, Kid did the same thing, and several of Shinichi's remaining synapses fused at the double image. "Do you like it? It's so soft-"

Helplessly, all Shinichi could do was nod.

The next outfit was green, a linen jumper decorated with frayed denim, russet sequins, and open zippers, the bronzed teeth shining with an industrial-chic sort of charm along the asymmetrical dropped shoulder and angled waist of the garment. It was definitely a fashion-forward design, one that on a less confident woman (or women, as the case happened to be) would have looked awkward and presumptuous. On Kid, the dress clung like a glove, curving in and up from his hips, hugging his ribcage with expertly tailored piecing, then flared out to form the almost shelf-like bodice of the low-necked contraption. He turned, flaring the light linen out from his hips, and his legs (in matching green high-heels snitched from the front of the store) - especially his tight, rounded calves - had even Hattori seeing stars.

Beside him, Ran made the same dress, paired with a pair of modest denim flats, look very _girl-next-door_ and sweet. The neckline that stretched suggestively just below the curve of Kid's breasts instead draped across the top of hers, forming a sweetheart dip that flattered the slightly embarrassed expression on her face.

Again, Shinichi just stared; the pair of them were two variations on a theme, matched down to haircolor and the butter-tan shade of their smooth arms. Beside him, Hattori jabbed an elbow into Shinichi's ribs, grinning despite himself.

"Which one d'ya like better?" he teased, ready to wave the question aside in the next moment. But Kid, catching the detective's comment, minced forward, heels clicking, his fingertips delicately lifting the hem of his skirt across his thighs.

"Is that even a question you can answer, Tan~tei?" the thief asked, his voice rolling the syllables prettily. He looked over his shoulder at Ran, who concocted her best _being as naughty as I'm not embarrassed to be_ expression for Shinichi's benefit, then back at their boyfriend with a casual smolder in his eye. "One's so sweet and beautiful...and one's just so much _trouble_..."

While Shinichi's brain sparked, futilely trying to string together some grammar and maybe a verb or two, Hattori let his head fall into his hands. "Should I jus' shove y'all three into a dressin' room right about now? Sheesh, you guys're _shameless_." He paused, peeked between his fingers at Trouble personified, and sighed. "_You,_ 'specially."

Kid gave him back an utterly delighted grin. _"'Imitation is the highest form of flattery,'"_ he quoted for the second time that evening— he swept Ran with a long, lingering glance that left her tingling from crown to sole—" and there's so much here to admire, don't you think?" The teasing note left the thief's voice for a moment, and the softness that remained behind gave Heiji pause.

He regarded thief and detective's daughter with a thoughtful eye; the latter was blushing like a rose under the threefold focus she was receiving, pink edging Ran's cheekbones and making her eyes sparkle. It occurred to Heiji in that moment to wonder just what Kazuha would look like, all flushed and shining—he'd known her for _how_ long, and he'd never given her a reason to look that way…

...and why was that, anyway? _If Kudo can do it- if the frickin' thief can do it- I damn well can too. And maybe,_ thought the Detective of the West, _maybe I oughta look into that sometime soon. Might be interesting._

Speaking of Kudo... From beside him, Shinichi had managed to finally dredge up enough brain-cells to answer Heiji's original question. "Ohhh no. There is NO way in Hell I'm going to pick between those two," he stated feelingly. "That's how ancient Greek wars got started, right? I might as well go jump off the Rainbow Bridge than choose who to give _that_ apple to." Backing away a step or two, the detective shoved both hands into his pockets. "And anyway," he added, softer and much, much smugger, "I don't have to, do I?"

Kid and Ran looked at each other. "Should we make him worry?" asked Ran mock-seriously. "We don't want him to get _too_ overconfident, do we?" She eyed their boyfriend speculatively. "We could make him sweat just a tiny bit..."

"RAN." The sweating had already started, apparently, although Shinichi's heavy disguise made it invisible. "C'mon, have a heart! Kid? Help me out here?"

"I have a better idea," purred the thief. "Ran? You picked the chenille dress and I picked this one- let's try on the last outfit, the one we both liked. Shall we?" Ran's matching grin was all the answer that was needed, and the two vanished behind the dressing-room door.

Heiji whistled long and low, leaning back against the wall and shoving his own hands into his pockets to mimic Shinichi's despondent posture. "Kudo? You think they could catch us if we started running now?"

His friend looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Are you _kidding?_ I wouldn't miss this for the world."

* * *

"-Ooof! I can't- Kid, could you unzip me?"

"Of course." Cool, clever fingers undid the top hook and slid between skin and the cold metal track. As the teeth parted, Ran shivered: not because of a chill, but because of the lips that were tracing the opening down her spine in a signature of kisses. "Someday," he whispered to the place between her shoulderblades, "someone will try to be clever and invent a lock that's based on a zipper mechanism. And when they do, I'm going to have-" (he undid her bra-fastening and breathed on the place where it had been) _"-so_ much fun. Don't you think?"

Thinking... was difficult. It had been a wonderful evening, but ever since they'd decided to share a dressing room her imagination had been getting the better of her. And apparently she wasn't the only one.

Ran could feel Kid's ersatz breasts brushing her back; they might have been fake, but they were unspeakably distracting (unexpectedly so, too) and when her dress sagged down onto her arms along with her bra, warm palms brushed delicately up her body from hip-high to cup her own breasts from behind. The sensation was curiously reassuring; not so much, the way her thief was tasting the skin behind her earlobe with his tongue. "I t-thought," she said breathlessly, "thought... you were... ooooh, were being a g-gentleman tonight..." She bit her lip as the fingers of each hand parted, catching hard, tiny nubs between and squeezing gently.

"I am, mmmmm... _always_ a gentleman." Kid breathed in her scent deeply. "But we are in private within a very public place, and the lure of the forbidden makes everything so..." (a nip to her shoulder) "...very..." (one hand slipping down, gently sliding inside the waistband of her simple half-slip) "...attractive..."

Kid's long fingers paused, stroking the jointure of hip and thigh. "...except- perhaps I should stop...?"

Ran swallowed, shaking her head and sliding her hand over his. She could feel him behind her, a firm pressure; and he smiled against the nape of her neck.

"Then... guide me, Ran. Show me how far you want me to go." His fingertips slid downwards a centimeter and paused, waiting.

_'The lure of the forbidden-' Ohmygod, OHmygod. Somebody could walk in, they could find us here- he locked the door, I heard him, and then he did something to the knob. But-butbutbut-_ Independent of her lurking fears, Ran's hand moved Kid's further down, further back, sliding beneath satiny fabric and elastic until his fingers just barely brushed something softer and slicker than satin...

_And stopped._ Right there. "Tell me," Ran murmured in a low voice, "what you want to do to me, here and now. **Tell** me, Kid." Her voice was low and husky.

"...touch you. I want to touch you, caress you, feel you arch against my hands." The thief's voice, for once, was unsteady; but his hand was completely still. "That's... what I want, Ran."

"Then we'll have to stop, I'm afraid," she whispered back. "Because I don't think I'll be able to keep from screaming your name when you do that, and then we'll be in trouble. Do you think you could wait a little while?"

"..."

"I'm sorry. Really, really, really-" Ran shuddered, fighting the urge to _move, dammit!_ against Kid's hand. "-really sorry. But I will, I KNOW I will. Can you- can we- later? Please?"

Kid breathed once, in and out very deeply; he pulled reluctantly away. "Just- give me a moment. I don't want to ruin the line of the dress."

* * *

"They're takin' a long time in there, Kudo, y'know?"

"I know."

"Do I wanna know why they're taking so long?"

"No, probably not."

"...right."

* * *

When they at last came out of the dressing room together, Kid was moving a touch less gracefully than his usual, and Ran's color was very high; but no-one paid much attention to this, as all eyes were focused on their attire and its effects on the bodies wearing it.

The dress (or dresses, plural, as they each wore the same) was clearly a reproduction of something vintage- neither Shinichi nor Heiji could have described the style later if their lives had depended on it- and made of silver-gray velvet with a silken sheen and a delicate, creased texture like the petals of a crumpled flower. The bodice draped from shoulder to shoulder just slightly, high-cut; the sleeves were loose, soft caps that fell nearly to the elbow and disguised Kid's broader shoulders with nary a change of line. The low back, buttoned down to hip level, showed what skin the high front neckline hid.

It had an attitude of its own; and it was stunning. _They_ were stunning, and they knew it- it showed in the way Ran allowed her head to fall back as she turned, long hair draped across one shoulder, and in the little deliberate quirk of a smile that Kid shot both detectives as he leaned against Ran, one hand on his hip and the other around hers.

There was a quiet moment, while Shinichi and Hattori swallowed against dry throats, Kid's hip angled out just a little farther, dragging the velvet of the dress across the lines of his body in very distracting ways, and Ran took a deep breath, her busom swelling under the drape of the fabric. Then the moment passed, everyone breathed out, and Shinichi, looking unblinkingly straight ahead, reached to his side to put a brief hand on Hattori's knee.

"Sorry, Heiji. Hope you can understand."

Then he was standing, and moving forward, and pressed against them both, all in the next second; and despite his thick disguise, despite the features and form which weren't his own, his eyes were pure fire as he ate up his lovers with his gaze.

"We will be buying these dresses," he assured the pair in a barely audible, hindbrain-powered growl, his grasp tightening possessively on their waists through the slick, fluid cloth. "And I will be undressing you both, slowly, carefully. And I will make you _both_ scream."

Ran and Kid pressed themselves closer, ignoring the displeased frown from the salesclerk hovering a polite distance away, ignoring everything, really, except the scent of _want_ that was rolling off of Shinichi in veritable waves. It was a hormonal thing, an animal brain thing; and even as Kid knew this and wondered whether pheromone triggers could be modified by the evolution of a person's individual sexual orientation; even as Ran knew that what she felt low in her body, the yearning and spreading sensation between the cradle of her hips, was a blatant and instinctual longing for one or both of her men's presence and attention; even as they _knew_, they didn't think; they just pressed together and breathed, and tried to breathe slowly, tried to restrain themselves within the realm of _embers_ rather than _blaze_, because they were in public, because the salesclerk was already very cross with them and growing crosser, because Hattori was with them and they cared about him too, didn't want to alienate him, didn't want to...didn't want to...

"Ahnnn..." Face buried in Shinichi's throat, Kid whimpered, his body twitching subtly in his lovers' arms. "Benten's mercy, Tantei, Ran, I need to...I can't, oh goddess, I can't."

Ran pulled her head back, lips moist with her own saliva, holding her breath and squinting her eyes shut. "Shi-Shinichi, we have to...I want to but..."

Between the pair, Shinichi gripped them both tightly, breathed carefully out, and released them. The trio stood still together, both the boys dealing with a very pronounced desire to _not_ stop or hold back at all, thank you very much, what's that restraint thing you were mentioning? Ran smoothed Kid's slick velvet sleeve across his shoulder, and Shinichi's much more casual shirtsleeve against his own, looking from one to the other of them with the teeth-gritted determination befitting her role in their triangle.

"Voice of Reason says that we have a big bed and one more night," she murmured very quietly, looking each of them in the eye. "Okay?"

Kid grimaced, breathed out tensely, and nodded. As he stepped back from the others, his dress flowed smooth and uninterrupted down the length of his body, and he gave a girlish smile for Shinichi's sake, toes tucked inward in the pigeon-toed fashion of schoolgirls and young office women.

"Will you buy the dresses for us, occhan?" Kid's grin sparked wickedly as Shinichi, abruptly remembering the fake face he wore, showed clear surprise.

"Shhh," Ran chided Kid, wrapping herself around Kid's arm in a perfect picture of one best friend innocently cuddling another. "Not so loud."

"Pleaaaaase?" Kid wheedled, clasping his hands together in front of him. Elbows straight, his upper arms pressed together, compressing and lifting the very convincing assets between them. Shinichi swallowed hard, still trying to regain his composure, and nodded.

"Of course," he whispered, holding Kid's eyes, then Ran's. "Just please...go get changed."

The 'girls' scampered back into their changing room, clinging close to each other; if a breathless, muffled whimper was heard as velvet rustled and clothes hangers clacked within the small space, well, it wasn't significant enough to be provable. Meanwhile, Shinichi took a seat next to Hattori, lowering himself into the chair heavily, with obvious discomfort.

The Osakan detective eyed his best friend slowly and deliberately, waiting for Shinichi's attention before he spoke. Shinichi beat him to it, however, his expression chagrined.

"Heiji, I'm so-"

Hattori waved a hand in brief dismissal. "It's okay, Kudo. They were askin' for it, and those dresses are...well, yeah. And well...I guess it's tough, havin' to sneak away every couple weeks to see 'em. But just a tip for ya?" Shinichi wasn't expecting this, and his attention perked as he listened. Hattori winced a little, his expression uncomfortable.

"You, ah, may wanna tone down the enjo kosai vibe. Just a lil'. I think the clerks are feelin' worried."

"…..OH MY GOD."

"Uhuh. Figured you hadn't realized what it'd look like. Let's just pay for the dresses an' get out of here, okay?"

* * *

The rest of their time (which wasn't long) at Venus Fort was spent in a rather more subdued fashion, with Heiji and Shinichi trailing behind as Kid and Ran continued to shop; the two detectives found themselves designated as pack-mules and accumulated a rather alarming stockpile of bags, boxes and mysterious parcels. It was just as well; Shinichi, despite the concealment that his disguise afforded him, had the distinct look of a head that was looking for a desk to bang against. "I. Am. _Not._ My. Hormones," Heiji heard him muttering to himself as they took a much-needed break on a bench. "I. Am NOT. My hormones—"

"Coulda fooled me," snarked his friend, and had the privilege of watching the much-vaunted hero of cases past wilt like an unwatered houseplant. _Thunk!_ went the aforementioned head against one of the boxes in Shinichi's lap. "I mean, five more minutes in there an' the salesclerks'd probably be yelling for Security. And then it'd be time for phone calls and ID checks and Social Services—"

"No it wouldn't," came the other's plastic-muffled response. "It'd be time for pink sleep-gas pellets and a fast trip through the nearest exit."

"Ooogh. Good point." Heiji contemplated this for a moment or two, chin on fist, while watching the other two members of their party as they window-shopped several stores down. "Y'know what your problem is, Kudo?"

"_Kurou."_

"Whatever. Your problem," he said cheerfully, "is that you're _**repressed.**_ No, no, hear me out, okay? See, it's like this. You've been shoved down inta your chibi-sized body for almost two goddamn years now, and all that hormonal development that ought've gone on gradually from age sixteen to eighteen got stumped. Shortened. Chibified—" There was a growl from beside the Osakajin and he muffled a snicker. "Aaaaaanyway… everything got shoved back that you shoulda been learning to deal with, and even when Haibara brought you up t'speed, it was never for a long enough time that you could, um, get yerself back into the… swing of things. I bet you never even—"

"HATTORI." The head went _thunk!_ against the boxes again.

"—'cause from what you told me, when you were yourself again you were 'sick', right? An' who feels like—"

"HATTORI. Oh _GOD_ will you please shut up?"

"Jeeze, you're touchy. Lighten up, Ku- Co- Kur- You got too many names, you know that? Anyway, back to the subject." It was all too obvious that Hattori was enjoying himself. "So—now that Haibara's trying to make your body think you're 'well' when you're like this, the fact that y'want to jump Ran and that lunatic's bones every chance y—"

Shinichi moaned into the bags.

"—only goes t'show that it's workin' right?" Heiji grinned, feeling as if he had gotten a certain amount of his own back and then some. "For a given value of workin'; you oughta tell Haibara. And I don't even blame you for the thing in that dressing room, 'cause..." (the other detective peered down the hall) "...if I make myself forget who that whacko with Neechan is and squint reeeeal hard... he's _hot."_

That was enough to make Shinichi look up, blinking, from his attempt at self-inflicted bodily harm via shopping-bag. "-really?"

Hattori grinned again. "Nah. I'm yankin' your chain. Can't forget he's Kid, no matter what. But if I didn't know it was him and somebody showed me a photo of- her- I'd say _she_ was right up there with my personal Top Ten." He patted his disguised friend on the shoulder. "So he's all yours, an' it's just as well you got a matched set t'help you work off all those excess hormones, 'cause otherwise you'd probably explode or start foamin' at the mouth or pass out from nosebleeds or-"

"GAAAAHHH! Hattori, this isn't an anime!"

Teeth gleaming, the Detective of the West gave him back a grin that was very nearly at Kid's standards. "...coulda fooled me..."

* * *

"Do you suppose they're okay?" asked Ran worriedly, stealing a glimpse over her shoulder. Her disguised boyfriend and companion in retail therapy glanced back as well.

"Hm. Tantei-han's looking obnoxiously pleased, Tantei-san's trying to crawl into the bag from- what was that store called? Oh, Zara, right. I'd give them a few m- Oh. Oh _dear."_ The last was said in a distant, preoccupied voice that made Ran's hackles rise in alarm. "...don't look now," added Kid beneath his breath, "but we're about to have a little company. Think fast."

"-wh-" She turned- and froze. And she wasn't the only one.

"Ran-chan? And... and _KUDO-KUN,_ is that _**you?"**_

Eyes wide, dressed up for an evening out... Takagi and Sato-san stared. But not at Shinichi.

At Kid.

* * *

And back on the bench:

"This is bad. This is bad, BAD, bad. Diversion, we need a _diversion-_

"Hang on a minute, Kudo, I think it's alright. I- think... awwwwMAN, I don't believe this-"

* * *

"H-hello, Takagi-keiji, Sato-keiji," said Ran faintly.

"Ran-chan. I- and, and... Kudo-kun. _Kudo-kun__."_ Sato-san blinked rapidly; beside her, Takagi had a slightly dazed look on his face. "I suppose... being stuck in hiding the entire time you're, ahh, back to your old self, that must be... difficult?" She took a step back; professionalism slid onto her startled features like lenses clicking into place, and her shock vanished as she regarded 'Shinichi's' disguise. "I have to say, you've done a wonderful job. No-one would ever bel- I mean, they'd automatically think you were a- I..." Flustered, Sato shook her head. "Um. You look... very nice? Terribly convincing? Doesn't he look convincing, Takagi-kun?"

"Urk?"

"That was the idea," said 'Shinichi' from beside Ran (and she had to suppress a start; hearing Shinichi's voice coming from Kid's lips in the circumstances was enough to make her wobble.) He- she- ran a hand through his/her hair and offered the two officers a somewhat embarrassed, wry little smile. "We, um, didn't expect we'd meet anybody we knew, though." The smile turned a touch teasing, and Ran clutched her date's arm; he seemed to be in just the exact balance, poised between dismay at being discovered in drag and smugness over his solution to 'his' dilemma. "Can't be too careful, but... we really did want to go out for just a little while. You, errr, won't tell Megure-keibu, will you?"

"Of course not. Will we, Takagi-kun? ...Takagi-kun?" Sato elbowed her partner.

"Awwk? N-no, of course not." Takagi seemed to be having some difficulties in keeping his gaze at eye-level.

The four passed a few more moments together, and then the two officers went their way (Sato had to steer Takagi around a sign at one point). As soon as they were well and truly gone, however, 'Shinichi' leaned one hand against the store window and clutched his busom with the other. "...Oh, _Benten,_ that's twice now... My _heart,"_ he gasped, closing his eyes; Ran eyed him in concern, wondering if she should scream for assistance-

-until the thief dissolved into absolute and utter gales of laughter, staggering against the glass.

* * *

"Okay, Neechan just smacked Kid on the side of the head. And hey, she did it again! Dinner AND a floor-show. Kudo? Gotta say, you sure know how to show yer dates a really good time."

"...AAAAAGH..." groaned Shinichi, sinking back against the bench and hugging his armful of shopping bags for comfort.

* * *

"Should we be worried?" In the backseat of Kid's chauffered car, Ran hesitantly reached across Hattori's lap to prod her heavily disguised boyfriend in the shoulder. "He's not moving."

"Tantei-san, I think you're laying on the pathos a bit heavy," Kid trilled. He sat in the front passenger seat to the left of the driver, Jii-chan; twisting around at a thoroughly improbable angle, his busoms squishing interestingly as he did so, the thief grinned gamely at his boyfriend. "Come on now, it's not that bad. Nobody got arrested~"

"_Barely,_" moaned Shinichi, thunking his forehead lightly against the window of the car. "You should have _said_ something! I made a total ass of myself, the clerks think that I'm a pervert and that you're jailbait, and _Takagi_ thinks I look good in a dress, and I-"

"Had the most fun you've had in a long time, ne?" Kid's smile was unrepentant, though upside down, and despite himself, Shinichi smiled longingly back. "Admit it. You were having more fun on your date with Tantei-han _before_ the pair of us showed up."

"Don't answer that, Shinichi," Ran warned him, grinning through her growl as her very wise boyfriend meekly put up a hand in surrender. "And thank you again for the dresses."

Between them, Hattori glanced backward, as though he would be able to see the trunk of the car dipping down with the weight of Kid's, Ran's, and Shinichi's combined purchases. "When y'said _dresses_, though, I kinda thought you meant, yanno, dress for you, an' dress for the lunatic too."

"Why stop at one?" Kid grinned, still twisted around upside down to see everyone in the back seat. He didn't seem uncomfortable in the least. "The chenille suited Ran so well, and I just adore a nicely urban denim frock, don't you?"

Hattori rolled his eyes. "Can't say I've got an opinion on 'em," he deadpanned.

"Ah well, your loss." Sitting back up, Kid rolled his shoulders against the smooth leather curves of his seat and smiled, showing just the corner curl of his lips to Hattori in the middle back seat. "Though maybe you've got more of an opinion on the sort of body that would wear one?"

"...Don't know whatcha mean," Hattori muttered, looking out the window. Kid just smiled quietly and, for once, let the subject lie.

* * *

_._

_._

_That's it for this week, all. Stay tuned for next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel, for __**Chapter Five: "It's so weird, what you can get used to."**__ Jaaaa! _


	50. It's so weird, what you can get used to

_Lack of intro tonight brought to you by Ysa's hand's failed battle with her blender and Nightengale's failed battle with being awake and not-ded-of-con. Three Thieves staff is together in Arizona for the future 6 days, during which time we will be squeeing and being ridiculous and probably also posting several neat things to the TT comm._

_At the moment I'm just gonna go back to being dead._

_-Nightengale, (who has no brain whatsoever and attempted to spell chapter with I's in it) typing under dictation from Ysabet (who has learned not to play in __traffic__ blenders.)_

___**Book Five, Chapter Five**____**: "It's so weird, what you can get used to."**_

As the car pulled up to the Kudo house, all four teens within winced as an unmistakeable, sharp, and very insistent cry of delight reached their ears.

"You're _**late!**"_

"Only a little," protested her son as he opened the door. "-and yeah, it's me, plus a lot of makeup and warts and padding." Shinichi climbed from the car and waggled his disguised eyebrows (which were a touch on the bushy side) at his mother, who had skidded to a stop on the front porch, staring; the elder Kudos had left before Kid had completed his work. "I'm crushed; what kind of mother doesn't know her sole offspring?"

"I _always_ recognize my Shin-chan," declared Yukiko, pressing a kiss to Shinichi's forehead. "-eew. Latex just has SUCH an awful taste, doesn't it?" The rest of the party clambered out of the car, Kid emerging last after giving a soft thank you for Jiichan, and Yukiko blinked at his self-modifications. "...although it can certainly be used to amazing effect," she concluded thoughtfully, hands on her hips. "You look quite nice, Kid-san. I like what you've done with your hair."

Yukiko was managing a fairly amazing effect herself; the black leather jumpsuit that she was wearing was quite familiar to Shinichi, as were the engine-noises coming from the garage behind the house. "I take it that's your new toy we're hearing?" he asked with resignation, resisting the urge to scratch his forehead; the disguise had become a trifle uncomfortable.

His kaasan beamed. "Won't you go for a ride, Shin-chan?" she wheedled. "I have two helmets..." At his headshake, Yukiko looked put out. "Oh, COME on, Shin-chan! Somebody come for a ride with me-" From the other side of the car Heiji made a hopeful little noise in the back of his throat, almost a whine; Shinichi's mother brightened. "Hattori-kun! Now, YOU know how to have a good time, don't you? Wait until you see my baby, she's all shiny and-" Still chattering, she hooked one finger in the Osakajin's shirt-collar and towed him after her; Heiji gave the other three an apologetic grimace, but it was clear by the eager look in his eyes that his heart wasn't in it.

"I know how to have a good time too," said Ran softly, as the sounds of enthusiasm blended with the distant purr of not one engine in idle but two- Yuusaku had also apparently succumbed to the lure of the dealership. "And I've had one tonight; it really _was_ fun." She smiled as Kid and Shinichi bracketed her on either side, slipping her arms into theirs. "But, you know, it's not over yet, is it?" With the practicality that was so much a part of her nature, Ran tilted her head, looked from one to the other of her boyfriends and wondered aloud: "How long do you suppose they'll be gone?"

Shinichi stroked her hair. "I'm not sure that a week would be long enough," he said softly.

"I can't speak for our Tantei, but I surely don't have that much patience in me," Kid commented coyly, tucking his head down (he'd decided to wear home one of the pairs of heels he'd bought during the evening, and now stood several centimeters taller than either of the other two) to kiss Ran behind her ear. "I've waited more than 'just a little while' since the dressing room."

Ran's breath snagged a little as she exhaled. Her arm, linked with Shinichi's one good elbow, tightened against her body; she turned her head and passed Kid's kiss on to Shinichi, placing it beyond the detective's hairline to avoid the latex taste of his disguise.

"Let's get cleaned up...and cleaned off," she said, frowning at Shinichi's unfamiliar face. "I want to see _you_ before we, um."

"Maybe...let's just clean me off for the moment," Shinichi countered, heading for the trunk of the car to load his one good hand with shopping bags. "I'm very curious about...well..." He looked pointedly at Kid's chest and hips, and the way that the thief's white suit shirt and grey pinstriped suit pants were strained by the curvatures of his disguised body. Smugly, Kid loaded himself up with a double armful of shopping bags and grinned.

"It's quite the thorough disguise," Kid assured both Shinichi and Ran, heading for the house with a smug, hippy saunter. His ass looked _fabulous_, and his balance in high heels was flawless. "Wanna see?"

Ran looked at Shinichi, eyebrows raised. "I do," she said, gathering up the tail end of the shopping and tapping the trunk shut. "I imagine he'd look interesting, at least...?"

Shinichi looked from Ran to Kid's ass and back again. "I...imagine so," he said distantly, gripping his handful of shopping bags tighter. He opened his mouth again to say something else, but didn't manage words; after a moment, he snapped his jaw shut again and stalked off in pursuit of his thief's ass with a face full of determination.

It was perhaps three hours later that Hattori Heiji came down the stairs in the silence of the wee hours, heading towards the kitchen and the antacids that his hosts kept in one of the pantries. Something—duck's feet, who knew what—had mixed uneasily with the high-speed bike ride he'd shared with his friend's mother, and while he'd declined a dose earlier it was now apparent that one wouldn't be a bad idea at all. Queasy and definitely a little green around the gills, he padded silently down the stairs in his socks and had almost made it to the kitchen when he noticed a light coming through the half-open door to the library.

He peered through, not really knowing what to expect—Kudo Yuusaku in a late-night fit of research, maybe? What he hadn't expected to see was Shinichi, feet propped on the coffee table, nursing both a large mug of coffee and a preoccupied expression.

The detective glanced up at the change of light; "Hey." His voice was quiet.

_Kudo, what're you doing down here all by yourself? Shouldn't you be upstairs with- _Heiji didn't complete the thought; instead he nodded towards the mug. "You got any more've that?"

"Help yourself."

A moment later, fortified with both caffeine and antacids, Heiji flopped down on the couch that sat at an angle to his friend's overstuffed chair; his own feet joined Shinichi's on the table, and they sat and breathed in the steam from their respective cups. After a bit, though, the Osakajin hiked one shoulder and cast an eye in the other's direction. "Kinda surprised to see you down here, Kudo. Everything okay with the other two?"

His friend's eyes were a little distant, focused on the wreathing vapors. "Oh yeah; fine." He half-smiled. "Couldn't be better, really… they're still sleeping. Or Ran is, anyway—I don't think Kidcan sleep if there's movement anywhere near him, or not easily; but he was drifting off again when I left." Still with that preoccupation clouding his face, Shinichi glanced up at Heiji and raised one eyebrow. "It's so weird, what you can get used to, you know?"

Heiji made an inquiring noise around the rim of his mug, and Shinichi answered. "Sleeping with somebody else in your bed. –oh, quit looking like that, Hattori, I don't mean—" He flushed. "I mean like… not hogging the mattress. Making sure everybody's got enough pillow. Waking up with your leg freezing to death because _somebody's_ stolen the blankets, and I don't mean Kid; Ran tends to hug the covers in her sleep. That kind of thing." He smiled a little, sheepish and self-depreciating. "Before all this started, the last time I slept in a bed with anybody was this time when Ran got too scared to sleep alone because there was this guy chopping people with—well. Anyway, she thought I was seven, so… It was still incredibly embarrassing at the time, though."

Heiji snickered. "Not anymore, I guess?"

"Sometimes. Depends." He ducked his head, taking a long sip of his coffee. "I- surprise myself, I guess. Or the world surprises me. Both, probably." Shinichi hesitated, eyeing the Osakajin with an expression that was difficult to decipher. "You damn well did."

His friend paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. "Uh? Me? Kudo, if you mean the thing with the bacon, pork's pork, y'know, and it tasted pretty damn good-"

Shinichi smothered a laugh. "Not that, no. With- by- well, you've been..." His gaze remained on his cup. "...you screamed a lot when you first found out I knew Kid; you damn near had a heart attack when you found out we were, um, involved. But tonight? You were talking baseball with him, and you didn't head for the nearest exit when he showed up with-"

Hattori cut him off. "You have NO idea how close that one was, Kudo, honest to God..." He rolled his eyes. "Only thing stoppin' me from running was, y'know, long walk back and everything. I'd miss the chance to try out your kaasan's bike." The obvious untruth was ignored, as it was intended to be; and Heiji's mouth quirked up at one corner. "B'sides, couldn't just leave you like that, could I? Neechan'd kick my ass."

Above his mug, Shinichi's lips curved in an identical little grin. "Yeah, she would."

"An' the lunatic'd make my clothes spontaneously dissolve in the middle of class'r something."

"Do NOT give him ideas, Hattori-"

"He's not listening," Heiji pointed out, draining his mug; it was really good coffee.

"Are you sure about that?" asked his friend dryly. _"Absolutely_ sure?"

"...uh. Point." The Osakajin considered this; it had a dare built in, and he grinned like a shark. "...sure enough that I'll split th' rest of the pot with you and not leave him any. You ready for a refill?"

In answer, Shinichi passed along his mug. "Thanks, Hattori," he said quietly, and the gratitude hidden in the depths of his eyes was for more than caffeine, no matter how good it might be. The other detective merely nodded, accepting the sentiment as matter-of-factly as he'd once, nearly two years past, accepted the effects of an unknown drug as reality.

They talked a little longer, draining the pot to its dregs while the hour-hand crept around and began to weight itself towards the right side of the clockdial. As he rinsed his own mug clean in the kitchen sink, Heiji frowned and glanced back at his friend through the doorway. "Hey, Kudo? How much longer d'you figure you got? You said you'd- oh. **_Oh."_**

Shinichi was slumped in his chair, a faint frown on his slack face; even as Heiji's words faltered to a halt, the other's empty cup began a slow slide floorwards from his fingers as they relaxed. Stepping quietly, Heiji caught it just as it slipped free. "Kudo? _Kudo?"_

Heiji gathered Shinichi into his arms, pillowing his head against his chest as the detective's legs flopped over Hattori's other arm. The Western detective carried his friend up the stairs with strong determination, shouting out to wake Shinichi's lovers as he reached the top.

"Kid! Neechan! Get dressed, Kudo's outta time!"

Lights clicked on inside Shinichi's bedroom, and Kid's voice murmured low, reassuring, before he called back to Hattori. His voice was all business, precise and enunciated. "Make him comfortable. I'll fetch the tiny genius."

After that, things sped up. The phase of intoxication passed quickly while Shinichi muttered incoherent apologies to the others, brow furrowed, head rolling side to side as sweat began to sheen his brow.

"Shhh," Ran murmured, stroking Shinichi's brow, as the intoxication gave way to unconsciousness. "Shhh, Shinichi, it's okay. It's okay." On Shinichi's other side, Hattori looked to Ran for his cues, curled close and hovering over his friend's head and shoulders, holding a cool cloth to his brow.

"Is he supposed to - is he okay?"

"He's gonna be fine," Ran reassured Heiji, though her tone could have sounded more convincing. "He's gonna be okay."

Beside her and on the other side of their boyfriend's pillow from Hattori, Kid perched close, his hand clasped tight with Shinichi's lax one. "Tantei, can you hear us?" Shinichi gave no mark of agreement, though his brows knotted slightly together. "Good," Kid said, throat tight. "We're not going anywhere. We're right here."

"Actually," Ai dryly interrupted, using a stepstool to climb matter-of-factly onto Yukiko and Yuusaku's master bed, where Hattori had laid Shinichi's body. "You _are_ about to move. His right elbow is too likely to rend again during this transformation. I need his left arm for the IV's. So unless you think clinging on to him as though he's on his deathbed will help me regulate a routine medical procedure..."

With a frown, Kid and Ran moved as they were told, joining Hattori on Shinichi's right side. Ai went about her work silently, with the confident, matter-of-fact attitude of someone changing a tire.

Time...

...passed. And not nearly fast enough, in Hattori Heiji's opinion. And now he sat back on the same couch in the same room where he'd been hours earlier, another mug of coffee cupped between his two hands, remembering.

Kudo-

Remembering steam rising up from his friend's body, remembering skin growing loose and slack, remembering the helpless way his changing face had grimaced and twisted, the agony there only surpassed by the wretched look in Ran's eyes. Kid had sat silent, his arms around her shoulders- it was hard to tell if this was for comfort or to keep each other from reaching out to the figure on the bed.

_Kudo, you-_

It had taken longer than he'd thought it would. Much longer. He stared into his coffee, listening to the quiet murmur of voices from upstairs. The senior Kudos had, once Shinichi had stabilized, managed to settle Ran down onto a fold-out cot to one side of Shinichi's bed; Kid was parked at the foot of the bed, chin on his hands, uncharacteristically still.

_Kudo, you never told me it was like that. I didn't know._

The coffee tasted flat, bitter; he swirled it around in his cup, scowled and sat the mug down on the coffeetable with a clack. That table... In Heiji's mind's eye he saw his and Kudo's socked feet on the table again, they way they had been several hours earlier- both more or less the same size, attached to bodies that shared the same general shape.

_Not any more._ Heiji shivered. The first transformation had been bad, but the second-

"It's, hrmm, unnerving, isn't it?" He glanced up as the Professor settled himself down in one of the overstuffed chairs; it creaked ominously as the large man leaned back with his own mug of coffee. "I've seen Shinichi change... oh, nearly half a dozen times now, I suppose. It never fails to shake me, I must admit." He took a long, appreciative swallow and sighed.

"I remember the first time I saw him, right after his initial transformation," the older man sighed. "He looked so very small- smaller, somehow, than he had when he was actually a child. He was so terrified- horrified by his own body. I've wondered a time or two what might have happened if I hadn't been home that night working on that dratted experiment... ahh well. Water under the bridge, hrm?" Kind grey eyes surveyed Heiji. "No matter how terrible what you just witnessed upstairs seemed, just remember- Shinichi is very, very good at recovering himself. He's a _survivor, _Hattori-kun." He raised a bushy eyebrow. "He's had to be."

And with that, Heiji had to agree.

"Kudo? Kudo, y'there?"

The world came back in stages. Fuzzy, distant sound first, a voice through a foggy tunnel. Texture and touch next, and pain: a wash of oversensitized and overdemanding nervous information that Shinichi wished, as soon as it had returned, would fade away again. He licked his lips, drawing air through a sore throat, and squinted against the light as he opened his eyes. Hattori's face was the first to swim into focus, followed by Kid and Ran, a little further away. His parents stood past them, at the foot of the bed.

"Kudo, you alive in there?"

"Depends who's asking," Shinichi rasped, before doubling over with a fit of coughing. Hattori's arms caught and held him up; someone else's offered the cup of water with a neon blue twisty straw. Shinichi smiled thinly at the straw before drinking. That'd be his mother's doing, or Kid's. Shinichi let his eyes drift shut as he drank water slowly, listening to the voices around him.

"Sarcasm. He's fine. You can let go of him now, Hattori-kun."

"Don't think I will," came Heiji's voice again, close by. Ai made a little sound of disapproval. "What? Y'can take his pulse an' stuff just as fine with me holdin' him up, can't you? He's drinkin'. Y'can't do that laying down."

"Fine, fine." A rustling noise, paper and plastic peeling back, then a plastic click. Shinichi sighed and tensed his arm, making a fist - by now, he definitely recognized the sounds of a hypodermic needle being unwrapped and readied. "Thank you, Kudo-kun," Ai said, before sticking the needle in.

A cool, thin hand whose touch he recognized stroked his brow, reaching from over Hattori's shoulder; Shinichi let his head tip into Ran's touch, furrowed brow smoothing. "Did you sleep?" he asked, voice a little less hoarse now. A soft chuckle from further to the left preempted Ran's answer.

"Tantei-_san,_ worry about yourself for once? And yes, I made sure that Ran slept."

"Technically I did," came his mother's voice, from the head of the bed. "You were too busy staring a hole through my boy's forehead. Shin-chan, you're going to give me grey hairs this way," she complained. A hand - hers - closed over his foot through the blankets, squeezing tight. "Can't you try to look a little less tortured when you transform? For my sake?"

Shinichi grinned weakly, smiling in Yukiko's direction. "I'll work on that for next time, kaasan. Bet you'd like that too, ne, Ran?"

"Baka Shinichi," Ran countered, poking his forehead. "I'd just hit you harder, for thinking about us instead of yourself."

"A truly loving relationship." Yuusaku's voice came from a spot some distance behind his mother's, and Shinichi opened his eyes, squinting against the morning light, to find his father smiling from his chair in front of the window. "I'm glad you're alright, Shinichi."

"Getting there," the boy detective replied, pushing himself, with Heiji's help, to a fully upright position. He blinked hard and surveyed the world from his newly demoted perspective; even leaning over the bed as they were, he had to look up to see the faces of everyone around him. "...Ugh."

"I like you better the other way, too," Kid quipped, "Though I'd put 'Drag!Shinichi' at a close second place."

"Oh, I _have_ to hear this story," Yukiko caroled. "Shinichi! You didn't!"

"Actually, no, I didn't," her son answered dryly, glaring at his angelically grinning boyfriend. _"Kid_ did, and Sato-san and Takagi-keibu mistook him for me in drag." As the half of the room who hadn't been present for that mix-up expressed their surprise (and Ai glowered at "Kudo-kun's pet security breach"), the half who _had_ been there grinned at each other in the amusement of a shared memory. And even though one quarter of the group was now half as big as he'd been, the pleasant evening, just one night past, was a warm, calming memory for all involved.

"You know," Shinichi commented after a moment, rolling his small shoulders against his best friend's supporting arm, "I think I can sit up on my own now."

"It's cool, I'm comfy," Heiji answered, using his free hand to pat Shinichi's - Conan's - head familiarily. "I'll letcha know if my arm goes to sleep."

Shinichi bit back a smile. "Really, I'm okay, Hattori."

"Naw, it's cool," Heiji insisted. "You just woke up, Kudo. Give yourself a couple minutes, yanno?"

The subtle little snicker from Kid's direction was, though faint, still perfectly audible. "I think you worried him a bit, Tantei," the thief commented lightly, grinning as his indirect taunt raised the Osakan detective's hackles. "Seems he doesn't quite trust you'll be alright on your own."

"Aw, look who's talking," Heiji countered, glaring over his shoulder at the thief. "You got just's little sleep as I did last night."

Shinichi's face showed his speculation. "And you can confirm this because...?" he challenged his friend, teeth beginning to show as his grin preceded the completion of his deduction.

"Cause he was up the whole time I was up," Heiji answered crossly, his arm tightening around Shinichi's small shoulders unconsciously.

"And I was perched at the end of your bed for the majority of the night... right beside Tantei-han," Kid added. "We _bonded~."_

Speechless with indignation, Heiji (who would've flapped his hands if he hadn't been busy holding his friend up) sputtered. "Did NOT! We-"

"Did too," drawled the thief.

"DID _NOT!"_

"-you both sound ready to join Shinichi in grade school, you do know that, don't you?" comment Ran, brushing her miniaturized boyfriend's bangs back from his forehead. "What did you talk about?" Her fingers lingered, the soft strands slipping through them like silk.

"Baseball," sulked Heiji. "And... stuff." He glowered at the thief, who grinned back, a gleam in his eyes. "Just stuff."

"What Tantei-han is leaving out would fill any number of buckets; can't imagine why he'd be embarrassed over our discussing such dire subjects as the Hanshin Tigers' Curse, the battle between Bekei and Yoshitsune at Gojo Bridge- that was fun- and the numerous failings and fine points of going into the police force. Really," added Kid with a disarming little grin, "if it's so difficult to countenance becoming a minion of the Law, I'm certain that a little career counseling would help to alleviate any doubts-"

"Don't HAVE doubts," muttered Heiji. "I just-"

"-and who knows? Perhaps a future on the other side of the proverbial fence might suit you better. With," Kid added musingly, "a great deal of training in the art of subtlety first, of course, though I have to commend you on-"

"-you do _not _want to hear my opinion of that-"

A small hand reached up and flicked Heiji's forehead with thumb and forefinger. "Ow! Kudo, that is SO not fair, he-"

"...will get what's coming to him if he keeps being childish," announced Ran, the warning glint in her eyes warring with the laughter that lurked there as well. She reached up and swatted at the thief's forehead as well; chortling, he dodged. "Honestly, you two really _are _worse than children!" The glare she turned on them both brought unsatisfactory reactions of defiance (Heiji) and saintly innocence (Kid), and she finished by looking disapprovingly at the single most evident child in the room. "And you can stop grinning like that, Mister Smug. You're not too big to spank!"

Kid opened his mouth- and then closed it. "No... no, I just can't," he said faintly. "Cheap shots are the last refuge of the incompetently witty." This time Ran's swat connected, but only because the thief didn't bother to dodge but instead caught her fingers just as they impacted, drawing them down and kissing them lightly; Ran colored but didn't hurry to pull away, and Shinichi's expression softened at that into something far less smug and a great deal more contented.

They left him to drowse for a while, peeking in on him periodically; eventually his eyelids closed, the painkillers administered by Ai diffusing into his system enough to conquer the adrenaline produced by the change and bring on true sleep. When Shinichi awoke several hours later, it was to the sound of soft burbles and cooing noises coming from the foot of the large bed; he lay there, half-asleep and with fine brows furrowing a little, attempting to decipher what he heard. As miniscule clawed feet began to make their way up his ankle to his knee, however, he blinked back into full wakefulness. "Hello, Keeta," he sleepily greeted the rose-colored dove that had begun a foray across his lap.

"She's missed you, you know," said a quiet voice from nowhere. Craning his head up just a bit—it ached—Shinichi could barely see Kid's soft, spiky hair; the thief was sitting on the floor, his back against the bedfoot. Several inquisitive dove-beaks peered past the blankets tangled there, and the cool breeze fluttering the window-curtains nearby gave evidence of how Kid's feathered entourage had gained entrance to the room. "They came to find me," he explained, swiveling around onto his knees and settling his chin on his crossed arms; there were doves perched on his head, his shoulders, climbing up the sleeves of his dark sweatshirt… a full dozen in all. "And I thought you might not mind a visit." The chunky white dove stepping delicately down from Kid's elbow onto the blankets cooed in agreement.

"I've… missed you guys too," said Shinichi softly, fingers scratching slowly through soft feathers as Keeta arched her neck in bliss; Moona sped up her pigeon-toed waddle, meeping indignantly as she hurried in order not to miss her share of scritches. "It's been a while."

"Mmm," agreed the thief at the foot of his bed; his eyes were peaceful, a little sleepy; he cooed softly back at one of the doves as it ducked its head upside down and peered into his eyes from above. "D'you remember me sending those notes to you—the ones before we met for coffee that first time?"

"The ones with the weird stationary? I still have them." Belatedly Shinichi felt himself reddening a little as Kid raised an eyebrow. "…yeah, well…"

"Oh, I'm flattered, Tantei, I truly am. And anyway," the corner of Kid's mouth twitched, "I still have _your_ notes too."

More doves were climbing off now onto the bed—more than the dozen originally visible, easily twice as many; tiny pink feet minced their way across sheets and blankets. Shinichi fought back an entirely too childish giggle as the claws prickled through onto his knees in ticklish little jabs. "Where- how many showed up?" he demanded incredulously as the seventeenth dove (pale buff with fine brown edging to her wings) began to traverse its way across his toes. "...and what did they do to the carpet when they got here?"

Kid tsked, chin still on his folded arms. "Ah le le, my ladies would never do anything indelicate inside a host's abode. And how many? As many as felt like visiting, I suppose... They say I've been neglecting them," he confided, half-closed eyes glinting, "and that they wanted to examine just what's been keeping me from spending my off-hours with them. Surprise, surprise, Tantei; they've come to decide if you're worthy of their approval."

Shinichi bit off an exclamation as one of the bolder doves began a tentative nibble on his hair; perched on either shoulder, Keeta and Moona burbled encouragingly. "-their-!"

"Well, of course," said the thief cheerfully. "I've met your family; it's only fair that you meet mine."

The majority of the doves ran to white- not surprising, really- with delicate blushed or tawny dappling here and there; an occasional sheen of blue-gray iridescence pointed towards parental dalliances with common (or uncommon) pigeons. The tide of warm feathered bodies and pink claws advanced on Shinichi until there was very little of his small form that was not supporting a cooing, inquisitive-eyed bird. "Do you remember," said Kid conversationally, "when it was just them and the two of us?"

Stroking a sleek back, the detective nodded; the doves had brought back memories for him as well. "I do," he answered. "They showed me how to find you; they showed you how to find me. They visited me when I was sick, and so did you... back before Ran joined us, back before she even understood about me. Why?" The dove beneath his hand butted his fingertips demandingly with a blunt, snowy head. "Do you- regret the way things are now?"

The thief shook his head; his eyes were very nearly closed. "Not for a second, not for a millisecond. How could I? It's simply that, sometimes, it's good to remember what was- what came first, what came before. I suppose it helps one appreciate what _is,_ ne?"

The boy had to smile at that. "Suppose so..."

All around him the doves were settling down, round warm bodies nestling against bedding and the pajamas Shinichi'd been slipped into at some point during the proceedings. His elbow was bandaged still, though in a much lighter wrap than before; and as miniscule talons gripped the folds of gauze, the giggle he'd been repressing broke loose at the ticklish sensation along his forearm. Kid chuckled too, low in his throat; the sound brought back memories of the night before, from the time after they had gotten home and into some much-needed privacy. Through the army of birds Shinichi watched him steadily, recollection sparking heat deep in his mind where it couldn't manage in his child's body.

As if his gaze had been a tactile thing, as if it had touched him- Kid blinked suddenly and looked up, meeting Shinichi's eyes with his own. Blue to blue, understanding to understanding, laughter kindling between them like a crazy thing...

"'Warm,'" quoted Shinichi from the past, very softly; the word left echoes in the room, good ones. Kid merely nodded, but his slow smile spoke volumes.

A little later, when Heiji stuck his head in the room to say goodbye, he froze in the doorway and stared at the sleeping mass of boy and birds that filled one end of the bed and the curled up, drowsing thief that filled the other. Peering over his shoulder, Ran blinked at the scene for a long moment... before wordlessly moving forward and slipping onto the bed as silently as possible. The birds rustled slightly, eyeing her, but not one of them left; and as Kid blinked calmly at the Detective of the West and waved two fingers in a little salute, Heiji nodded and closed the door, leaving the three and their avian watchdogs in peace.

Moments later, motorcycle noises outside revved up and died away. "Safe trip, Tantei-han," whispered Kid; beside him, head pillowed against his leg, Ran smiled and closed her eyes.


	51. Why should you tell me?

_Hello, all! Yes, I'm just a tad tired; the above is a dramatic representation of the events following being visited by **nightengale** and **sorchafyre** , as we have just finished a nice long vacation. It involved caving, massages, shopping, choosing and bringing home a baby ferret and a great deal of Three Thieves in its various aspects. It also had home-made Green!Chile-and-Pork Stew and Key Lime Pie. But sadly all things must come to an end (or, at least, transfigure into something else, i.e., work instead of play) and tomorrow I must go now I am back to my workplace to cavort amongst the medical records; **nightengale** has already traveled on to hers (which this weekend lies at Midwest Furfest in Chicago- if you happen to be there, look for a very colorful booth labeled Nightengale Needles and you'll find her.) It was a truly spectacular vacation, and I'm sorry to see the last day of it._

_But moving right along... back to cases. Time to go back to work for Shinichi, Kaito, Kid and Ran as well- there are dark waters ahead, and tonight we add to our preparations to sail through. And certain other members of our crew have their own issues to work out; you'll see- a great deal of this chapter deals with our Magician rather than our Fool, and the chapter title reflects this... despite the quote coming from an entirely different direction. To those of our readers who are Kaito fans, this chapter is for you._

_Please enjoy, with our compliments... The Management_

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_**Three Thieves - Book Five, Chapter Six****: "Why should you tell me?"  
****A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by ** **nightengale** and **ysabet****  
Warnings:** Revelations, cranky people, paperclips; Very Serious Discussions; larch trees; trigonometry; blond detectives_  
_Crossposted to the following LiveJournal communities: **dc_yaoi** , **detective_conan** , **magic_kaitou** and **manycases1truth** ._

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_/Kudo, you got the weirdest tastes in bedpartners. Kind of a given, but -birds?- Sorry to run like that but your kaasan wanted to head out & I didn't want to disturb you. Get healthy, ok? & next time, YOU visit ME, it's your turn. - H/_

The text was enough to make Shinichi snort with laughter; beside him in Professor Agasa's backseat, Ran craned her head to see and then snickered as well. It was the following morning, the sun was shining, Shinichi's school had miraculously declared an unforeseen holiday due to a broken water-main in the centermost hallway, and Ran had managed to take the day off as well 'in order to care for Conan-kun, it's not like I can leave him home all alone, can I?'

In short, it was a beautiful day. Which made it something of a pity that they were on their way to the police station.

* * *

"Chirokawa-san?"

"Come in, Edogawa-kun."

Shinichi closed Chirokawa's office door with a quiet click, gloved fingertips slipping on the knob. He'd had to borrow one-size-fits-all plastic gloves, rather than the child-size latex ones he normally stocked, and the fit was abysmal. It was almost like the ghost of the body he'd just shed was wrapped around his child's hands, a large skin gone loose.

_Or I just really, really hate these crinkly plastic things,_ Shinichi corrected himself, gesturing Ran to take a seat on one of the stools while he pulled up the taller one for himself. _I can't get any texture or accurate temperature readings when I've got these things on, and forget about working the dart watch, either._

"Chirokawa-san, we had something we wanted to talk to you about," Ran began, filling in the silence that Shinichi had let grow. Chirokawa turned to eye her up, glaring as he reached her shoulders and head. With a grimace he waved a hand at "Conan," scrunching up his nose. "Hair. Fix her hair."

"Wear this, Ran," Shinichi said, producing a surgeon's sterile hair cover from a drawer beside the door (labeled _SURGEONS' HAIR COVERS, M SIZE, PALE GREEN_ in flawless block print) with a wry little smile that said he'd anticipated the need. "You have long hair. It's not sanitary."

Ran quietly tucked her hair into the cap while Chirokawa watched and Shinichi scanned the room, noting several changes since he'd last visited. The lines of sticky notes had all been replaced - to a note, every single one was a different color (all green, to replace the old yellow ones) and they were all arranged in spiralling fibonnaci sequences instead of the old straight rows. The sequences reversed order in an alternating pattern - no, Shinichi corrected himself, looking closer - in a prime number sequence. And as before, every note's edge was militarily parallel to the next. Rather than the straight lines of before, this pattern was harder to repair if it was disturbed; care would have to be paid to each note's individual removal and replacement if the arrangement was to remain intact and unchanged.

"Worried about more break-ins, Chirokawa-san?" he asked, letting his voice wander through the lower notes of its childish natural range. The result wasn't exactly his true voice, but it was closer than the faux-sweet Conan Is So Cute voice that he so often wore around figures of authority. In this case, however, Chirokawa wasn't the same sort of authority figure. He'd been reclassified without even knowing it, and Shinichi and Ran were there to inform him of the change. In the very, very long list of loose ends and liabilities that needed to be tied up following the past weekend's actions, Chirokawa - and what he didn't yet know - was the first one that Shinichi had chosen to tackle.

_After all,_ the detective thought to himself, watching the old man's measuring gaze try to discern what had changed in his small informant, _We have an understanding, of sorts._

Chirokawa raised one bushy gray eyebrow. "It pays to be prepared," he said shortly. "Now, why don't you tell me what it is that brings you to my office today?" He gave the boy a considering, somewhat annoyed look. "I received an email- from Megure-keibu, no less- that made it quite clear that you were to be permitted once more into places and matters that..."

"...that I'd been blocked from; I know." Shinichi crossed his arms and surveyed the frowning man. "Chirokawa-san," he began very carefully, "how likely would you say it is that you could be persuaded to believe the improbable? With, of course, sufficient proof?" At the other's glare, he hastened to add: "I'm not asking if you're foolish enough to believe just anything, I- guess I'm asking if you'd be able to listen to something rather unusual with an open mind." He raised an eyebrow of his own; beside him, Ran remained silent.

Chirokawa stared at him, dark eyes unreadable; after a moment, though, he snorted. "Paperclips," he announced rather snippily.

"Err... what?"

_"Paperclips,_ Edogawa-kun. This precinct, according to its records, buys no less than one hundred fifty kilos of paperclips per annum. Where are they all? We should be practically SWIMMINGin the little wire contraptions by now- we've been in this building for more than twenty years! Surely they're not all thrown out, mailed out, placed in files or turned into components of office-warfare toys." Chirokawa's scowl was truly horrible. "I've looked into it; the majority of desks contain no less than 140 grams- roughly a hundred- paperclips not in commission, usually in a cup or some such; that's less than a sixth of a kilogram. Half as many might be in use in the desk's drawers... but that leaves roughly three quarters of a kilo! Where, I ask you again, ARE they all?"

"I, ah-"

"Metal has mass; it takes up space. Clearly they have to be somewhere, correct? And most probably that somewhere is here." Chirokawa brought his hand down flat on his desk with a hardsmack! of impact; several of his pens rolled slightly, and he straightened them without looking. "I have no choice but to believe that they ARE here, in this building, because the likelihood of a paperclip-centric thief in a building full of policemen is too inane to consider. Therefore-" (he looked down his nose at the boy) "-if I am capable of believing such an absurd truth, I seriously doubt that anything you can present to me with proper proof will shake the moorings of my reason." Chirokawa snorted once again. "Paperclips," he said with absolute, utter distaste.

Shinichi looked at Ran. She had both hands over her mouth and her eyes were brimming with laughter.

"I... see." Breathing a sigh compounded of both relief and apprehension, Shinichi reached into the backpack he'd placed by his feet and dug one-handed for Haibara Ai's small video/projector unit. "Then, if you don't mind, I have something for you to watch."

* * *

The last shot of a very anorexic-looking Kudo Shinichi froze on Chirokawa-san's whiteboard; whipcord-thin, the young man's hollowed eyes stared out of the image with tired, somewhat fuzzy determination.

"So." The head of Missing Persons had watched in silence after Shinichi's terse, fairly brief explanation (_'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was forced to ingest an experimental drug-'_ There'd been more, but not much more, not yet) and had, save for pausing it in critical places, made very little reaction. But now… "So," he began again, voice noncommittal, "you're asking me to believe that, due to this hypothetical drug, you periodically take on the shape of the teenager that you'll grow to become in ten years' time or so? How very convenient; you get to skip puberty entirely."

Ran blinked. "Not— Err, Chirokowa-san, I'm afraid you're looking at it in the wrong perspective. He's not a child that ages to become an adult, he's a teenager who was regressed to a little boy again."

The older man snorted. "So much for my hopes for today's youth. Very well; three questions." He glared down at Shinichi, who had taken a seat beside Ran at the man's small desk. "Firstly, WHY should I believe any of this rot? I've seen more impressive photoshopping on YouTube, and _certainly_ better timing—that sequence with the arm was badly coordinated and the so-called 'blood' was far too brilliantly tinted. You'll have to do better than that, I'm afraid." Jaw jutting and arms crossed, he waited.

Fine. Biting back a rather sharp grin, Shinichi pushed up the loose sleeve of his pullover and began to unwrap his arm; he'd expected as much, and it was almost refreshing, going up against honest skepticism and beating it back. "In answer to your first question, you should give this some credence because it took place in the presence of witnesses who can be questioned as to the validity of their experience. Also, you've known me for what, a year? A bit more? -and in all that time, I've evinced very little childlike behavior towards you because it would've been a waste of time. And finally, you should believe it because I have tactile proof. Ran? Could you please scroll back to the bit with my elbow? Thanks."

The last of the gauze came off, followed by pads which still stuck and stung slightly as he tugged them free. The tear looked far more impressive on his smaller arm—it had begun with a side-to-side split, gaping horizontally across, and then the lower section had split for a good eight centimeters. It was ugly even in its healing state; scabbed and irregular, the line of surgical adhesive showed faintly shiny where the edges met, reddened and puckered. Shinichi touched it, wincing. "This isn't a special effect, Chirokawa-san; the blood was bright red due to high oxygenation, not because it was fake. None of what you saw was faked in any way… that was all me." On the improvised whiteboard screen, flesh tore silently and the boy looked away, wondering how many scars he'd be collecting before his final transformation. "Fakes, I can promise you, wouldn't itch beneath the bandages. But see for yourself."

Chewing on his lip, the older man prodded Shinichi's elbow with an aggressive, gloved finger; "Hmmmm. Hmmmm. It's very well done, quite convincing, but—hrm?" He pulled back, staring at the smear of blood that now soiled the blue latex; Ran made a distressed sound. "You're bleeding. You're _bleeding?"_

The next few moments saw a rewrapped elbow for Shinichi and a new pair of gloves for an agitated Chirokawa-san; afterwards, he stared in consternated silence at the boy and his companion before continuing on. "Second question. Why should you tell me? Why should I be made privy to your little secrets? It hardly seems necessary, Edogawa-kun; you've already been cleared to receive any information you might need." The man's eyes were hooded; he didn't like being second-guessed, and he_ hadn't_ liked being proven wrong.

Shinichi drew in a deep breath, feeling Ran's hand brush between his small shoulderblades from behind in quiet support. _Appealing to Chirokawa-san in any emotional capacity will be a complete mistake; if I go on about 'respecting him' and 'appreciating all his help', I'll blow this. He likes logic, he practically worships it. Let's go with what we know will work._ "Professional courtesy," he said briefly. "Just as you've treated me like an intelligent human being despite my appearance, and I do realize that this—took some work, especially in the beginning… I owe you the same treatment in return. Also..." (and here he hesitated) "...your office's security has been compromised once already; like you, I expect it to be attempted again, though not for the same reasons. And that's entirely another story, something you probably need to hear from Megure-keibu rather than either of us." The sharp eyes, which had narrowed during Shinichi's comments regarding security, widened just a trifle; and slowly some of the rigidity left Chirokawa's jawline as he nodded.

"That makes a certain sense, yes. Final question, then- and I'm not saying that I believe you, mind- What happens next?" Shinichi allowed his breath to escape in a slow exhale as the officer continued. "If everything you've told me is the truth, then it follows that this, this explanation, this revelation... was made necessary due to circumstances that you have not made me aware of. Hrm?" He cocked one eyebrow expectantly.

Shinichi laughed. "All the information without risk, mm, Chirokawa-san? I guess that's like you; you're a very cautious type. But there's much more than I can tell you today, and much more than I can personally tell, too. The reason I've told you now is separate from why I've told you at all; and now, what's to come in the next few days and weeks, concerning the case that Megure-keibu's team is working on...that's the big story. I can tell you some of it now, the most pressing parts; but to make clear the whole situation to you would take several hours, and a room much more securely soundproofed than this one is." Shinichi smiled wryly, glancing back at Ran, and drew a bit of strength from her smile.

"The most pressing circumstance of immediate importance which I have not informed you of yet is simply this: You already know that there is a system and a purpose to the disappearances and deaths of bright, outstanding youth. And the system has extended for many more years than is initially apparent. What I have to share - and the reason that I chose to reveal myself to Megure's team and to you - is that I know who has put that system in place, I have a good idea of what that purpose is. Or, at least, I think I know one of their goals. Which is more than you know, and it's enough to keep Division One from stepping into a bear trap while trying to do the right thing and follow a good lead.

"I suppose that 'what happens next' is what's happened in the past: Division One - and you - do your jobs. Just this time, I'll help you with all of my resources, and do _my_ job...without having to couch myself in the actions and limitations of a child."

Chirokawa eyed him with a certain sarcastic glint to his eyes. "You haven't been entirely successful in your masquerade, Edogawa-kun. Children, even that little entourage of yours, do not tend to accept proper sterile procedures with so little fuss. Children- how old _are_ you, anyway?" he asked with one of his abrupt conversational jerks.

"Eighteen."

Ran tilted her head thoughtfully. "Almost nineteen soon." Her eyes took on a pre-birthday gleam of mischief that worried Shinichi ever-so-slightly.

"Hrrmph. As I was saying... Children, in my experience, also have no concept of stillness or discipline. They are, as yet, not creatures capable of logic and I see no reason why I should have anything to do with persons who can't understand why getting disgustingly filthy in a germ-ridden, unsanitary public playground is a_ bad thing._ You, on the other hand, were different." Chirokawa reached across to pick up Ai's recording device; the projected image skewed crazily across walls and filing-cabinets until he flicked off the switch. "Nice work; obviously not a commercial brand... Who made this?"

Shinichi chuckled. "A friend of mine; he's very good with gadgets... You should meet him, and there's an associate of his that I believe you'd enjoy meeting as well. A pharmacist; she has quite a lot of respect for 'proper sterile procedures' herself."

"Really?" Chirokawa stared at the compact piece of technology in his hands; Professor Agasa had really outdone himself with the small gadget- no larger than a fairly thin paperback novel, it recorded, projected, could produce a small screen if needed, was capable of holding many terabytes of stored material, could transmit and receive on a number of frequencies and access the internet. In short, it did everything your average smartphone or small laptop did with the addition of vastly increased storage, excellent video capacities and a continual battery-life of nearly a week. The commercial applications were enormous, and it seemed to Shinichi that Agasa might have finally produced something truly profitable.

Chirokawa-san, on the other hand, seemed more interested in the 'associate' Shinichi had mentioned. "A pharmacist, hm?" He gave the boy a sharp look. "Involved in your so-called 'cure'?"

_...and there's a perfect example as to why I wanted to tell you the truth, Chirokawa. You cut right through to the chase._ "Exactly. I'll introduce you to both of them later. In the meantime, though," and Shinichi rose, stretching, "you might want to talk to Megure-keibu. I'll call him f-"

But apparently the gods (or Megure's private spy network) were listening; for right then came a polite rap on the door, which opened and allowed Megure's hatted head to poke through. "Ah, Chirokawa-san, I-" He blinked once, hard. _"...**Conan-kun?"**_ Rather sheepishly, the diminutive detective waved a hand. "You're ah, you're- ah-" Without taking his eyes off Shinichi, the chief of Division One stepped through and closed the door tightly behind him.

"-back to my 'old' self again, yeah. I'm afraid so; it happened last night, right on schedule." Megure nodded faintly, still staring. "We've just finished enlightening Chirokawa-san regarding just that, by the way," Shinichi added wryly. "He took it remarkably well."

"And now we're leaving." Ran stood as well, collecting the recorder from Chirokawa and slipping it into the boy's backpack; he blinked, hitching it onto one shoulder.

"We are? -um, I guess we are. Megure-keibu? We'll be in touch-" A firm hand steered Shinichi past the two officers and towards the door; Megure shifted his bulky frame sideways a little to allow them past (he always seemed a little uncomfortable in Chirokawa's offices, as if afraid that the merest brush against a filing-cabinet would set off some horrific cascade of untidiness on his part.) "Ow! Ran, what the hell-?" Hand on the doorknob, the boy paused as Chirokawa-san cleared his throat.

"Edogawa-kun? Just what_ IS_ your name? You never said."

He skidded to a stop, Ran's hand still planted firmly between his narrow shoulderblades. "Oh. Uh, Kudo Shinichi."

"Hrmph. Never heard of you."

"..."

The door closed behind them.

* * *

"Raaaaaan, WHAT-?" Moving fast, they were almost to the front desk before the hall cleared enough for Shinichi to peer up at his companion in annoyance. "We could've talked with them both! We would've gotten so much explained! We-"

"-would've been there for _hours and hours_ and it's a beautiful day out and we don't GET many beautiful, totally free days to ourselves, do we?" said his girlfriend, looking pointedly down at him from her tallest height. "And you know what I want to do now?"

"...errr, what?"

She gave him her most mischievous smile, beautiful eyes sparkling. "I want... to go get disgustingly filthy in a germ-ridden, unsanitary public playground. With you, just like we used to do when we were both eight. You know, the one two blocks from here on Nikon and Hajime? We can buy takoyaki and sodas and eat lunch under a tree, take a nap in the shade and pretend that neither of us has anything more pressing than homework waiting for us later. How does that sound?" One hand stroked his hair back from his forehead.

He considered the idea. Time alone with Ran, time spent playing together like the children they'd once been... No worries, no homicides or plots or complications... It sounded like heaven, though it would've been even better if Kid hadn't had to leave earlier in order for he and Kuroba to attend their own classes. Still... Shinichi grinned. "I'll push you on the swings if you'll push me as well-"

"Deal. And anyway," she added cheerfully, "Ayumi called me this morning before we left. She and the other two'll meet us there in-" (Ran checked her watch) "-fifteen minutes."

"Oh."

* * *

"And on July 14th, 1853, the American captain Perry arrived leading four ships to the harbor in Yokosuka. What was the name of the harbor at that time? Kuroba-kun?"

Kaito stood from his seat, heels neatly together, and smiled at the droopy-eyed sensei at the front of the room. "Uruga harbor," he answered, sitting back down as the teacher nodded.

"Very good. Now, please tell me the date of Perry's second arrival, and the number of ships he brought at that time? Matsuda?"

_"And this is when we tune out, yes?" _Kid walked smoothly into the mental ballroom which he and Kaito shared, carrying two glasses of water. Kaito sat on his favorite windowsill, face turned toward the white sunlight that washed the glass with the quality of a lightbox. Little was visible through it; the sunlight felt clean and clear on their skin and in their minds, but obscured most of the scene beyond the window. Kid got a vague sense of a dock and trees bordering water before Kaito wiped the scene, removing it to the privacy of his own mental space and leaving just the sunlight to warm their conversation.

"I suppose so," Kaito answered, taking one of the glasses. "Thank you. But you're up as soon as he moves into the politics of the factions for and against Westernization. I never can keep enough of my personal bias out of my answers to suit him, and you know my thoughts on_ this_ issue."

"Kuroba Kaito, the great advocate of modernity," Kid snickered, nudging Kaito's feet aside to take a perch in the sill. Kaito kicked Kid's rump in return, demanding his space back; Kid pulled up a stool instead and perched with all the avian similarity that he was known for.

Kaito, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow dryly. "I'm a fan of the Meiji, not the Edo. Is this a problem?"

"Not at all," Kid reassured him, grinning. "Your trade was developed and honed in those years, wasn't it?"

"Not developed," Kaito corrected him with a frown. "There were magicians before there were Thurston's Laws, you know."

Kid held up a hand, apologetic. "Right, right. Still, modernity suits you." The magician's raised brow rose higher, as if to challenge his brother: _And it doesn't suit you?_ Kid laughed lightly, sipping his water. The sunlight refracted through the thick glass at the bottom of the tumbler, and Kid smiled.

"I'm not saying that I'd like to throw away my smoke pellets, my Tyvek and my bulletproof vests," he acknowledged, shrugging smoothly. "But there's a nobility in the ethics of the Edo period which I appreciate."

Kaito snorted. "You mean the clan wars and backstabbing politicians and assassins and the Battousai?"

Kid flinched, frowning, and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "That's...not exactly what I was trying to say, either."

_"Kuroba-kun, please begin at line eighty-four."_ The voice from the outside world, their sensei calling on them again, interrupted their conversation much the same as a PA system might, fuzzy and a little tinny, and both boys automatically looked up to the ceiling, just as they might in a shopping mall or airport.

"Your turn," Kaito declared, turning his face back to the window. "I did the last one."

Kid stood and clicked back into the outside world, as easily as changing the channel on the television. The textbook was already in his hands as he stood beside his desk; he flipped the page and began reading, careful to mimic Kaito's intonations and laugh-like vocal rhythms. The teacher was satisfied, and Kid sat back down, tuning out the voice of the next student reading aloud. Instead of clicking straight back in to the inner rooms, though, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed in the number which, until now, he had used sparingly.

_Think that'll change, though,_ he thought wryly, tapping in a short message. An emoticon accompanied it, a distressed person beating their head against an unmoving wall.

_/I'm trying, I swear I'm trying, but he's like stone. It's not like it was last night, but it's...frustrating. -K/_

The response was fairly quick.

_/He's not going to open up to you quick & easy- he didn't close up that way, did he? Just keep talking- he needs to know you won't give up./_

And from not all that far away as the crow flies, Mouri Ran hit the send key on her phone, frowning. All around her the sounds of a playground full of kids in full, noisy swing bludgeoned her eardrums- Ayumi and Genta were shrieking away on the saucer-go-round, Mitsuhiko was pelting past in pursuit of a ball in some game he'd gotten involved in, and-

"Ran? 500 yen if you do this too-"

Shinichi's (or Conan's, rather) voice was slightly muffled by his shirt; not surprising, since he was currently hanging upside down by his knees on a Jungle-Gym, one level down from Ran. She eyed him disapprovingly. "You just want my shirt to flip up," she informed him, tucking the phone back into her pocket and her shirt into her slacks before flipping carefully over to join him. Ran's ponytail hung down to below the boy's own head; he snatched at it and used the end to tickle her neck. "Awp!"

The text hadn't been the first one she'd received; doing her best to keep the worry from her face, Ran silently wished Kid and his brother well and allowed a grin to surface as she hung nearly nose-to-nose with the smaller of her boyfriends. "That ruse didn't work on me the first time you tried it, you know."

"Hope springs eternal..."

"Hentai. Bad little boy- Ayumi-chan would be SO disappointed." Conan opened his mouth indignantly, and Ran took that opportunity to swing herself down with her arms onto the next bar, upright again. "Whew." Mitsuhiko tore past again, and she followed him with her eyes. "Where do they GET that much energy?" she wondered aloud; Conan grunted, clambering down groundwards as two other little boys ran up to Mitsuhiko. They were brothers by the looks of them, arguing at the tops of their lungs like two other brothers had not so long before; she watched them curiously.

What must it be like to not only have a sibling, but have one so close by that you were never separated, never apart by so much as an inch between you? Both she and Shinichi'd been only children; not an unusual thing, but it had been a commonality between them and when they'd been younger they'd both wondered aloud what it would be like, having a sister or brother. Maybe it'd said something, the fact that neither had ever proposed adopting the other, so to speak.

_Kid, be careful,_ Ran thought to herself as she climbed down to follow Conan over towards the saucer. _Be careful, keep trying. He needs you and you need him. He's just too pigheaded to understand that yet. He will, though, sooner or later..._

_...I hope._

* * *

"Your turn."

"Done. Your turn."

"That one was too easy. Okay, let's see...oh, this one's easy too. Your turn."

"...This doesn't even deserve comment. Your turn again."

"Yours!"

"What is this, badminton? Yours."

"Well it's certainly not tennis. Yours."

"Not tennis? Why?"

"...Mmmm, and the remainder is...fifty four. Yours again. Because tennis would require us to work hard."

"Oh, I _would_ get the trig. Geh, I hate this stuff. Pass."

"Heh! Fine, I'll do this one for you. You know I like trigonometry."

"Because you're insane."

"Probably, actually. But I'd rather think of it as a simple fondness for the geometry of evening acrobatics."

"Well, maybe I should take up factored multiplication as a pastime, then. It would help me keep track of the costs you incur at your heists."

"...That was actually a legitimately mean thing to say. I'm kind of shocked, I thought we were playing and doing friendly mathematics together, like loving brothers."

"Get offa me. First, mathematics is never friendly, what's wrong with you. Second... I didn't mean it like_ that._ It was supposed to be a tease sort of thing. Don't go taking offense."

"Mmm. Well, the tone didn't help."

"Sorry, not feeling too jovial today."

"Well. I can understand that. Coffee?"

"Right. You want me to magic you some coffee in the middle of mathematics class?"

"Heh! No, I was offering to buy you one after school."

"Your money?"

"Of course."

"...Deal. Here, give me that one. It's ugly. You don't like those."

"...Thank you, Kaito."

"You're very welcome. The next ten are all trigonometry. Get to work."

"Hahah! Of course. Right away, sir."

"...Don't bow at me."

"Ahaaaa. Of course."

* * *

"...and that one's a Chinese Elm, and that one's a Mulberry and that one's a- um, I_ think_ it's a Larch but I'm not sure." Flat on his back, Mitsuhiko squinted at the shortneedled evergreen that waved its branches overhead. He had a scuff of dirt on one cheek and there were leaves in his hair; beside him, Genta huffed out his breath in exhaustion and Ayumi played with a cat's-cradle of string. All four small bodies were sprawled in the grass beneath a tree, with Ran stretched comfortably beside them. "Is that what you wanted to know, Ran-neechan?"

She turned her head and smiled at the boy. "Thank you, Mitsuhiko-kun, that was fine." He reddened beneath her smile, his freckled face pinkening slightly around the ears; Mitsuhiko was an inveterate blusher. Asking him idly if he knew what kind of tree they were under had produced rather more results than Ran had expected, but that was Mitsuhiko for you.

Beside her, Conan propped his head on his clasped hands; his eyes were closed against the flicker of sunlight from overhead, and leaf-shadows dappled his childish face with moving patterns. Relaxed, he seemed entirely the little boy he appeared, with his shirt all rucked up and sleeves and shoulder spattered from the squirt-guns Genta'd produced earlier. There was nothing of the young man she'd known, or very little: Shinichi's ghost haunted the fine quirk of brows, the way the rounded jaw angled beneath peach-fuzz skin and preadolescent softness, and the whorl of cowlick on the back of his head waved the same flag that his older self's did.

_Kid would probably say that Shinichi was in hiding. He'd probably talk about masks and the ultimate disguise... He's one to talk; he's hidden inside his other self too. I guess it's not exactly surprising that I ended up with two boyfriends when you look at it right, is it? They're both nested like those little Russian dolls, what're they called? Oh, 'matryoshka', right._

_I wonder how he's doing? I wonder how they're doing? _Quietly she tugged her phone out of her pocket, began to open a text-window... and paused. Tilting her phone sideways just a bit, she tapped the camera icon, angled the screen and pressed the tiny corner-button.

_C-chk._

_

* * *

_

Suppressing a smile, she began to type her text. Beside her, one of Conan's eyes blinked sleepily open.

_/He looks so cute when he's asleep, doesn't he? Sometimes I wish I could keep both of him, the little & the not-so-little one. How are things going?/_

"Is that a text from a _giiiiiiiirl?"_

Kaito slammed into the driver's seat, shouldering Kid out of control and flipping the thief's cellphone shut as he glared over his shoulder at his most precious person. "No. Go away, Aoko."

"Oh come on," Aoko wheedled, hands on the magician's shoulder as she leaned over his back, trying to see the phone he was clutching. "Just tell me! That's a new phone, isn't it? When did you get it?"

"No, it's not. It's just my old phone," Kaito said, shoving Kid's phone into his pocket beside his own. Aoko pulled at his elbow, trying to see; his quick fingers slipped Kid's phone deeper into the pocket and gripped his own, so that when Aoko successfully dragged his hand free, the phone he revealed to her on his open palm was the same one he'd had for years. Aoko frowned, grabbing it and flipping it open; the background graphic, a photo of one of Kuroba Toichi's promotional posters, was familiar to her and she frowned.

"I swear this was..." She shook her head, snapping the phone shut and giving it back with a shrug. "Weird. Anyway, who was that? You've gotten a couple texts today, I saw you fiddling with it."

"I was just checking the weather for later," Kaito said, shrugging roundly as he pocketed his phone once more. "I want to go to the park. Maybe take a blanket and take a nap there."

"You and your naps," Aoko grinned, poking Kaito's shoulder. "Hakuba hasn't had to get you off the roof recently, though! And you haven't flipped my skirt in a month! Are you feeling okay?"

The magician leered at her, turning to face and lean toward her. "Ohhh? And would you_ like_ me to, A~o~ko? I bet I can get to you before you can get to the broom closet..."

"Baka Kaito," Aoko snapped back, smacking the top of his head with a flustered, off-put air. "Don't say stupid things, or I'll hit you just because I can."

"Suit yourself," Kaito sang back at her, wandering away from her with a smile.

It was lunchtime, and the mad rush for his melon-pan and milk tea had netted Kaito a full success today. With these goods in hand, plus a bento which Kid had packed that morning, Kaito left his lunching classmates behind and trotted up the staircase toward the school roof. Hakuba was up there, he discovered as he pushed the door open, seated on the far side of the roof against the perimeter fence; and a few other classmates besides, gathered in small groups. Kaito found a relatively empty plot of territory, planted himself and his bento there, and spent the first few minutes of his allotted lunch period just breathing.

Though he hadn't recently cut class in favor of rooftop naps, as Aoko had observed, Kaito's habit of taking lunch there had not wavered; since the weather had turned warm enough, he'd been up there every day, even for only five minutes on the days when obligations of one sort or another ate up his free time. Going high brought him back to ground, balanced his head and cleared his nerves. Some days, it felt like all that kept him going was the desire to get up there, where he could reach and be reached by pigeons, doves, sparrows and ravens; sunshine and city noise; and the unfettered breeze.

In deference to Kaito's private moments on the school roof, Kid never went up with him; the thief had plenty of opportunities to bask in the peace of height and moving air in his work, and every one of those opportunities chipped time directly out of Kaito's life, some in larger chunks than others. Lunch on the roof was Kaito's time, and Kid left him to it. He scooted deeper into their shared mental space, closing a thin, permeable screen of privacy between what he could readily sense and what the senses of the body were telling Kaito. Kid was within "shouting" range if the magician needed him, but far enough off that Kaito's conversation, if he had any, wouldn't reach the thief's ears. Within minutes, the thief was nested deep inside a messy sprawl of documents, notes, plans and ledgers, most of them having to do with future heist goals. A subset referenced the twin gems, which he had not yet returned. With more than enough to keep him busy, Kid let Kaito's time spin itself out in leisure without him.

* * *

With his empty bento neatly repacked beside him, Kaito shaded his eyes against the sun, looking up at Hakuba Saguru's face as the detective approached. "Spare a moment, Kuroba?"

_Not in the mood,_ Kaito groused internally, but held his reticence from his face. Hakuba wasn't to blame for Kaito's perma-sulk, and lunch was nearly over; with both of them up here, the teacher would send Akako to fetch the pair, since they couldn't be sent to fetch each other. The witch was good for very little, but interrupting a conversation was one of her specialties. Kaito figured he had little to lose by entertaining Hakuba for their few remaining minutes before the bell. "Sure. What's up?"

"I think that's what I'd like to ask you," Hakuba admitted candidly, taking a seat on the roof in front of Kaito with a succinct but shallow frown on his broad features. "I'm aware that it's hardly my business to pry, but I'm also aware that you're not only concerned about something, but that you have been for quite a while now. If it's personal concerns or a lover's quarrel or something of the like, then you may keep it to yourself; but as an acquaintance of your mother's and a professional associate of the Nakamoris, besides being your classmate for the past few years, I feel I am not overstepping my bounds in this case. I've kept my thoughts to myself in hopes that whatever has worried you would pass, but it has done just the opposite; your overall mood has not improved and shows no signs of doing so. You are, bluntly, suffering a major depressive episode. And as a friend, Kuroba-kun, I would like to know if and how I could help."

Kaito kept his emotion from his face, expression frozen, while he studied Hakuba's gaze and measured his words. There didn't seem to be any deception in them; the greatest element of misdirection or avoidance appeared to be based in the British teen's habit of couching his words in a markedly different manner than a native Japanese would. Hakuba was well-suited to his name; he was not a creature of malice, nor of spite. He even lacked the terrier-like bullheadedness that kept Edogawa on Kid's heels past the point of exhaustion, sanity, or reason. Hakuba was a gentleman detective who lacked the insanity of his would-be counterpart the gentleman thief, and thus, could not quite keep up with him through the chase.

But in logic and rationale, the man was beyond compare; only the most extraordinary of detectives would find his abilities sought after in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres; and only the _very_ most extraordinary ones would find themselves so in demand while still in high school. Hakuba was no slouch, to vastly understate the situation, and he was a pure man beyond that. He sought justice as surely as he sought truth.

Was he a safe person to have as a close friend? Certainly not. The secrets of the Kuroba family would be too vulnerable with a detective in close confidence.

_Of course, we've already gone down that path,_ Kaito thought to himself wryly. So the question stood: Was Hakuba someone that Kaito wanted to let in, past his barriers? Was he someone that Kaito could trust?

Hakuba sat still, waiting for Kaito's answer and patiently waiting out the Poker Face which he understood and to which he took no offense; Kaito turned his thoughts inward, rolling the possibilities over in his mind like marbles on his tongue. Hakuba wasn't offering friendship, he was offering concern, and worry for a classmate in pain. He was offering a vent for the frustrations and insufficiencies that seemed to hem Kaito in at every turn.

And, if Kaito took his implicit offer, opened up even a bit to the British detective, Hakuba would sooner or later winnow out all the truths of Kaito and of Kid.

So. Was it worth it?

Kaito kept his thoughts quiet, leaving the deeper waters of the mental space he shared with the thief undisturbed. His own ponderings were shallow ripples across the surface, high above Kid's intently focused corner of study. The decision was, and would be, entirely his own.

The blond detective broke the silence, shifting in place; he sat neatly, more like a native of Japan than most foreign-born half-gaijin. "If I've offended by my concern, then I apologize. But I'm not precisely the only one who has noticed your change in attitude, nor am I the only one with intent to act on it." He interpreted Kaito's sudden wary look correctly, nodding. "Ah- yes. I happened to catch Koizumi-kun watching you, not just earlier today but several times over the last week or so. Her expression was... not encouraging."

Not surprising, either; the witch had an instinct for weak spots- it was only surprising that she hadn't attempted to sink her claws into Kaito before this. "I can imagine," said Kaito dryly. He glanced towards the stairwell door, which stood open; there were distant voices just barely audible from below, female ones- Koizumi, for certain, and was that... Aoko? "Look," said Kaito hurriedly as the sound of footsteps on metal began to filter through, "I- Could we maybe take this somewhere else? Talk later?" He glanced around at the sunlit stretch of rooftop as the sounds increased in volume. "Seems like rooftops aren't as private as they used to be." The words were meant as a joke, but fell flat; however, his classmate merely nodded.

"After school, then?" Hakuba winced as a particularly loud clang came from the stairwell. "And, Kuroba-kun? Despite any past difficulties we might have had between us, my offer is sincere." The blond paused for a moment, his light-colored eyes shadowed with something more than mere polite concern. "You see, I- have something of a history with depression myself. It is, actually, why I noticed the symptoms in the first place."

Kaito met Hakuba's eyes with a little bit of genuine startlement, his mouth partially opening for a response he hadn't yet planned. And that was how Aoko and Akako found them, facing each other in mid-sentence, crouched together in a corner in the lee of the stairwell column.

* * *

.

.

_And that's it for the evening! Please keep your eyes open for next week's installment, titled **"Thought that you'd want to talk shop."** Take care, have a wonderful week, and bear in mind that we're still looking for ideas for omake- want to see one written? Tell us your thought and we'll see what we can do. ^_^____  
_


	52. Thought that you'd want to talk shop

___**Three Thieves - Book Five, Chapter Seven**____**: "Thought that you'd want to talk shop."  
**__A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by _ **nightengale**** and ** **ysabet**_  
Warnings: Big!Shiny!Gems, potential overwork, brain-breakery  
Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ **dc_yaoi**_ , _ **detective_conan**_ , _ **magic_kaitou**_ and _ **manycases1truth**_ ._

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* * *

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___Nothing. Oh well._

With a sigh, Ran shoved her cellphone back into her pocket after checking it for the umpteenth time in the past hour. It wasn't, she told herself, as if Kid had all the time in the world to answer her texts; he and Kaito were in school today, and anyway she had no idea how they shared out their hours. She hadn't asked, though she'd been curious; her one question about how they managed homework had been her only foray in questioning how they managed to divide twenty-four hours of life between the two people living it.

_I'm just glad Kid has time to spare for us,_ Ran thought wistfully; _I shouldn't be so greedy. It's just... kind of hard not to be, like trying to not want a slice of really delicious cake when you know it's just sitting there, waiting for you to take a bite... _The metaphor (and a few private recollections) made her blush.

Across the playground, a game of sorts had started up- well, not a game, per se; more of a 'You Try To Hit Me With The Ball And I'll Try To Dodge It' than anything else. Shinichi- Conan- had, by now, been barred from attacker-status by much aggrieved finger-pointing ("Ran-neechan, he _NEVER MISSES_ and it's not _FAIR!"_ Ayumi had, much to Conan's shocked dismay, been the main complainant) and was now busy running his legs off as a target. So far he'd been Out no less than four times; a resounding thud and a Conan-flavored yelp signaled Out number five, and moments later a tired, disheveled boy flopped onto the ground beside Ran.

"They're aiming for me in particular, the little sadists," he groused, hair sticking up; she smoothed it down for him and giggled. "Oh, you think it's funny? You try playing on their level when they're doing their best to put the goddamned ball straight where it'll hurt the w-"

"It's your own fault," Ran pointed out logically. "If you hadn't taken out five of them one after the other you'd still be allowed to handle the ball. But noooo, Mister Big-Shot Soccer Champion just had to show off, didn't he?" Conan's bottom lip stuck out, and it occurred to Ran that if he'd been in his older body, she would have been absolutely obligated to kiss it.

As it was, that wasn't an option, so she turned her gesture of hair-smoothing into a hair-riffle instead; Conan squirmed beneath the gesture and sulked at her reproachfully. "I was NOT showing off," he began heatedly. "I was just- _oogh."_ Staring past Ran, Conan's eyes had suddenly sharpened and focused on something that had nothing to do with childish games. "Detectives at two o' clock," he muttered, sitting up straighter. "So much for a day off."

She swiveled around to look. And sure enough, there were Takagi and Chiba, large as life and looking more than a little startled less than ten meters away. "K-" said Takagi in a slightly stunned voice; he caught himself and recovered. "C-Conan-kun? Ran-kun? What... are you both doing here?" Beside him, Chiba had a somewhat deer-in-the headlights look on his face; the pudgy officer had obviously just taken a bite out of the sandwich he had in one hand, and his throat bobbed as he chewed and swallowed.

"Oh, the water-main at my school broke, Takagi-keiji, so we got a day off," explained the boy breezily, fighting back an internal quiver of hysterical laughter as he recalled the last time Takagi had seen him (or had thought he had, at least) and the circumstances of that meeting. _Heels, cleavage…_ "And Ran-neechan's keeping me company today." He shared a shaky grin with the young woman beside him, who was looking rather wide-eyed herself. "She's playing hookey. You're not going to arrest her for that, are you?" he asked in mock-concern.

"Uh. No, no, of course not," Takagi stammered. Beside him, Chiba swallowed a bite that would've done justice to a man-eating python, opened his mouth to say something, and instead bit into his sandwich again with a vengeance. Apparently silence was more attractive to him at the moment than speech; Takagi gave his coworker a baleful look and continued manfully on. "I realize that you're, um, relaxing and taking a break and… but… would you and Ran-kun care to take a walk with us? There's something we'd like to discuss."

_"**How**_ many files did you say there were?" asked Conan—Shinichi—carefully, sneakers dangling above the soft spring grass. On the bench next to him, Ran fished through her purse for her ever-present notebook and a pen.

Takagi scrolled down through the notes in his PDA, counting. "Two hundred and… sixteen… no, seventeen. Including the original missing persons reports, interviews with family, witness accounts, cold leads... That's the number at present, anyway; we're still sorting through things, and as I understand it Chirokawa-san's been brought into the investigation…?" He raised a curious eyebrow. "Not that I'm complaining, Kudo-kun, not at all; it'll make our work much easier, not having to redact our conversations around him… and he does have good ideas." To his left, Chiba muttered something uncomplimentary—it contained the words 'old' and 'opinionated', and the usually mild-faced officer looked unusually irritated.

"You don't like him?" asked Shinich, somewhat surprised. "I know he can be, well… he has a few unusual habits, but he _is_ a professional…"

"He called me a walking germ-factory just because I didn't want to wear his stupid gloves. And he said that the only use for mustard is its antiviral properties," answered Chiba resentfully. "He won't let me in his office—said I 'trail diseases behind me like breadcrumbs,' all because I don't think you need to kit up like you're going into surgery just to look at a file. What kind of professional is that?" Irritably, the youngest member of Division One blew out his breath in a sigh. "I know, I know, Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness and all that, yadda yadda, but-! What kind of guy can't appreciate _mustard?"_

"Chiba-kun, I've seen you put mustard on _scrambled eggs,"_ replied Takagi, rolling his eyes. "And on plain rice, and on- never mind; but I wouldn't throw stones." Nonetheless, the detective shook his head in commiseration, fighting back a little grin as he met Shinichi's eyes. They shared a moment of mutual amusement (Chiba was still grumbling beneath his breath) before Shinichi shook his head.

"Never mind the mustard... What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?" he asked at last, tucking one dangling foot up beneath him. Overhead, birds called as the afternoon advanced, shadows beginning to tilt eastwards. "I mean, if you've already reviewed the files...?" He had an awful feeling he knew.

"Oh, just look through them for correlations, matching information, common threads. That sort of thing. We've been over them, all of us; maybe you'll spot something that we've missed." Takagi eyed him sideways. "Fresh eyes, new ideas, hm?" His own gaze softened. "Sato-san thought of it. I, uh, think she wants to... kind of keep you where she can see you. She worries, you know? And last night-" He grimaced.

"Last night?" inquired Chiba curiously. "Thought you had to stay in hiding when you were adult-shaped. You went out?" Shinichi and Ran winced simultaneously.

...as did Takagi, who loosened his collar with one finger. "Last night we, err, Sato-san and I, that is- we encountered Kudo-kun in- disguise. A very _good _disguise, and I'm sure you had your reasons for, um, choosing that particular-" He waved his hands, flushing bright red. "And everybody needs a night out, so- you both... looked very... nice. Both of you." Even Takagi'sears were pink. "S-Sato-san, she was particularly taken with, with your, ahm, your, your _s-shoes,_ Kudo-kun."

Silence. Perplexed, Chiba's stare wandered back and forth between the three flushed faces. "...his shoes? What was so great about his-"

"ANYWAY," said Shinichi brightly and with iron-clad determination, "back to the subject. Going over files, right! When and where?" Beside him, Ran was quivering ever-so-slightly. The shorter of her boyfriends spared a moment to wonder at her control and to promise that Kid _would pay_ later, oh yes. Definitely.

"We were hoping the, um...Well," Takagi said, visibly recalculating as Ran bristled at even the _hint _of the word "precinct" from his lips, "Maybe you could just as effectively look over the files in private? This is off the books anyway, so ah, we might as well let you take them home with you, so long as we're certain that their security won't be compromised."

Conan made a wry face, chuckling a little. "I can promise you, Takagi-keibu, I know a lot about keeping things secure."

"Good," the detective said, "I think it'll take some convincing to Megure-keibu, but ah, I'll do my best. Let's say, ah, seven o'clock to deliver the files? I get off then, so I could do it on my way home."

"Bring them to Ran's place," Conan reminded him, expression firm. "Ran, is your tousan going to be at the casino again tonight?"

"No, he's not scheduled; the thefts have gone down so he's just on retainer. But I could probably talk him into a mah-johngg night pretty easily. I could make dim sum for him and his friends...they'd be up all night."

"Can we_ afford_ one of his mah-johngg nights?" Conan asked, sounding more like Shinichi than Conan as he looked up at his girlfriend with a wince. "I haven't looked recently."

"I checked this morning before we went out, because I figured we'd be spending money," Ran said, looking a little embarrassed to be discussing personal matters like family expenses in front of the officers. But she answered anyway, turning to Takagi and Chiba with a polite expression.

"We can sufficiently distract him for a night, and our apartment is less risky than the Kudo house," she offered. "I would feel most comfortable with that choice."

"Alright, Ran-kun, we'll do that. I'll keep a pair of plainclothes out front to keep an eye on entrances and exits. Is that acceptable?"

"Perfectly," Conan said, nodding decisively. "Seven o'clock, then."

"Did you _see_ his expression?" Chiba leaned close to whisper to Takagi as the two detectives walked away, after making their apologies and taking a prompt leave of the conversation and the odd couple under the tree. "And the way they talk so calmly; it's like they're an old married couple! I can't believe we didn't figure him out earlier. It's really obvious now that I know what to look for!"

Takagi nodded, caught in his own thoughts. _True, Chiba, but who in their right mind would know what to look for without being bludgeoned about the head with the explanation like we were? He has a strange, tenuous security, but I can't deny it works. He seems relieved to be able to speak freely now, though; his whole attitude is more open, more optimistic. Like he feels less trapped._

_I hope he can keep enough of his wariness to stay out of more trouble than he's already in, though. It's a horrible thought, but...Kudo-kun, maybe you shouldn't be so relaxed, not right now._

The Famous Sleeping Detective was only too happy a couple of hours later to accept the rather enormous container of freshly-steamed dim sum; he seemed a little surprised, though, and peered at Ran with slightly bemused concern as she placed a plateful of the batch's remainder on the table for herself and Shinichi to snack on. "You alright, Ran?" He frowned at her; steady work and the acclaim he'd received (and, more to the point, earned) at the casino had smoothed a few of Mouri's rough edges—he looked somewhat sharper, less inclined to see the world through beer-goggles and a fog of grandiosity than before. "You're not coming down with something again, are you?" he asked his daughter suspiciously as she finished cleaning up her cooking. "You've been looking worn out; what've you been doing, practicing at the dojo too hard? Or has the runt been pushing you too much? Seems like every weekend you're off busy doing something or other."

Only the fact that Ran had her hands full of dishes and her face turned towards the sink saved her; as it was, Shinichi froze like a hunted rabbit in the middle of rummaging through his backpack. He didn't dare to look towards her, and when she spoke her voice was muffled and curiously neutral. "I've been visiting with Shinichi-kun's parents a lot," she said non-committally. "You know they're in town—they took Conan-kun and I to that wonderful masked ball and that convention, and… it's been really nice to see them." Water ran hard and furious for a moment, splashing; she turned it off with precise, careful movements and picked up a scrubber.

"You've- Raaaaaan, you haven't been hanging around with that stupid detective twerp, have you?" Her father's voice began in annoyance and ended in a rising growl.

"...He had to go back, Tousan. He told you he'd- only be here temporarily." The scrubber attacked a skillet rather viciously. Shinichi remained frozen in place, listening with wide eyes.

"Hrrrmph. I'd almost rather you were seeing that other boy, the awkward one—Karubo, Kurobu? Kuroba. At least he knew how to be polite." Halfway to the door he paused, shoes in hand and container of dumplings under the other arm. "Or that Takeda fellow. Too old for you, of course, and too slick, but he had his priorities right AND he was respectful." Mouri shook his head. "Steady, down-to-earth, respectable, not some high-minded young idiot with too much ego and not enough sense to- and what're you snickering about, bozu?" The detective scowled at Shinichi, who by now had both hands over his mouth. "Not that I want you to think about leaving your old tousan anytime soon," Mouri sighed, turning back to his daughter (who was, by now, staring glassy-eyed at the soapsuds in the sink as if daring them to move.) "How could I ever let my little girl go?"

"D-don't worry, Tousan," said Ran in a slightly unsteady voice. "I'm- I'm perfectly happy with what I have, and I'm not going _anywhere."_

"Ahh, that's my Ran," said her father happily. "Don't wait up, hm? I'll see you in the morning." And out the door he went, whistling as it closed behind him.

Silence. Then, with great care and deliberation, Shinichi spoke. "'Polite.'" He took a deep breath. "'Has his priorities right'."

Ran's head dropped to her crossed arms on the edge of the sink. _"'RESPECTABLE'! _Oh my GOD, Tousan-!" she wailed, the words turning into torrents of uncontrollable giggles.

By now the smaller of her two boyfriends had collapsed across the couch and was beating one fist against a cushion as he howled with laughter. "'S-st-steady, d-down-to-' oh, oh ahahahaah-" The two chortled at each other for a while longer; every time one would slow down, the other would repeat some choice bit of Mouri's words, and the whole thing would start up all over again.

"At least," gasped Ran a few moments later, fanning herself where she lay sprawled halfway across Shinichi's small lap, _"one've_ my boyfriends've got parental approval." The un-approved half of the set flicked her on the forehead with a small digit; Ran squawked and swatted at him, dragging him down until he was nose-to-nose with her and still giggling. They slowed down, beaming at each other, the childish face and the more adult one, and Ran touched the boy's lips with a finger. "If you were your bigger self I would SO take advantage of you _right now,"_ she half-whispered.

"If I were my bigger self I'd let you-"

_**KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!**_

With twin yelps of dismay, they both fell off the couch.

"I hope I wasn't, err, interrupting anything?" asked Chiba, a worried look on his face. He gestured at the nearly untouched platter of dim sum, now grown cold; faces still slightly pink, Ran and Shinichi looked at each other and simultaneously shook their heads.

_More's the pity, there won't be any chance of that for two more weeks. Or not for me, anyway._ "No, but you just missed Mouri. Just as well, we didn't mention that anyone was stopping by," answered Shinichi, accepting the box of files that Chiba had carried up. He staggered beneath its weight; "Ooof! -wait, _how_ many did you say there were? This can't be all of them-"

"Nah, just the first box," answered the young officer cheerfully. "Figured that bringing 'em all here'd set off some alarms on Mouri-tantei's grid, and you said he didn't know about you, so- That's just the first twenty to get you started, the earliest ones. Pretty damn cold cases, but you got to begin somewhere, ne? The full list's in the front file along with an index. Those're copies, by the way, so go ahead and make notes on them if you need to." Tipping one finger up against his forehead in a kind of informal salute, Chiba nodded at them both. "Have fun, you two, so much as that's possible."

It took two hours for Ran and Shinichi to feel as though they'd begun to make a dent in the stack of files. For only twenty cases, the amount of work that it took to unpack the information within each folder - and the wide range of characteristics, details, and patterns that each case evinced - worked the process of drawing conclusions into an almost indistinguishable tangle, forcing the pair to laboriously extract useful information from the dense files one careful thread at a time. It was mentally exhausting work, and the glass of cool water that Ran brought Shinichi when they took a break to clear their minds was a treat highly prized.

Head in Ran's lap, Shinichi rubbed his closed eyes and sighed softly, turning his face against the soft curve of his girlfriend's stomach as he did. The comfort of the contact was purely emotional, but comfort it was. It softened the frustrating impact made by the names and faces of cases cold and unsolved. It was easy to let minutes slip by; they shared a reluctance to return to the depressing work, much preferring the nearness, if not the accessibility, of each other.

Shinichi had begun to drift off when a hard rap on the doorframe made both their heads jerk up in alarm. The first thought, obviously, was that Mouri had returned home early; however, the trim and handsome figure leaning against their doorframe was a far cry from Ran's often careless father.

"What, no outcry of joy? No joyful bounding into my arms? No weeping for the joy of a long separation?" Kaito Kid pushed off the wooden frame, stalking into the detective agency's living room with a distinct sashay of hips, but it was Ran's approach - extricating herself from under Shinichi and crossing the room in a few long paces - that brought her gently up against the thief's warmth.

"You could have _called,"_ she criticised him, smiling in pleasure to see him make a face at her words. "We wondered what you were up to."

"And will you ever use the _front_ door?" Shinichi's voice was sharp, but his satisfied, possessive smile - even on his child's face - was even sharper, aimed at their thief over the arm of the couch where he'd draped himself.

"Mm, but that was being watched," Kid explained cheerfully, squeezing Ran around the waist briefly before breezing past toward the couches; he set a small Crown Royal bag on the table as he passed, and the _CLUNK_ of it hitting the wood didn't seem to bother him at all as he took a sprawling, relaxed seat on the couch facing Shinichi. "So what have you been busy with?"

"The beginning of far too much paperwork, looks like." Shinichi, still half sprawled on the couch, poked with one socked toe at the folders lying in more-or-less tidy piles beside the purple and gold bag. "Case files, old ones from Missing Persons. Apparently Division One decided that if I claimed to be one of the big boys, I could play like one too." The words were whimsical but the tone was... almost satisfied. Cold cases or not, frustrating or not, it felt unbelievably good to be finally, _finally_ treated like something other than a child-prodigy, a creepily intelligent enigma or just Mouri's little tagalong. Not that they'd done so in quite a while, or not so much, but—

_Now I'm not so much a freak as a victim. Or if I'm still a freak, at least they know why._ And that was definitely satisfying.

Tucking his clasped hands behind his head, he stretched; joints popped. "I met up with Takagi and Chiba, and they—wait. _Watched? _WHAT was being watched?" All the armies of paranoia that lived in Shinichi's head scrambled to their feet and into formation, waving spears. "Watched by who?"

Draped across Mouri's cushions, Kid watched his boyfriend twitch with a lightly amused, languid smile. "Your front door, of course. And the front windows. The roof, probably, too." Shinichi's eyes, already large in his child's face, grew wider and more panicked; as Ran's breath stopped in fear, Kid glanced toward her with a soothing, shushing hand motion.

"If you spoke with Takagi and Chiba-keiji, I'm certain they'd mentioned they were going to monitor the house tonight," Kid said, in an _Isn't-that-obvious_ sort of tone. Shinichi made a strangled noise and sank back on the couch cushions.

"You- I- _Damnit,_ Kid!"

The thief blinked innocently at the detective, holding back a smirk. "Did you actually think that I would be so relaxed if there were the slightest chance of hostile surveillance? I simply had to use the bedroom window to get in, since the front ones and the roof weren't an option. Hope you don't mind, Ran," he added, turning toward her with a smile...

...which quickly faded from his face as he saw the expression on her lovely face. She stood at the end of the couch, hands on hips, a furious scowl on her face, and stomped toward him, glowering the whole way, as Kid scrunched himself into the cushions in apprehension.

_"Kiiiiiiiiiiid,"_ Ran growled, looming over the thief with all the righteous anger of a Valkyrie. "I would very much appreciate it if you would stop giving Shinichi _heart attacks_ because you think he makes funny faces, mmmkay? _Some_ of us like him_ intact_ and not _hypertensive."_ To Ran's left and Kid's right, Shinichi flopped over, wheezing, in what might have been a histrionic reenactment of Ran's words, and might have been slightly dramatized true relief. "So you _**might**,"_ Ran concluded, leaning over Kid in a comically threatening position, "Not want to shave any more years off his already too-little life!"

Flattened to the couch below her, elbows drawn back underneath him, eyes wide, Kid stared up into Ran's face as though cowed for a single, still second. Then his expression cracked, splitting down the center in a fanged, excited grin. His eyes gleamed. "Gods, but you're gorgeous when you're angry." And he surged up, lips finding Ran's in a insistent kiss, undeterred by the startled stiffness in her shoulders as he wrapped his arms around them.

For a few seconds, the stiffness stayed, or tried to; but only for a few, and Ran's hands slid from her own hips to Kid's. The kiss was enough to melt any real anger, and the mock-anger didn't stand an icecube's chance on a griddle, not in the least. From his place on the other couch, Shinichi fought down a wave of wistfulness and watched the two, trying to appreciate what he couldn't have...

...well, not yet, anyway. It never hurt to make a few mental notes, though, for the future.

When Kid let go, he fell back flat onto the couch again, arms spread wide and exuberant; Ran, blinking hard, slid down to curl up between both couches, her back against the end of Shinichi's and one elbow propped on the table between. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes a little hazy; watching, the shorter of her two boyfriends bit back a tangle of regret that had a lot to do with how she looked right then and how Kid looked as well, all loose-limbed and unguarded, and which had very little to do with anything even close to jealousy. It was just... regret; and like the days between his changes, wouldn't last.

How could he be jealous of two people who did _that_ to each other? Shinichi grinned a little private grin, the last pang melting away. "She _is_ beautiful when she looks like she's about to kick you someplace painful, isn't she? Wish you could've seen her that time at Tropical Land when she took a killer down, the one that shot Sato-san last year. If I had that on tape..." He raised an eyebrow at Kid, and between them Ran reddened even more. "And- you're not joking about our being monitored? You're certain it's the police? Dammit, they didn't mention it earlier. They might've said."

"But they did, Shinichi," Ran countered, shifting to look over her shoulder at him. Takagi-keibu said he'd keep a pair of plainclothes outside." She turned back to Kid with a softer smile. "I hope you didn't step on my bed, at least."

"Never," Kid grinned; he turned his head and slid one arm across his belly. His eyes were bright and attentive, following the conversation attentively, but his expression was still overall soft and contented. He couldn't have looked more luxuriously relaxed if he tried, and that was the thing, really; he wasn't trying, for once, to present himself in any particular way.

Or at least, Ran couldn't tell if he was. He looked like he was just...there, _naturally_ as languid and gorgeous as all that. It was rather unfair, Ran thought. Especially since, with Shinichi in small-size, she would feel unutterably guilty if she were to do anything about Kid's rather magnetic looks tonight. Even that one kiss had been... well, it had been _enjoyable,_ that was certain, but... She glanced left, at Shinichi, and flushed deeper. It still hadn't felt quite right.

You didn't have to be a certified genius (even if you already were) to read _that_ expression; leaning back on one elbow, Shinichi met Ran's guilty look with a wry one of his own, shaking his head. "Raaaaan... don't," he said quietly. "It's okay, you know. Besides which-" and for the second time in as many minutes, his eyebrow went up. "-I plan on making good on any rain-checks I have to collect while I'm small. _With interest,"_ he added significantly, and glanced at Kid to see how the other had taken that. Shinichi's gaze softened even further. "Lots of interest."

"Mmm, that reminds me, Ran," Kid said, letting his gaze linger warm and intent on Shinichi before sliding it over to their girlfriend, "I believe you made promises to Shinichi and I that, perhaps, you haven't fully made good on?" The thief hummed, tapping his cheek with a finger. "Something involving Sharpies?"

Ran flushed, turning on Kid with a huff. "I think I did! I just...didn't bother with the Sharpies beforehand about you. Remember? After the, um, after our dates." She leaned forward, her glare attractive even while she was pouting. "I even labeled them as I kissed them. And I gave you bonuses. And-" Ran fell silent, eyes a little wide as Kid's fingertips gently pressed her lips before drawing away.

"I think you missed a spot," the thief murmured. "There was one bruise on my chest...right here." He touched the spot just over his heart, sliding his hand down to indicate the six inches in a line below it. "I think I slept on a rock."

There was a moment of silence, very brief, while Ran dragged her gaze up from Kid's chest and the shadows that seemed woven into the skintight body glove he wore. Beside her, the gears were quickly turning in Shinichi's head, and the moment when they all clicked into place was visible in the abruptly shocked expression that bloomed in his eyes. The detective's gaze swiveled sideways and down, off of his impish boyfriend and awkwardly flirting girlfriend to the coffee table between them, where Kid's Crown Royal bag sat, largely ignored.

"You. _Didn't."_

"Hmm?" Kid fairly radiated sunshine and smugness as he pushed himself partially upright and addressed Shinichi calmly. "Is it in the way? Oh dear. Go ahead and move it for me, won't you?"

Shinichi looked from the bag to Kid and back again. The thin fabric was stretched around its contents, a smooth double curve along the sides that indicated two items, both vaguely spherical. There didn't seem to be anything else in the bag.

"I am not touching that," Shinichi declared, snapping his gaze up to Kid's to glare. "And I cannot _believe_ you brought those into this house."

Kid's brows drew down, a flicker of honest confusion crossing his face. "I'm sorry, Tantei. I was under the impression..." Kid looked to Ran with a fluttering sort of indecision (entirely faked) and then back to Shinichi with dramatic, over-performed concern painted thickly over his honest hesitation. "I just had thought that you'd want to talk shop."

The protracted moment of silence following Kid's 'explanation' was concluded by the sound of Shinichi's palm impacting his own face, covering his eyes. "Oh, you SO did not," he grated out, outrage duking it out in a death-match with horrified laughter despite himself. "You just wanted- you just wanted to see me have a coronary!" He flopped down across the couch, eyes still covered. "Kid, WHY are you- those-" The boy sputtered for a moment before regaining control; between them, Ran's widening eyes flicked from Shinichi to Kid to Crown Royal bag, brow furrowing.

"...are those _really_ those amethysts?" Tentatively she reached out for the bag. "Can I see?"

"RAN!" squawked Shinichi.

At Kid's lazy nod, though, she tugged the bag off the table and down into her lap. "It's heavy. And... they're cold," she said thoughtfully, feeling the shapes through the velvet. The thief's expression was fond and altogether illegally smug as he watched Ran pull the drawstrings open and carefully remove the bag's contents: two solid, weighty ovoids the size of large eggs, wrapped neatly in sheets of packing-foam. Curious fingers tugged at tape and plastic, and...

Sadalsuud and Sadalmelik lay like twin stars, cupped together in Ran's palms: brother and sister, the luckiest of all, truly royal purple. Their facets drank the room's prosaic light in like wine and returned it like champagne, ebullient and sparkling. Holding her breath, Ran held them one at a time up so that she could peer through them. "They're so _big,"_ she breathed. "And so pretty- I thought, I don't know, they'd be just... purple. But they're not, there's almost burgundy and dark blue- is that from how they're cut? Shinichi, look-" She offered the larger of the two.

For a moment the boy (the detective) hung back from reaching for the gemstone (the stolen goods); but at last, he took Sadalmelik from her fingers; it took both of his small hands to hold it securely. "-Fingerprints," Shinichi murmured, but the protest was half-hearted at best; he was perfectly well aware that Kid would no more return the two stones with even the smallest trace of a print than he'd fly around the moon.

_Scratch that,_ thought the boy absently as he tilted the jewel to catch the light, _he might actually fly around the moon... but he'd never be clumsy._

Kid watched the pair admire the gems with a soft, almost parental smile; propped on one elbow, he nodded calmly at Ran. "The color of the gems comes from the inclusions in the crystal structure. Amethyst is one of the variants of Quartz, actually; the same crystalline structure that produces milky-white, fairly valueless stones, and the sorts of agates that you find in museum gift shops for ¥200, can also produce priceless gems like these. The deeper the color, the more valuable the gems; Sadalsuud, actually, is less of a 'model' gem than her brother Sadalmelik because of the red inclusions in her color. Red tint in amethysts is prized, but only when it's smooth; Sadalsuud's are not perfectly even, so she's not considered a perfect gem." The thief smiled, pushing himself upright and leaning forward a bit as he spoke. Elbows braced on his knees, he grinned at Ran and nodded at the gem in her hands.

"Historical value is a large determinant in market cost. The more story something holds, the more people want to own it and become part of that story. So she's the more valued one of the pair by some measures, because she has the bloodier history." He leaned back, his attention drifting out the front window of the apartment toward the thin moonlight that was wandering inside; a tired sigh leaked out of him, draining the enthusiasm that he'd built up through his explanation. Even the good humor that he seemed to have earlier in the evening dimmed, revealing more of the honest, burdened young men that lay behind Kid's eyes than the thief normally consented to show.

"Unfortunately she's not bloody enough," he murmured, gaze distant.

_And that's all for the week. Please join us next for __Chapter Eight (also posted tonight): "And who cares about Denmark?" __Aloha!_


	53. And who cares about Denmark?

_Evening, all, and welcome to another chapter of Three Thieves! This one picks up *directly* from the last one with no gaps at all; we hope you enjoy it- for those of you who're less familiar with our favorite Phantom Thief, it should explain a few very important details._

_It's been an interesting week; both myself and _**nightengale**_ have been, at varying time, sick as dogs. We're both better, but that was no fun at all. However, our week was livened by a bunch of lovely DC/MK art from a thread on 4Chan, and dear gods some of it is nice. Someday, I think, we need to run a contest for omake written by our __readers__ based around fanart (posted, naturally, with the permission of the artist)- what do y'all think? Tell us!_

_Moving right along... Tonight's chapter contains some angst, but it's necessary angst rather than just thunder and lightening; and in particular, I'd recommend going to the link supplied for the music and listening to the song 'Blue And Red' by Sky Sailing; it is, in my opinion, freakin' beautiful and fits this chapter particularly well. Look around YouTube; you'll find it._

_Enough babble; on with the show!... __The Management_

_._

___**Three Thieves - Book Five, Chapter Eight**____**: "And who cares about Denmark?"  
**__A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by _**nightengale**** and ****ysabet****  
Warnings:**_ Angst, agressive backrubbery (is that a word?), panty-hose abuse  
Music: _Blue and Red", Sky Sailing_  
Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _**dc_yaoi**_ , _**detective_conan**_ , _**magic_kaitou**_ and _**manycases1truth**_ ._

* * *

"Unfortunately she's not bloody enough," he murmured, gaze distant.

Not understanding, Ran touched his leg gently from her place on the floor. "But... Sadalsuud's been courted by both yourself _and_ your father," she said softly. "She's been sought after by two really extraordinary men." A little smile lurked in her eyes, glinting; "I know how she feels. She really is the 'Luckiest of the Lucky.'" Opposite Kid, Shinichi watched silently; peering through the facets of Sadalmelik, he could barely make out Kid's face only a scant meter or so away, the color was so very deep. The thief's angular countenance was a pale blur, his dark clothing black shadows; if he'd been in uniform, it all would have been dyed richest, royalest violet rather than the colors of mourning.

"You never said, exactly, how you'd know you had the right gem." Shinichi kept his voice quiet, as unobtrusive as possible; it wasn't all that easy to do with his young boy's tenor, but he tried. "Is that it, then? Bloody; sanguine? Red?" He nodded as if to himself. "No wonder you almost always target clear gemstones." Almost without realizing it, he stroked the silky surfaces of the jewel cupped in his hands, something Shinichi would never have considered doing to stolen property only a few bare months past. "Because opaque stones would hide the color. But- wouldn't a red tinge be remarked upon by the owners?"

Kid's focus swung from the window and back to meet his detective's; his smile was tired, dreamy almost, as he reached over Ran's head to pluck the gem from Shinichi's fingers, but his voice was sad. "Not so simple, my straightforward Tantei." Kid lowered his other hand, silently requesting Sadalsuud back from Ran as well; she reluctantly gave it up, watching in confusion as the thief easily bracketed both gems between the spread fingers of his left hand and gracefully rose from the couch.

Beckoning the others to follow him, Kid led them out the door of the detective agency and up the stairs to the Mouri apartment, jimmying the lock open without a bit of hesitation. Keys in hand behind him, Ran and Shinichi shared a commisserating glance before following their idiosyncratic boyfriend through the dark apartment into Ran's bedroom. Without turning any of the lights on, their thief settled onto the bed, one leg drawn up beneath him, facing the other two; the moonlight which had washed so wanly through the detective agency's street-facing windows poured in Ran's side-facing window with solid white strength. Kid sat in the middle of the pool of light where the moonlight hit Ran's comforter, his back to the window; in his lap, and in the shadow of his body, he held Sadalmelik and Sadalsuud in one hand, balanced like two eggs ready for juggling.

"Theoretically," he said, a note of bitterness in his tone no matter his efforts to mask it with carefree offhandedness, "Theoretically, they should glow red when I do this." And he raised his hand above his head, offering the twin gems to the moonlight. And the moonlight bathed them, and rejected them. Purple spangles splashed across Shinichi's and Ran's faces; Kid's features lay in shadow, but the darkness wasn't quite thick enough to mask the tight jaw, narrowed eyes, and tensed muscles that hinted at Kid's profound frustration.

He let his hand fall after a long moment, and the amethysts winked into blackness again as he gathered them in his lap. Both hands cradled below the gems, Kid lifted his head and smiled weakly for Shinichi's benefit.

"I had really, really thought that these would be the ones," he said. "Sadalsuud especially. The pepper spray...wasn't an insignificant deterrent, no matter what I told you in the forest, Tantei. I already had her brother; I would have left her under the wires if I hadn't..." He broke off, shook his head. "If I hadn't been so _sure_ she would be the one.

"But she's not."

Silence.

From their varying perspectives, the detective and the detective's daughter considered this. And all the while, the moonlight poured through the window in an inexhaustible torrent, illuminating everything, promising everything, hiding everything in its deceptive silver luminescence. A random reflected gleam from somewhere in the room caught a facet, just one, answering the moon in an angular violet glint; and in that moment Shinichi was reminded of another still figure that had sat as quietly, cupping amethyst fire in his palms in a temple far away.

"Moondog," he murmured, breaking the silence. Ran blinked, tilting her head.

"—not really," the boy amended softly. "I was just thinking aloud… A moondog is an atmospheric phenomenon that you get sometimes with very high clouds in front of a bright moon—bursts of red or blue light to either side. The actual name is a 'paraselene'. Only in this case, the light would come from the gem and not the moon." He shook his head, dismissing the thought. "Sorry." Cursing his too-small form, he climbed onto the bed and crouched there, not touching the other but close enough to do so, and wishing…

…wishing…

_No- he would've gone after Sadalsuud, I really believe he would have; Kid does nothing in half-measures. And neither do I._

"Kid. Wrong once... twice, a dozen times, a hundred... doesn't mean wrong forever. I offered to help you before," Shinichi heard himself say, the words barely audible. "I meant the offer when I made it; I mean it now. What can I do?" The pitiless silver light illuminated every feature of his face, turned the blue of his eyes black against white pallor in contrast to Kid's shadowed countenance; he was barely aware of Ran slipping onto the bed beside him, but her own quiet nod was an offer as well.

"What can _we_ do?"

Kid was still for a moment, breathing out carefully; then, leaving the gems loose in his lap, guarded by the fence of one hand's spread fingers to keep them from falling to the floor, he stretched one arm out, around, and down. The thief's slim, strong arm locked around Shinichi's shoulders and pulled the boy close, wedging him against Kid's side, then closer, dragging him into the thief's lap; Kid curled down, pressing his forehead against Shinichi's soft hair, squeezing his eyes shut.

A shudder went through him, but that was all; the Poker Face was too strong, the desperation of his hunt too deeply felt, and nothing leaked through the barriers of presentation that he had erected around himself except for that single concession, a head bowed to the fruitlessness of his search. He sat still, with Shinichi's face pressed against his chest, his own pressed against Shinichi's hair; the knuckles of his left hand strained as he clenched the amethysts tight, and the moon's light strengthened the starkness of the shadows that stretched from the edges of Kid's body like ribbons.

"Just this," he murmured after a bit, his lips dragging against Shinichi's scalp. "Just...this."

_This._ Shinichi's small arms went around his waist as far as they could reach.

The tableau held as it was for long minutes; then it changed- not broke, but changed- when Shinichi, curling closer in Kid's grasp, turned his head blindly towards Ran. She half-knelt, half crouched, indecision and longing furrowing her face with the beginnings of tears; Kid's eyes were closed, but without looking he reached out even as the boy in his arms did the same, and two hands drew Ran in close. With something that was too incoherent to be a sob she wrapped herself around them both; nested together like the matrioshka dolls she'd once compared the detective and thief to, all three clung to one another for the comfort they could both give and receive.

At the center of all this, eyes shut, Shinichi pressed a kiss against Kid's heart; his own pounded hard, almost painfully, and he remembered saying that the beats belonged to Kid and Ran. It had never felt more true- not even in the moments when they'd moved together in passion, not even when all three were drifting high in mutual pleasure and barely tethered to earth at all. Now, at a time when that was an impossibility (at least for him), Shinichi understood more than ever that those moments were secondary- not unimportant, just not the most important. _This_ was what mattered the most, this connection, this link; and if the only help they could give was comfort, then he and Ran would give just that.

He felt Kid's heart pounding beneath his touch; heavy, rapid, a runner's rhythm that told what the Poker Face refused to let slip. Around them both, Ran's arms tightened as she pressed her own lips against the thief's bowed head, one hand stroking his hair gently. "I didn't know," she said softly, her voice a little muffled. "And... I didn't want to ask. About- about why you stole what you stole, and why none of them were ever kept."

"It's not an enjoyable show if the audience pities the performer," Kid murmured, the richness of his voice strangled and cut off by a building knot of furious, impotent frustration. His fist clenched tighter, and his fingers dug tighter against Shinichi's shoulder; the muscles in his shoulders and back were rigid and tight as steel wires, knotted in painful lumps between his shoulderblades. He had begun shaking, very lightly.

Ran raised her head at that. "Pity?" she said almost sharply. "You're just about the _least_ pitiful person I know, you and Shinichi both! Anybody else would've been a wreck, or, or gone the way my tousan did, or... let themselves lose when it got too hard." She swallowed. _"Permanently_ lose." Her hands stroked Kid's rigid back tentatively, and between them Shinichi turned his head to press his cheek against the rumble of heartbeat.

"Pity..." he murmured in the shadow of Kid's body, "...is for the ones who can't or won't help themselves. Pity's for the lost." He pressed himself against the other harder, anchoring him the best he could. "Pity's for the ones who won't try, or who never stood a chance."

"Kid? You're not any of those."

"Pity's for the martyrs and the hopeless causes," Kid insisted, letting his head tip back to rest his cheek against Ran's hand. His eyes were closed, brow smooth, but the overall expression that the moonlight illuminated was that of a man losing grip on his last thread of hope. He whispered, his graceful, normally smirking lips curving in small, undecorated speech. "I...am surprising myself, I guess. I didn't think I'd come so far...or gotten so lost...that I could make myself show you any of this. But this...is why I've come over this evening, after all. Some silly part of me hoped that the stones would turn red this time...even though they didn't when I looked before.

"Kuroba...Tousan...Kaasan... I wanted Sadalsuud to be the end of all of this, for all of us. I wanted her to solve it."

Within the curve of his arms, Shinichi shook his head. "And she didn't, no. But that doesn't mean there's not a solution out there somewhere, just waiting to be found. Kid- listen to me, _listen."_ The thief had moved restlessly against him, face turning away. "Those men? The ones you told me about, the snipers and the ones that went after your father and then you? Do you really think they were shooting at you just to practice their aim?" He pulled himself a little upright, sliding one hand free and down so it could lace with the other's larger one over the jewels, palm to back of hand. "If there wasn't still something out there that they're looking for too, do you really think they'd risk themselves over nothing?" Shinichi's voice softened. "I'll pity you when your cause _is_ hopeless. Until then..." He raised the other's hand and turned it over, brushing the palm with his lips before raising his head.

Kid's breath actually hitched, and Shinichi's eyes went wide as the moonlight caught the gleam of real, genuine tears in the corners of the thief's eyes. "How...how can I win? How can I find it, when I can't focus anymore?" Kid swallowed, holding Shinichi's gaze as though afraid to turn away. He spoke numbly, as though the detective's gaze compelled the words out of him. "When I don't think about him all the time, when I think instead...

"...about you."

Shinichi sat still for a moment, eyes wide, heart visibly rending; Kid returned the gaze, just as broken-hearted, just as paralyzed. The silence between them stretched, strained, and then cracked.

Literally.

Ran's knuckles crinkled as she flexed her hands, one against the other, stretching out the tendons. Kid had a few seconds to wonder what she was doing before he suddenly lurched forward, then bobbed back, tension falling out of the muscles of his neck so abruptly that he looked like a puppet with cut strings. Behind him, Ran angled her elbows out, digging thumbs and knuckles into the unmoving knottiness between the thief's shoulderblades. As she applied the massage, she spoke, punctuating each important point with an enthusiastic shove.

"Kid? What did you do before you knew us?"

"I, uh."

"Focus, or the backrub goes away."

The thief's head bobbed up a little as he tried to regain focus. "I worked."

"On?"

"Heists. Catching...them. Finding Pandora."

"And what did you do before that?"

"Uhh. Nnngh. R-right there."

"What did you _do_ before that, Kid?"

"N-nothing. I worked."

"And before that?"

"I...became."

Ran nodded, moving her hands a bit further down Kid's back; the thief rocked forward, wrapping himself around Shinichi, as Ran's massage bullied his spine into curling up backwards.

"And what did you do after you met us?"

"I...worked."

"Try again," Ran scolded him, digging one thumb in, hard, to the soft point between two of Kid's ribs. The thief yelped and tried again.

"I... played?"

"Better." Wrapped up in a bundle of increasingly confused thief, Shinichi tucked himself around Kid's hand and, somewhat alarmingly, Sadalsuud and her brother as they slid forward. "What else did you do?"

"I-"

"Kiiiiiiid," Ran said warningly, sliding her elbow along his spine, knobby vertebrae slipping beneath like beads on a string. "What else did you do?"

"I- thought. About new-" He gasped as something popped in his lower back. "About new things. My focus-"

"Shifted, I know." Her hands gentled a little, and beneath him Shinichi arranged himself a little more comfortably, favoring his bad arm... and began to follow her lead, working his thumb into the knotted muscles of Kid's left hand. The thief yelped and then suddenly, shudderingly relaxed. "You had more than one focus. Why is that bad?"

"It... I can't..."

"Tell me. Why?"

"If I-"

"Why?"

He was silent; Ran ran her knuckles along the crease beneath each shoulderblade, shifting him forward to allow the joints to open up beneath her pressure. "There's more than just you and your brother now," she said with quiet determination. "Would you please get that-" (her knuckles dug deeper) "-through-" (and rolled; Kid gasped again) "-your head?" (and went limp; half-crushed, Shinichi closed his eyes in pure relief.)

"You aren't unfaithful to your father's memory because you've developed a desire for your own life, Kid," Ran said then, all gentleness and understanding as she draped herself over his shoulders and wrapped her arms around him. "It's not something to hurt yourself for, wanting your own happiness."

"And it's nothing your father would begrudge you," Shinichi added, speaking against Kid's throat. The vibrations of his voice, light as it was, produced a hum against Kid's skin and Shinichi's lips that almost felt like a kiss. "He's not about to go all _Hamlet_ on you."

Kid laughed, a weak sound with hesitantly honest humor behind it. "Denmark can rot away without me?"

"No," Shinichi countered, digging his thumb against the crease of Kid's finger pads, "Denmark will be excoriated, incised, and cleaned of its rot. And you needn't send Ophelia to drown just because you have unfinished business with... Hm." He slowed to a halt, twisting around to try to get more comfortable; Kid propped himself up somewhat, leaving Shinichi a little more room to lay comfortably in his arms.

"The metaphor kinda runs aground at that point, anyway, but you get what we're saying, right?" Shinichi stroked Kid's palm gently, but the look he aimed up at the thief had a bit of impish fang in it. "I hope so, or I'll sic Ran on you again."

Kid licked his lips to clear them, bringing his focus to bear with a vague, fuzzed-out sort of interference making the process slower. Still, he managed half a smirk. "Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. I think she missed a spot right ther-"

'Right there' elicited a gasp out of the thief as Ran did something that probably had a flavor of martial arts to it, at least a little; the end result had Kid rolling sideways and onto his back, with a startled Shinichi bundled to one side still clutching both jewels and hand. "Where?" Ran breathed, propping her elbows on Kid's chest as the moonlight spilled over all three and lit radiant fires in the two amethysts. "Show me. And who cares about Denmark? The important thing, really, is that you're not the Batman."

...they both blinked. "What?" asked Kid faintly.

Very gently Ran tugged at the collar of the black, tightly-fitting garment that Kid wore. "Batman. You know... punishing evil-doers, no sense of humor, all grim determination and pathos. Just like in the movies." The gentle tug became stronger; Shinichi shifted an elbow obligingly out of the way, his massage of Kid's hand now nothing more than the lightest of touches. "Since you're NOT the Batman, though, we don't have to worry about you- I don't know, brooding all over the place or anything. Even though..." (Ran slid her fingers down to Kid's waist, seeking an edge or hem or _something)_ "...even though he does wear a cape, and he has a short little sidekick." Certain noises from the left made it evident that Shinichi Did Not Find This Funny. "Oh, hush."

Moving cautiously now, Ran slid her legs out from beneath her and stretched out full-length against Kid's body, hoping that her warmth would help; "You deserve a life," she added softly, one hand stroking Kid's hip. "Your brother deserves one too. I think you've both been so busy trying to rebuild something out of what you've lost that you've forgotten that there're things you still have... like being alive, for instance." Ran leaned forward on one elbow and kissed the same spot that Shinichi had. "There; I can hear your heart. See? Alive."

Slower, gentler, she kissed the place again; her hand cupped Kid's jawline. "…and we're alive too. You've been there for us so much; did you think we wouldn't do the same?"

"I had only one focus too, once," added Shinichi quietly; he laid Kid's arm across Ran's back, his touch sliding away as he gathered himself together before slipping off the bed to kneel beside it. "I would've given up _anything_ to get my old life back. –-Well; almost anything. Almost." He smiled at Ran, his face half in shadow, half illuminated; tiny violet sparks reflected back from the two jewels he'd left behind as his gaze shifted back towards the thief, giving color where the moonlight had stolen it away. "It was simpler before, yeah; but 'simple' is way overvalued. Nothing worthwhile is simple, not with us."

"I don't know," Kid said softly. As he continued, the sadness of his voice peeled back a little bit to show the smile that was trying to peek out from inside. "I fancy that my love of the avian species is rather straightforward, perhaps? Ow."

Shinichi leveled an unrepentant gaze at Kid and Ran readied her pinching fingers once more. _"Kid,_ we are trying to be earnest here. Stay with the class, alright?"

Now, finally, a true chuckle, warm and bubbling and easy, lifted from the thief's throat, and he rolled his head right, then left, taking in each of the serious but hopeful faces beside him. "I just can't stay depressed when you look like that. Even though I still feel guilty, it seems to matter less right now, with you two. And...I'd rather not think about whether that's a self-perpetuating cycle of distraction techniques just yet."

Ran shook her head; she tapped his nose with a fingertip. "Be guilty when you've got something to be guilty for, okay? You're doing your best." And then she paused, looking perplexed. "…..I just told an international jewel-thief to stop feeling guilty about stealing gems. That is _so_ messed-up." Pointedly ignoring Shinichi's snort of laughter, she went on. "Anyway- who says that distractions are so wrong? If what they're distracting you from is bad for you, then…" Kid opened his mouth to object; Ran's fingertip slid down and pressed against his lips. "Shhh, listen. Guilt—you were feeling horrible and guilty when you said your focus was divided, that all you could think about was, was Shinichi—" (for a moment Ran's composure slipped just a fraction before she recovered herself) "and—and it paralyzed you, didn't it? You couldn't've Phantom Thiefed your way out of a wet paper bag right then. So it didn't do you any good, did it?" The fingertip slid from Kid's lips sideways, following the curve of the smile that kept trying to follow the chuckle of moments before. "Moral of the story?"

"...?"

"Try this one: 'Guilt Is Counter-Productive,'" advised Shinichi, deviltry lurking in his own little grin. "Or maybe 'All Work And No Play Makes Kid A Dull Thief.' Or the Batman..." He sat back on his heels, tilting his head to one side. In the steady outpour of moonlight the roundness of childhood was lessened, and it was easy to see Shinichi's features in Conan's face. "You ever get the idea that Batman'd stress out a lot less if he tried a little therapy? Primal scream or anger-management? Or-"

"...or maybe," said Ran softly, dimpling, "relationship counseling..." She leaned in close and kissed the thief on the bed, slow and sweet and lingering.

His left hand, the one Shinichi had worked on, slid up her back to press between her shoulderblades; his right unknotted from Ran's quilt, stroking her hair. When she drew a few centimeters back, Kid's eyes were wide and dark. He licked his lips a second time as if tasting something sweet before pulling Ran down almost desperately again, mouth opening beneath hers.

She kissed him as if stopping would hurt like fire, kissed him as if the need was entirely hers and none of his at all. Fingers tangling in his dark hair, lashes fluttering closed as Kid's thin arms wrapped tightly around her, Ran pressed herself hard against him... and then subsided, taking in a deep breath as she hid her face in his shoulder. "I- want-" she whispered. "But I- d-"

He tucked his head down a little, whispered something in Ran's ear; her one visible eye opened wide. "...oh. _Oh._ Then..." She curled around him, fingers tugging blindly at the neck of his clothing again; this time he took the hint, fingers undoing the near-invisible zipper. It was halfway down when Kid and Ran both froze, and two pairs of eyes turned slowly towards Shinichi's.

Slowly the boy rose from his crouch on the floor, shaking his head; his smile was warm and gentle, regretful without being sad. "You two take good care of each other," he said quietly; "I... can't be here with you, so you'll just have to make up for that, hm?" As they hesitated, Shinichi tilted his head a little to one side. "And in a couple of weeks you can show me how it went all over again, every moment. Like I said earlier... rainchecks." He moved towards the open door.

Against the pillow, Kid nodded. His expression was distracted, suffused with need and gratitude. Ran looked at Shinichi as well, saying nothing with her voice and everything with her eyes; slowly, though, she smiled a clear smile without anything of guilt about it- and then leaned down and gave herself up wholly to another kiss as Shinichi closed the door behind him.

* * *

Beika-Cho was less metropolitan than most of Tokyo's outlying suburbs; hence the relatively low levels of light-pollution, compared for instance to Akihabara or Harajuku. From his place on the Mouri building's rooftop, Shinichi could actually make out a scattering of stars as well as the brilliant moon. Flat on his back on the gravelly surface, he stared up into limitless space and tried, for once, not to think of anything much.

This didn't work, of course.

_They really should've put somebody on to watch the back windows as well. Of course, if they had, I wouldn't be up here, would I? Still._

He'd been able to spot the unmarked cars easily enough: two, both occupied and parked at a discreet distance from the agency's stairwell. If the officers hadn't guzzled so much coffee, then they wouldn't have had to use a handy café's facilities so much; if they hadn't had to use those facilites, they wouldn't've been visible going back to their vehicles. Said vehicles had therefore been occupied but had not driven off; Q.E.D., anybody with half a brain could spot them for what they were, and Shinichi resolved to have a word with Takagi about this. If he and Ran were going to be under surveillance, then at least it needed to be properly done.

The boy sighed, following a moving shred of cloud with his gaze. Thinking irritable thoughts about police activities was better than thinking about... what he was trying to avoid thinking of at all. Wasn't it?

_Gnnngh..._

There was a cool wind blowing; it thwacked his makeshift ladder against the side of the building with a soft thump._ If Ran ever finds out what I used her panty-hose for, he thought half-humorously, she'll probably garrote me with the rungs._ This consideration (and the rather slapstick mental comedy-routine that played out in his brain, complete with an angry Ran waving a Big Mallet) kept him amused for a few minutes. Shinichi remembered the first time he'd climbed up there, back when he and Kid had been hammering out their friendship into a workable form. Climbing up with a damaged elbow had been difficult and probably stupid, but he'd needed the room to think. He hadn't been up in a while, actually; it was his I-Am-Frustrated-And-Need-To-Think place, and... what with one thing or another... frustration hadn't been as bad as usual. One thing or another-

_Shit._

Deliberately Shinichi pounded the fist of his good arm on the roof's rough surface; the gravel bit into his thin skin, and he knew that the next day he'd have red marks and bruises pocking wrist and edge. He concentrated on feeling, on the raw kiss of pain, on the dullness of impact and the cold flatness beneath his outstretched legs, on the way the wind fluttered through his hair like a stroking hand, curling across cheek and throat and chest-

_God. Damn. It._

He wasn't jealous. He _**wasn't**. _He just... Shinichi bit his lip hard, staring furiously up into the silver moon that was now directly overhead...

It just- it sucked, that was all. The entire situation made him feel- well, a good word for it would be 'impotent', if you wanted to get right down to it. He couldn't be there for them (and oh god, how he wanted to, for comfort and closeness and any number of good reasons) and knowing the what and how and why of what had to be happening right that moment, in Ran's room and in Ran's bed, was- difficult. Not impossible, not unbearable; just difficult, especially this first time. The dissonance that usually accompanied the combination of what Shinichi's mind wanted versus what his child's body couldn't care less about was _much_ worse than usual, and he rubbed at his temples with both thumbs.

_I can practically see them. I can almost- I- Kid needed this so much; to let go for a little while, lose that goddamn Poker Face of his before it takes over and drives him insane. And Ran needed him too; she needs to help so much sometimes, it's almost as much of an obsession for her as solving a crime can be for me._

_No, not jealous. Just... Everything I said to them was the truth: I did want them to take care of each other- I do. But I'm not a saint anymore than either of them are, and Oh Fuck I want to be with them. Now._

_Shut up, Kudo. Whining won't make it happen._

The pain in his head increased; Shinichi squinted his eyes shut, willing the ache and the dizziness to fade; they did not. Instead, they seemed to fill everything, all the hollow spaces inside his skull. And after a few minutes, when the dissonance and overload seemed to have reached a finite level, he cautiously allowed himself to imagine what he'd been trying not to.

_Soft words, whispered between them; touches, tastes, pale skin against pale sheets in the moonlight. Ran's long hair brushing Kid's thighs as she kneels above him, swaying, head thrown back- Murmurs, laughter, hands gripping tightly as they move together in time to an unheard rhythm. More room in the bed than usual, a missing person whose name both cry out at least once-_

It was strange, Shinichi thought dimly as his temples pounded; he didn't feel worse, exactly, just... disconnected. And dizzy. Exhausted, but less so than he might've imagined- as if the fight had been half the problem. Not so bad, no, just...

_...so tired... so very, very tired..._

* * *

Later on, when strong, thin arms scooped him up and somehow managed to get him in through the window without the use of the ladder, Kudo Shinichi might have (had he been anything other than deeply asleep) heard a soft, rueful voice murmur: "Tantei, tantei. So much trouble." He might have felt a cool hand smoothing his forehead as he was brought inside, as he was passed into a second pair of arms that wrapped around him and held him close before carefully slipping him into his bed.

He might have; and if he had, he might have smiled in his sleep. Who could say? Besides the two who took care of him, there was only the moon as witness. And she would never tell.

* * *

"I had no idea he was getting up there," she murmured, closing the bedroom door behind her as she stepped into the hall. He took her hand, lacing their fingers together, and tugged her gently down the hallway, back toward her bedroom.

"It doesn't surprise me much," he admitted. "The desire for true privacy, or the ingenuity of getting up there." His smile caught the light, a cheshire crescent, and hers sparked off of his with a giggle, spreading as they stepped into the moonlight of her bedroom doorway.

"I'm gonna strangle him," she murmured, tipping into his arms; they bumped into the wall gently, his shoulderblades flat against it. She curled against him, hands roving across the bodysuit that was slightly chill, slightly clammy to the touch. She knew the inside of it was warm, smooth, dry. Her thoughts drifted back to their sleeping lover. "I _wish_ he was..."

He stroked her hair, kissing the crest of her ear. "I do too. But...thank you for comforting me, regardle-oof!"

She squeezed around his middle harder, looking across at him with an unimpressed expression. "I wish he could be with us. _Not_ because I want him to replace you. Because..." She tucked her chin down, hiding her face against his neck. "Because I want to be _with_ you. But I..." She shook her head a little, struggling for the right words. When she looked back up, her gaze, though shadowed from the moonlight, was clearer. "We started...everything that we started...together. I want him to be there when..."

His eyes widened a little, deduction jumping ahead of the clues. "Is that why you didn't want me to..."

She nodded. "It wasn't a _no,_ it was a _not yet. _If I..." She stopped. "I want to. With you. And with him, but, yes, with you specifically. I've wanted to for a while now. I feel like...the last month or two, you've...You've opened up, both of you, to me. And to him. And Hattori asked me something, last weekend, that..." She shook her head again, smiling at him. "You're not just beautiful from a distance, you know. I'm right up in your face and I still think that you're a wonderful person, all the way through."

"With a fabulous ass?" He grinned, moonlight bright and full on his face, as she reached down, squeezing. "Ran, I'm... I'm pleased. I had thought that it was too soon to ask you for that."

"Kid?" Her smile was more of a smirk in the shadows, and her voice imitated the challenge that the thief and detective savored so often in each other. "I've seen and _heard_ Shinichi when you're making love to him. Don't think for a second I haven't imagined what that would feel like for myself."

He startled both of them by blushing deep crimson, and his hands fluttered uncertainly where they curled around her hips and waist. "I, ah. Um."

Her grin grew teeth. "...Really? _Really?_ Oh, Sonoko must be rubbing off on me, because I am going to have _so much fun_ with this."

"Stop gloating, nobody likes a sore winner," Kid grinned, regaining his composure as he tilted her balance away from her, bracing the small of her back with one arm as he leaned in for a kiss. "And, for what it's worth...

"I've got some ideas to watch out for, myself."

* * *

.

.

_And there you have it. Next week's chapter marks a milestone in our heros' lives, one that's been a long time coming. Can you guess what it is? Join us for seven days for __**Book Five, Chapter Eight: "If things had been different-"**__ Jaa!_


	54. If things were different

_**Book Five, Chapter Nine**__**: **____**"If things were different-"**__  
Fic by _ **ysabet**_ and _ **nightengale**_.  
This week's chapter contains a complete lack of self-preservation instinct, a milestone of educational measures, an overabundance of fatalism, an equal overabundance of encouragement, a____lot__ of kissyface (and thinking about kissyface), and of course, Kaitou Kid in __rucked-up shirtsleeves._

"...mmph... _Nnngh?_ Whffle?"

There were... covers. Not gravelly rooftop; he was comfortable. And... something had woken him up.

Rubbing at his gritty eyes and wincing, Shinichi rolled over on his futon and buried his face in his pillow. Sluggishly, the previous evening's events began to trickle back into his mind, lining themselves up like soldiers on review- the files, the research, Kid, the jewels, Kid again... _Ran and Kid_... Right. And then, rooftop. Rooftop?

_Rooftop. Oh hell. Panty-hose. Ran IS going to strangle me. Wonder what time it is, and is Kid still here?_ The damned pillow was too thin and no help at all; blearily creaking open his eyes, Shinichi blinked at the smear of light that had crept beneath the door to Mouri's room; that was from the living-room, so someone was still up, at least.

Socked feet made no sound on the worn wooden floors; the headache that had woken up along with Shinichi kept time in his temples as he padded silently down the hall- and blinked at the peaceful scene he found in the pooled lamplight on one of the Mouris' couches: Kid, file in hand, head bent studiously over the pages as he stroked Ran's hair. Her sleeping face was pillowed against his knee; as the thief arched on eyebrow enquiringly at Shinichi, he raised a finger to his lips.

The boy nodded, slipping onto the floor in the same place where Ran had sat earlier. He glanced at the wall clock: 2:32 a.m., and long past the hour when good little thieves should've been in their beds. Of course...

Shinichi smiled, tapping the thief's knee for attention; Kid looked silently up from his pages, and grinned as Shinichi tsked at him, wagging one finger and tapping his watch.

_"No rest for the wicked," _the thief mouthed, enunciating the silent syllables so Shinichi could catch his meaning. _"But good little detectives should go back to bed."_

_"Good little my ass,"_ Shinichi mouthed back, needing to enunciate less as his amused disdain made his meaning quite clear on its own. _"What're you working on?"_

"Chemistry," Kid said, turning back to his papers.

_Chemistry?_ The boy peered over the edge of the couch. The files they'd been working on prior to Kid's arrival still lay in their untidy stacks on table and cushion. _"The high-school lab kind of chemistry or casefile chemistry? Or..." _Shinichi tipped an imaginary top-hat at the other; between them, Ran made a soft sound in her sleep and shifted a bit. The smaller of her two boyfriends leaned forward a little, reaching just enough to slide a strand of her hair through his fingers. It lay loose and thick around her shoulders, and he knew that if he pressed his face to it and breathed in it would smell sweet and faintly herbal. _Chemistry,_ he thought again.

"It started out as my own work," Kid whispered, leaning as close as his steadily stroking hand would let him reach. "I finished that, so I was looking over your things. These aren't quite as cold as they think, I think."

Shinichi raised an eyebrow. _Oh really?_

"Really," Kid said, half-mouthing the words, half-whispering. "If we posit that all of these victims have had contact with the Organization and with APTX-4869, then various details of their situations begin to make more sense. Irregular contacts to their homes; altered behavior in the cases of a scant few subjects who were seen once after their initial disappearance before permanently vanishing; an increased sense of paranoia leading up to their disappearances..." Kid glanced to the file in his lap, and looked back up to meet Shinichi's gaze with an excited, enthralled expression of his own. "Many of them have tentative hypotheses of mental illnesses, delusional thinking, and so forth, suggested by the officers and friends who recorded their thoughts for the files. If we assume that they weren't paranoid, the big bad "they" was out to get these children, then the small details that a few of them have noted or had mentioned to their friends, prior to their disappearances, have more weight. Instead of being dismissed as incidental details in the corners of these files, those small observations should have our focus. And those small details can add up to a solution - or part of a solution - to the puzzle."

"Never underestimate a child's perspective," Shinichi breathed, feeling Kid's intensity kindle a flame of interest in his own.

He twisted around, pulling a pad of lined paper from beneath the smaller stack of files. "There's something else," he murmured. "Some of these kids, especially the earliest cases, were pretty young; and children, particularly young children, do not exist in a vacuum. They're watched over nearly every hour of their lives if they live in a safe environment, and even if they don't, they're still usually under some kind of care or at least surveillance. This-" and he tapped at the table he and Ran had drawn up, "-is a list of teachers, neighbors, relatives and other related adults or near-adults who either vanished as well or changed addresses, occupations and so forth within six months of each disappearance. Not every file has a listing, but there are enough..." He fought to keep his voice down; the last thing he wanted to do was disturb Ran's sleep- or give her bad dreams, which was more likely.

"Someone had to begin the process: a babysitter, a friend's older sibling, a teacher. If there was a drug administered, someone had to be close enough to put it into a drink or food or similar." Eyes sharp with the chase, Shinichi leaned forward and rested his elbow on the corner of the couch. "Even with the older kids there had to be someone who deliberately gave them the APTX derivative; it wasn't chance that they got it."

He took a deep breath. "The initial investigations looked into the disappearances of the children, not any adults around them- because none of those adults went anywhere for some time. And when they did, it was always for a good reason. But, Kid? Two of the files we examined tonight had relatives listed who went 'missing' during vacations not all that long after the cases began, one in a supposed maritime accident and the other in a hotel fire." Shinichi shook his head. "That's just relatives. I wonder who else we'll find?"

Kid's smile was proud and vicious, all at once. "Keep digging, my Tantei. Chase them down and pin them."

Shinichi made a face, wry. "And come face to face with the business end of their Glocks? I don't think so. The direct approach isn't going to work here."

"Still!" Kid somehow managed emphasis and inflection easily, despite limiting himself to the barest scraps of volume. Shinichi supposed it went along with being a performer. "There are other ways to set a trap than to go charging blindly in, Tantei, and I know you're canny enough to consider them all. I know there's more here than your policemen have seen; I have faith that we can find it, and solve it. But only if you remain just as indefatigable as ever."

"Before you showed up tonight, I was feeling pretty damn fatigueable," Shinichi murmured, rolling his eyes. "This is nasty stuff. More than two hundred children, all probably dead at the Org's hands? I _remember_ what it felt like, the first time, taking that pill. It's a horrible, excruciating way to die."

The thief frowned, his hand on Ran's hair stilling. He reached out with his other, brushing Shinichi's small shoulder with the faintest, gentlest of touches. "I can imagine."

"It's Kimura Eiko who led us this far," the detective whispered, his expression growing stony as his memory of the girl's bloated body floated all too vividly to his mind's eye. "She and her boyfriend and Ozaki Tamae. If..._when_...we end this, when I have Gin and Vermouth and the rest of them locked away for good...when this is all over, I want to visit Kimura-san's grave, and thank her. It's nothing, but...I can do that much for her, at least."

Kid put a finger to his lips, reminding the impassioned detective to be quiet, as Ran stirred and buried her face in the thief's lap. Both of them watched her for a moment, Kid with a fond smile, Shinichi with a small smirk, and the distraction that their beautiful girlfriend provided was much more welcome than the leaden, frustrated anger that she had unknowingly interrupted.

Nodding at Ran, Shinichi raised an eyebrow at Kid, assessing the thief's level of comfort. "You had fun?" he mouthed. Kid's answering smirk, broad and sated, was answer enough, but the thief's expression grew tender as he looked down at Ran, telling the rest of the story.

"Yes. I think you should know, though...she's holding herself back." He tucked an errant lock of hair behind Ran's ear, lips pressed together in a smile. "She wants you to be with us when she lets me give myself completely to her...or before she gives herself completely to me. Perspective, I guess. And she intends to wait for you. I don't think she needs your blessing so much as she simply wants your presence." The thief looked up, warmth in his eyes. "I begrudge you not an inch of the esteem she holds for you, Tantei."

"..." Shinichi blinked. "She- but-" It took more than a mere second or two for him to recover; his train of thought hadn't just been thrown off-track, it had been hijacked, diverted onto another line and the original rails completely melted down into slag. So thrown off-guard by this was he that all he could do for a long moment was stare; and when Shinichi spoke at last, he was distantly aware that his voice sounded childishly small. "...really? She did? She does?"

"Really, Tantei. Did and does." Kid's smile embraced him, and he reached across with his free hand to touch Shinichi's hair lightly in the same way the boy had Ran's. "I can't say that I'm sorry, either; I suspect the experience, as lovely as it might've been tonight, will only improve with the waiting."

"Oh." Perfectly aware that he was crimson around the ears (and still staring), Shinichi swallowed. "I- went up on the roof, because, well... I didn't want to... I thought it'd be kind of..." He flushed, if that was possible, a deeper red. "Off-putting. Right down the hall, and. Uh." He wasn't doing his so-called maturity any favors, was he? "Maybe I'd better stop right there, okay? But-"

Kid's smile deepened. "Yes?"

"-thank you. Both of you."

From a level directly between them both came a sleepy voice. "Yr'welcome. Now shshh." Ran yawned, eyes still firmly closed as she repositioned herself against Kid's lap. _"Noisy._ S'mm've us're trying to sleep."

Kid's back stiffened, and he visibly swallowed as he placed one quelling hand on the back of Ran's head. "And some of us, those graced with especially lovely voices and lips, should perhaps avoid mumbling with those lips pressed _directly_ to the inner thighs of some others of us with very suggestible imaginations," the thief said carefully, and the tendons in his neck drew tighter as Ran chuckled, low in her throat. "Otherwise, the lovely-lipped of us might become forcibly enrolled in lessons given by the imaginative of us, for the sake of perfecting techniques for the eventual benefit of the most patient of us, whose reward will simply be postdated..."

Shinichi chuckled, low as his child's voice could go. "Some of us are excessively prettifying a request for a blowjob."

Ran laughed against Kid's leg again, burying her face further, and Kid pulled her off of his lap with a firm motion.

"I am significantly surprised that _I_ am the one encouraging chastity here," the thief said crossly, glaring at Ran. "And in front of Tantei when he's in such a state! I'm scandalized."

Drowsy, amused eyes regarded them both, and Ran gave them both a sweetly wicked little grin from where she lay flat on the cushions. "Corrupting a-" (yaaaawn) "-minor; terrible, aren't I? But he's tough, he can take it... as we've both plainly seen by n-"

Shinichi, mentally and physically flailing, flapped his hands in the air as his girlfriend broke up into helpless laughter. "RAN!"

Still giggling, she pushed herself up enough to reach an arm down and pull Shinichi into a hug, nose to nose. "Silly," she murmured. "We're all living in two-week intervals right now; it won't hurt us to wait a little longer, hmm?" She brushed her lips against his forehead and then leaned back onto the couch with another protracted yawn, resting her head relatively chastely against Kid's knee, which she kissed briefly in apology as well. "And we've got a lot to keep us busy, anyway. I heard a little bit..." Ran stretched again as Kid stroked her hair once more; she caught his hand and used his fingers to check off the tasks at hand. "There's all sorts of investigations, there's keeping it all out've Tousan's view, there's talking to Chirokawa-san again, there's school and- oh. Eeew. School. Tomorrow. What TIME is it? We're all supposed to be asleep!"

"You were," Kid pointed out, waggling his fingers in her hold. She let them go, and he went back to petting her.

Shinichi sighed. "When's Golden Week this year, anyway? What've we got, a month 'til then?" He made a face, scooting around until his back was up against the occupied couch; Ran's hand strayed off and into his hair, stroking it just as Kid was stroking hers.

"Mmmhmm. A month until we get a free week off, and you turn nineteen. Or, um, nine...?" Ran blinked. "Nine? Really?"

"Really. Though it'd be nice if I could grow _at all_ at this age," Shinichi griped. "I look six, I've_ looked_ six since I was seven - er, the second time around - and I'm probably going to _keep_ looking six years old for the next decade."

"All I want is for you to be back to normal before puberty hits again," Ran said softly, scritching his scalp behind his ears; Shinichi's head tilted into the touch even as he groaned in frustration.

"God,_ that_ would be hell on earth. Just enough maturity to get rid of this mental dissonance...and a decade too little of it for it to do any good. I might as well shoot myself."

"Now now, Tantei," Kid chided, bending forward over Ran's head to rest his hand on Shinichi's shoulder, "Suicide due to a decade of blue balls isn't really a very noble way to go."

Shinichi squawked, jumping up and spinning around in place, indignation rising quick to the bait. Kid, of course, had expected this, and his hands were already in place to snatch up his tiny boyfriend under the armpits. Over Ran's head the detective went, into Kid's lap; as Ran sat up, startled, to watch what the crazy thief was up to, and Shinichi kind of just sat there, mostly startled but also very wisely wary, Kid wrapped as much of himself as he could around Shinichi and squeezed.

"SNUGGLES," the thief announced. "You can't have sex so you get snuggles."

Like an unwilling cat caught in a similar predicament, Shinichi squirmed and twisted and hissed at his boyfriend, trying to get the thief to release him from such an undignified situation. But Kid held on strongly, nuzzling his face down into the crease between Shinichi's ear and neck, and kissing him there in a sequence of tiny smooches that quickly raised the flush on the detective's face from sheer embarrassment.

"No blowjobs for a _month,"_ Shinichi was declaring, pushing against Kid's shoulders to try to break free. "You batshit insane thief, let go of me, I'm not a freaking teddybear!"

"No," Kid agreed, kissing Shinichi's shoulder again. "You're my boyfriend and I love you."

That stopped the detective cold; suddenly still in Kid's arms, the fight drained out of the boy as he nested his brow against the larger curve of his thief's throat. "You're insane."

Kid smiled at the warmth in his detective's voice, and in the snuggling curves of Ran's body as she wedged herself in between the couch cushions and Kid's arms. The thief still held Shinichi immobilized, arms like a cage around him, but Shinichi simply wriggled one hand through to link with Ran's and let his head fall against Kid's collarbones with a silent smile.

"I love you too," he murmured. Finally relaxing into the cradle of his boyfriend's arms, the boy discarded his adult indignation in favor of purely human comfort. Kid's embrace was warm, encompassing; the vast difference in their sizes meant that Shinichi's small body was wrapped wholly in Kid's. The thief's belly and chest supported Shinichi's torso; he pillowed his head on Kid's bicep and laced his hands around the thief's neck, and when Kid folded Shinichi's legs up closer to his body, so he could tuck them under his other arm and reach all the way around to rub Shinichi's shoulder with his free hand, the detective simply snuggled in closer, abandoning for a few moments everything except the closeness and warmth of a loved one's body, in whatever form it took.

Kid kissed Shinichi's hair and shoulder, squeezing him as tight as was comfortable, or maybe a little past that. Shinichi didn't complain, though. He and Kid were bound together in the only way that they could be for now, and for now, that had to be enough.

Until later, at least.

Shinichi pulled Ran's hand in, pressing it between his own and Kid's body; she curled her fingers around his much shorter ones and then spread them wide, pressing against Kid's chest as she leaned against the thief, saying nothing. Her expression was peaceful, still a little sleepy, deeply contented; within the embrace of Kid's arms, her hand made a link between all three. They stayed that way, wordless and needing no words at all, until the wall clock ticked over into the third hour of morning. Still silent, Kid reluctantly loosened his hold; Shinichi, almost beginning to doze again, made a faint noise of protest but subsided and slid with equal reluctance from his thief's arms to curl against Ran. The two looked up at him rather wistfully.

"Have a good day at school, Kid... and your brother too," said Ran softly; she hugged her knees up, clasping them with both arms as if to keep Kid's warmth with her. Shinichi just nodded, still silent. Their boyfriend nodded, slipping off the couch and gathered the small black bag he'd brought with him before, unsurprisingly, heading down the hall towards Ran's room and (presumably) her window. Just before the moonlight pouring through the doorway swallowed him up, Kid turned and flashed a smile back at both his loved ones; it gleamed white in the radiance, and when the shadows beyond the light had hidden him, the smile seemed to linger behind.

The window snicked almost silently as it closed.

With a long sigh, Ran wrapped her arms around Shinichi and held him close. "Shinichi? Before we both head to bed? There's something I need to know."

"Yes, Ran?" Breathing in her scent, he turned a little within her embrace and faced her. "What is it?"

"Well...

"When, exactly, were you going to tell me what you'd done to my panty-hose...?"

School began the next day not with a bang but with a whimper, mostly concerning the early hour, lack of sleep and general nuisance of it all. _Sometimes,_ grumbled Conan to himself as he watched Ayumi chattering away at the center of a group of other little girls (she had gotten her ears pierced over the weekend and was the source of some envy), _I think that even if there weren't all the other considerations- relationship to enjoy, Evil Empire to take down, a life I'd like to have back thanksverymuch- I'd still do almost anything to be my old self again purely and simply to get out of grade school._ He looked morosely at the red marks on the essay he'd just received back. The contents had been considered adequate enough- he'd been kind of proud of how he'd held himself back, actually- but he'd gotten points off for handwriting.

Some things just didn't change, even with ten years' time.

Mitsuhiko leaned over his shoulder. "Ooh," he murmured in slightly smug sympathy; Mitsuhiko's handwriting was excellent. "You really need to practice, Conan-kun. But it's okay, I could give you some pointers if you want," he offered. From two seats over, Ai bit her lip and looked away. "You don't want to start Third Grade looking like you don't know how to write!" A ball of wadded-up paper bounced of the boy's head about then, and with a yell of annoyance he was away before Conan could retort back.

Graduation was on Friday. The class- the entire school- was hyperactive as all hell; Conan had overheard one of the newer teachers requesting aspirin as an older co-worker patted her on the back and commiserated regarding her class' current wildness. In a week they'd all troop down to the auditorium; the big red-and-white banners would be draped everywhere, there'd be far too many speeches and songs and the sixth graders would all be twitchy and stiff in their new Junior High uniforms. For Shinichi and his classmates it would be much simpler, of course; all they'd be doing would be transitioning up a year. Still...

_If things were different, I'd be preparing for graduation with Ran. That would be the coming Friday as well._

The thought continued to gnaw at him despite all the other distractions of the day- explaining that he had 'hurt his arm skateboarding', resisting Genta's requests to see the injury, admiring Ayumi-chan's new jewelry, listening to his classmates' plans for Golden Week. It picked at him while he picked at his lunch; it nudged him from behind while he tried to concentrate on keeping his work to an adequately 8-year-old level; and by the time he walked home from school, he was thoroughly sick of the subject. And he had much better things to do than chew over lost opportunities; with this in mind, he made a quick call or two.

Agasa, much to his relief, was waiting at the curb when he at last made his way to the Mouri's building; hurrying up the steps, Shinichi returned a few moments later carrying the heavy box of files ("Class project, Ojisan, gotta go, jaaaa!") He thumped them onto the professor's VW's back seat and clambered into the vehicle with a grateful sigh. "Thanks for meeting me, Professor. God, what a day."

"Mou, mou. Where's Ran-chan?" asked the older man mildly, pulling away from the curb. "I expected to see her with you."

"With Sonoko, helping her fill out admittance paperwork." Shinichi rolled his eyes. "She decided to follow Ran's advice and try out marketing as a major. Not sure how well that'll work- yeah, it suits her and all, it's just that she's not exactly predisposed to hard work." He shrugged, adjusting his seatbelt a little. "Who knows? I mean, this is Sonoko we're talking about; she may surprise us all... or she may flunk out in the first semester." He leaned his chin on one fist, watching the lanes of traffic merge around a bit of road construction. "Everybody's getting ready to graduate, move on, all that. Even me, though it's kind of retroactive." Shinichi made a face at a flagman who was totally undeserving of the expression he received.

"And you're restless; not surprising, Shinichi-kun. For the rest of your classmates, this is all new; but for you... and I'm not exactly helping, am I?" Agasa shot him an abashed expression from behind the steering wheel. "At least you have your case to keep you busy, hrm?"

"Yes," Shinichi acknowledged, his expression tightening. "It will, at that. There are two hundred and seventeen children for me to meet and get to know. Their friends, families, teachers...I have to find out _anything_ that they know. Those files will have what I need. They have to. And there's fourteen of those which are new, not cold yet. I can't even save all of those...but there's a few who haven't been found. There's a few that still have a chance. If I can save just one of them..."

The boy looked across the car at his mentor and old friend, his eyes steely. "I will do everything possible, Agasa-hakase. Everything."

"Hrm." Agasa frowned, lifting one hand from the wheel to lay heavily on Shinichi's shoulder. "Shinichi-_kun,_ please remember yourself through all this," he advised his young charge, worry creasing his brow deeply. "Every time I've heard you get...focused like this, to the point of desperation, you've nearly gotten yourself killed. And as much as I care for you, your parents and Ran-chan and Kid-san love and depend on you even more. And the children are very fond of you too. You can't let yourself be destroyed in this. Please remember that."

"Hakase..." Shinichi sighed tightly, rubbing the crease between his eyes, a shadow of which remained carved into his young face even as his expression smoothed out. "It's going to upset them a good deal, I think, but Ayumi and the others can't be any part of this." As Agasa harumphed his agreement, Shinichi continued quickly. "It's not that, it's-

"If they don't understand why I have to close myself off from them...unfortunately...I can't afford to worry about that right now. I'm afraid I've got no choice but to end up hurting them, in the end; I have to do this without them, and I can't tell them anything of it. And I don't have time for playing with them and working on Shounen Tantei cases now. Kimura-san...She's opened up a window of chance for me. I have to chase her as hard as I can. I _know_ I can understand what she's trying to tell me, if I listen to the evidence closely enough. It's no place for children anymore."

Agasa sighed heavily, moving his hand from Shinichi's shoulder to his head and patting heavily. The boy bowed under the pat, shoulders hunching, and turned a questioning look on his mentor.

"What's that for, Hakase?"

Agasa glanced away from the road to give Shinichi a profoundly exasperated look, and the unusual place of it on Agasa's face made Shinichi take notice. "Shinichi-kun," Agasa tried again, his voice leaning on the diminuitive, _"Listen_ to me, please. You're doing exactly what I'm worried about, right now. You're ready to throw away everything for this case. No, listen to me," he insisted, as Shinichi opened his mouth, pushing up from under Agasa's broad palm. "Give it your all, Shinichi-kun. But don't give it you, please. If you bury yourself in nothing but this case...surround yourself with two hundred ghosts of children...it won't be good for you."

Shinchi snorted, so Agasa pressed harder, scrunching the small boy into his seat. _"Shinichi."_

But by this point they'd reached Agasa's house; the scientist pulled his car to a stop on the street in front of his yard and locked the doors. Shinichi yanked the tab back up on his and popped it open, climbing out and tugging on the back door handle impatiently. Realizing he'd failed to get through to the boy, Agasa tiredly popped the locks again to let Shinichi retrieve his box of files.

"Thanks for the ride, Hakase," Shinichi called, already on his way into Agasa's house, surely headed for the tunnel that would take him across to the Kudo mansion.

Alone in the car, Agasa let his head tip forward, forehead resting against the steering wheel between his clenched hands. He breathed deeply, trying to still the knotting anxiety in his gut, and let the breath out in a hard sigh.

"Shinichi-kun," he murmured tiredly, "You aren't ever going to understand, are you? You just don't _have_ an instinct of self-preservation at all. How are we going to protect you now?"

Shinichi began his work on the case files in earnest on the last Tuesday of March. For the next two days, he spent every spare moment reading through them all, cover to cover, every note and page. He ate at the mansion, keeping the lights low and using the blackout blinds that Kid had provided when necessary, and came home to the Mouri house late in the evening to sleep. But inevitably, Ran would find him huddled under his blankets with one of the files and a flashlight, silently reading late into the night while Mouri snored on beside him, oblivious. At school, the Shounen Tantei worried over his taciturn, depressed mood; Ai didn't ask questions but the others did their best to cheer up their favorite member. Genta shared his unagi, Mitsuhiko attempted character analysis, and on Thursday morning, Conan found his desk filled to the brim with brightly colored origami hibiscus and cranes, and Ayumi a blushing mess in the desk beside him.

None of it fazed him. He only smiled sadly at the children's attempts to cheer him up, muttering dire and dramatic contrasts of priorities to Ai, who listened with about as much of an impressed air as she ever had when it came to Shinichi's histrionics. But, dramatic or not, he was wasting no time at all on appearances. He did his schoolwork during lunch and recess, abandoning pretense of eight-year-old competence with his pencil in one hand and juice box in the other in the sort of attitude with which he might have held a coffee mug in his proper size. He ran home from school alone, using the skateboard to lose his little shadows and leaving his Shounen Tantei badge off so they couldn't track him. And though Ran knew what he was up to, preventing him from having to run a second layer of interference there, she didn't press; she had her hands full on her own.

With fifty-six of the two hundred-plus files read over and noted in this preliminary way, Shinichi got up on Friday, the last weekday of March and the day of Teitan School's graduation ceremonies, with a mix of crankiness and impatience. As a second grader, there was no special preparation for him to make this morning; but Ran was bustling around the apartment like a woman possessed, and both he and Mouri pressed themselves to the walls to stay out of her way.

Right before they parted at the school gates, Shinichi pulled Ran down to his level with a tug of her hand; his eyes were serious, shadowed, but held a fierce light of pride for his beloved. "Happy Graduation, Ran," he murmured, standing on tiptoe to kiss her on the cheek in childish affection.

"Shi-Oh, you," Ran said, dropping to her knees and gathering the boy into her arms tightly. She kept her head tipped up, hair and makeup unmussed, as she hugged him, and when she pulled back it was with wet eyes.

"If you've just made me mess up my mascara before school even starts today, I'll be cross with you," she threatened him, voice breaking a little. "I wish you could be beside me today."

"I do too," Shinichi said quietly, touching her cheek gently. "And you look perfect. I'll see you after school."

And he ran off, throwing his skateboard before him as he leapt onto it, childish energy personified. Ran watched him go and smiled, and walked in the gates of Teitan High School for the last time.

The Teitan graduation ceremony went beautifully. A highly scripted, extremely formal affair, it was executed with all appropriate right-angle turns, clear young voices raised in song, and every tassel and ribbon in place. Nothing untoward happened at all. Aside from some of the graduating elementary students, nobody even forgot their lines. And with all the solemn decorum appropriate to the second-most important coming-of-age event in a Japanese teenager's formal life, the senior class of Teitan High School were declared graduated students and sent into the world to seek their fortunes and further education.

Mouri cried a bit, and Eiri scoffed at this even though the light in her eyes as she watched his dramatics was fond. Yukiko and Yuusaku weren't, worrisomely, back from Osaka yet, so they didn't attend, but the Suzuki family had sent sufficient representatives of their financial and economical thrust, and Sonoko eagerly dragged Ran and her parents into the Suzuki fold for after-ceremony photographs and socialization. Agasa stayed with the Shounen Tantei and their families, praising the trio's intelligence and ingenuity to the pleasure of their proud parents. And Shinichi...no, _Conan_... played wallflower.

_They all are right where they belong._ He watched the graduates - all of them, friends and strangers alike - be congratulated and welcomed by their loved ones and their friends. The elementary students stood with their parents' hands on their little shoulders, standing proudly as tall as they could. And the graduating seniors stood beside their families, tall and proud in their school blazers and green neckties, hands on their parents' smaller shoulders.

Some of the boys fit their jackets a little more tightly than the others; the effects of late puberty on their breadth and height would surely be even more striking once they changed from blazers and school slacks into the suits and ties of the Japanese workforce. Some would wear their suits better than others, Shinichi reflected, and some would move up the ranks more quickly, using ambition, talent, and connections to rise into the administrative echelon of Japan's high-profile offices. Some of them would get steady jobs and marry their girlfriends, find a nice apartment with enough room for a baby, and be content. Others would continue to university and further education. Maybe those would become scientists, lawyers, or doctors; they would find a nice house, a wife, and a similar stability.

And they would never, not once, understand how lucky they were to simply have the chance to be in the right body, in the right life, secure in the calming knowledge that their beloved people were safe and cared for.

"Now now." The gentle, smooth-as-chocolate voice was close by, but Conan didn't realize that it was speaking to him until a broad knuckle appeared in his field of vision, crooked softly to wipe away tears. "May I?"

Conan looked right, focusing on the features of the handsome, slim man in charcoal pinstripe crouching beside him. With a blue-eyed smile, he lifted Conan's glasses onto his forehead and reached carefully forward, knocking the beaded tears of frustration away from the boy's lashes and cheeks. "There. That's better."

Somehow the tears weren't as embarrassing or demeaning in front of Kid as they might have been with another adult; Conan accepted the touch readily, bone-deep gratitude welling up from the pit of his stomach. "Y-yeah; it is," he whispered, ducking his head as his glasses settle back into place. "Thank you... Ojisan."

_...and if I'm not where I belong yet, then I will be someday. Even if I have to make the place myself. And I won't be alone._

The tears didn't completely go away; but for the most part, they withdrew enough that when Conan realized he was being tugged through the crowd by 'Ojisan's' hand he had enough composure to hiss: "What- where're we going? K- Ojisan-"

"To congratulate the new graduate, of course; you wouldn't want me to be rude, would you?" Eyes as deeply blue as deep tropical waters smiled down at him; Kid looked truly happy despite his disguise, and as they moved through the throng of excited people, he added, "And to pay my respects. She'll have a busy evening, your Ran-neechan, won't she? So I have to take my chances where I can."

_You always do,_ thought Conan, clinging to the strong fingers. _And so far, we've all three lucked out._

The group around Ran was several people-layers thick; yet she seemed to be looking for something, and even as she answered a fellow student's laughing comment she turned her head, peering around with a questioning expression on her flushed face. That expression turned startled as Kid slipped smoothly around one of Sonoko's numerous hangers-on, her eyes widening just a trifle... and then crinkling with appreciation. _She's glad to see him, of course- I am too-_

...and then Ran's gaze dropped nearly a meter, and her lovely smile widened. _-and- oh. Me too, I guess..._ A trifle ashamed of feeling so sorry for himself (but only a trifle), he followed his 'Ojisan' through the gathering and smiled up at the most beautiful woman in the room. "Hi, Ran-neechan," he greeted her softly, meeting her eyes with all the pride and happiness that he could put in his gaze. "Ometedou; you look beautiful."

If anything, her smile grew more brilliant; and was that a trace of tears in her eyes as well? "Thank you, Conan-kun," she answered him, crouching down and wrapping her arms around him- nothing untoward, just a hug from a young woman for her ward, unless you caught how he clung when he hugged her back. As Ran straightened and looked inquiringly towards 'Takeda-san', her smile took on a slight quirk of naughtiness. "Takeda-san, so nice to see you again; did you come to congratulate Conan-kun on entering third grade?"

"Of course," murmured Conan's 'uncle', bowing neatly; from a few feet away, Sonoko did a remarkable swivel in place at the sound of the rich timbre of Kid's voice. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. Or yours; you are, after all, a very important facet of my young relative's life, aren't you? The crown jewel, as it were." His eyes laughed secretly behind the polite words, and Ran colored slightly, the blush deepening on her already pink cheeks. "But we have something for you, don't we, Conan-kun? I believe it's in your right-hand pocket..."

Confused, Conan slipped a hand in and felt around; his fingers touched cold metal, tracing the shapes even as he brought what Kid had slipped inside out into the light.

Delicate silver, the bracelet was simply made; a repeating pair of floral designs echoed each other over and over, white enamel and silver leaflets- stylized chrysanthemums and 4-leaf clovers linked by thin chains, one after the other. "Chrysanthemums for truth, clovers for luck; an appropriate gift for my nephew's Ran-neechan, don't you think? Conan-kun, why don't you put it on her?" His eyes met Conan's, merry and articulate. "Go on."

Her hand shook; so did his. And when the bracelet was fastened around Ran's wrist, before Conan had quite let go, slender fingers turned Ran's hand over and gentle lips brushed the back. "Thank you for being there for him," said the smooth voice, and even Kogoro Mouri could have found no fault in the respectful bow that followed the kiss, deep enough and entirely proper.

And then, as Sonoko surged forward in excitement to see the bracelet, as Ran turned to find her father looming at her shoulder and the crowd around them shifted- Takeda-san straightened, gave his 'nephew' a grin and a correctly perfunctory bow, clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder and dropped in a crouch to face him again. "No more tears?" he asked quietly, serious despite his affable demeanor.

Conan shook his head. "Think you scared them off," he admitted; and then, very low: "Thank you."

Takeda-san inclined his handsome head, the overhead fluorescents shining off his smooth hair. "Tears, well, they have their place. And here and now, the only tears should be ones of excitement or nostalgia, not sorrow. Later? We'll see. Ometedou, Conan-kun. I'll see you soon." He stood, stepping back and into the swirl of excited teenagers, adults and uniformed children; and when the crowd broke again, Takeda-san was gone.

'Later' was any number of things. 'Later' was a call to Hattori, congratulating him on his and Kazuha's own graduations. 'Later' was watching a helplessly laughing Ran dragged off by Sonoko and a large number of her schoolmates (some of which she'd never see again) despite her protestations. 'Later' was seeing Mouri and his estranged wife actually _reminiscing_ together without more than a handful of scornful words being exchanged as they climbed into a shared taxi; and 'Later' was riding back with the Professor and Ai, quiet for the most part, and then slipping through to the Kudo home down a tunnel of cool tiles and quiet emptiness...

...to find the scent of excellent coffee and other good things waiting for him, a smiling, slender figure with a freshly undisguised face leaning against the doorjamb in his rolled-up shirt-sleeves, and a steaming, fragrant mug held out to him with the words: "Welcome back, Tantei. You're just in time; I made popcorn."

'Later' was, in the end, a very good word indeed.


	55. I'm only looking after his interests

_Goooooooooood evening, all, and welcome to this week's episode of Three Thieves! Before we begin, please allow me to pass along my and _ **nightengale**_ 's thanks for all the comments lately... and our apologies for our lack of responses. It's been a busy last few weeks; we're going to try to catch up, we promise! But your comments have been wonderful; witness _ **nightengale**_ 's text to me from earlier today: __ "please tell people to keep up the awesome comments- getting them in my inbox has prevented me committing major crimes against the sentient chocolate population of Pittsburgh!"_

_And now, about tonight's chapter... This one has a few revelations of the embarrassing as well as surprising kind; it's a busy chapter, and we hope it'll clear a few mysteries up- as well as laying the foundation for a few more. Our heroes have a great deal of work before them, and this is where it __really__ begins. And, just to cap things off- well; quite a few of you wanted to see more of a certain other Kuroba brother, didn't you? Your wish is our command._

_On with the show!...__The Management  
_

**Three Thieves - Book Five, Chapter Ten****: "I'm only looking after his interests, you know."  
A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by ** **nightengale**** and ** **ysabet**_  
__Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ **dc_yaoi**_ , _ **detective_conan**_ , _ **magic_kaitou**_ and _ **manycases1truth**_ .  
_

While Ran's classmates threw parties and celebrated their high school graduation late into the following nights, for Ran and her thief and detective, the weekend was full of paperwork. It littered the couches and end-tables, established colonies on the Kudos' coffee-table, set up outposts here and there on the floor and took over a sizable portion of the nearest wall, armed with pushpins. A map of Japan took pride-of-place beside this, and what Yukiko would say about the pin-holes in her walls did not bear consideration. And speaking of Kudo Shinichi's one and only Kaasan-

BEEEEEP! _"Shin-chan? This is your mother- well, of course it is, who else would be leaving this message, nobody else calls you 'Shin-chan' but me- anyway, this is Kaasan. Sorry we weren't there tonight but darling Heiji-kun told us about the most LOVELY little onsen resort near Osaka and, well, modern life is so hectic, so we decided just to spend a day or two there. And then your father came down with a plot- it's just like coming down with a cold, isn't it? Only with murder weapons and gore- and there's a perfectly marvelous spa at the resort, so I believe we might be a trifle late getting back. Take care of yourself, darling, and we'll see you in a week. Probably. Or as soon as your father's killed off his first poor victim, at least- that sounds just dreadful, but it's TRUE, he always gets so knotted up in a book's first murder, and you know there'll be more than one. Jaa, sweetheart, and give our best to your own sweethearts. We'll bring you back a souvenir!"_ BEEEEEEEP! click.

Which solved the riddle of the Mysterious Missing Kudos, or at least the elder ones. Prudently deleting the horribly incriminating voicemail (and praying that his phone wasn't tapped), Shinichi shook his head tiredly over his wayward parents' misadventures and resolved not to contact Hattori regarding their whereabouts until Golden Week had come and gone.

Two laptops had joined his- or rather, Conan's- on the very end of the coffeetable. Linked by the Kudos' LAN, a shared database had been building between the three which contained every fact regarding the missing children that he'd been able to conjure out of not thin air but solid fact. Occupations of relatives, family histories, friends and family who'd had any jailtime or medical connections... it was all there, and it was growing. Correlative flags appeared in seried ranks beside each name in the main table, colors depicting the categories in which the matches occurred; and while the links were still quite tenuous, one occupation-related category kept showing up again and again.

_Teachers._ Considering what had just occurred on Friday, the irony was enough to make a person laugh. Or weep.

While conversation between the three was minimal, as all were focused on their screens and their work, the atmosphere - despite the subject matter - was warm and in a way, timeless. Ran had reached her limit of socialization at the sixth or seventh party Sonoko had taken her to on Friday night, and Kid had little to say about his and Kaito's matriculation either. The three took turns refilling each other's drinks and they kept a bowl of wheat crackers (healthier than potato chips, Ran opined) on the center of the coffee table well-filled through the afternoon. As the database continued to sluggishly expand, the blank white cells of its tables filling laboriously with motes of data, Ran's and Shinichi's thoughts turned toward food.

"Well, if we get a pizza it will serve us for a day or two, but if we go out for supplies we could make stirfry, and that'll last us through Monday," Ran pointed out. "Kid, you and I could stay here and keep working while Shinichi goes to school, you know; I don't start my internship until after Golden Week, so I've got time to put in some hours on building up the data. I'm going to be a paralegal anyway, right?" She dimpled at her boyfriends, sunny. "Better start practicing now!"

Both boys grinned back; Shinichi's grin didn't really fade, either, as Kid leaned to his right, reaching down the length of the couch he shared with Ran for a kiss. She gave it readily, tongue lingering lightly, but Kid's amused smirk when she pulled back made her brow rise, questioning.

"What is it?" she asked hesitantly, eyeing the thief warily. With the sleeves of his oxford shirt rolled up and its top two buttons undone, Kid wore his grey suit slacks and shirt as casually as most boys his age would wear jeans and a t-shirt, but to much better effect. Even with his hair (more) mussed and creases worn into his slacks from sitting, the thief looked positively ravishable. _Not now, _Ran scolded herself, sliding her thoughts back over to more pertinent topics. "Did you have a plan?"

"I'm just amused. I suppose it's never really come up before, but still, I'm astonished in the lapse in our Tantei's information! I won't be free on Monday, I'm afraid."

"Why not?" This from Shinichi, in his favorite armchair on Ran's end of the couch. "Heist planning?"

Kid's expression was wounded. "Tantei! I think it's a bit early for me to be developing a case of delinquency on the first day of classes!"

Silence.

Shinichi's eyebrows rose one at a time, slowly as if lifting weights miniature weights. "Classes," he said experimentally, testing the thought; and then, "First day." And finally, as both narrow childish brows vanished into his bangs, he regarded the thief with something that mingled dismay, laughter and increduality into one disbelieving mix. "Are you telling me that- oh my god. Ran? He's, they're _younger_ than we are!"

Kid waved one expressive hand at him. "Watch it, Tantei; glass houses, et cetera." He grinned a sharp, toothy grin. "Don't force me to spank you."

"As IF. But you are, aren't you? You've got another year left before graduation." As the coin dropped for Ran as well, she stared wide-eyed and disconcerted at the reclining thief before breaking up into giggles.

"W-we've been-" She had to stop and catch her breath. "We, we've been r-robbing the cradle!" Lounging against her, Kid rolled his eyes and turned his hand-waving towards the chortling Shinichi into an equally expressive middle finger.

Shinichi, his expression turning contemplative, tapped a finger to his lip and looked across to Ran, ignoring Kid. "Ran? How tall would you say I am now?"

Ran snickered. _"Now?_ No, I know what you mean," she added hastily, as the little detective scowled; thoughtfully, she stood up and raised one hand in a considering manner. "You had a growth spurt that first time, I remember, because your sweater didn't fit right. Hmmm. When I hold you, the back of your neck's right about...here. So, maybe 168 CM?"

Sensing the direction that this train of thought was going, Kid made an emphasis of his middle finger as Shinichi's smirk grew. "And you're what, Kid? 160 or thereabouts?"

"One-sixty-_two,"_ the thief grumped back.

"Huh!" Shinichi turned an amused, one-hair-away-from-a-gigglefit expression on Ran. "So he's shorter _and_ younger than me."

"And as most of our relations are conducted _horizontally_ and without an _ID check_ at the door, I don't see how this has any pertinence at all," Kid pouted. "Just watch, he'll _never_ let me top again."

Shinichi's answering smirk had big, fat fangs on it. "Oh, don't you _even_ try to Brer Rabbit your way into that one," he grinned, pleased. Though his small body meant that their discussion was purely one of wordplay and one-upmanship at the moment, Shinichi had no doubts that as soon as Golden Week, Shinichi's birthday, and the date of his next transformation hit, Kid would be recalling this conversation to all their memories, with prejudice. Frankly, he was looking forward to that.

"Brer Rabbit?" Ran looked from the smug detective to the comically sulking thief with a bit of confusion. "What do bunnies have to do with this? Is this a Lupin joke?"

"Lupin, _lapin,_ very nice connection, Ran," Kid nodded, pronouncing the French flawlessly. "But actually, Tantei's just referring to an American alternative to the Tom Sawyer tactic. Do you know that one?"

"That one's American too," Ran pointed out, smiling as she pieced the meaning together. "But Brer Rabbit is the same thing? Saying you don't want something so that the other person does it?"

"Yup," Shinichi confirmed proudly. "The Tom Saywer version is based on manipulating through agreement; Brer Rabbit was excellent at making his enemies do what he wanted them to do by acting like he _didn't_ want it. Our thief over there is a natural at that sort of thing."

Kid bowed from his seat, the satisfaction on his face palpable. Shinichi's eyes warmed to return the sentiment. "Ran, give that idiot a kiss for me, won't you? I'm going to go order us a pizza."

"I'll give him one from _me,"_ she answered smartly, "and you can add his to that list you've been keeping in your pocket. You'd better not take that to school; if you get caught passing notes with the Shonen Tantei and they check your pockets, that new teacher of yours'll have a heart attack." Tugging at Kid's shoulder, she pulled him down so that he was half lying in her lap; with one hand on his chin, she tilted his face up a little. He beamed at her, and both their mouths were smiling when they met.

Silky-smooth, just a little aggressive with the energy of the preceding moments, Kid's lips parted as they pressed Ran's and she opened beneath the touch like a flower, tasting him back; they each held the flavors of coffee and their own unique selves. Long hair fell around them both like a curtain as Ran's fingers slid down to grasp his shirt-collar; the kiss was light, playful with a hint of gathering strength that brought Kid's hand up and around, pulling his lover closer.

Shinichi paused, phone in hand, to watch them, smiling to himself before deliberately turning away and walking into the kitchen; there was no way he'd be able to order coherently with a sight like_ that_ tugging at his attention.

When he returned to the room, he regarded the two flushed and slightly disheveled figures on the couch and tilted his head. "I think that qualifies as eating dessert first," he remarked, sitting back down.

Ran pushed Kid's hand out of her bra with a blush, chest swelling with a deep breath. "Um. Dessert doesn't come with pizza," she protested. "We were, um, improvising."

Kid, head and shoulders draped in her lap with the sort of sans-skeleton luxury that one normally expected out of a cat, smiled slowly. The grin kept spreading and spreading, far past what seemed like a normal smile's width, exposing cheshire teeth the whole way. Shinichi knew there was trouble coming before the thief even opened his mouth, but when Kid did, it still managed to take Shinichi off guard.

"We were playing make-believe," he drawled, fingertips creeping toward the hem of Ran's shirt again. "I was pretending you were in my lap, _on_ me, riding me, and Ran was pretending that you were sucking on her fingers. To keep you quiet, of course."

Shinichi's eyes crossed, painful zaps of disconnection yanking their way through his skull, as he reached for his everpresent pocket notebook. "Adding that to the list, and unless you want me to get a migraine, please wait til I go to bed, okay? It's _not_ that I don't appreciate it, it's..." He rubbed his temples with a sharp wince, working his jaw to try to equalize the pressure between his ears.

Kid raised his head, kiss-induced playful lethargy fading as he watched the detective clearly trying to work away a sharp pain. "Tantei?"

"My head and my heart tell my body really, really clear instructions when I see you two like that, when I hear you...talking like that," Shinichi explained, leaning his head against the back of his chair, eyes closed. "My body has _no idea_ what to do with that information, and sends short circuits back to my brain. Which makes everything feel funny and like every muscle in my body's been tugged in the wrong direction for a few seconds. But the headache lasts a lot longer than that. Sometimes I get sick to my stomach, too."

Kid had already removed himself from Ran's lap halfway through this explanation; Ran and he both crossed to Shinichi's chair with distinctly worried expressions. Ran crouched in front of their small boyfriend, taking both his hands in her own; Kid circled to the back, cracked his knuckles, and got to work on Shinichi's scalp, delicately offering the most attentive massage that he could. Shinichi's young face smoothed; though the worry crease between his brows was never completely smooth, not even when he was feigning innocence around the Shounen Tantei, it at least mostly faded now. His eyelids flickered as Kid's and Ran's fingers worked tension out of his body, murmuring low in apology.

"It's okay, guys," the boy murmured, even as he rolled his head into Kid's touch with a soft little gasp of relaxation. "It's...okay."

"We were out of hand," Kid disagreed, mouth firm in a frown. "I had thought that it was...a case of a _lack_ of reaction, not a negative one. I suppose I never understood when you explained before."

"I don't know if I ever had laid it out for you like that before," Shinichi countered, frowning now. "It's fine, Kid, don't beat yourself up over it."

Ran disagreed now, with a mou of worry. "Still, Shinichi. Are you okay? Are you feeling sick?"

"I'll be okay," he said, hands curling around her own. "I think I should put the coffee aside for a little bit, though," he reconsidered, as he tried to lean forward toward Ran and felt his stomach seize up a bit. "Just water, maybe. Ooogh. It's...it's fine if you're kissing, or talking about kissing. I...I _like_ watching you two kiss. No matter what size I am. You two...oh, further back, Kid." The thief moved his hands obediently, continuing to massage, listening silently. Shinichi sighed, mumbling. "You two are...the most beautiful thing...I've ever seen. It's just...nngh, ow. When it gets...when I start thinking about... _more_ than that, that's when I get... ricochet. It's only been this bad once or twice."

"Has it been getting worse?" Ran asked quietly, trying to understand. Shinichi cracked one eye open, smiling thinly at her.

"Maybe? I didn't have a lot of reason to...notice, or hell, to have this sort of dissonance, before Ai came up with the black box. I'd say the last couple times I've...let my thoughts drift, let's say, have been the worst. It's nothing I can't handle, though," he hurried to reassure Ran and Kid both, as he heard his own words. "It's not a big deal, guys, seriously, I'm fine."

And that, despite anxious questioning to the contrary, seemed to be that, at least for the moment.

The pizza arrived- not at the Kudos' supposedly-unoccupied home, of course, but at Professor Agasa's per Shinichi's instructions; the three arrived through the passageway just in time to catch the deliveryman as he rang the bell. Professor Agasa's bald dome popped up like the target in a Whack-A-Mole game at the sound, and his moustache bristled in eager appreciation at the scent... until, glancing sideways at Haibara Ai's disapproving profile, he drooped with a despairing little sigh.

"Just one slice," she said sternly, flipping the page of the fashion magazine she'd been reading; Agasa regarded her with pathetic eyes, and the corner of her mouth twitched. "...very well, two. But no coffee in the morning."

"Of course," agreed the older scientist cheerfully, moving forward to help carry the boxes in. "Ran-chan, it's good to see you; you looked lovely the other night, did I tell you? Ah, and... Kid-san, nice to see you too. Here, let me have th- Shinichi-kun?" The boy waved, trooping in after the others; Agasa paused, frowning. "Are you feeling well, Shinichi-kun? You look a bit haggard." He cleared a couple of stacks of technical journals from the kitchen counter, brow still furrowed in concern.

The young detective hiked one shoulder into a dismissive shrug. "Sure; little under the weather, nothing to worry about." Agasa's frown deepened as he caught the flash of a glance between the other two, but he allowed the subject to drop as the pizza-boxes were popped open and the room became redolent with the scents of garlic, sauce and freshly-baked crust. Japanese pizza being of a somewhat more adventuresome food than the American variety, the aromas of kimchi and corn toppings soon joined more prosaic favorites like sausage and mushrooms; and only when the last crust-edges were littering the cardboard did conversation do more than lag.

Shinichi picked up one of the crunchy edges, nibbling on it at random; "Ayumi-chan calls these 'pizza bones' just like you did when you were little, Ran," he remarked, punctuating the sentence with a bite that took out half the crust. "D'you remember when I tried to convince you that they really _had_ bones in them?"

His girlfriend brandished a wadded-up napkin threateningly in his direction, eyes laughing. "I remember you trying to convince me of a lot of things, Shinichi. Like that time when you said that if we climbed high enough on that cedar in your backyard it'd bend sideways enough that we could get onto the roof..."

"That should've worked!"

Chuckling softly and murmuring something that sounded suspiciously like 'amateurs' beneath his breath, Kid passed the last slice of mushroom-and-curry to Ai, who regarded him somewhat warily before accepting. While a large part of her earlier suspicions regarding the thief seemed to have rubbed thin with time, Haibara stubbornly clung to the remnants with all the tenacity of a confirmed pessimist; and when the thief remained where he was, the empty pizza-box cradled against his chest, she gave him a Look. "What?"

"Oh, just a little request," he said easily, drumming his fingers against the cardboard; "Could you possibly run a baseline check on your fellow sufferer, perchance? Vitals, that sort of thing-?" Kid gave her his best charming smile, the one without quite so many teeth. "Not that he's in bad condition particularly, it's merely that-"

"Kid-" put in Shinichi on a rising note of warning. "I _said_ I was fine-"

"-we'd like to make certain that, since we're clearly not going to be allowed to worry, that there's nothing to worry about. Hmmmmmmm?" The smile grew a touch melancholy, downshifting into convincingly wounded affection as he turned his head to regard his boyfriend. "I'm only looking after his interests, you know. They're very nice interests, or at least they will be in a week." Shinichi put one hand over his eyes as Ran stifled a laugh.

"I... suppose I could, being that we're close enough to midpoint between transformations that the data might be interesting," conceded the diminutive blonde with a somewhat mistrustful glance up at the soulful blue eyes above her. "Kudo-kun, five minutes." She bit into her slice as Kid's sad expression bloomed into brilliant grins once more; behind her, Shinichi made a small growling noise which virtually everyone in the room ignored.

Somehow, it always came down to needles.

"-certainly a noticeably higher white blood-cell count than usual, but that may well have to do with how you've been running yourself into the ground this last week." The biting scent of alcohol made Shinichi sneeze as Haibara swabbed the crook of his elbow with a wet cotton-ball before applying the familiar blue tape and a bit of gauze. "And you say you've had these symptoms before, correct? Dizziness, pain, a sense of disassociation, nausea... I need more information than that. Have you noticed any common factors? Diet, a sensitivity to food or chemical agents? Sunlight, rapid movement?"

"Umm..." Shinichi eyed the pharmacist sideways and resolved to get back at Kid if it was the last thing he ever did. Explaining to Haibara Ai that his head-and-body-aches seemed to be related to watching his two adult-sized lovers play libido games in his presence was... well, words like 'unsupportable', 'impossible' and 'just plain fucking NO' came to mind pretty quickly. Maybe he could talk around the subject? It was worth a try. "It- they happen when I- uh. Kid and Ran and I, you know, we've been... while I was adult-sized, that is, we-"

Arms crossed, Haibara fixed him with a dead stare. "Kudo-kun, if you're trying to tell me that you're pregnant, I'm sorry but there are certain things that even Apotoxin cannot make possible."

He winced, raising both hands in protest. "NO, I am NOT pr- Oh, for god's sake." Frustrated, Shinichi blew out his breath in an aggravated sigh and closed his eyes. When he spoke again, it was through clenched teeth. "When I think about things that I, in my adult shape, _have _done or would_ like_ to do, particularly in the company of Ran and Kid, but _cannot_ do for another week, I- look, do I need to spell it out to you any further? No? Good, because I really don't particularly want to, thanks very much. But. When I do that, it starts the symptoms. Whatever this is it's biologically based, _NOT_ imaginary, and lately it's been getting worse. That's it, finí, end of story. Any more questions? 'Cause I'd really like to take care of this before I have a stroke." The boy opened his eyes, aware that the tips of his ears were more than a little warm.

Haibara... had a most extraordinary look on her pale, pointy-chinned face; it almost seemed as if she were suppressing a laugh. But- "I see," she said with barely a quaver in her voice. "Well. Aside from certain myths regarding blindness and growing hair on one's palms-" (Shinichi felt his ears achieve _fluorescence_) "-there are very few illnesses associated with, ah, excercising one's imagination."

"...not like I can exercise anything _else_ at the moment..."

"However," Haibara went blithely on, "let's begin with a few vitamin injections and go from there; perhaps you should consider relaxing a bit more before you do have a stroke? Or a nervous breakdown?" She cocked a considering eye at Shinichi, that look still lurking behind her calm expression. "And in the meantime I can redress your elbow. Roll up your other sleeve, please."

And as Haibara Ai and her ever-present host of sharp, shiny implements got busy, Shinichi mentally shook himself, resolved to keep his imagination on a short leash and considered gratefully that, at least, his Kaasan wasn't around to add to the fun. There was only so much embarrassment he could take.

The next day was Sunday. Leftover pizza made a good breakfast while Ran, Shinichi, and Kid gradually convened on the Kudo house and got down to business. Whether from wariness left over from the day before, or simple focus on the tasks in front of them, Ran and Kid did no more than cuddle close when the latter arrived, shaking a little spring rain out of his hair and complaining about helicopters. Joining Shinichi in the library, amid the nest of paperwork and case files, Kid popped his laptop open and tucked himself into one corner of the couch.

"So where are we today?"

Shinichi glanced up from his work, having to lower the lid of his laptop to see his boyfriend over it. "Got a few more files sorted and catalogued this morning," he announced, referring to a legal pad beside him filling up with information. "Still a lot of teachers."

"Too straightforward for all of the cases," Kid disagreed, dragging a handful of files, most of them distressingly thin, toward him. "I'll grab some of these oldest ones over here."

"Okay," Shinichi nodded, angling his screen back up and going back to his work. "Just don't lose track of the years."

"Don't you need to be getting ready for classes tomorrow?" Ran asked, entering the room from the kitchen bearing several glasses of iced tea. "Senior year, right?"

Kid nodded. "I'm going to leave early to let Kuroba get his things in order for tomorrow, and make a few calls before it gets too late. There are some folks' parents we _don't_ want to wake up with a phone call." He snickered.

"Do you have to leave to do that, though?" Ran asked as she sat back down, gathering her stack of files back onto her lap. Her laptop perched on the coffeetable edge in front of her knees. "Kaito's welcome to spend time with us too, I've told him so. He hasn't come by since that night that we found Nakamori-san in the rain, though," she added. Kid's brows skidded up, then quickly settled again, Poker Face covering the surprise he felt at Ran's intentional omittance of the brothers' moment of weakness during their formal date night. But Ran gave him a soft smile with her eyes, the silent gesture going unnoticed by the detective engrossed in his laptop.

_That one doesn't count,_ her expression said. Kid smiled, a bit of relieved vulnerability sinking through.

_"Just between us?"_ he mouthed.

Ran's pretty mouth tucked in at the corner, maybe in a silent laugh. _"For now,"_ she mouthed back. Kid grinned back, and nodded.

_Thanks._

"Anyway," Ran continued, "Kaito's welcome to make his calls from here, if he'd like. We would love to see him again, too."

Kid smiled softly, showing his brother's hesitance on his own face. "He says he'll think about it. I think we'll go home for tonight, but we'll be back tomorrow."

Shinichi looked up at that. "Tomorrow? I thought we'd be losing you to schoolwork."

Kid waved a hand, unworried. "I can bring my homework along. There won't be enough to fill the whole evening, I'm sure."

"Won't Aoko miss you? Er, Kaito?" Ran frowned, but Kid's answering grin was cocky, with teeth.

"Naw. She and Kuroba have somethin' worked out by this point. You'll see."

The work proceeded, the week rolled by. Name after name passed before their eyes; photos of the missing children, and too often, photos of the recovered bodies of those children. Ages, hobbies, nicknames, sports teams. The testimony of best friends, boyfriends, teammates, and girlfriends attested to the missing ones' excellence, brilliance, and solitary habits. Some of them were more popular than others, but that was a relative term; none of them had strong social ties or support. Some were delinquents and some walked the line between conformity and frustration. None of them had great family situations; many of them were only children. The patterns began to align themselves as the files were read, one story at a time.

It was depressing, gruesome work. Ran had it hardest, as she spent her free time at the Kudo mansion, working on files while the boys were stuck at school. Afternoons, they rushed home to her. Conan usually beat Kid to the house, coming from a shorter distance and with fewer after-school responsibilities. The thief often came up from the secret tunnel to find Conan in Ran's lap, talking quietly to her and holding her close.

"You don't have to keep working on them during the day," he reminded her once, stroking her hair delicately. "You can just come over when Kid and I get home."

Ran shook her head. "No. When this data is all entered...when we've got it organized so that you can look at it, so you can find the patterns, that's when the _real_ work will be. I can't help you with the deductions as well as you could do them yourself, so I'm doing what I can do - get things organized." She smiled, brave and fiercely determined. "I've been keeping you and Tousan in line for years now, right? I can get a few hundred files into shape in a week."

Shinichi's smile, and Kid's from a bit further away, held teeth. "That's our Ran," Kid murmured, as Shinichi just held his girlfriend's gaze with quiet, loving pride. "Alright, who wants MacDo tonight? I'll buy."

Around eight PM, Kid extricated himself from his work, closed his laptop, and dug Kaito's phone out from beneath the piles of paperwork. His own, their charms tangled together, followed it, and he fumbled the unneeded phone back to the table.

Shinichi grinned. "Two phones?" Ran rolled her eyes.

"I cannot _believe_ I didn't catch on to that sooner," she groused, slumping in her chair and glaring fondly at the smaller of her boyfriends. "It's so _simple."_

"You nearly broke the lock that one time, though," Shinichi admitted, wincing. "That was a close one."

Ran grinned at him, then at Kid. "This time, Kaito, don't you run away again after you finish your call! Make him come downstairs to hang out with us too, okay, Kid?"

The thief grinned, saluting with a flirtatious wink. "I'll do my best, ma'am." Ran's shriek of giggling indignation followed the brothers up the stairs.

"I'm a _Miss!"_

Below in the library, Shinichi - still Conan, for a little under two days more - smiled at Ran with quiet amusement. "You think he'll actually do that this time?"

Ran shrugged roundly. "I don't know. I told him the same thing yesterday, too, and on Monday. I don't think he's shy, really, I think he's just awkward around us."

"Jealous?" Shinichi asked quietly.

Ran's expression sank a bit. "Maybe still. I'm glad he's been talking to her like this, though." She glanced over her papers at him. "Did he mention anything about it?"

"Not to me," Shinichi said. "Seems like it's a new habit, though. Do you know?"

"Mmm, not really," Ran said, thoughts floating back to a nighttime parkbench and the lonely, heart-wrenching conversation she'd shared...and witnessed...between the two brothers._ I think it was shortly after we talked that time,_ she mused. _I understand why Kaito wants to be private about it, though. I don't mind keeping it between he and I for a little longer. He has a different sort of relationship with Shinichi, anyway, from what Shinichi told me about that time at the Ghibli._

_They'll get along soon, too. They'll just need more time. It was Shinichi who caught Kid's heart to start with. I'm sure that makes it harder for Kaito._

Shinichi was typing in his color-markers for each newly added file when Ran, her feet tucked up beneath her on the couch, made an annoyed sound. "What's wrong?" he asked, short fingers dancing across the keyboard.

"I can't- stupid laptop, it keeps deleting my links. I am_ trying-"_ (she made a face) "-emphasis on the 'trying' part- to take all the photos that we scanned in and attach them to each file. But... aaargh!" Her own fingers flew, the sharp sounds of her typing a staccato rhythm that obscured Shinichi's softer patter. "I keep thinking we need every little scrap of data, and I know the photos aren't really all that useful, but..."

"Here, let me see." He put his own laptop down, scooting along the couch and slipping in beneath Ran's arm. "Ah; okay, try this instead-"

"Mmmmmmright; got it, that should work. I hope Tousan never sees me do this, he'll want me to go back through all our files and set them up the same way." Shinichi dragged his own laptop back into place without moving away, and for a few minutes the duet of keys went on, information being compared against each other to see where the patterns matched. Ran frowned an intense little frown, chewing on her lip the way she did when she was following an idea or worrying about something in particular. "Shinichi..." she said slowly, "I'm not sure, but- could they be targeting foreign kids? Or kids with mixed backgrounds?"

Pausing, he gave her a dubious look. "Not that I've noticed, though that has shown up often enough that I've coded it; why?"

"Look at this." She highlighted a frame, bringing it up onto the screen; a fair-haired girl stared out from a school photo, her half-Asian/half-European ancestry obvious. "And this one-" Another girl, perhaps Conan's contemporary in age, also blonde. "And this one... there's not a lot of them, but there's a, a _string_ of blonde children that went missing one after the other. You said to look for patterns-"

"-and you found one." Eyes narrowing, Shinichi tugged the laptop halfway onto his own lap and began to scroll through the thumbnails of the photos. "How're these organized? No, never mind, chronologically; you built that into the filename, clever. Two, five... seven? Seven total, all about, what? -a year ago, thirteen months. Two or three might've been coincidence, but seven? All blonde; do we have eye-colors as well? What about the non-Japanese factor, what countries are involved?" He paused, staring at the thumbnails. "I- need to- Ran? Can you-"

"Start listing hair color, eye color and any ethnic possibile categories?" She nodded; the laptop changed hands once more, and the room filled with the sound of typing once more.

The sound of a cellphone trying to vibrate its way out of a backpack broke the rhythm; this time it was Shinichi who fumbled one of two cellphones out, giving Ran an ironic grin as he did so. The expression morphed into interest a moment later, though; "It's Megure," he murmured, stretching as he rose to his feet and wandered towards the kitchen, coffeecup dangling from one hand. "Moshi moshi-" His voice faded out under the random noises associated with brewing yet another pot on the Krupps. Shinichi _had _slowed his coffee-consumption down per Ai's suggestion-slash-order, but cutting it out completely had been more than a poor, frazzled tantei's nerves could bear.

Halfway through the conversation he wandered back in, eyes distracted. "-physical profile? I think we need to compare notes. Could you- when? We could meet after I get out of school- yeah." He laughed, half-embarrassed. "A squadcar pickup'd be great, thanks." Ran made an _excuse-me_ sound; Shinichi wiggled his fingers apologetically in her general direction. "-and Ran'll be meeting us there too..." The Krupps made a gurgle and beeped quietly as the pot announced its arrival. "-thanks, Megure-keibu. We'll see you tomorrow." He flipped the phone closed, shoving it into his pocket and taking Ran's empty mug from her outstretched hand. "New batch of files tomorrow, and another little talk with Chirokawa-san too," he said with satisfaction, and collected Kid's mug as well before heading back into the kitchen.

"Well aren't you the little popular one," Kid snarked, laughing through the words. "I should worry that I'm starting to associate 'calls from Division 1' with 'good!' in my head."

Both heads swiveled to the hallway, where the thief stood halfway down from the base of the staircase. "And I wanted to just say," he added, as Ran's face (amusingly) fell as she recognized that it was her boyfriend, not his Magician brother, who stood before them, "That you'd better not listen to anything Kaito tells you about my coffee preferences. He isn't as picky as I am and likes to use this against me." Kid grinned, eyes crinkling, and the expression seemed to impress itself on the backs of Ran's eyelids as she blinked, just for a split second. And when she opened them again, the eyes she met weren't her lover's.

"He's a coffee snob, is his problem," Kaito muttered, visibly working on maintaining a semi-calm demeanor in front of Ran. "Hey. Thanks for last time."

She smiled at him, eyes warm. "Any time, Kuroba-kun." To one side, Shinichi blinked at them both before visibly putting the subject away for the moment. "Coffee? Snob-proof, promise." A new mug was procured and filled, and the young man who looked so familiar and yet not settled down in the less ratty of the two overstuffed chairs. The silence that stretched for a minute or so was a touch awkward, but only a touch.

And then it stretched a minute or so longer, and was a good deal more than a touch awkward.

"What...'re you guys working on?" Kuroba asked finally, sitting crosslegged deep in the chair's ample squishiness. Ran looked up from her coffee, startled, and asked the stupid question that the three of them had been trying to think around.

"But...don't you know anyway? I mean, um, can't you...ask...Kid?" Her voice shrunk with each word, petering out as a whisper in the last word.

Kuroba looked back down to his coffee, shifting his hands. Or rather, his hands continued to shift; they hadn't been truly still since he'd arrived. "Well. I try not to go...digging around, there's...um."

"Right." Flushing bright red to his ears, Shinichi nevertheless smiled across the coffee table at their visitor, one eyebrow raised gamely. "That's...gotta be awkward. I guess I've got to thank you. We both owe you, a lot."

Kuroba glanced back up, and his gaze got snagged on Shinichi's young, serious eyes. "Uh. No, not really, it's no big."

Ran latched onto the thread that Shinichi had provided though, and leaned over the arm of the couch on her left, touching the arm of Kuroba's chair tentatively. "No, we do. It's your time that we're using, whenever we get to see Kid, isn't it? And we've gotten to see him so much recently. I think you've been really generous for our sakes. If that's...not too forward of me to say."

Shinichi nodded, leaning forward with his short legs dangling off the couch and his mug cupped in his hands. "She's right, you know." He smiled wryly. "I'm aware of some of the difficulties of juggling a double life, though obviously not in the same way, and- well, thanks." He cleared his throat, picking up a file. "And we've been working on trying to work up some common ground between cases. We've been studying a series of missing person files that..." Shinichi sighed. "I don't know how much Kid has told you, but..." He gestured at his own small frame. "The people responsible for my ending up this way? Turns out they may be continuing their research, possibly with new subjects, or maybe just new recruits."

Swiftly he outlined the set of cases they had identified, touching as lightly as possible on the more gruesome aspects of the deaths. By the time he had finished, some of the tension in the room had lessened, and Kaito was frowning over the display on the laptop. "It's the first rule of the investigation game," explained Shinichi, tapping one of the flags. "Identify anomalies, and then seek out patterns among them. We're trying."

Kaito scrolled down, making _hmmm_ noises at the data on the screen. "Gotten anywhere?"

"Eyeballs-deep in data and dr-" Shinichi winced, thinking of stormdrains. "-getting deeper. Supposed to meet tomorrow with a few of the police and compare notes; maybe we'll figure out a few more links. Ran figured out something we'll pursue, a new angle." He shook his head. "Right now, we're mostly weeding out the factors that aren't any use to us, and at the same time keeping them logged; you never know what little detail'll make sense six months along."

The magician took a long swallow from his mug; interestingly enough, he hadn't gone to the trouble that his brother usually did in adding cream and sugar- it was mostly black. "The cops... These are the guys you came clean to? Had to be hard." He gave the small figure beside him a slightly incredulous look. "And they actually believed you?"

The young detective rubbed ruefully at his half-healed elbow and traded a look with Ran. "We... provided some pretty convincing proof."

Kaito raised one eyebrow, relaxing enough to let a smile through; it was crooked, as Shinichi and Ran were learning was typical of _both_ Kuroba brothers, and very silently amused. "Dare I ask? We should worry how much you're going to be opening the good officers' minds to the uncreditable; it'll jeapordize my methods if they start thinking outside of their boxes and dogpiles." He pressed his lips together, then as a thought occurred to him, they spread in a grin.

"Which _reminds_ me. You're a little shit sometimes, you know that? Should have known that _you_ would know better than to try using a box. You caused me a lot of trouble that time, you know." Though his words were confrontational, Kaito's attitude was relaxed - in fact, was relaxing more with each blunted barb he tossed - and his comfortable crosslegged pose in the big leather chair, centered around his still-steaming mug of coffee, had finally stopped looking like a bird's nervous perch and more like the beginnings of a nest. "I had a hangover for a week because of that little stunt."

It was almost visible; curiosity, that is- it practically_ radiated _off Shinichi, and he cocked his head to one side. "Oh, you have GOT to be k-_ I'm_ a little shit? Who damn near gave Nakamori-keibu a coronary? Who made more than a dozen hardened Taskforce squadmembers have to sleep with the lights on?" Despite himself he snorted with laughter.

Kaito leaned forward, grin broadening. "A whole dozen? _Really?"_

The boy raised both eyebrows. "At least. God only knows what they've been telling the new transfers by now. From all the stories I've heard Division One passing around, by this point they're probably pretty sure that your brother can walk through walls. And hides a pair of batwings under that cloak of his." He chuckled, then sobered a little. "A hangover, huh? Not the sort you can take aspirin for, I'm guessing?"

Ran leaned forward, her laptop forgotten. "You _really_ made the gem go-" She made a 'poofing' gesture with her hands. "I mean... magic?" Fascinated, she stared. "Shinichi told me about that night up on the Ghibli museum, but... really?"

Kaito grinned, leaning back with a vaguely smug sort of smile on. "Is that crystal, over there?" He pointed across the library at one of the bookends on a far shelf, a dimly-lit clear, faceted thing holding up a small row of lightweight paperbacks.

Shinichi followed the magician's extended finger, looking back with a mistrustfully raised eye. "Quartz, actually."

"Perfect," the magician grinned. "Now, nothing up my sleeve, you see?" He swept each hand down the other bare arm, tugged at the rolled-up sleeves of his white uniform shirt. "Nothing in my hands." He turned them for examination, palm then backs. "Now, don't blink."

Two pairs of eyes widened- and watered with the immediate instinct to blink. However-

The magician made a fist with one hand, loose at first. Then he glanced at it, comically frowning and squeezing harder. With one finger of the other hand he poked in the gap between his curled thumb and forefinger, and smiled as his fingertip hit resistance. "Ah, I think..."

Kaito opened his hand with a flourish, framing it with his free one; in his palm was the quartz bookend, clear and streaked with unimpressive milky white colorations. Shinichi stupidly looked back to the bookshelf, knowing what he'd see; the paperbacks were lolling sideways, two of them tipped over flat. He was sure there would be a ring of dust around a bare, clean patch of shelf, just the same size and shape as the hexagonal quartz in Kaito's hand.

The magician, predictably, was grinning like a little shit when Shinichi (and Ran) looked back at him.

Ran clapped both her hands to her mouth, her eyes shining above them; a giggle burst out and she reached tentatively out to tap a fingernail on the quartz bookend; it_ tinked!_ back at her. "It's really there! ...I think. Shinichi?" The boy was already on his feet, peering at the empty space where the stone had been.

"Hmm." He grinned over his shoulder at the magician- the Magician, rather. "Haven't we already done this once? -okay, with optional cops and pepper-spray. I take it you were, ah, present during the entire thing?" Shinichi shook his head. "That was the _strangest_ heist I've ever seen, and that's saying something. So." He stepped forward to tap at the quartz cradled in Kaito's hands as well with one short finger. "Is this going to give you a hangover as well? How did y- no, no, I remember; tricks of the trade, you can't tell me." His grin widened. "And if I was a little shit with my trick with the wire, then you paid me back pretty well with what you did to Hattori. I think you gave him a lasting fear of things pink and frilly."

Kaito wore Kid's smirk for a moment, shifting between Magician and plain old nutty, and laughed. "I haven't even _gotten_ to the wire yet, Tantei-kun. I'm not done with you about _that_ one. As for this little parlor trick... I wouldn't have shown you it twice if I didn't intend to explain it," he said, smile growing as Shinichi's complete lack of a poker face showed his shock at that thought (or maybe at the dismissal of translocating a rock crystal as a 'parlor' trick). "And the pink was all the Fool's doing. It always is. I have nothing to do with all of that business." Putting aside his brother's perplexing fondness for pink for the moment, the Magician twirled the small quartz stone around his knuckles while he grinned a challenge at the pint-sized detective.

"Why did I ask you what the composition of this item was, do you think? And do you remember what a purple quartz is called?"

Ran answered him. "For the second question, it's amethyst. For the first one? Um-"

Shinichi hesitated. "Several possibilities. Misdirection, the turning of our line of sight away from you and towards the bookend. Or because you needed to know what it was to... transport it. Or because you'd already-" He stopped. "No; my eyes didn't lie, it really _is_ missing; not misdirection, not fool-the-eye, not legerdemain. So: why did you ask?"

"If it was glass crystal, I'd need to reconstruct a different crystal structure, of course," the Magician said casually, slouching back in his chair and dropping the bookend into his shirt's breast pocket. It made a little lump against his chest. "Quartz is actually one of my favorites to relocate, it's such a predictable structure, even for crystals. Something like this one is a little more tedious than a gem, of course; those little marbled inclusions never come out _quite_ the same. Somehow, though, I don't think your tousan will mind much." The Magician let his head lay back against the couch, eyeing his fascinated audience with somewhat sleepy eyes.

"This won't give me a headache, just makes me want caffiene. It was less than twenty metres, and the thing weighs less than two hundred fifty grams. Nothing, really. In comparison to moving Sadalmelik - he weighs almost a kilo - this's nothing." His smirk reappeared, growing wide like a shadow of his brother's Cheshire-scimitar grin.

"'Course. The_ reason_ I showed you was because I wanted you to have a frame of reference for how much of a bloody pain in the arse it was to do something like restructure the tensile strength of that blasted wire, and the torque strength of the Fool's card, on the fucking fly." He was irritated, but only on the surface; the Magician was _proud_ of himself, and bragging to the first audience he'd had since the heist.

"I'd budgeted for _three_ costs. A momentum pause to get us onto the roof, the mass relocation for Sadalmelik, and then throwing all that paused momentum behind his wings when we left. _Your_ little trick cost me two extra prices, so I ended up having to spend the momentum on the card and wires, and on getting you and him moved fast enough to keep you from losing your flipping _sight_ to that damn pepper spray."

_And then on the pain management while we ran._ Elbow propped on his brother's shoulder, Kid watched the little conversation from their shared headspace with no small amount of pride. Kaito tipped his glance back, smiling thinly.

_"Sure, but I don't feel like tripping the kid's guilt-wire. He won't listen to a single awesome thing I have to say after that."_

Kid chuckled and subsided._ True._

"Anyway." Back outside the head, Kaito waved a hand dismissively, shrugging, but keeping an eager eye on Shinichi and Ran both for their reactions. _"That_ is why you are a little shit, why I had a hangover for a week, and why _you_ can go put this back on the shelf. I'm feeling lazy." He pulled the quartz out of his shirt pocket, offering it to Ran; she extended her hand for it and _watched_ Kaito let go...

...but the stone thudded into Conan's lap. With a sigh of mocked frustration, Kaito sat back in his chair, chin on one hand, and stared at the crystal as though befuddled.

"Well, darn. I keep doing that. Must have slipped?"

_...and that's it for this week. Please stay tuned for next week's chapter (which picks up *immediately* where this one leaves off in mid-scene), **Book Five, Chapter Eleven: "And we said: 'I want to be my father's son.'" ** Take care, and have a good week!_


	56. We said 'I want to be my father's son'

_**Book Five, Chapter Eleven**__**: "And we said: 'I want to be my father's son.'"**_

_(Please note: This chapter picks up directly from the end of the previous chapter with no breaks.)_

* * *

With a sigh of mock frustration, Kaito sat back in his chair, chin on one hand, and stared at the crystal in Conan's lap as though befuddled while Ran clasped her hands around empty air, confirming that the hunk of quartz - which had _totally_ been about to fall into her hands - really wasn't there.

"Well, darn. I keep doing that. Must have slipped?"

The Look Kaito received showed that Shinichi didn't buy _that_ little trick for a second; but the boy picked up the bookend with studied casualness, turning it around in both hands. "Mmmhmm. And as for the wire at the temple heist... would either of you've been happy if I didn't do my utmost? Answer: hell no, or so I've understood. And the pepper-spray, well..." He grimaced. "Not my idea; I would've triggered a net or something of the sort, not a chemical weapon." He stretched out both arms toward Ran, holding the hexagon out towards the young woman who still held out her hand, opening and closing it and blinking at her empty palm.

Sitting back in his place on the couch, Shinichi steepled his hands before him and kept his eyes on the Magician, gaze steady. "'All's fair in love and war'," he quoted. "...though I'm not so sure I believe that entirely. Point is, though- you and your brother fought your side of the battle-"

"Is he always so defensive whenever he gets critiqued?" Kaito asked Ran, leaning forward to address her and talking right over Shinichi's continued protests. That brought the detective up short as the magician smirked at the mostly-silent third of the conversation. "I'm trying to show him something nice and all he has to say are self-justifications. Not even a 'wow, that's neat.'" The magician slouched back in his seat, a tiny twitch of frustration on his brow. "You okayed the pepper spray, Tantei. And if you weren't part of the chain of command - which, amusingly, I've taken to assuming that you _are_ these days, even shrimpified - you were still the 'civilian counsel.' You could have vetoed it if you had put your mind to it; you _have_ that sway with Division One, if not the Task Force.

"Don't pass off the responsibility on someone else."

_"Excuse_ me. _Not_ finished." Speaking through his teeth, Shinichi's eyes sparked warning, though he spoke civilly enough... with a slight hint of edge showing behind the points. "As I was saying, you two fought your side and I. Fought. Mine. And yes, what you did was fucking amazing; you did impossible things and pulled them off with style. And by the way, just to clarify? No, I did _not_ agree to the pepper spray; Sato had Takagi set it and wire the trigger when he was fixing the the gem in place. If I'd known- but I didn't." He shook his head.

"Never mind; you're right, maybe I could've dissuaded them, I don't know. For that, I do apologize." He met the Magician's eyes squarely: Kaito's eyes, not Kid's eyes, so very alike and so shockingly different at one and the same time. "Do you honestly believe I'd okay something that'd cause harm to you- either of you- even if your brother and I _weren't_ involved?" He gave the Magician a faint smile, thin but painfully honest and tinged with regret. "Chemical warfare... isn't exactly my favorite kind of response." The specter of the Apotoxin hung after his words like an echo.

"Last of all, I think you both have enough people after your head. I'd like to see it kept whole, okay?"

Ran watched them both, brow furrowed, quartz hexagon fisted tightly in her hand. She was visibly holding her peace, but the leash looked to be wearing thin.

Hands still steepled, the small boy stared his lover's brother down squarely. "And the next time you two fight me, I'll do my absolute goddamn best to win, just like you will. And one or the other've us will win, like always; and if it's him, I'll bitch and moan and be glad we did it; and if it's me, he'll snark and snipe and _he'll_ be glad we did it. And I wouldn't give that up for anything in the world."

Then he _grinned,_ with teeth. "Why would I? You two're the finest challenge I've ever had."

"Awww." Kaito's expression sombered, as though he was seriously considering the compliment...for all of two seconds. Then with an impudent smirk, the magician leaned forward, flourishing his wrist, and held his open palm out to the detective. "You're special to us, too."

In Kaito's hand, a prize ribbon - like those given out at school fairs - read "#1 Tantei" in shiny gold lettering.

Shinichi eyed the ribbon for a long, long moment, quite visibly wondering if it would explode, turn into something improbably or vanish in a puff of smoke if he touched it. Then he slooowly raised his chin and looked the Magician directly in the eye, opening his mouth to reply, sternfaced-

-sternfaced for all of two seconds before cracking up. "Oh god, you- are a _total_ bastard." The boy wiped at his eyes and reached for the ribbon. "Apology accepted?"

Kaito blinked, comically looking over to Ran for input. "We were apologizing?" His head quirked to the side, birdlike. "Huh. Okay, hmm." Back to Shinichi, with a good-natured shrug. "Okay! We magnanimously accept your apology." His grin - rather bastardly in its uncrackable firmness - held for another few seconds, while Shinichi stared; then a flicker, or perhaps better described as a series of flickers, wormed their way up through it.

Kaito discarded the fading grin, frowning into empty air instead. "Oh, for- You take away all my fun." Pouting, he looked back to Shinichi with a childishly pouting mouth...but sincere eyes. If you knew how to look through the farcical expression for their sincerity, of course.

"We apologize too." A pause. "...Those poor Kyoto officers! Their chiropractors will be so cross with them...just think of the realignments they'll need!" He continued in this way, burbling on about the dramatically desperate tribulations of the 'poor likkle ossifers' who weren't used to being in the presence of KID's magnificence...

And Ran raised an eyebrow at Shinichi with a wry, somewhat sour expression. "He does not know how to be serious at all, does he? And if they're your biggest challenge, then what am I?" There was just a thread of hurt there, a very thin, fine one, but it snarled around the words.

"Oh, you're no challenge at all." The boy grinned at her, eyes warm. "You have't been for years; you're a _victor._ You won any challenges between me and you the first time you allowed me to persuade you to follow me somewhere stupid when we were kids; _totally_ won me over then and there, Ran... I thought you knew that."

The thread snapped as Ran blinked at Shinichi, cheeks pinking somewhat. "Maybe you ought to remind me more often," she replied saucily, but her expression belied the teasing. She put the hexagon onto the table, took a sip of her coffee and made a face; all three mugs had gone cold by that point. "Here, give me those. Kuroba-kun, what do you take in yours? Two sugars, was it?" Carefully balancing the three cups, she headed for the kitchen.

The two- three- watched her leave. "No matter what I come up with, no matter what I get myself into or how I get myself out, no matter how clever I might think I am... she always outnumbers me," said Shinichi wryly. "And anyway, she could probably put me through a door if she wanted to, even in my adult size. Have you _seen_ her fight?"

"I've fought _with_ her," Kaito grinned, showing his teeth. "It was hot."

Now it was the detective's turn to blink; his eyes widened slightly as he remembered the little dance that Kaito and Ran had performed with their haphazard partners, i.e., the Kaitou Kid Taskforce, in a certain park on a certain day months back. _That... whoah; Kudo, where's that brain you're so proud of? That WAS Kuroba._ He thought about it for a moment and then allowed a very unchildlike grin to sneak out in answer. "It is, isn't it? It's even better when she's saving your ass, which she's done in my case quite a lot." Maybe he lost testosterone points by admitting that, but it wasn't like he had a great balance to begin with just then, did he?

About then, the subject in question came back into the room, three steaming mugs preceding her and wreathing her face in vapors. "What've I done a lot?" Two pairs of eyes instinctively looked up at her and then at each other. "What?" Ran raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Do I have to put truth serum in your coffee?"

"Sodium thiopental?" Kaito grinned and curled back in his chair, reaching out for his mug with eager hands. "I like the stuff." He took a big gulp of the brew, hissing with pleasure as it comfortably toasted the inside of his mouth. "It doesn't really taint whatever you lace it into, so that's much nicer than a needle full of it. That garlic scent tends to put me off my surroundings. You know, the generic seems to have more of an effect on me than the name brand - Sodium Pentothal they call it, playing with the syllables I guess. I'd never use it as a weapon myself, honestly, it just doesn't stick long enough, but everyone with only enough information to be dangerous to themselves seems to have this idea that it's magical and all-powerful and lasts for just _hours_; I blame Hollywood.

"It's nice to be able to channel what it does to you, though, you know? Practice with any drug long enough and you'll be able to guide yourself under it, I think, you just have to go slowly and make sure to practice in private, where it's safe. And have a spotter. I think at this point the only thing I'd have to worry about from thiopental would be overdoses, that might make me groggy. And then I'd miss my landings. Our landings." He shrugged, grinning at his brother's lovers. "The best part of it, though, is the mental games; everyone _expects_ you to crumple as soon as they give it to you, so if you act like that - twitch a little, act like you're fighting to keep your mouth tightly closed...

"See, the problem that most of these interrogation-level goons have, from my limited experience with them, is that they haven't tried any of their methods on themselves. No way to conduct an interrogation, when you don't even know what you're doing to the other person. How are you going to regulate the level of pain in your subject if you haven't tested your methods? For all you know, you knocked out his nerves with the first three lashes and now the next ten aren't actually increasing in effectiveness.

"But that's whippings, and I can't say that's my expertise. Thiopental, I was talking about thiopental. It's a fun little gimmick; I've only been caught once with that, and it was very fun to just keep talking and talking and talking and see her drink it up like it was gold. It was all bullshit, of course, I know my stories and I stand by them, but it was quite amusing, and in the end the only reason I failed the examination was I just couldn't hold it together any longer, I giggled, I admit it, and she marked points off. I should have made the giggle sound more unhinged, I probably could have kept going then."

Shinichi shot half a glance at Ran, one eyebrow raised, while keeping the rest of his attention on the perky magician. "Ran..."

She shook her head, holding back laughter. "No, I didn't actually slip him any, I swear!"

The boy accepted his mug, curling his palms around it; in the Kudo home as in Agasa's, he tended towards Shinichi-sized portions of the stuff and it took both hands to hold it. "You're sure-? No, joking. I remember when Kaasan had her appendix out when I was ten; she scared the living crap out of Tousan and I, having something that most people get over with in their teens." He took a long swallow and tucked one leg up under the other, socked foot dangliing. "I remember, they gave her that stuff as a pre-op med and she just wouldn't stop _babbling,_ and believe me, she speaks GOOD Babble. Went on for ages about people we'd never heard of and random stuff- you could lead her from one topic to another, but she veered like crazy and you could never be certain that she was telling you the truth." He chuckled softly. "And later when she woke up, she didn't remember a thing. So what, you've self-administered to get experience with it? Useful; I wouldn't mind that."

Ran was, by now looking at them both like they'd each grown a second (or, in Kaito's case, third) head. Setting her mug down on the table, she put both hands on her hips and surveyed them both sternly. "What part of 'drugs are a bad idea' don't you two understand? And Shinichi, you really ARE a masochist. No, you REALLY are. What am I going to do with you?" Shaking her head again, she settled down beside the boy with an air of I-am-the-only-adult-in-the-room,-aren't-I? and sipped her coffee with dignity.

"I did a bit, yes," Kaito nodded, nobly ignoring Ran's disapproval, but smirking a bit at the corners anyway. "My first experiment with it was at home, Jii-chan taught me what he knew, which was very little. Around...wow, it's been about two years now...anyway, a little bit after Kid and I began our work, we realized we needed formal training. Tousan had taught me what he could, but that had been years ago, and years forgotten. We needed to be better if we were going to get anywhere as the Kaitou Kid revived. So we took a few weeks off of school on either side of summer break and flew to New York. There's a disguise and theatrical artist who very infrequently gives lessons there, by the name of Chris Vineyard...she was trained by her mother, Sharon Vineyard. Your mother studied with Sharon, didn't she? Under my Tousan. She had passed on by the time that I needed a tutor, so I looked up her daughter Chris and begged for lessons.

"She wasn't going to teach me at first, but when I told her I needed to know more than the standard makeup tricks...that my needs were a little more illicit...she suddenly got very interested." Kaito shrugged, sipping his coffee; his gaze was distant as he remembered. "It was a very intense month. I don't think many of the things that she taught me even _have_ a legally prescribed method of instruction, but neither of us was very interested in that anyway. I learned what I needed - what Kid needed. And we went home."

The effect that this bit of information had on Shinichi... was, to say the least, profound.

Small animals, when startled, tend to freeze in place; their eyes widen, pupils dilating to take in as much information as possible. The fight/flight reflex kicks in, the heart pounds rapidly to allow adrenaline and oxygen to do their job of kick-starting every muscle in the body as needed. And trivial matters fall away into the dust, abandoned in the need for focus. Everything is_**now**_, and the rest of the world can go hang until the moment ends.

The coffee-mug went first; miraculously it ended up wobbling on the table more-or-less intact and unspilled, though wobbling in tiny rapid circles as it settled down. Next went the detective himself, on his feet and in front of the room's other person, deliberately or not- Shinichi was up and wedged between Ran and the coffee table before he'd taken another breath. He had, in fact, seemingly given up on breathing for the moment; his eyes were wide and expressionless, fixed on Kid's. "Chris. Vineyard. _**Chris Vineyard.**_ You-" Shinichi couldn't get the words out for a moment; he swallowed dryness and continued. "Did you- what did you tell her? Did you give her your name? Does she- no, of course you would've, the son of her old teacher, you'd- oh god."

He actually swayed, just for a second, as realization impacted; Ran's hands caught at him from behind. "Shinichi, Shinichi, what is it? I remember that name, you said something... Sit down, please? Tell us." She manhandled him bodily, pushing her small boyfriend back onto the couch, agitated at the sight of his obvious fear. "What's wrong? Who Is Chris Vineyard?"

Kid - because it was Kid now, it had been from the moment that Shinichi had begun to show panic - crouched on the floor in front of Shinichi, bracketing the boy's head between his hands and forcing him to meet the thief's gaze. "Shinichi. _Tantei._ Tantei, what is it?"

Shinichi curled in on himself, body instinctively doing its best to protect the most vital areas. It was a long moment before he could meet the concerned blue eyes with anything short of panic in his own. "Chris Vineyard," he said, pacing the words out deliberately in an effort to keep his voice from shaking, "is _Vermouth_. She's an Organization member; and she knows who I am, and where I am. She hid out in a disguise of Ran's school's doctor, Tomoaki Araide, until fairly recently." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "She knows. About me. She knows about Ai. She has, for her own reasons, not shared any of that information with the rest of the organization. We've had confrontations- Ran, I told you about those- where she's made it perfectly plain that she has her own agenda." Tiny tremors were being pushed back, the result of adrenaline attempting to resolve the issue and being beaten down by reason; they made his voice jerky and clipped.

"If you did this, then she... no. No. She knows you and your brother as sons- a son, in her view- of her old teacher, Kuroba Toichi. But... what did you tell her when you asked to be taught?" Without even realizing it, he'd clasped both of Kid's forearms with his small hands, and Ran's own were wrapped about his shoulders. "Not just stage-magic; she'd be suspicious. Did she- what did she say?"

Taken aback, Kid's expression was confused but serious as he answered his detective carefully. "She told us to go find a different teacher. We told her that it had to be her. And she asked, 'Why do you have to learn from _me_? Why not anyone else?' And we said: 'I want to be my father's son.'"

The thief's throat was a little tight, but he kept speaking levelly. "'Completely?' she asked us. And I said, 'Completely.'" His brow furrowed down. "And she just nodded. And that satisfied her, and she agreed to teach us."

"But..." The thief added, hesitantly, "My father didn't teach her; he taught her mother, Sharon. Sharon taught Chris, and Chris taught me. Are you sure of your information, Tantei?"

Shinichi nodded. "Sharon Vineyard's death was faked; Chris Vineyard took her mother's place. And yes, I _do_ recognize the age discrepancy; hello, Apotoxin?" His hands relaxed a little, one moving up to hook fingers in Ran's. "The biggest mystery about Vermouth isn't why she still looks the same at her age, though- it's what the hell she's hoping to accomplish by her secrecy." He half-laughed, a wretched little sound that fooled no-one. "She- calls me 'baby', seems to feel some sort of horrible affection for me; she calls me her 'silver bullet' too, has some twisted little mind-game going on where... god. I don't know. It's enough to make me wonder if whatever earlier derivative of the drug that she took warped her mind a little, honestly." Shinichi shuddered; Ran's arms tightened around his thin shoulders, and he turned his head briefly sideways to brush his cheek against her fingers before a new thought struck him and made him look up, wide-eyed, directly at the thief crouched before him.

"Kid? She knows- no, wait. There is, if your father's killers and the Organization are truly one and the same, a very good possibility that she knows with certainty of the original 1412's death. Because of that, she'd have to know that the one in action now would be his, his- inheritor? Not the same, in any case. And from what you just said..." He allowed the conclusion to remain unspoken.

Chris Vineyard, Sharon Vineyard, _Vermouth_... could very well know that she'd trained the second person to wear the name of Kaitou Kid. If she did know this, what had she done with the information? Who had she told, if anyone?

The trio sat in silence for a long, heavy moment after Shinichi fell silent, all three of them badly rattled. Kid was, ultimately, the first to break the silence.

"...Why, precisely, are we all still alive?"

"Because," said the detective between him and Ran, "there's something Vermouth wants, and she wants it badly enough to do almost anything for it. She's a... a wolf, among other wolves. Wolves grab hold of what they want and protect it against the other wolves so it won't get taken away and eaten. There's something, something we have and that she doesn't, that breaking secrecy to the rest of the Black Organization would keep out of her hands." Shinichi let go of both his lovers and cradled his head in his palms. "And I... have _no_ idea what it is." His voice shook on the last word.

"Everything comes back to the Apotoxin. And everything, everything comes back to time- her extra years of youth, _my_ transformation, everything. It's occurred to me to wonder what would've happened if the drug had been given to me at, oh, age thirty or forty. Is the reversion strictly to childhood, is ten years an automatic phase of de-aging, what happens? And I have no way of knowing; even Ai only knows about what she worked on. She never saw the results of any human experimentation until she became a result herself."

Arms tightened again, almost painfully; and Ran spoke over Shinichi's shoulder. "Vermouth's not a wolf, she's a _bitch._ And she is NOT going to be allowed to hurt any of you." The steel in her voice was wrapped in fear, but it was steel nonetheless.

"If all she wanted to do was hurt us," Shinichi said dryly, lifting his head to meet Ran's eyes and Kid's in turn, "I wouldn't actually be so worried. Problem is, she's the type to play with her food."

Kid frowned, considering this, then brightened, his smile a warning. "Then we'll just have to get bigger jaws, and see how she likes being the food."

And despite all the noises that Shinichi and Ran made to the contrary, trying to advise caution, the thief could not be swayed from his simple decision.

* * *

The next days passed tensely. Shinichi and Ran visited Division One on Thursday afternoon, taking their progress so far and their worries about racial motivations for the kidnappings, returning with an armful of new file photocopies to examine. That night and the next day, Ran and Kid maintained their focus as they worked their way through file after file, building Shinichi's database one datum at a time. Their detective struggled to match their stamina, though; Wednesday's revelation sat heavy on his mind, sapping his energy, and his conferences with Megure-keibu and Chirokawa had given them more information than they had gained for Shinichi. The stack of unexamined names and faces weighed him down.

On top of all that, keeping the bad news about Vermouth from Ai was, for the moment, Shinichi's _other_ biggest priority, and avoiding private situations with her kept him preoccupied throughout the school day; therefore the Shounen Tantei's nervousness ratcheted higher, and Ai started giving _everybody_ dirty looks. By Friday morning, Shinichi's cheer was wholly gone, and Ran texted Kid, venting her own frustrations, after 'Conan' had left for school.

"Shinichi, I'm taking you camping," Kid declared, dropping into an abrupt crouch in front of his little boyfriend. It was Friday afternoon, barely an hour after school had let out, and the grave-faced boy was already deeply ensconced in a messy nest of work. Ran sat beside him with her own work and an afternoon snack, and both of them looked up at the latecomer with contrasting expressions.

"No, you're not," the detective said, visually dismissing his boyfriend as he turned back to his laptop screen. "You're late, I only have a few hours left, so please get your laptop open, there's something-"

"_Yes_, I am." The laptop lid clicked shut, revealing Kid's brilliant, definite blue eyes behind it. "Ran is coming too. We're leaving tomorrow morning."

"...Do you have a screw loose? Wait, don't answer that."

"Shi_niiii_chiiii..." The warning note in Ran's voice made the boy hunch slightly before he turned towards her, mouth already opening to voice his total veto of the idea. This was halted abruptly by a hand across his mouth and the intent, determined look in Ran's narrowed eyes. "You have," she stated flatly, "been working yourself to the bone over this. You've been worrying yourself to the point that you've been having bad dreams-"

"Mmhffntt!"

"-do NOT try to deny it, Shinichi, I've _heard_ you, and Tousan's been complaining about the noises you make in your sleep-"

"Nnghk?"

"-and your health's unstable enough right now as it is." Ran looked past him to Kid, gratitude in her eyes. "I didn't expect 'camping' to be the answer you came up with when I asked you if you could think of anything that might help, but... I think it sounds wonderful. You NEED to get away from all this, just for a day or so; and so do we."

Two hands reached out and turned Shinichi's head and body back towards Kid without disturbing Ran's hand over his mouth. "And besides," added the thief with a smug little grin, "it's already decided. You can either leave with us voluntarily... or tomorrow morning I get to try out my shibari techniques." He waggled his eyebrows playfully.

Shinichi blinked, wondering uneasily if the thief meant the art of tying gift-packages ornamentally... or the more erotic technique also known as kinbaku. Either way, it'd end up with him in ropes and packed along like luggage, and so he tried another tactic: reason. Peeling Ran's fingers free, he started. "Look, I _know_ I've been a little stressed out, but it's only a matter of time before another child gets kidn-"

The fingers moved back into place. Why were people always putting their hands over his mouth these days? It wasn't like he talked all the time-

"You've got rings around your eyes like a tanuki," said Ran firmly. "You're twitchy, you've got this little tic starting up on your left eyebrow, and Ai-chan told me that you nearly walked into a pole on the way home today. And if Kid has to tie you up, I'll supply the rope." There was a meaningful pause. "Or the sedative darts. I know where you put your watch every night."

He turned wounded eyes her way, telegraphing _Ran, you WOULDN'T... would you?_

"Oh, yes I would. TRY me."

Belatedly the words 'Ai-chan told me' registered, and Shinichi once more squirmed free of the palm. "You talked to Haibara? About what? She doesn't know-"

This time the palm was Kid's, and the thief leaned forward to rest his forehead against Shinichi's smaller one. Eye to eye, Kid kissed the back of his own hand where it lay over Shinichi's lips. "No, she doesn't. Do you really think we'd say one word without you present, Tantei? Though you might also consider equipping yourself with a chair and a whip when the news gets broken... but never mind." Blue, so blue, deep enough to fall into; Shinichi felt his stubborn wall of resolution beginning to shake at its foundations. "What Tensai-sama said, and I quote, was 'Get him somewhere he won't be recognized, get him somewhere he can relax, and then _make sure he does so._ Use any method necessary. Sit on him all weekend if you have to. Or _**I**_ will.'"

Shinichi blinked. _Aack._

_And... they're right. I haven't felt this rotten since I was sick after Heiji and I wrecked, and a lot of that was my driving myself crazy too. Working myself to death won't help the children that've died, or the ones that're in danger right now. All it'll do is take away one more of their chances; I'm honest enough to admit that, at least. And Ran and Kid both could do with a break as much as I do; Ran's not sleeping well either._

He focused on Kid's face again as the thief sat back on his heels and Ran's hands came to rest on each of their shoulders. The blue eyes deepened, a smile lurking in their depths. "So: ropes, sedatives or-" (he paused ominously) "-a chance to watch our lovely Ran bathe naked in a wilderness spring?"

Shinichi blinked a second time while their mutual girlfriend made sputtering noises like a firework about to go off. "Oh. Well. If you put it like _that__..."_

* * *

And so it was that five hours later, drowsy and aching and fresh from his change, an adult-sized and painfully thin Shinichi found himself curled deep in a nest of pillows and blankets, watching while Ran and Kid scrounged camping-gear from the basement, storage rooms and attic of the Kudo home. Kid, amusingly enough, was pressed into service as general factotum and made to fetch and carry items to join the growing heap of gear in the middle of the foyer floor downstairs.

"-of course I know how to cook on a gas stove. Don't worry, we won't starve. Here, take this down and when you're there, grab a skillet, two pots and a couple of large spoons- Shinichi, does your kaasan have a spare kettle?"

"...and see? We can zip all three sleeping bags together like this. We _could_ take the air-mattress, but, um, it's not really made for three people... oh well, I guess we could try it. So we need those three and that and, oh right, pillows! And towels. Go ahead with those, I'll put the next pile by the door."

"-two sweatshirts of your kaasan's just in case. I hope she doesn't mind my borrowing them, though... I brought a couple of changes of clothes, but all Kid's text said was 'pack for overnight, nothing fancy'. I didn't even grab a swimsuit- and you can just stop grinning at me like that, you lecher, because I'm not packing _yours_ either! Anyway, I think we have enough clothes now." Ran flopped onto the floor, her back against the bed; leaning forward carefully, Shinichi stroked her hair with a (thankfully) large hand and brushed it back from her forehead, the corner of which he kissed.

"Ran, enough. We're just going for overnight, right? This isn't a trek to the Antarctic." She tilted her face back, eyes closed and smiling; and as wobbly as he felt, the temptation to allow the kiss to wander was too strong to vanquish. From his vantage-point her face was upside down, but who cared? It just made things more interesting. By the time Shinichi had finished finding out what it was like to french-kiss from the wrong direction (decidedly different and rather delightful, though you had to be very careful about your teeth), a question had occurred to him and he addressed it to the pair of near-silent footsteps that had just come up the stairs and through the doorway. "By the way... just how _are_ we getting wherever it is that we're going? And where ARE we going?"

The thief turned pack-mule paused, leaning against the doorjam. "Ahh, but that would spoil the surprise, wouldn't it?" Kid murmured, and crossed the room to get his own share of kisses from them both. This included an upside-down one from Shinichi just for variety's sake (again, quite tricky but worth the work); and afterwards, he curled his body around the detective's like an oversized cat, well-pleased with himself and not in the least worn out by his repeated excursions up and down the stairs. Ran climbed up to join them, inhaling appreciatively; Kid smelled, not unpleasantly, of sweat and the cedar balls that had been packed away with the sleeping bags to keep them from the moth's tooth, and Shinichi pressed his face against Kid's shoulder and breathed in deeply as well. Weak as he was for the moment, the scent was enough to send shivery little sparks up and down his spine and straight to some very interesting places... and this time, _finally,_ there was no discordance to accompany the thrill.

_About time,_ he thought in infinite relief, and felt something crucial deep inside ease as the warmth of the two beside him began so soak through his weary body. _About time._

* * *

Kid peeled Shinichi and Ran out of bed much earlier than either of them had been led to anticipate. Yawning and fuzzy-eyed, Shinichi staggered around the kitchen and living room, curled around his large mug of coffee. Ran, grumbling and equally asleep on her feet, made herself some hot tea and eggs over rice for everyone. Kid passed his egg off on Shinichi and stole some of the detective's rice in exchange.

"So...how, exactly, are we getting...wherever we're getting to?" Shinichi raised an eyebrow at the thief across the table from him, holding back a fond smirk as Kid looked up at him through his messy bangs, hunched over his rice bowl, chopsticks wedged between his lips and a grain of rice stuck to his bottom one. As charming as Kid could be, and usually was, sometimes...he was just flatly _adorable_.

"Mmf." Kid swallowed and sat up, beaming across the table. "Where we're going doesn't have a name, and I'm driving us there."

Silence.

Kid leaned forward, his grin morphing into a smirk. "Dri~ving. In a car."

Shinichi blinked, looking at Ran for aid; she just shrugged helplessly, her fried egg hanging half out of her mouth. He turned back to Kid, confused. "You have a license?"

"Certainly!" A little plastic card with a face (Kid's) and a name (most certainly not Kid's) clattered onto the table and the thief went back to his rice. Shinichi peered forward, eyeing the license.

"This is counterfeit," he protested. Beside him, Ran snorted, and Shinichi looked up into Kid's face at very close range. Still bent over his rice, the thief laughed with his eyes through a mouthful of rice. Shinichi grinned back, wry. "Right. I had almost forgotten who I was talking to."

"Do you even have a car?" Ran wanted to know, getting up for more tea. "You'd never mentioned one before."

"No need," Kid answered easily. "Would many people be unsuspicious of the motives of a high school student with his own car? Even one with money?"

"Your family _is_ rich, isn't it," Shinichi mused. "I suppose I knew that, in a sort of distant way."

"The Kuroba money doesn't fund Kaitou Kid's heists, however," Kid was quick to clarify, one finger raised for attention. "The most careful scrutiny would prove that there is no commingling between the two."

Shinichi smiled, hiding it behind his coffee. "Of course not," he grinned. Kid frowned.

"No, really! I legitimately don't spend a penny of Kaasan's money on my work." Then he smirked, looking over to Ran with playful intent. "My play, however..."

Ran laughed. "So that's where the suits come from?" Kid's smirk grew. "Well, that's fine with me. Keeping you dapper is pertinent to my interests. And as for _you_, mister," she continued, turning on her other boyfriend, "Eat faster! I'm not packing the car without your help."

Shinichi's return grumble was interrupted by traitorous, disloyal snickering. But when he glared at the perpetrator, Kid insisted innocence with his bambi eyes and rice-full mouth, and maintained his story through the rest of the meal.

* * *

Shinichi volunteered for the backseat for the first leg of their trip. Kid had warned the others that the drive would take a few hours, and advised Shinichi to get comfortable with his pillows in the back. "No point staying awake and getting carsick or worn out, Tantei," he advised, tugging the brim of Shinichi's black baseball cap lower. The cap smelled strongly like Kid, and the band showed that it had seen use, stained white in thin lines from the thief's sweat.

_This is part of his __working blacks,_ Shinichi realized with surprise, glancing past the cap brim toward the front seat. In a logo t-shirt and jeans, messy hair only vaguely showing the attentions of a hairbrush, Kid drove with careful, precise attention to his vehicle, the road, and the drivers around him. The car was a nondescript black thing, two-door and as tiny as Japanese cars tended to be; having had experience with American cars while growing up, Shinichi wished briefly for the indulgent amount of legroom that they afforded, and quickly reconsidered as Kid neatly merged through two lanes of traffic, leaving an almost mathematical margin of safe space on each corner of the car as he maneuvered.

The thief drove silently, with a quiet focus that didn't forbid conversation; but Ran was occupied much as Shinichi was, simply in watching their ever-resourceful boyfriend display yet another of his many unexpected and often esoteric skills.

"You're _very_ good at this," Shinichi finally declared, meeting Kid's eyes in the rearview mirror. The thief allowed a bit of smugness to enter his gaze as he returned Shinichi's smile.

"I'm very good at everything I do," Kid stated plainly. "Otherwise, I either get better at it, or stop doing it."

"Makes sense," Ran said. "So did you memorize the way there, or will you need me to play navigator?"

"I know where it is," Kid said, grinning without taking his eyes off the road. "It's not a mapped place, and it's not at any campgrounds. We'll need to do a bit of walking once we get out of the car, but it's not a hard climb or anything. You should be fine, Tantei."

"Thanks," Shinichi griped from the backseat. Ran twisted around to grin at him while Shinichi sulked a bit. "I'm not an invalid."

"No reason to wear you out in anything less than the most fun ways, though," Kid countered, and Shinichi had little ability to disagree with that.

* * *

They drove north; large highways gradually grew smaller in the way that rivers send out tributaries that eventually dwindle from rapids to tiny streams. One such asphalt tributary eventually took them east, and then further east, and then doubled back around a nameless clump of rocky hills before dipping down into a premature green twilight. Stray beams of sun made it through the trees here and there, but otherwise the verdant gloom was enough to quell the three's idle conversation, and eventually they rode in silence. What little traffic there was grew less and less, and when their small road abruptly went from pavement to gravel and then to packed dirt, Shinichi traded a dubious look with Ran but held his peace.

The dirt road wasn't bad, though; it wound through the tall evergreens easily enough, playing tag with a glinting thread of water that ducked in and out of sight on first one side and then the other. At one point the small lane split; without a word, Kid took the right fork, pulling over and leaving the engine running as he applied the brake. "Are we-" began Ran tentatively; a mysterious headshake was all she received in answer, but when the thief dragged a heavy, uninviting-looking tangle of fallen branches across the way behind them, his actions explained themselves.

They drove on. And as the road grew narrower and narrower, the stream widened; when at last they rounded a moss-covered chunk of stone nearly as tall as the Mouri building, the green shadows suddenly gave way to a somewhat brighter, wider space with blue sky overhead through the trees.

"Ladies and gentleman, children of all ages… we're here," announced Kid with an unnecessary flourish as he pulled over to one side- 'unnecessary', because the road ended not five meters in front of them. "Time for a little hike. Ready?"

They were, though the mass of bedding, tent and other supplies they'd brought along seemed to have multiplied in size and weight somehow during the trip. The green gloom descended once more; what they followed through it was less of a path than a game-trail, but the underbrush was sparse and easy enough to push through with Kid as trailblazer. He seemed to know exactly where he was going; and in less time than they would've believed, Ran and Shinichi could no longer see any trace of the road or the car they'd left behind.

"You're _sure_ you know where you're leading us?" asked Shinichi at last, kicking aside a pinecone and hefting the sleeping-bags tucked beneath each arm; they'd left the lighter lifting for him, but his shoulders still supported a backpack full of towels and what looked to be Kid's remarkably colorful underwear.

"Certainly, positively, completely, absolutely and utterly, Tantei," said the thief with mock hauteur. "Just go towards the light." He pointed; and indeed, a break in the trees ahead showed a blaze of sunlight. With that as impetus, the three quickened their pace and at last stepped out and down into the clearing beyond.

It was a tiny cup chiseled out of the streambank, rocky and utterly solitary, full of the sounds of water. Tall evergreens hedged it all around in a half-circle, and the sloping bank flattened out into a miniature beach of rounded stones. Birds called, echoing back and forth as they shouted at the two-legged intruders; and when Kid allowed the tent he'd been carrying across his shoulders to slip to the ground, they burst out of the branches overhead in a thunder of wings.

"...beautiful," whispered Ran; and it was. But, moving towards the creek, she paused, blinking. "Um, Kid? WHY is there a...?" Ran pointed at the rather elderly, wooden-handled shovel that stood proudly upright at the topmost level of the bank, heavy iron blade well-buried in the ground. "Do you think someone forgot it?"

He grinned, crossing to the tool and tugging mightily to free it from the soil; there seemed to be markings on the weathered handle- dates, scratched into the wood. "Nope. It's for the hot spring. See?" And he pointed again, this time at a half-moon of rocks protruding from the water just off the bank. "There's a tiny thermal vent there, just big enough to heat things up if you clear it; it's too hot to soak in on its own, but mixed with the creek-water it's perfect." The grin widened teasingly as the other two exclaimed. "You didn't think I meant for you to bathe in_cold_ water, did you? Ran, you'd look lovely with your skin all pebbly with goosepimples, but I doubt you'd enjoy it. And as for you, Tantei... things tend to, ah, shrink in cold water, and I think you've had enough of that at the moment, hmmm?"

* * *

.

_...and unfortunately, we've reached our chapter's end for the week. Please join us in one week, when we will once again continue seamlessly from where this chapter leaves off, continuing the adventures of our dashingly gorgeous and increasingly naked trio. - The Management (err, well, this IS the hot springs part of the series; it's kind of a requirement, right? And so yes, nekkidity. Deal with it.)_


	57. It's you

_Good evening to you all. On the last night of the year, thank you to those of you reading with me tonight. And to those of you who see this on the first morning of next year, give me a call from the future and tell me how it looks there, okay?_

_This week's chapter contains **explicit sexual content** and has **not** been bowdlerised as has been done to the sex scenes in the past. We will post an alternate, lower-rated chapter if we receive requests to do so; as it seems that most of our reading audience is not put off by some nekkid fun, and as the porn truly is integral to the plot this time around, we thought we'd try it this way around this time._

_**Thank you all for your comments and critiques and questions these few last chapters.** I read every single one of them, though I usually leave it to Ysabet to be the "Voice of God" in answering your questions. Let me assure you that all those citizens of Three Thieves under my care (specifically, Kaito, Kid, Aoko, and Hakuba) will not be shortchanged. Please have faithand patience and I assure you I will make it worth your while._

_Now...chapter for the new year. Ysabet and I are pleased and proud to present you with Three Thieves' 'Hot Springs Episode,' otherwise known as Chapter 5.12, "It's you."_

_._

* * *

**Three Thieves - ****_Book Five, Chapter Twelve__: "It's you."_**  
_By Ysabet and Nightengale, containing sexual content, very pretty naked bits, and quite a bit of athleticism._

_This chapter continues directly and immediately from the previous chapter._

_._

The tent went up, not without misadventure- it seemed to have a grudge against Shinichi, and much cursing ensued when one of the snap-together poles decided to bite him on a tender part of his anatomy. He insisted that someone had better kiss it better at the first opportunity; Kid, more than thigh-deep in the muddy basin that he was digging out, offered to do so on the spot if Tantei-san would deign to get his delicate self wet, but the detective declined.

Ran put herself in charge of camp organization and fire-preparation, piling the well-used fire ring at the streamward side of the clearing with driftwood and last year's pinecones. By the time the sun had just begun to slip west from its zenith, everything was as secure and tight as any Boy Scout (or Girl Guide) could wish...

...not that said Scouts or Guides would've been welcome at this particular camp, what with Kid's decision early in his dredging that a) wet pants were uncomfortable, b) the water was nice and warm and would eventually clear, and c) bathing suits were an abomination. "Wet ripstop? Crawly, soggy shorts? Eeew." He dumped another shovelful of dead leaves and muck into the stream proper where the fast current would carry it away; already the spring was bubbling visibly on the surface and thin wisps of steam were beginning to waver above the water. "Why should I wear clothes into the water when I don't need to? Then they'd just have to dry out before we leave," Kid pointed out logically. _Splash!_ went another load. Droplets glistened on his chest and arms, sparkling in the sunlight as he turned reproachful eyes on the other two. "You ARE going to join me after I sand the bottom, right?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," answered Shinichi lazily, sitting crosslegged just inside the tent where he'd been wrestling with the air-mattress; the damn thing was like an inflatable Anaconda and refused to unfold into any semblance of a bed or even a rectangle.

"I don't know; there's not... I mean, I know you don't like, um, finny things, right?" From where she was wedging pebbles beneath the table holding the gas-stove to level it out, Ran eyed their thief askance and traced the outline of what was probably meant to be a fish in the air with one fingertip.

Kid beamed at her benignly, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with a bare arm. "Hot spring, remember? It's a little too toasty for... unwanted company to join me in the water; there're some species that like it but not around here, thank Benten." He dug deep into the streambed once more; the water was now nearly to his waist in the deepest bit, and even muddied it looked terribly inviting. As did Kid himself, for that matter, his wet hair spiking damply around his face, muscles defining themselves as he strained to work the heavy shovel through the last of the debris. Shinichi paused in his own labors, watching as droplets crawled down the crease of Kid's spine to vanish into the water below; and his thoughts followed where the drops had gone.

It took an effort of will to get back to work on the air-mattress; from the little grin that Kid threw him over one shoulder, his momentary distraction hadn't gone unnoticed. Then the direction of the smirk shifted... and Shinichi was aware that Ran had gone silent as well; his head whipped around just in time to see their girlfriend duck to hide her reddening face as she hastily headed towards the edge of the clearing, ostensibly to gather more firewood.

Kid chuckled and began shoring up the pool's rocky edge as the water around him began, gradually, to run clear. He could feel Shinichi's gaze flickering back to him, distracted despite his best efforts to the contrary. It was a good feeling, giggly and encouraging; Kid savored it while he finished his work and stabbed the shovel into the bank beside the spring.

He wasn't surprised that he'd gotten Shinichi to come along on this trip; just surprised that Shinichi had agreed with so little wheedling. Ran had reacted to the suggestion just as he'd hoped she would, and though Kid didn't know if she'd been camping before, she seemed perfectly able to adapt to the challenges of the situation now. It was Shinichi's ability to put aside the work they'd left in Beika that Kid was most concerned with; avoiding mention of anything related to the cases was not only impractical and probably impossible, but unreasonable; if Shinichi couldn't set aside the case except by forgetting it existed, then his ability to prioritize was lacking, and Kid and Ran would need to know that, as well.

...It was probably a bad thing that Kid was viewing this whole expedition as one big diagnostic case, he reflected wryly. _I blame the tensai-chan._

"Kid!" The thief turned toward Ran's voice as she came back bearing an armful of miscellaneous dry branches and twigs, heading for the ashy fire ring. "There's bigger logs out there that are dry enough, I think, but they're really long. They'd probably break apart if I smack 'em. I was wondering if you were done with the shovel, if I could...borrow...um."

Arms crossed behind his back, hip cocked, Kid grinned up at his blushing girlfriend. "Yeeees?"

"Um." Ran dragged her gaze up Kid's body to find his eyes. "If I could borrow it."

Kid laughed, and climbed out of the stream to balance on the narrow, rather precariously-stacked rim of rocks and stones which separated the hot spring from the rest of the flowing water. Cool water ran over his toes into the hot spring, mixing and cooling it to a comfortably steamy temperature, and Kid balanced on the ball of one foot, dipping the other into the water with a satisfied smile.

"Mmm, it's perfect." Naked, dripping wet, and grinning, he raked his bangs back from his forehead with grimy hands and raised his voice to carry past Ran into the tent where Shinichi was finishing up with the air mattress. "Come join me, Tantei?"

Shinichi poked his head out of the tent sideways, obviously leaning to one side to look around the corner at the others. His gaze fixed on Kid, tripped over its own feet, and got stuck, while his hand kind of slid out from underneath himself and he kind of flopped ungracefully to the ground. Ran turned to look, giggled, and quickly covered her mouth with both hands as Shinichi glared. Kid just bounced in place, hopping from one foot to the other on his stone balance beam.

"Tan~tei~," Kid wheedled. "Come on in!"

"I'll be right there, you dumb thief. ...Stop bouncing, that's distracting." Shinichi ducked back into the tent, rustling around; Ran dropped her armful of firewood unceremoniously on the fire ring and trotted back to the edge of the stream, toeing off her sneakers and stepping in with bare feet.

"Eeeek! Cold cold cold."

"Not cold over here," Kid said, holding his hand out to her; she waded over to him, moving toward the deeper center of the stream where the water came up to her hips.

"Shouldn't you have taken the shorts off _first_?" Kid asked mildly, bringing both feet down to the rocks as he reached down to grip her hand. "Upsie daisy, step over..."

Ran sploshed into the hot spring a bit awkwardly, grinning up at the naked thief crouched above her as she felt around hesitantly for a rock to perch on. "We can leave them out to dry later," she shrugged, tugging off her t-shirt with relish. "Wasn't worth delaying over. Ooogh, this is _so_ good. I feel like a lobster. A happy lobster."

Laughing, Kid straightened from his crouch, then pushed himself over into a handstand, still balanced on the rocky rim of the hot spring. He craned his head back to kiss Ran, legs arching over his back, toes pointed, knees gently bent with a ballerina's best grace. His strength held him steady, arms and shoulders and back rock-solid and unwavering, as he tipped his head to the side, slipping his tongue between Ran's lips. She kissed back with giggles, reaching one hand up to tickle the skin of his ass and the soles of his feet.

And that was what Shinichi saw when he popped out of the tent again, stripped down to just a pair of boxers, mouth open with the beginnings of a statement or question that he was never going to finish.

"...Nnngh?"

Kid tilted his head a little further to one side, sliding the kiss along Ran's cheek and quite obviously looking at Shinichi with amused blue eyes. Still poised, he carefully lifted one hand and waved at his detective, balancing on his single outstretched arm for a moment before sliding the fingers of his hand through Ran's hair and kissing her ear. A single blue eye winked; at last drawing back, he folded his body neatly like the blades of a fan and entered the water close beside Ran with only the smallest of splashes.

"Ulp." Shinichi closed his jaw with an audible click. "...showoff."

"Really, Tantei? What was your first clue?" The thief grinned teasingly at him over one shoulder, obviously very pleased with himself. He settled into the hot pool, leaning back against the stones as if reclining on a perfectly civilized couch. His expression went up a notch from amused into just a touch snarky. "Boxers? Oh, Tantei. And here I set such a good example for you..." Ran rolled her eyes, but watched the banter with interest. "You aren't _really_ going into the water with those on, are you?"

"Some of us," the detective informed Kid as he approached the pool and knelt beside it gingerly, "do not LIKE having our bare asses hanging out all over the place. Or sitting on rocks. Or getting bits of our anatomy nibbled on by things living in the- _HEY!"_ The exclamation was born from the handful of water that the other had skimmed straight off the much cooler stream at him; it impacted directly into Shinichi's chest, and he yelped in reaction. "Oh, you are SO on-!" He reached out towards the water.

Things devolved quickly at that point, and what with a great deal of enthusiastic, juvenile splashing and Ran's indiscriminate attacks on them both, by the time they were collapsed against the stones of shoreline and poolside, all three were weak with laughter and Shinichi's boxers were, at best, a moot point. "Bastard," he informed the snickering thief. "TOTAL bastard. Oh well..." He skimmed out of his soggy underwear and, muttering about sand being in places it didn't belong, joined the other two in the water.

The heat soaked through every muscle he had; it was perfect, and there were bits of his anatomy that were unknotting slowly that he hadn't even realized had been knotted. Head back against the stones, slumped in the water- it was deep enough to come up almost to his chin- Shinichi let his breath out in a long sigh and closed his eyes. His skinny legs brushed against Kid's and Ran's both, tangling with them familiarly; and when a hand picked one up by the ankle and began to knead the muscles and tendons of his calf, Shinichi groaned and allowed his eyes to remain shut.

The sounds of the stream mingled with the soft susurrus of the wind through the firs behind and all around them; birds who their initial appearance had frightened away had returned, and now their calls echoed across clearing and creek. Ran and Kid were quiet, occasionally pointing out something within eyeshot to each other, but otherwise content to soak. And meanwhile, the strong fingers worked their way along Shinichi's leg and up nearly to his knee before a kiss was placed on his ankle and his other leg took its place.

Eyes opening just a crack, the light filtered in and through his lashes showed him Kid's peaceful face, thumbs digging into the line of tension behind Shinichi's shin. He ran his knuckles along the detective's Achilles tendon, and it was all that the other could do to keep from whimpering. Even this many hours past his transformation, the pains of the change still lingered, and they seemed to live in his longer bones the most. _Makes sense,_ he thought hazily, half-drugged with sunlight and warmth and sensation; _bone marrow's produced by the femur and tibia more than... anywhere else... oh god, that feels good... anywhere else in the... ooogh..._

Strong hands effectively banished most of the rational thought from his mind; Shinichi drifted, brain pleasantly buzzing, too relaxed to do more than crack his eyes open a second time when the massage ceased and soft splashings turned out to be Ran, settling herself so that Kid could work on her shoulders. Head lolling against the smooth, wet stones, he watched them in silent fascination: Ran's face, serene, her long hair, scooped up on top of her head in a messy, wet twist to free her bare shoulders- Kid, eyes deep and full of the same color as the furthest, deepest pools along the bank, running the base of his palms along Ran's shoulderblades in pressure that made her groan softly. Up her spine they went then, and across the breadth of her shoulders before they angled and slid down, fingertips tracing her collarbones inwards until they met at the hollow below her throat.

The heat was drugging; it took away and transformed notions like 'we should get out soon' or 'what if somebody sees us' into shreds of steam, inconsequential and quickly forgotten. It encouraged touch, and when Ran's eyes lidded open slowly and her gaze met his, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide around in the water, lean his back against them both and turn his head to kiss her.

One of Kid's hands drifted over, stroking Shinichi's hair back; he leaned into the touch, his tongue stroking Ran's almost lazily. When he drew back a little, she turned his head with gentle fingers a little further and Kid leaned past his shoulder to kiss him as well.

The support of the water around his whole body made Shinichi's motions dreamily easy; he turned in Ran's arms as smoothly as rolling over in bed, and reached up to grip Kid's nape strongly, pressing their kiss firmer. Lethargic and pliable thanks to the heat of the water, Shinichi folded under the thief's insistence, draped across Ran's lap. Kid slipped out from behind Ran, breaking his kiss with Shinichi for a moment to nibble on her earlobe in brief acknowledgement, and swished around to face Shinichi straight-on. The steam wreathed around their shoulders and necks seemed like ornamentation, faint necklaces and diadems of humid warmth, and through the vapors Kid's eyes shone intensely.

"You look _ravishable,_ Shinichi," he breathed, gliding forward. Chest pressed to Shinichi's, thighs slipping between the detective's parted knees, and ankles tangling with Ran's further below, Kid slipped his hands under Shinichi's arms to grip Ran's waist, smiling at her as he rolled his hips against Shinichi's lap.

"That's...weird." Shinichi lifted his head from Ran's shoulder lazily, inhaling with a low gasp as Kid's skin slid against his, smooth as silk with the water between them.

"What's weird?" Ran tucked one arm around Shinichi's waist, fingers arched, and tickled Kid's belly as he pressed close again. The thief recoiled, chuckling breathlessly, as Shinichi laced his fingers with Ran's.

"He called me Shinichi." He met the thief's eyes with confused interest, brow quirked. "You called me Shinichi."

"Perhaps the first time I've done so outside of bed?" Kid snickered, nimble fingers making tracks up Shinichi's thighs. The detective sighed, muscles flexing against the temptation of a massage, and shook his head.

"Even including it, maybe. I'm not certain, but I think that's the first time you've called me by name."

Kid shrugged, kneading into the tense muscle under his fingers. Shinichi groaned, arching against Ran, and Ran sucked in a little breath of her own, rolling her breasts against his shoulderblades, eyes fluttering closed.

"Mmm, maybe." The thief gathered both hands on Shinichi's right thigh and began to work it in earnest, starting at the knee and moving graduallly up and in. "I assure you it hasn't been an intentional campaign of denomination. I suppose you're just less my Tantei right now, and more my Shinichi."

With Kid's fingers traipsing onto his sensitive inner thigh, and his muscles shivering in relief, Shinichi savored the quivering, welcome heat pooling low in his gut, anticipation gathering like butterflies taking gentle flight, without a single note of discordance to disturb the delicious feeling. He reached back over his shoulder, finding Ran's jaw and ear by touch. He stroked the lines of her ear and jaw, down to her throat, back to her nape, with wet fingers already wrinkled from the water, and shut his eyes against the growing sensation from Kid's strong hands.

"I'm...your Shinichi all the time," he breathed, words hitching as the luxurious sensations of warm skin and hot water distracted him on all sides. "S-sometimes, I'm your detective too. And you're my thief sometimes."

"_Our_ thief," Ran reminded them both, slipping her hands under Shinichi's ass to grip and knead. Predictably he arched up, startled and taunted by her touch, pushing him right into Kid's massaging knuckles, which had by this point kneaded their way all the way up to the crease of Shinichi's thigh.

In the clear water of the hot spring, very little was obscured from the eye; Ran hooked her chin over Shinichi's shoulder and looked down the length of his body until the press of Kid's obscured it, purring with satisfaction to see Shinichi's arousal dark and stiff between the boys' stomachs. Kid's hands danced across the tendons of Shinichi's inner thighs, working tense knots out of them even as the pressure of his massage made Shinichi's thighs flutter against his sides with the strain of trying to remain still.

Kid smirked as Shinichi pried one eye open to look at him, mouth a little slack from the combined overload of both his partners' attentions. "Go ahead, Tantei," he said gently, completely unsurprised when Shinichi's thighs snapped tight around his waist, ankles crossing to lock him in, and the detective's heels pressed Kid's ass hard, urging him forward. "Impatient," he chuckled, stroking Shinichi's hair back from his neck to bare a perfect spot for a hickey.

"I don't hear you complaining—aaahh!" Sharp teeth nipped him, immediately followed by soft pressure of lips and tongue. "One—of these days," Shinichi gasped out, "you're going to do th-that and—I'm going to end up with a—ssss—Kid signature on my neck." Ran's arms slid around them both; head tipped back, Shinichi realized that they were, in effect, necking while perched_in her lap._ The realization was enough that he let out an involuntary snicker.

Kid paused in what he was doing. "…..If you think I'm talented enough to sign my work with my tongue, Shinichi…" (a second nip joined the first, this one almost at the waterline) "…then I fear you have a somewhat exaggerated though flattering notion of my abilities. And what's so funny?"

"Lap," explained Shinichi, or tried to. Language was apparently somewhat out of the question at that moment, so instead he settled for pulling Kid to him hard and grinding against him, a slow drag of skin that made him bite his lip. Behind him, Ran drew in her breath hard as her knee came up, hooking around both of them and pressing her inner thigh hard against Shinichi from behind. He could feel wrinkles of fabric between them; one of Kid's clever hands slipped down into the water and between, helping with that little matter and remaining there- Shinichi could_feel_ him, feel his hand working as Ran gasped. Moments later, the last remnants of clothing drifted to the far end of the pool, pushed by the current.

They moved again, and again, and again: Kid, hand clenched tight on Shinichi's shoulder, sliding forward hot and silky-smooth, and then Shinichi, pressing back and _twisting_ as he moved; and Ran, pressing desperately against them both. Somehow the tension and the angle worked itself out until both Ran's knees were nearly at the level of the others' shoulders and her breaths, frantic little gasps, were hitched against Shinichi's shoulderblades as Kid's fingers moved insistently. If the water had been deeper or cooler or less buoyant, it might not have worked; if they'd been older or less flexible…

(Kid groaned softly, grinding down and swallowing up Shinichi's cry with his mouth; behind him, Ran's nails bit into his shoulders)

...or less single-minded…

As it was, by the end all three could've drowned and not even noticed.

* * *

"Oww!"

Ran… had a few abrasions in some very delicate places. Kid was just a trifle sunburned. And Shinichi… had a grin that just wouldn't go away. His girlfriend, wincing as he applied spray-on balm to places where she'd never expected to need it, gave him a wary look over her shoulder. "Did you borrow something from Kid, Shinichi? I think you need to give it back, it's… kind of unnerving."

"Sorry." He attempted a tone of contrition and failed miserably; the grin was in charge.

Kid peeked into view from behind the detective, craning his neck around to get a look at his face. A similar grin, the master to Shinichi's photocopy, spread across his own face, and he shifted forward just a couple centimeters, beeping Shinichi's nose with his own. Then he was turning, aiming the grin at Ran with a smarmy curl to its corners.

"Honestly, I can't blame him, Ran," the thief commented lightly, belying the intensity of his gaze and grin. "I mean, he's got such a _lovely_ vista to gaze upon... All those rolling hills and valleys, the strong, smooth planes, the low gullies..."

Ran snorted. "You can just say you're staring at my ass, you know."

"I'm staring at your ass," Kid shot back, shameless. "With interest."

"I was more focused on, you know, the whole package," Shinichi submitted, one finger raised for attention. "And I was appreciating in an artistic manner!"

"Whereas I was just perving."

"...Right." Ran snickered, pushing herself up onto her elbows; spread out naked on a towel on the smooth floor of the tent, breasts pressed flat and balm-treated rump raised, she looked over her shoulder at her boys invitingly. "Well, are you just going to look, Shinichi?"

"_Hell no,_" he swore, dropping to hands and knees in a crouch over Ran, chest pressed to her back possessively. Beneath him, Ran just about purred. "Kid, where'd you pack the supplies?"

"Supplies?" Kid sounded distressed, and Shinichi glanced over his shoulder at their boyfriend's flawlessly innocent act. "I'm afraid I forgo-Oh, don't glare at me like that, Tantei, they're in the little satchel over there. Yes, that one." He took a leisurely seat on the floor of the tent a little distance from the other two, smiling benignly as Shinichi scissored two fingers deep inside of Ran. She was busy, hands clumsy and breath catching, with ripping open a condom for him, and Kid just propped his chin on one hand and grinned.

"I think I'll sit this one out," he teased, his eyes warm. "I'd much rather watch, this time."

Shinichi flipped his hand over, thumb and forefinger seeking out Ran's clit with magnetic surety; she rose up beneath him, demanding with the press of her body against his from shoulder to hip and the moan of anticipation she let fall to the tent floor. They rocked together for a little while, his fingers slick and busy between her thighs, her hands braced beneath to hold them both steady. Her hair, still wet, fell over her shoulders in a tangled curtain, catching in her mouth as she gasped and began to quiver.

He dragged her to him then, holding her close with one arm banded across her belly; the other worked the condom out of its wrapper and down his length with awkward but determined fingers. And then Shinichi shifted Ran in his lap, her head falling back against his shoulder, lips finding his neck to kiss and kiss and kiss, as he lifted her, helped by the strength of her legs folded beneath them both, and lowered her onto his erection in a single, firm motion.

Nipples peaked and thighs spread over Shinichi's knees, Ran rolled her ass against his belly, angling herself with intuitive expertise so he could slip deeper within. Her wet lips pressed the thin thatch at his base, and with the same hand that teased her own clit, Ran rolled Shinichi's balls into her fingers, playing.

"D-don't move," she breathed, bouncing a little in place and gasping as Shinichi's hardness set off sparks inside her. "G-god, just...just let me feel this for a bit."

"This?" He whispered the word against her throat, voice husky and low, a bedroom voice in the truest sense of the words. Ran whimpered, pressing herself harder against his chest, fingers insistent on her own clit.

"T-this," she confirmed, nodding vaguely as she shifted her thighs a little, spreading herself wider on his lap. She rose up a centimeter or so and sank back down again; the newness, the sheer _insistence_ of Shinichi's cock inside her made her head spin. This was a different sort of feeling than it had been before; she guessed it was the position, some combination of gravity and the angle and the head of his cock pressing her, she could _feel it_, feel the exact spot where it rubbed her walls as they shifted, fighting the urge to move, fighting the urge to stay still. She didn't have words for it.

_I...think I have a new favorite position,_ she thought weakly, blindly seeking Shinichi's mouth with her own as the tendons of her inner thighs began to clench and tremble. Afraid of ending it before it'd begun, Ran pulled her hand away from her clit...then reconsidered. Further back, past that oversensitized button but before the velvety, hot slinkiness of Shinichi's balls, Ran tentatively ran her fingers along the lines of her own lips, stretched open to take Shinichi's cock. And she felt its base, the pulse along its underside, and tried to curl her fingers around it in a ring.

Reaching down like that made her shift forward, and that shifted him within her; Ran moaned, hearing a softer sound from Shinichi in return, and shifted back to neutral, chest heaving with her rough breath. Shinichi reached up to cup her breast in one hand, his other hand still wrapped across her belly to hold her tight.

"Ran, are you okay?" His voice was tense, strained; for the first time since taking him in, it occurred to Ran that to remain still within her was probably driving him insane. "Does it hurt? Do you need-"

She shook her head, fighting for coherency. "It's-oh, god, Shinichi, it's _so good._ You feel-oh, god, you feel amazing. It's..." She bent back against him, arms reaching up to curl around the back of his neck, fingers burying into his hair. Her eyes were closed, lips and cheeks flushed, mouth a bit slack. She looked like a goddess.

"I can't...I don't, there's not, oh, Shinichi, there's not even _words_. Oh, god, oh god, please, just stay for just a tiny bit longer. Oh, Shinichi, I can _feel..._"

"_Ran,_" Shinichi breathed, the beginnings of lust's growl threading into his tones as he nipped at her shoulder, nape, and earlobes. His eyes were bright, intense blue in the corner of her vision. "Ran, Ran, I want to- Please, let me- I'm going mad." His fingers dimpled the muscle of her belly as they dug in, clenching her close; his other hand crossed her chest to rub and tease her other nipple. "I need you."

"Shinichi, just..."

He moaned, gripping her tight, as his hips thrust helplessly up. "Ran, please, oh gods, you're so good, so good. Please, let me-"

Whimpering, Ran rocked forward, palms landing hard on the floor of the tent, cushioned only by the spread towel. "Sh-Shinichi, take me," she panted, grinding back against his hips with pure, uncomplicated hunger. "Go ahead, take..." She swallowed, looking back over her shoulder, and the desperate need was pushed over to the side to make room for the no-nonsense voice of command he'd jumped to obey on so many everyday occasions.

"_C'mon._"

And after that, all else was instinct.

* * *

"Oh, god-d-d, _OW._" Sprawled - well, really, _flopped_ - on the floor of the tent, curled into together in an exhaustedly imprecise bundle, Ran and Shinichi tried not to move.

"My knees," he groaned, trying to flex them out without actually moving the rest of his body. "Actually, my whole legs." Curled just under his chin, Ran smiled, eyes closed, and kissed his collarbone with a wince.

"My rump! You two are determined to give me a chapped bum, aren't you?"

Shinichi lifted his head quickly, lethargy pushed aside. "Are you okay? Do you need-oof." Ran tugged him back down, patting his shoulder lazily.

"Mmm, Shinichi, I'm fine. You don't have to panic like that."

"Well, I can hardly blame him," came Kid's voice, from somewhere to their indeterminate left. "Your rump is a thing of beauty which must be preserved."

Ran snorted. "Wait til I'm forty, and then tell me that again."

A soft kiss on her cheek, a hand stroking her hair behind her ear, carried Kid's smile. "I hope to do so."

"No kisses for me?" Shinichi pouted, reaching out a hand to their thief. "You have fun watching?"

"I did."

"Mmm, good." Shinichi snuggled his face into Ran's drying hair, then looked up to meet Kid's eyes. "Come cuddle with us?"

"Never," the thief declared with hauteur, the warm line of his body pressing close against Shinichi's back, shoulder to thigh.

"Mmm, of course not," Ran murmured, dragging more of Shinichi on top of her for warmth. "Phantom thieves never cuddle."

"Nope! It's against our M.O."

"Which is?"

"To be dashing and handsome, of course."

Shinichi rolled his eyes and reached blindly behind him, snagging the nape of Kid's neck on the second try. "Hey, Mister Dashing."

"I prefer Mister Handsome, actually."

"Mister Shit-Eating Grin, I think my shoulders need kisses."

Kid snickered, cloying himself even closer to his detective's skin. "I think I'll have to do something about that, then."

"You do that. Mmmm."

* * *

Even three agile teenagers can't spend an entire weekend in bed (or in a hot spring, or a sleeping-bag, or on a big rock, or...), so after a little cleanup in the spring, a bit more groaning about sore muscles and the location of jeans and suchlike, Kid and Shinichi decided to wander downstream a little ways. Ran elected to remain back at camp; she alluded rather vaguely to planning for dinner, but the sleepy, contented look in her eyes pointed more towards a nap in the tent than anything else. Promising not to go very far, the other two started out. Kid opted for a pair of light tennis shoes and his jeans and t-shirt again; Shinichi was dressed similarly, though in looser pants than the thief had chosen.

The streambed ran to boulders and a touch of whitewater only a little further along; deeper than its upstream flow where it pooled below some of the small dropoffs, it masked their voices with a white-noise rush and gurgle that they had to speak up to conquer. "Good th- I mean," said Shinichi, raising his voice, "GOOD THING WE-"

Kid winced, skirting a puddle. "I can hear you, Tantei, I promise you."

"Oh. Anyway, good thing we didn't camp down here, we'd've been shouting over all the noise."

"Mmm. I think we were shouting anyway- well, you and Ran were, at least."

"Smartass. We had plenty of good reasons to yell, and I'm pretty sure I heard y- Oh; Kid, look." Shinichi pointed. "Deer." And sure enough, a little further along the bank, several brown shapes moved stilt-legged across the shallower edges, drinking; as the detective and thief froze, large-eared heads popped up warily and they faded back into the trees. Shinichi let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding.

"Wonder what else lives along here?"

Moving easily, Kid made an impromptu stepping-stone path of several boulders and crossed halfway through the rushing rivulets to crouch on a large rock in the middle of the stream, his footing casually sure. "Foxes, a lot of squirrels... tanuki, maybe; I've only seen deer before, but there've been tracks. If you're worried about Ran, I wouldn't; it's likely that the only predators our lovely lady would have to worry about would be of the bipedal variety, and..."

Shinichi snorted. "Yeah, no. Not so much, at least not out here." He picked up a stone and examined it before lobbing it out into the streambed. "What about hikers?"

His companion shook his head, sighting along the water towards an outcropping of rock a little ways beyond. "If we'd taken the left-hand road it would've brought us to a small dam roughly twelve kilometers upstream; there's a parking-lot there and rocky pools to swim in- it's a popular place for those who take the trouble to find it, much more popular than further downstream. There's also a bit of a cliff between here and there, very difficult to clamber down. Really quite impassable." Kid grinned and Shinichi rolled his eyes, reading the agile thief's sauciness for what it was.

"Except to someone like you?"

Kid fluttered at him. "Tantei, you flatter me." Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "Well," Kid dissembled, grinning shamelessly the whole time, "_Most_people would find it impassable, except experienced rock-climbers, I suppose. I have more efficient methods." Kid hopped to the next rock, balancing on one foot with both arms and the other leg extended out to the sides; he pivoted in place with a series of small hops, beaming at his boyfriend.

"You're a showoff," Shinichi commented dryly. "And if you fall in I'm just going to stand here and laugh while you freeze your nuts off."

"I'm ignoring you," Kid grinned, eyes crinkling. "I chose our campsite carefully! Truly a perfect selection, if I say so myself. The area was mentioned in some of my father's notes, and I visited it a year or so back." He pointed at the stone outcropping. "Do you see that?"

"Yeah-?"

Kid's grin softened a bit, going secretive around the eyes. "It contains a small, well-hidden cave. Before we leave- maybe in the morning?- there's something there I want to show you both." Shinichi hiked one eyebrow up in curiosity, but the thief refused to explain. His smile, however, widened. "Patience is a virtue; therefore..." And the thief brought both feet together on the rock, judged his distance, and leaped lightly to yet another a meter away, arms outstretched. "...let us be virtuous."

His boyfriend snorted.

"Mmm-hmm. I think I'll pull that one on you the next time you grab my ass."

Kid wagged one finger, clucking disapproval. "No you won't," he declared, raising his voice a little because he was facing away from Shinichi, and the water was getting louder as he moved further out to center stream. "You'd never turn down _this_ ass." The thief stretched, emphasizing his denim-clad posterior, as he stepped delicately across a series of somewhat slick rocks at water-level. "Ugh, squishy socks."

"Attractive one moment, ridiculous the next," Shinichi muttered, grinning fondly at the thief as he continued to play hopscotch with the stream's boulders and rocks.

The whitewater frothed around Kid's feet, occasionally splashing up across one stone just as his feet left it. Rather than constantly looking to Shinichi for reaction or approval, Kid was wholly involved in his game, eyes on his own feet and the flow of the water around his rock and the rocks nearby, as he played with gravity and his own body, and the playfulness that the thief brought to most of his life was clear in his bearing now. Extending one foot out, he charily tested his next rock, and slid his stance to the one beside it when the first shifted gently, showing its instability. Forward and back he meandered, weaving patternlessly back and forth across the center of the stream, quiet and thoughtful as he moved with precision interspersed with goofy flourishes - the flip of a wrist here, a tucked heel there. Sometimes he moved faster, dancing from one perch to the next; other times he crouched still for long moments before moving on. A little unconscious smile curled the corner of his mouth as he moved, spiking briefly brighter whenever he pleased himself with a landing or step.

The sun and the breeze shook the leaves that surrounded them; the rustling greenery and organic static of the white water's white noise mixed with the occasional call of birds. Shinichi, sitting on the bank to watch his boyfriend, shaded his eyes with one hand and called across the water to him with a smile.

"What're you thinking about, Kid?"

Bent forward to peer at the rocks and the water, Kid craned his head up, his toothy grin sliding into view as though it'd never left. "Nothing," he said, but he began to work his way back over to Shinichi's side of the stream with semi-linear promptness. "How long was I dreaming?"

Intrigued but too mellow to press Kid for a definition, Shinichi just shrugged one shoulder, unworried. "Ten minutes? Not long."

"Mmm." Kid hopped back to his big boulder, the one he'd initially walked out to, and gauged the distance between himself and the shore with a loaded gaze. Shinichi could all but see the Idea building above the thief's head.

"Kiiid?"

"Scoot about a metre to your left, Tantei?"

Shinichi stood instead, backing away with a wary glance. "Kid, what're you-oh what the he- Oh for _crying out loud_, Kid."

Grinning, the thief - now standing on the bank in a little divot of pebbles displaced by his blunt two-foot landing - twisted around to look over his shoulder at the distance he'd traveled. He rubbed one palm with the other thumb, eyeing it with mild surprise.

"Huh! Look." He held it up for Shinichi to see; there was grit pressed into the skin from where Kid had landed, pushed off, landed, and pushed off again with both hands. "No bruise!"

Shinichi covered his face with one hand. "You _backflipped_ out of the stream. From _five metres_ away from the bank."

"Technically, it was a double backflip," Kid corrected him angelically. "That's the best I could do in these jeans; they're too tight for anything but straight-leg and mostly straight-body moves. I could have tried a cartwheel if they stretched-"

Kid fell silent, quieted by Shinichi's fingers against his lips. "You are ridiculous," Shinichi said, free hand gripping Kid's shoulder warmly. Kid opened his mouth to reply, but the detective ducked nearer, blue eyes deep and quiet and incredibly close. "Shh," he murmured, releasing Kid's lips. Fingers curling around the back of the thief's neck, Shinichi tipped his head just so slightly, eyes hooded, and Kid's stomach backflipped, crashing into his utterly smitten heart as his mouth parted, all on its own, to let Shinichi in.

_"It really hasn't been that long, has it?"_ Kaito commented quietly, resting his temple against Kid's nape gently, hands touching light at the thief's waist. _"No, no, didn't mean to distract you,"_he added quickly, as the thief began to tug his focus away from Shinichi. _"Just happy to see you happy, thief,"_ the magician explained, squeezing his brother close for a brief moment._"You're cute when you're twitterpated and all head over teakettle in love."_

"Nnh. Come by later? They'd like to see you, and I interrupted your last visit," Kid managed to say, stringing his words together with effort.

_"Sure,"_ Kaito shrugged, smiling a little. _"I'll let you get back to your kiss."_

Kaito faded away, and the thin film of distraction that had divided Kid's attention went with him. Shinichi and the butterfly hurricane in Kid's stomach came back into full focus, and distantly he was aware that he was making little noises into Shinichi's mouth as they kissed, hands grabbing and holding tightly to hold the detective close.

_I guess the Magician is right,_ Kid thought distantly, as he twined closer to Shinichi, trying to guide the kiss to stronger, more definitive territory. But Shinichi pulled back, ducking back in only when Kid pulled back as well, catching a breath that he didn't necessarily want.

_It's only been...nnngh, I can't think. It was winter...it's only been a few months since we kissed. We..._

Shinichi stroked Kid's hair back tenderly, but his fingers knotted into it strongly, tugging, as his tongue slipped against Kid's again. His body pressed hard against Kid's, firm though scrawny, but the touch of his hand against the small of the thief's back was delicate, tender. His teeth against Kid's lip were gentle, stroking rather than scraping, but when Kid surged forward, Shinichi met and repelled his advance with just as much force and desire as the thief offered.

_We first made love a month ago,_ Kid thought hazily, heart beating fast, breath hitching. _Just a month._ Shinichi's guidance of their kiss, tender but firm, desirous but sweet, was making the thief's head spin; some part of him said that they should have been backed up against a tree by this point, hips frantic against each other.

Another part of him was cracking wide open, surprising him with its newness, its vulnerability. _Why can he do this to me with just a kiss?_ He clutched Shinichi tighter, now letting the detective thoroughly control their kiss, and still Shinichi led him gently, sweetly back and forth, strength of grip and force balanced with tenderness of tongue and hands. _He's fucked me hard and chased me harder; we fight and we shine and we __compete__. And that first kiss sent me flying...the first touch sent my what-ifs out of control... and it's- oh, Benten, Shinichi,__more__._

_Benten above, I can't bear it._

Kid pulled free with a gasp, panting; lips slick, pupils wide and black, he nosed at Shinichi's throat before pulling back far enough to focus on his boyfriend's face. "Shi-" Kid swallowed, shaking his head, helplessly smiling despite himself. "Tantei, what-? How do you do this to me? How..."

The gaze that met his was open, vulnerable almost to the point of pain, but there was a deep, deep peace in the blue eyes. "You let me in," murmured the other; "Every time you open up to me, every time you do something like- like that backflip, or tell me something you wouldn't tell anybody else- it's like a trail of breadcrumbs and I have to follow it..." Shinichi leaned forward again, eyes shuttering closed; he kissed Kid almost chastely, just a brush of lips. "Every time you let me see some part of you that's just... you alone, it...It isn't me doing anything to you, Kid, it's you." He murmured the last against the thief's lips, barely touching. "It's _you."_ Slowly, leisurely, Shinichi kissed him again.

His hands held the other so carefully as the kiss deepened, never so hard that Kid couldn't have pulled away if he had wanted to- not _catching_ him, just _keeping_ him. And all the while Shinichi's hand rubbed small, caressing circles on Kid's back. Even the kiss was careful- and again, it wasn't like they hadn't had much rougher between them before, not in the least, but...

Eyes still closed, the detective broke the kiss and turned his cheek to Kid's, lying his face exactly parallel to the other's; even against the crash of the water, it was easy for the two to make out each other's heartbeats, not so much audible as tangible: chest to chest, a doubled rhythm beating in counterpoint against their breathing. "Keep doing it," Shinichi said into his ear, almost soundlessly. "Okay?"

Kid nodded, cheek sliding against Shinichi's, and swallowed hard. His hand, fingers nimble, sought and laced with his detective's, knuckles squeezing together just short of pain.

They stayed like that, just holding each other, long enough for their blood to cool into something that would allow them to let go; the birds that their noise had frightened were back and calling raucously overhead by the time their arms reluctantly loosened. "We should head back," said Shinichi with regret; but before he stepped back, his hands slid up to cup Kid's jaw, and Shinichi leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. "Don't think," he said quietly, almost fiercely, "that this is- always physical. Or just physical. Or- as much as I want to, much as I _have-"_ He flushed. "It's not just that. It never has been just that. I know _you_ know and I'm being an idiot, but I-" The detective stopped, tongue-tied at the look in the thief's eyes, and, quite sensibly, shut up.

"The reminder doesn't hurt," Kid murmured, eyes flashing surprise as his honesty startled both him and Shinichi.

"Not for me either," said the detective, and his seriousness melted into a little glint. "I'll make sure I keep reminding you." The brief press of lips that followed this was a promise.

They let the streambed do most of the talking on the way back; it laughed at them, gurgled little sounds of annoyance when Shinichi stepped wrong and ended up with a sodden tennishoe, and obligingly quieted down as they came back into the clearing. Stopping just short of the dip in the bushes where the clearing began, they both watched as Ran shook out the towel she'd been lying on earlier and draped it across a branch; her nap must've been brief, because the backpack that had contained their food stood open and a couple of empty pans waited beside the gas stove. Ran was humming to herself rather tunelessly; her long hair was tied back in a tail, and when she bent down to rummage through the pack her profile stood out against the stones, absorbed and at ease.

Shinichi slipped up behind Kid, sliding one arm around him and leaning against his back. "You asked me how I could do that to you," he murmured against Kid's nape. _"She's_ how. Paranoid as I am, trapped like I've been... I couldn't have ever loved you or anybody else... if she hadn't taught me how to first." For a moment his face pressed against the thief's shoulders; and Kid felt him breath out against his skin. It felt like gratitude, and it was meant for Kid and Ran together.

And then he slipped by his thief and greeted Ran with a loud, Conanish "Raaaaaaaan, we're STARVING. What's for dinner?" and the moment was past.

* * *

.

_Thank you for joining us. Next week we'll continue our Thieves' camping trip and our story, with Chapter Thirteen, **"You keep offering logical explanations, but I'm watching a *fire sprite.*"**_


	58. You keep offering logical explanations

_Greetings and salutations! Here's hoping that everyone had a lovely and safe New Year, one full of fireworks and new beginnings. Mine was excellent; there were many things that went boom and fizz, and 2011 seems to have gotten off to a good start._

_Tonight we pick up once more directly at the end of last chapter with no breaks between; and for those of you (pretty much the majority) who wanted more magic? You get your wish, and in spades. Marshmallows, snuggling and ghost stories; fandom, plain language and the nature of magic... We think you'll be pleased. This is one seriously talky chapter; there's a lot of Kaito in this one too, he's rather enjoying himself._

_We hope you will too...____The Management_

___._

___

* * *

_

**__****Three Thieves - Book Five, Chapter Thirteen****__****: "You keep offering logical explanations, but I'm watching a *fire sprite.*"****_  
_****__****A Detective Conan/Kaitou Kid crossover story written by ** _**nightengale**_**__**** and ** _**ysabet**__  
_**__****Warnings:**_____Tomfoolery. Sugar. Kid gets his brain broken at one point, which is always fun.  
Crossposted to the following LJ communities: _ _**dc_yaoi**____ , _ _**detective_conan**____ , _ _**magic_kaitou**____ and _ _**manycases1truth**__.  
_

"Huh..." Bowlful of ramen cupped in one hand, chopsticks in the other, Shinichi scowled at the campfire in thought. "That's a hard one. Maybe... I don't know, that time we snuck into the school? Ran, d'you remember? Everybody was claiming it was haunted, there was this-"

"-skinless body moving around, and it turned out to be from the Science lab." Ran rolled her eyes. "Dork. Of course I remember, you persuaded me to help you burglarize the place! We climbed in through a window," she explained to Kid, who looked pleased.

They were playing _What's The Weirdest Thing You Ever Did,_ and the parameters were: a) it had to have happened during childhood, and b) it had to have been your own idea, not someone else's.

Night had just fallen and the flames in the stone firering were crackling merrily, sending up showers of sparks every time a branch cracked or a pinecone gave up the ghost. Some of the wood was damp; it hissed and sang as the vapor boiled out, and the air of the clearing was saturated with the scent of burnt pinepitch. In the morning, they all knew, everything would smell of woodsmoke, and the echoes of the campfire would linger on their skin and hair for days no matter how much they scrubbed.

Shinichi nudged a log into a better position with the piece of green wood that they had designated as their 'poker'. "Okay, fine; your turn, Ran. Let's hear it. What's weirder than pulling a break-and-enter on a gradeschool?" Sprawled to Ran's left on the much-abused towel from earlier with his shoes off and his toes toasting, Shinichi raised an inquiring eyebrow at his girlfriend. Her face went thoughtful.

"Um... there was that time Sonoko and I played with food-coloring and dyed our hair kind of blue-"

"No way, and she talked you into it. Try again." She stuck out her tongue at him; Kid chuckled at them both, too busy inhaling his own ramen to comment.

"Then... what about when I was in that karate match when I was eleven and I split my pants in front of a couple hundred people...?" Shinichi made an obnoxious buzzer-noise indicating FAIL! and Ran hmmphed.

Then her face turned thoughtful, and she stole a glance to either side at Kid and Shinichi both. "Okay... I _know_ you don't know about this one; I never told you, but it's why I don't like scary things. I, um, I talked to a ghost once."

Silence.

"I was, I think I was about four, maybe five." Hugging her own empty bowl to her, Ran leaned forward from her place between the detective and thief, eyes on the flames. "My tousan was still on the force, and there'd been a death in his division; the officer who died was a friend of his, and we went to the wake." She swallowed. "It was the first one I'd ever been to; Kaasan didn't want to take me along, but the babysitter cancelled, so- she borrowed a black dress that fit me, and we went. She explained what we were going to on the way over, and when I got there she brought me just inside, introduced me to a couple of people, and then sent me back outside to keep quiet and play by this little koi-pond." Ran drew in a deep breath. "I didn't get near enough to see the casket or the _iei_ or anything; all I really remember about that bit is- is a lot of tall people wearing black and the smell of the flowers. I didn't like it, and I was glad when I didn't have to stay inside."

"Out by the pond, though, there was a man sitting by himself on a rock; he was wearing a black suit like everybody else and he..." Ran hesitated, looking uncertain; the two bodies on either side of her unconsciously scooted in just a little. "...he seemed... sad. He was just sitting there, tossing pebbles in the water; I wandered over to look at the fish and told him that they didn't eat pebbles but that maybe if he got some bread they would eat that."

"What did he say?" asked Kid quietly, picking up the poker-stick; the coals of their campfire sent up a shower of tiny gold sparks skywards as he poked at them, more for something to do with his hands than anything else.

"He just shook his head and said he couldn't go inside." Ran bit her lip, gaze focused on the memory. "I didn't ask why; I just said that I'd get us both some bread, and he smiled a little and told me to ask the short lady with the dark blue shoes on. I asked him why she was wearing blue- everybody was wearing black- and he just shook his head again and told me she couldn't see colors well. So I went back inside and I did just that."

More silence, filling up the clearing like a cup; the sounds of the stream and campfire seemed uncannily loud. Even the early crickets seemed to have stopped their chirping to listen. Ran hugged her legs with both arms, the empty bowl dangling forgotten from her fingers as she stared into the flames. "But when I asked her, I saw a picture in the middle of a bunch of flowers on a... long table, and it was the man from outside, that was _his_ picture and I pointed at it and told her he'd said to ask for bread for the koi." She swallowed again; once more, her two companions leaned in just barely, brushing her shoulders with their warmth. "A-and everybody got upset, and Kaasan and Tousan took me home, and on the way Kaasan asked me how I knew to ask the family's cook for bread instead of anybody else there, and I told her about the shoes."

"And she told you that the cook was color-blind?" Shinichi's voice was very quiet; the flames flickered in his eyes as he listened.

"...yes. And, and I've always wondered..." Ran's arms tightened around her knees. "...If the man I met is s-still waiting there for me to bring him bread t-to feed the koi with." She gulped in a breath. "He seemed so _sad._"

"I hope he's not," Kid said quietly, jabbing the fire again, his frown tight and holding much back. "That wouldn't bode well for other ghosts like him." He looked up to see the others' expressions, a little wide-eyed and trying not to be.

"It's okay," he said, looking back to the fire, drawing his knees up to his chest and hunching over them. "You can look surprised, I don't mind. ...But yes, I do think about that. About him.

"I worry sometimes...that taking up his cape has just caused him one more restlessness, in the end. Would he want us to go the same way he did? Maybe he would be happier if I - we - stayed safe and alive to take care of Kaasan."

"...Don't talk like that," Ran said, nervous stubbornness in her voice. "You're not going to- They won't- You won't die."

"Maybe," Kid shrugged, smiling at her without bitterness, without pessimism. "I don't think it's morbid to consider that; it's just being realistic. I'm thoroughly amazing," he laughed, the firelight bright in his eyes. "...But I'm only human. I'll mess up, someday. Eventually.

"I'm okay with that. I just want to get them...or find _it_...before I do. But I wonder if he would think it was worth it."

There was a growl in Shinichi's voice: just barely there, but the teeth were showing. "**We're** not okay with it. And they've already messed up, haven't they?" He smiled at the other two, a slanted, I-have-you-now smile that in just that second made him look far more _Edogawa Conan_ than Kudo Shinichi. "They went up against US." He reached across Ran, poking the thief gently in the chest with a finger. "What, did you think I went to all this much trouble to let some asshole with a gun and a black trenchcoat screw it up? I'll have you know," Shinichi went on in very deliberate mock-indignation, "that I don't let just _anybody_ steal me. Same goes for Ran; we're keepers, no sending us back with 'Oops, my bad!' notes attached." He leveled a look at the thief that held as much seriousness as humor, and the poking finger moved up to tap Kid on the nose; two startled blue eyes crossed as they focused on Shinichi's fingertip. "And we expect you to stick around and take good care of us. So no grand gestures or Famous Last Stands, okay?"

"Or else," added Ran warningly, her eyes just a little overbright.

"You heard her- 'or else'. And you don't want to see Ran's 'or else', she breaks concrete with those. Besides which," Shinichi added with just a perceptible tremor, "I'm expecting you to spend a lot of your future time instructing little thieves how to give cops nervous twitches... while I teach their siblings how to catch them." Despite the dreaded subject of offspring, the smile lingered. "I'm really looking forward to it."

"Of course," said Ran, perfectly straight-faced, "that would be up to me. I think I should have them in litters, don't you? Even numbers, so we can split the teams down the middle." She cocked a challenging eyebrow and glanced to either side. "How many should I have? Six? Ten?" Ran pretended to give the subject some serious thought, brow wrinkled. "Maybe a baker's dozen, just in case one of them decides to be a lawyer instead. Or a cop..."

Choking, Kid worked to catch his breath and stared, somewhat goggle-eyed, at the poker-faced couple in front of him. "You...'re serious," he realized, sudden laughter taking him. "Well, I mean. Not- Ran, please not litters, it would ruin your tummy. But..."

Kid looked from Shinichi to Ran and back. "You're serious. You...want children? With me?"

Shinichi winced, almost like he'd swallowed a lemon. "_Eventually,_ thief. _WAY_ eventually. But...yes." His hand reached out again, knuckle stroking Kid's cheek; Ran leaned back to give him room, her hand coming to rest on Kid's hand in his lap.

"You're not just your mission anymore, Kid. You have a life...with us. You've promised us."

Shinichi grinned, nodding. "She's right. No backing out, Kid."

"We'll keep the Shounen Tantei well paid with babysitting money!" Ran decided, beaming. "Ayumi would make such a _great_ babysitter once she grows up, don't you think? And she'll make the boys help, I'm sure."

It was Shinichi's turn to stare a little, considering the very real temporal possibility of that case. "Huh. Yeah, I think she would."

"So." Toeing her shoes off, Ran leaned back and stretched her legs out towards the fire alongside Shinichi's; she had chosen to wear black tabi socks with pearl-gray roses patterned on them beneath her tennies, and she flexed her toes at the heat. "She's eight already, isn't she? That means that she can start babysitting in about four years, so we have that long to-" (and she counted off the points on her fingers) "-get Shinichi permanently full-sized, find the gem, expose the bad guys and start giving Kudo-san grandbabies. Did I miss anything?" she asked brightly, and giggled at the looks on the others' faces. "Just so long as we have an agenda to follow. Nooooo pressure!"

Shinichi fell back dramatically against the log that they'd been using as a backrest. "Oh god. Ran, you ARE evil. I'll show _you_ 'pressure'-" He reached forward with tickling hands for his girlfriend's ribs; she yelped, flopping sideways into Kid's very obliging arms for safety and swatted at her tormentor, snuggling back against the thief.

"I think you already did... um, show me pressure, that is. In the tent this afternoon." Ran grinned angelically as Shinichi sputtered, then tilted her head a little to regard her backrest. "Your turn now- no, no, _yeek!_ Not for pressure! Not yet, anyway. For a story. Please?"

Kid wrapped his arms around Ran, tucking them under her own and crossing his wrists under her bust, for a very secure cuddle. "A story? What sort? I've got lots." He looked to Shinichi with this, his eyes flashing the sort of challenge that just _begged_ the detective to ask for information, or explanations, that Kid could smugly refuse to provide.

But Shinichi's eyes lit with mischief, damping down his clue-hound instincts, and he refused to rise to the bait. "Hmm. How about... what's the best trick you've ever pulled? The very best, absolute top of the line- heist, whatever, doesn't matter. Something that you still crow about." He raised one eyebrow, baiting the thief. "C'mon. What's your ultimate win?" He settled himself back against the log, hands clasped behind his head; overhead, the stars glittered through the campsmoke.

As Shinichi spoke, Kid absolutely _lit up_ with eager energy, scarcely leashed, leaning forward where he sat (which had the unintended consequence of wrapping him more tightly around Ran). "Oh, _Tantei,_" Kid fluttered, one hand extending foppishly toward his counterpart. "Mixing business and pleasure?"

Shinichi rolled his eyes, and Kid laughed, eager and toothy. "You want to know? Oh, it was a _wonderful_ one! Exemplary, innovative, and of the grandest scale! Not only did I accomplish my objectives - twofold, in truth - I won a third that I hadn't even anticipated! Like a golden plum into my outstretched hands, a gift of coincidence and fortune...or perhaps fate...like none I've ever happened upon before or since. I made the papers, I thoroughly trounced our good Nakamori-san, I charmed the ladies, and I won the day! It was a good, good day."

Kid rocked back against the log, tugging Ran with him and looking up to the stars with a happy smile; his legs had twined around and through hers by now, and the movement of his body translated fluidly into the movement of hers. Pleased and snuggling eagerly against her rather sensually undulating pillow, Ran tipped her ear to listen to the thief's giddy voice, eyes half-lidded with contentment. Across from them, Shinichi leaned forward, unable despite himself to resist his own eagerness.

"_So?_" he prompted, earning a raised eyebrow and chuckle from the thief. "So which one was it?"

Kid lifted his head, ever so slowly bringing his gaze back to ground and his boyfriend. One eloquent eyebrow hitched up its skirts and headed for his hairline while Kid's straightforward, happy grin tucked in its corners and transformed into something superior and giddily smug.

"Oh?" The thief hugged Ran tight, his whole body radiating the glee of a child who is alone in getting the joke. "Don't you remember, Tan~tei~san? After all... Kudo Shinichi _did_ attend."

Shinichi's face was a study in concentration. "The only time I've ever been present at any of your heists- as me, I mean- was the Clock Tower thing. But-" he shifted, leaning forward to sprawl beside the thief's legs, chin pillowed on one palm. "You said 'Kudo Shinichi did attend', not- hmmm. -oh. That time you- no, hang on, you've impersonated me _twice_ so far, if you don't count the one in drag; there was the one where you said it was because of your dove, and there was the other time where I almost choked to death when I saw you." He snorted. "And Nakamori pinched your cheeks... Am I warm?" Shinichi's voice was challenging; he was clearly enjoying himself.

Kid's smile was secretive as he reached one thumb down to press Shinichi's lips in a quelling gesture. In his lap, Ran smiled fondly at their detective.

"You're thinking too hard, Shi-ni-chi," she tsked, combing her fingers through his hair. "Go with your first instinct."

Shinichi looked askance at her. "Wait. How come you know what he's talking about?"

Ran flushed. "I don't. I just suspect it's simpler than you think it is."

_We did mention that to her, didn't we?_ Kid glanced at Kaito with a smile, looking across the fire pit to the spot where Kaito, if he had his own body, would have chosen to perch, right on the edge of the shadow, toes close enough to the warm flame.

_"Yeah, it came up,"_ Kaito shrugged, affecting nonchalance to cover the small fraction of anxiety he felt as both brothers remembered their scattered, raw confessions on an Odaiba park bench. But in general the magician was calm, and regarded the other two through Kid's eyes with a distanced emotion that could almost be called fondness. _"Don't think she'll go and repeat it all unless he figures it out on his own, though."_

Kid nodded, turning back to the others. "So, which one _is_ it, Tantei? I won't tell you if you only guess. You have to be sure."

Shinichi's gaze turned inwards as he considered the facts. "'Kudo Shinichi was present'. Made the papers; therefore, an actual heist. Trounced Nakamori- again, a heist. Charmed the l-" He tilted his head a little, remembering a conversation they had had quite some time back. "It _was_ the Clock Tower heist, wasn't it?" The little grin he wore quirked up at one corner. "You won the tower, you and your brother won your goal... and we had our first encounter." The grin grew teasing. "Think I came out ahead of you on that one, though, and I don't mean the diamonds."

"Oh?" Kid's expression remained guarded, though a bit of pride showed in his eyes for Shinichi's deduction. "Are you sure? I successfully stole the tower, I uncovered the owner's plans to have it destroyed for his own profit, I preserved Nakamori-chan and Kaito's precious memory, and I successfully evaded you, the entire Task Force, and several helicopters." His brow raised, challenging. "And you?"

Shinichi chuckled, low and warm. "There's two things I've chased that were around before I got shrunk as well as afterwards, two things I really wanted: Ran, to come back to... and you, to catch." He ran one fingertip across the bottom of Kid's foot, then followed it up to where his girlfriend's legs tangled with the thief's and repeated the gesture; her toes curled and she smiled at him. "Only thing is, Ran came to _me,_ and if I think I've caught you against your will then I'm only fooling myself."

"-and really," Shinichi added as an afterthought, "that petty much beats out the Task Force and a handful of measly helicopters." He tickled the foot and Ran squeaked a little. "I'm pretty happy with my winnings."

"Well, alright." Kid grinned, the full Cheshire scimitar in full display. "We'll call it a tie."

Scooting up a little further, Shinichi twisted around to prop his head against both his lovers' calves; they made a better pillow than a log any time and he sighed, perfectly content with the world and his place in it (for a little while, at least.) "I can live with that. Hey—you want to know something funny?"

Kid flexed his toes. "Hm?"

"That Ekoda cop you impersonated during the heist? Kind of skinny guy, blocky nose? What's-his-name, Sen something—Sensu, Sensui… whatever. Sensui-keiji. He joined the Taskforce right after that—you would've thought he'd get scared away by being knocked out in his own squadcar and all…" Mock-severity utterly failed to make an impact on a certain 1412, who beamed and waggled his toes again. "Anyway, he's getting married a week from tomorrow." Shinichi looked smug. "I heard about it on one of your fansites. You _do_ know you've got a few fangirl shrines out on the internet, don't you?"

"He _doesn't!"_ Ran sat halfway upright in delight before two pairs of hands tugged her back down.

"Oh yes he does. They do. Sensui-keiji got a little notoriety by being impersonated—he's on a couple of 'Who's Who' lists." Socked feet scuffled, pushing the detective a little further up until his head rested more or less in Ran's lap (which currently was resting in Kid's.) "I met him after the heist during debriefing; seemed like a nice guy, if a little shaky at the time."

Ran's soft stomach moved interestingly beneath Shinichi's head as she snorted. "_You_ were 'a little shaky at the time' yourself, Mister Mystery Otaku—I remember when you came to school the next day, it was all you could talk about. Kaitou Kid-this and 1412-that and…" She carded her fingers through his short brown hair; one of Kid's hands joined hers, and a deep sigh of pleasure came from the vicinity of her lap. "Nobody could get any sense out of you for a week. Are you sure you weren't falling for him even then?" she teased. One of her hands was snagged, pulled down a few inches, and nipped by sharp teeth. "Ouch! And it's TRUE. You were a total geek about him." Ran tweaked her detective's nose to the background of Kid's snickering, and the entire thing might have turned into a low-key scuffle if she hadn't suddenly paused. "Oh—d'you know what we need right now?"

"A leash? Some duct-tape?"

"Fishhooks?"

"A great big—wait, _fishhooks?_"

"No, sillies, _marshmallows._ There's a bag in the backpack over there, and I packed skewers."

It was the work of five minutes to get the candy out of its bag, onto the skewers, and into the fire. The trio settled together in close contact again, less stacked on top of each other to make it easier - and safer - to manipulate the skewers and hot marshmallows. After a few minutes of quiet, punctuated by just one yelp of dismay as Shinichi's marshmallow caught flame and fell off his skewer, Ran craned her head back to look askance at Kid.

"Fansites? Really?"

"I'm a celebrity, after all," the thief said, somehow managing to make the statement sound modest despite his grin. "And I have quite the fanclub. Don't most celebrities' and idols' fanclubs put up fansites?"

"I don't know about most," Shinichi offered dryly, grinning sidelong at the other two as he readied a fresh marshmallow for the fire, "But I don't think most of those fanclubs are in the habit of regularly posting pornographic stories and dream transcripts about their idols."

"I don't know, the girls who are into those pop bands are-" Ran stopped short as the rest of what Shinichi had said registered, and her eyes went wide as saucers. "..._Porn?_"

Kid put his hands up in innocence. "I can sincerely assure you, I've done nothing to encourage that sort of thing," he said. "A gentleman thief must be a _gentleman_ at all times."

"Except when he's going down on you," Shinichi snarked. Kid beamed back, unruffled.

"Now now. I didn't bite."

Between them, Ran sputtered with laughter and embarrassment both. "Oh, god! I don't even want to know!" A pause. "...Is it any good?"

"Some of it is," Kid beamed, withdrawing a perfectly golden marshmallow from the fire and offering it to her magnanimously. Ran traded him for her skewer, which held a marshmallow black on one side and white on the other, and bit into the treat with ginger enjoyment.

"Ooh, hot. Ow. Mmm. What kind do you mean?"

Shinichi snorted. "Some of it actually knows how human physiology works," he commented dryly, letting Ran infer the rest. Her eyebrows climbed and he nodded. "And some of _that_ bit actually contains a logical plot and progression of events."

"Why, Tantei," Kid laughed, leaning forward to meet Shinichi's eye, "Are you expecting _literary quality_ out of teenage girls' idol fantasies?"

Shinichi glowered back. "Yes, I am. Anyone can write a good story if they put their mind to it and work hard on it."

"Oh, I don't know," Kid snickered, looking back to the fire and his marshmallow. "Sometimes I think the indulgence of fantasies, without having to justify them with the trappings of a plot or scenario, can be quite enjoyable. After all...who writes plots when they masturbate?"

Shinichi looked away, flushing. "Shut up. Anyway, yes, Kid is an internet sensation. And I have to admit I've been tempted to correct some of the gross misapprehensions that are continually circulated on these fansites' message boards."

Intrigued and biting back his smirk, Kid just raised an eyebrow in interest. "Ohhh? _'No, actually, his penis is __thirty centimeters long__, not twenty-five.'_ Like that?"

Ran flailed, accidentally dropping the fresh marshmallow she had just been skewering when Kid's deadpan tone made her choke with laughter. "Oh, god! _Kid!_ ...Call it your cock, that's sexier."

Now it was _Kid's_ turn to choke, turning a startled expression on Ran; grinning, she bent over to kiss Shinichi, leaving sticky, thready marshmallow goop all over his lips. "See? Even he has some modesty. I guess."

Shinchi smiled over Ran's shoulder at Kid, then ducked back in for another kiss, teeth scraping the gooey candy from the corners of her mouth gently. "As long as he doesn't let it get out of control, I suppose that's okay."

"Oh, no worries about that." Kid watched, intrigued, as the pair continued necking, talking all the while. "The Magician is actually more popular than my cock is, I think, though the girls don't actually know that; but what I've seen as a theme - yes, of course I've read a survey of these posts and stories, it's best to know what your audience wants to see - the theme that I've seen appearing the most frequently is a magical, fantastical element, the presence of heist-like tricks in the boudoir, supernaturally-enhanced sexual relations, and so forth.

"Of course, there's always the criminal appeal, handcuffs and illicit meetings and quite a lot of rooftop sex, actually, which I wish I could remind them is _so_ very impractical, and a surprisingly low focus on my illustrious disguise skills, which I suppose makes sense if the true nature of my face is in the first place a mystery; but there's a leading fascination among my fans for my ability to perform the magical and incomprehensible in all contexts.

"And that of course is my brother's doing; after the Sadalsuud and Sadalmelik heist, the most attention is being paid to the possibility of disappearing clothes, or just disappearing skirts or pants. The knowledge of magical costs is, of course, far beyond these dear authoresses' and artists' reach of comprehension, and good thing of it, or the Task Force would begin to understand more effective methods to actually entrap me; but regardless, it's quaint in a way how these girls' imaginations flit straight from a gentlemanly smile in the moonlight to a lustful smile between the sheets. The uniform is, of course, impeccably tailored, that's only necessary for fluidity of movement, and thus, escape; but I can't say I have ever disliked the side effects of it, even before I became aware that my fans' wandering eyes at heist time translated into such..._creative_ endeavors in their free time, and to be honest I think it's entirely due to the Magician's talents that I have become such an exalted example of the 'gentleman sex object,' if such a category even ex-"

"Will he _ever_ shut up?" Ran finally asked with exasperation, pulling free of Shinichi when the irritation of Kid's obviously dramatized monologuing became too distracting to allow them to continue.

"Oh, I don't know," Kid answered for her, in Shinichi's voice. "You'd almost think he's feeling left out."

Shinichi's eyes met Ran's, amused intent plain; very deliberately they unwound from each other and scooted in, bracketing the thief quite effectively. "Hmmmm. Could be." Hands snuck beneath Kid's t-shirt from the left, slipping behind and kneading the muscles of the thief's back; a fingernail slid up his spine, eliciting an involuntary shiver. "Maybe we should do something about that, you think, Ran?"

"I suppose... just this once. I mean, since we don't have internet." A third hand, sneaky and very willing, slid up and stroked a nipple once, twice, three times before cupping it with her palm; the t-shirt crept up and began to bunch as a fourth hand toyed delicately with Kid's navel- he was very warm, and Ran hooked her knee over his as she pressed alongside.

"Didn't mean to leave you out, you know," added Shinichi a little more quietly, his hand at Kid's nape. "Want us to make it up to you?" Despite the thread of seriousness that briefly surfaced, his voice was still teasing. "All that talk about stories... who needs fantasy when we have the real thing right here?"

"I don't know," Kid protested, gently detangling one each of Ran's and Shinichi's hands and pushing them back a little. "I mean, I don't know if I can measure up to the mythos. Is it possible to have penis envy of yourself?"

"...You're ridiculous." Laughing, Ran snuggled closer again, staying clear of Kid's neck so Shinichi had plenty of room to nibble. "But actually...we, um, don't have a blanket or anything, and the log isn't all that comfortable, and it would probably be nicer if we put this off until we're in the sleeping bags, and besides all that, um." She hesitated. "The marshmallows are burning."

Both boys' attention swung over to the fire, where the very full bag of marshmallowy goodness had gotten kicked a mite too close to the flames and was now beginning to melt down onto itself. With a shout of alarm, Kid leaped from between his lovers, grabbing a poker and stabbing the corner of the bag. He dragged it away from the heat, flapping his hands at it to try to cool it.

Marshmallows more or less rescued and things allowed, respectively, to cool down... Shinichi watched Kid fanning the bag. "Still edible? Good, because your brother hasn't had any yet. Is he, ah, around? This trip shouldn't be for just us, you know." Ran's face lit up and she nodded, brushing off the slightly charred bag.

"There're more in the backpack, but they're the pastel-colored ones- you know, with all the flavors? These are the best, and I wanted him to have some too." Hopefully she plucked a still-white marshmallow out and offered it.

Kid grinned, leaning forward to take the marshmallow from Ran with a smile. "One last one for me," he declared, hunting down one of the pokers and a seat on the log at a respectable distance from both Ran and Shinichi. "I'll see you in a few hours, chérie, chéri."

"He knows French?" Ran looked at Shinichi in mild surprise.

"Among other languages," the detective answered with mild pride. "He's quite the polyglot."

"That's one word for it." Both turned to the new voice with smiles, Ran's broader and Shinichi's quieter, and with one eyebrow raised in mild confusion at their expressions, Kaito held out the pointy end of his poker toward Ran. "Marshmallow?"

Solemly Ran applied a marshmallow to the skewer. "Hi," she greeted the Magician with a grin. "We were hoping we'd see you. Isn't this place beautiful?" She waved her own skewer, narrowly missing Shinichi's head in the process and causing a yelp. "Oops-"

"Ran, if you'd wanted me perforated there're easier ways..." Carefully the detective moved the rather gooey point to one side. "'Death By Marshmallow Roast' would look pretty sad on my resume." He nodded at the other. "Good to see you. Sorry about- well, last time we met, I kind of freaked out a little." Flushing, he ducked his head. "Okay, a lot."

"It's fine," Kaito replied, nodding back. His marshmallow rotated slowly in the flames, and his thoughtful expression, furrowed a bit at the brow, hinted toward a lot more thoughts than he was revealing. "I don't regret studying from her. No matter who she is, or was. She's probably the only person alive who could have taught me what she did, what we needed to know...

"And she's the only one who could have taught me Tousan's methods, too." He looked up, calm but considering. "Kid and I were already in it up to our necks, so knowing who she is doesn't change anything. She's had two, three years to use it against us and she hasn't yet. But if I've caused you any further danger because of it, I'll help make it better if I can."

"Thanks, but... a few minutes of sheer terror and paranoia's not something I can't handle by now," answered Shinichi dryly; he didn't mention the sleepless hours or bad dreams- what would be the point? "I still appreciate the sentiment. And so far as I'm concerned, the fact that some of your best tools came from enemy hands doesn't bother me in the least." He touched the black box at his hip, the shape just barely visible through his jeans. "The end doesn't always justify the means, not by a long shot; but I wouldn't worry too much." Shinichi reached for another marshmallow, rustling the bag; a few had stuck together, but they were all perfectly edible so far as that went. "Whatever Vermouth's agenda is, it doesn't seem to involve urgency... or not right now. When it does, I suspect we'll know."

Ran loaded her own skewer, watching as the flames toasted the treat and drawing it back as it threatened to catch on fire. "I wonder if she's taught anybody else? I mean, besides you two. Didn't you and your brother go up against... what was her name, it's French too- Chát Noíre?" At the other two's blinks, she crossed her arms. "I can look up casefiles too, you know. So what about her?"

"She's a burglar," Kaito shrugged, tugging his marshmallow out of the flame to check it. "She's a very skilled one, but she doesn't return what she steals, and she plays dirty." He frowned, sticking his poker back into the flame. "...Not that we don't, either, but that's different."

"Not up to your caliber, then." Shinichi hmmmed, blowing on his marshmallow, eyes distant. "Let's hope Vermouth hasn't taken any other students; the last thing we need is another complication." He rotated the skewer to toast the other side, watching the flames dance; the edges of the firering were blackened stones, well-rounded by the stream they had so obviously come from, and the nice bed of coals they'd built up were banked against them. In the center, though, the fire wavered and flared, golden-hot at its core. Little flickers of light wreathed around the logs and above them, curling in odd shapes; as Kaito raised his marshmallow a little higher, the flames followed it like reaching fingers-

-fingers-

Shinichi's jaw dropped. "..." He pointed.

It was almost illusion, almost a trick of the eyes- but tricks of the eyes do not take swipes at marshmallows and then pout with delicate, elfin features made of pure fire when they miss. Shinichi heard Ran's indrawn breath as she saw the creature- the image- the _whatever_-it-was: no more than knee-high, a radiant female figure dancing in their campfire and following Kaito's marshmallow with gleeful, grabby hands.

"Ooooh, it-! She- is she _real?"_ asked Ran, awestruck and totally charmed; she leaned forward almost too far to stare, her own skewer listing. The tiny sprite's glowing golden eyes blazed at that and she abandoned her pursuit to dive at Ran's like a cat following a laser-pointer. "EEP! She got it, she got it!" Ran bounced, enraptured; the marshmallow shriveled to blackened ashes instantly in the fiery hands and the sprite did a triumphant war-dance among the coals, kicking up sparks.

Eyes fixed on the whirling creature, Shinichi had to work to keep his voice steady. _"Is_ she real? She-" The creature paused, looking over her shoulder at him; the tiny face was merry, and he cautiously lowered his half-forgotten skewer and its burden in her direction. "She took Ran's marshmallow right off the stick, or... that's what we saw. But- I mean, is she... solid?"

The miniature face tilted to one side, tiny grin mischievous. _Let me get close enough and I'll __show__ you who's solid,_ it seemed to say. "She's beautiful," he murmured, and let her have the marshmallow.

Kaito watched his brother's lovers quietly, smiling privately at their fascination, and spiked another marshmallow for the fire. "Flame will naturally char a marshmallow," he commented lightly, fixing his eyes on the fire when Shinichi's gaze sought his own. "There's nothing supernatural about that."

Holding his stick at a high angle, Kaito let the very tips of the fire's tongues brush the treat, slowly glazing it with tawny color. In the center of the blaze, the sprite stood on tip-toe, hopping from one foot to the other with arms stretched up as far as she could reach, tiny white-hot fangs showing as she frowned in concentration. Kaito bobbed his skewer, ostensibly to move the marshmallow to a better flame; taunted, the sprite leapt upward, striving to reach. A tiny smile quirked one side of Kaito's mouth, but he said nothing and slowly rotated his skewer in his palm.

The marshmallow bag crinkled as Ran pulled another out. "Flames don't dance- or not with little feet they don't," pointed out Ran, eyes never leaving the leaping figure. "Look, you can see right through her..." Where shadows would've been on a more material creature, the tiny woman glowed in a near photo-negative reverse; the logs and coals beneath her showed clearly through her feet, and when she failed again to reach Kid's marshmallow, she balled her fists in frustration and made something that might've been a rude gesture.

"Here-" Just barely skewering the white blob, Ran held her own marshmallow out towards the very edges of the fire. "Do you want this? Come on, you can have it... Come on..." Graceful, miniature hands reached, paused, reached, drew back- mistrustful of the cooler air beyond the flames, the sprite paused beside the firering's edges and stomped one frustrated, glowing foot.

"I always thought," said Shinichi softly, "that the word 'magic' was a fancy way of saying either 'I don't know' or 'I know, but I'm not going to tell you'... before I met you, that is. If nothing else, I can't really say I believe that anymore." In the flames, the creature stretched just a little further, almost touching Ran's mallow but just falling short.

Kaito smiled. "You'll want to give her a sturdy bridge to walk on if you're going to try to lure her out," he advised Ran. To Shinichi, he shrugged gamely and without secrecy. "For me? 'Magic' was just a word that I learned for labeling something I'd already known how to do."

While Ran scrambled for something from the kindling-pile to use, Shinichi considered this. After a moment, he nodded. "'Talent will get you to 'good','" he quoted; "'but practice will get you to 'master'.' I suppose 'magic' is just as much of a buzz-word as 'intuition' or even 'logic'; I've run across plenty of logical deductions that had very little to do with clear reasoning and far more to do with emotion." He studied the Magician's calm face and then turned deliberately to watch as the fire-creature stepped carefully out of the firering onto the neat path of dry pinecones that Ran had laid down for her, nimble feet causing the resinous fibers to shoot out little tongues of flame around her ankles. The sprite moved in a nimbus of heat, radiant as a halo; Shinichi could feel it from where he sat, and as she snatched Ran's marshmallow up he shook his head. "There's an old riddle- 'always hungry, never fed, the face I lick will soon turn red'- whose answer is 'fire'." He chuckled. "Apparently fire likes marshmallows."

"Sugar burns easily," Kaito answered, watching the sprite shift her weight from foot to foot, trying to decide whether to wait for another marshmallow from Ran, or retreat to the safety of the firering. The crumbling pinecone under her feet added anxiety to her decision, and she fussed, holding out grabby hands for another treat.

"You keep offering logical explanations," Shinichi protested. "But I'm watching a _fire sprite._"

With an amused sigh, Kaito leaned forward and tossed a marshmallow into the fire ring, over the sprite's head. She spun to watch its path, then darted into the blaze after it, snatching it out of the coals and hugging it to her breast happily. The marshmallow turned to black ash which briefly coated her before flickering away in the internal breeze of the fire; licking ash off her fingers with relish, the sprite sat down on a crimson coal, kicking her toes and watching the humans arrayed before her. Kaito smiled at her, and looked to Shinichi with a mix of patience and earnesty.

"There's a science to everything, even to faith. And there's a faith that holds all the facts together, even in science. Have you ever seen an atom? They're inseparable. In magic...you can't really even define one away from the other. Magic is like the child of science and faith; his eyes, her nose, his rules, her blind eye for those rules. What you get in the end is something that you have to know how to drive...but also how to let go and let it drive itself when it wants to." He gestured as he talked, the lines of his hands smooth and graceful as they moved.

"It's an art, in that it speaks to its 'creator,' and I use that term loosely, as to how it wants to be manifested. But it's a science, in that it only goes together in certain ways...or, you can put it together in any of the other ways too, but you have to pay for that. Equal and opposite reaction, somewhat. Less of a linear and immediately reactionary relationship between cause and effect, though. Somewhat of a karmic one. Or maybe like banking interest: you can put off paying your costs but you'll pay more in the long run.

"It's not actually that complicated, when you get down to it."

Shinichi had, several times in fact by this point, opened and closed his mouth on any number of comments. At last he merely nodded. "...'not actually that complicated', he says, after feeding marshmallows to a fire-sprite. Yeeeeeaaahhh..."

But the explanation actually made a skewed kind of sense; logic, he knew, was held in nearly as high an esteem by its adherents as a type of religion (as if invoking 'logic' made something entirely understandable.) Logic, though, only meant that you could follow step A to conclusion B and backwards again; it worked as well, Shinichi supposed, for the invisible rules of magic as for the more prosaic pulleys and levers of the more material world.

So long as you knew what those rules _were,_ of course, he thought wryly.

To one side, Ran cleared her throat. "Hello..." she said to the sprite tentatively; it blinked luminous eyes at her and tucked one tiny leg up beneath the other, naked and unselfconscious as a kitten among the coals. "When the fire dies down," Ran asked softly, "where will you go?" The creature frowned, shaking her small head, and Ran tried again. "The fire," she said, pointing and making fluttering motions with her hands, "when it-" (she mimed a _Poof!_ and then flattened out her palms to the ground) "Where..." And motioned at the sprite before spreading her hands and looking all around with an exaggerated expression of curiosity. "Where?"

The creature cocked its head at her and then kicked bare feet, hard; a shower of sparks roiled up, rising amidst the smoke into the sky, and the sprite pointed after them with a tiny finger. "Oh," said Ran thoughtfully, and blinked. "Okay. Want another marshmallow? We've got some of the pink and green ones left... What?" She looked at Shinichi and Kaito. "It's not like they'll give her a stomach-ache, will they?"

"Rather the contrary," Kaito answered, shifting his position on the log. "But I think a few more logs might do her better than another snack." Ran and Shinichi looked to the coals, a little startled, as they realized the magician was right; the night was cooling in earnest around them and the fire wasn't as strong as it had been. "Not that she's precisely a _her_ at all, actually."

Ran gave him a Look. "Have you asked _her_ opinion about that?" she murmured as Shinichi climbed to his feet, groaning a little after so long sitting down before fetching a few more chunks of driftwood. "If she wants to be a she, then she's a she. Besides," she added as the small creature tested each new piece of fuel and kicked them into a kind of platform for her to perch on, "it would only matter to another fire-sprite, wouldn't it?"

"Well, that's where the line between the nature of the magic you're seeing, and the human tendency to assign value, gets in the way." Kaito stood as well, stretching his legs. First one then the other, he stretched each limb out to its extent and then lifted it up, until his pointed toes sought the sky and his knee pressed against his collarbone. "Because she behaves in what appears to be a human manner, you are assuming she has humanoid traits or even an independent life of her own. What would you say if I told you she isn't actually a thinking creature?"

Ran frowned, wanting to counter the magician but aware enough of her lack of knowledge to hold her tongue. Noting this, Kaito nodded and went on.

"Because it's my magic causing her manifestation, she's human-shaped, and female. But all I'm doing is giving a cohesive form to actions and behaviors that the fire already wants to take for itself. It's grabby and hungry. But see, even saying that much is characterizing it." He lowered his right leg, hopping from one foot to the other for a few moments to loosen his muscles. "It's hard to understand if you have the desire to understand her as a separate entity from the rest of the fire that she's a part of. Or because after seeing her eat marshmallows, it's fun to think of her as something cute and small, like a kitten."

Kaito rolled his shoulders, flexing his fingers until the knuckles cracked. "She's not a fire _spirit_; I suppose calling her a fire _sprite_ is fair, though. She's a cohesive personification of the natural behavior of fire, filtered through me as the medium for the magic that's helping to shape her, so to speak. And me being me...well, I guess she's got her dad's impishness." The magician grinned, the first strong emotion he'd shown since arriving, the expression easy and, finally, at home on his features.

Ran looked at the small creature, who was by now lounging across the smoldering driftwood and regarding all three humans, tiny chin propped on a palm. "So... the nature of fire, and because we're human we see it in a humanized way?" She made a face. "Okay... I suppose. But if the fire's acting by its nature, then there's nothing wrong with my following _my_ human nature and-" (she reached for the plastic bag) "-feeding her another marshmallow." A careful toss put the treat right into tiny hands, where it flamed up in a blaze of heat; the sprite grinned through the flare, and Ran tilted her head back to look up at the Magician, eyes dancing. "She _does_ take after her father; she has your smile."

Kaito grinned back at Ran, nodding in quietly pleased satisfaction. "I think you've got the idea down," he praised her, holding out his mostly-forgotten skewer for a marshmallow. "Like I was saying, magic is definitely scientific...until it's not anymore, and then it's about faith. And now I'm going to see if I can't have a marshmallow of my _own_; I haven't gotten one yet and in case the Fool hasn't told you yet, I have a huge sweet tooth."

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_Hee. Told y'all it was a talky chapter. Next week's offering picks up, once again, straight from our ending point, and is titled _**_"...tonight wasn't supposed to be just another penalty." _**_In which, by the way, things warm up to a degree which we have yet to achieve. Just wait; you'll see. Jaaaa..._


	59. Not supposed to be just another penalty

_This chapter contains stuff that would probably be rated R if this were a film. We would have offered you a PG-rated version except that we *can't,* as the naughty bits are entirely plot-essential. So please, keep that in mind if you decide to continue reading._

_...And on that topic, why isn't it a film yet? *pout*_

_By Ysabet and Nightengale, fanfic novel thing that never ends, yadda yadda here's the good stuff._

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_**Book Five, Chapter Fourteen**__**: "...tonight wasn't supposed to be just another penalty."**__  
Warnings for, among other things, looks-like-it's-dubcon-for-about-ten-seconds-but-really-it's-not-don't-worry-we-wouldn't-do-that-to-you-guys, fire sprite mortality, and Hawaii._

_._

Shinichi had, meanwhile, been silently watching the byplay between the two with as much fascination as he'd spent watching the fire-sprite. Now, as Ran apologetically held out the bag of second-rate pastel marshmallows, he chuckled. "Ran? Before you give him those, check a little deeper in the backpack, will you?" She paused, one eyebrow rising, and did so. Plastic crinkled as she pulled out a second bag of the white mallows, the other eyebrow joining the first. "I, um... Tousan likes them," he explained sheepishly, "and I dug them out of the pantry and stuffed them in there before we left. He hides them behind the canned goods because Kaasan doesn't like him eating them, she says they'll turn him fat."

"...Kudo-san likes marshmallows?"

"Yeah; I'll have to show you how to make S'mores someday- I learned how to in Hawaii."

Ran raised an eyebrow as she brought the white mallows back to Kaito and Shinichi's side of the fire. "What _didn't_ you learn in Hawaii, Shinichi?"

Kaito looked between the two of them, ending on the detective. "Is this a story I would like to hear? I think it is."

"..." Skewering not one but _two_ marshmallows, the detective rolled his eyes. "Um. Look, it's not my fault that I- okay, so my parents are weird, fine. We lived," he explained to Kaito, "in Hawaii for a while when I was younger. Ran even came along for a visit when I was fourteen; and, you know, when your tousan wants to go shoot on a range somewhere and you go along, it's only natural that you get taught to shoot too-"

"-and drive a car, and a speedboat, and a helicopter-"

"Ran, I did NOT learn to drive a helicopter in Hawaii, that was the simulator!"

"-and basic first-aid and CPR and brain-surgery and how to deliver babies-"

"Okay, _now_ you're just-"

"-plumbing, flying jumbo-jets, nuclear physics-"

A marshmallow bonked off Ran's forehead; it bounced into the fire, was snagged before it could strike a coal, and hugged to a delighted fiery breast. Shinichi handed the entire bag to Kaito. "Here, you take 'em before I end up stuffing them down her shirt."

"She's not wearing a shirt," Kaito quipped back, taking the bag nonetheless. "She's a fire sprite." Shinichi rolled his eyes and Ran snickered; Kaito smiled and began threading marshmallows onto his skewer. "You are a man of many talents, Detective," he continued, "And I'm beginning to see just how you keep up with my brother, in more ways than simple deduction. -Yes, I know it's not 'simple,'" he added, as Shinichi opened his mouth on the beginning of a protest. "But you see my point."

"I...guess?" Shinichi frowned. "Are you saying that you...approve of our relationship?"

The magician looked up, startled; Shinichi's earnest expression earned a chuckle from him. "No, that isn't something that's still undecided. I'm saying I can see that he's not _entirely_ crazy for picking you." Kaito paused, one brow drawn down critically, countered somewhat by the smirk of his mouth. "...Mostly."

"'Mostly'," said Ran thoughtfully, considering the comment. "If he picked somebody or somebod_ies_ all sane and simple and uncomplicated, he really WOULD be out of his mind, and not in the good kind of way. So, by being actively crazy in picking Shinichi... and hopefully me... he's actually acting sane. For him, anyway. Kind of like the way a double negative equals a positive, only in this case it's a double crazy working out into a sane." Entirely satisfied with this feat of logic, Ran accepted another treat for he skewer, her eyes widening as she took in the multiple-marshmallow shishkebob that the Magician had been concocting on his skewer; the mass of pillowy confections was nearly as long as her forearm. "...that's going to go up like a TORCH."

Shinichi considered the skewer as well and nodded appreciatively. "A very tasty torch." Visibly dismissing any worries about Kaito's safety regarding marshmallow engineering (after all, if he could make little naked women dance in the fire or the fire dance in little naked women, a 30-centimeter marshmallow-roast wouldn't be much of a challenge) he nodded at the sprite. "Can you... I don't know, make her take on any other shapes? And," he added, a little curl of a smile on his lips, "thanks for the compliment. Your brother's _hard_ to keep up with, but then that's one of the reasons I picked him." He leaned back against the log. "...so far as reason came into it, anyway."

"Well. He instructs me to remind you that mainly, it was his fabulous ass." Deadpan, Kaito lowered his marshmallow skewer into the fire, and the sprite (predictably) went nuts, hopping and leaping to reach it; Kaito raised the skewer far enough away to make her hold still and eye it, like a cat with prey, then brought it down quickly, bopping her on the head with its sugary cushiness. The sprite flopped down to the coals, staring up at the marshmallows in adorably betrayed confusion, and Kaito turned to the process of roasting his marshmallows uninterrupted.

"Other shapes?" The magician grinned, clearly amused by Shinichi's hesitant enthusiasm. "Such as?"

A little flustered over the 'fabulous ass' comment (what did you say to that when the ass in question was currently being worn by someone else?) the detective waved his own skewer; from where she sulked on her bed of coals, the fire sprite tracked the movement with gleaming eyes. "Uh- a hat? A brooch? A pterodactyl?" He chuckled. "Never mind, bad movie reference. Anything, really; the Tokyo Tower, a bowl of miso, Nakamori in a ballet tutu, a Lamborghini... I was just curious." Ran made a muffled snicker and he turned his gaze towards her. "Oh? You have a better idea?"

"This is _magic,_ Shinichi, and you want to see stuff we can see everyday? -okay, not Nakamori in a tutu or a pterodactyl, but the rest-!" She blew on her marshmallow; Ran tended to like them crunchy and slightly blackened. "Kaito? Is there anything you want to try with the fire that you haven't before? Something new?" She took a moment to tug the mallow off the skewer and bite into it; swallowing, Ran nodded at the Magician. "You're the one who has to do the hard work. _You_ decide."

"Hmmm." Kaito's brows drew down as he considered his options, concocting and discarding dozens of ideas for reasons of safety, or consequences. What to do? It had to be something that wouldn't leave a significant cost on their body, since Kid would need it later in the night - especially his skin, which would be the first source of payment when dealing with fire. But it had to be something adequately grand, also; Kaito was a performer first and foremost, and as Shinichi's and Ran's company was growing into less of an uncertain pleasure, and even beginning to feel like a natural comfort, the magician's reticent and guarded surface was gradually sloughing away.

It felt good, he was learning, to have friends that you weren't always trying to impress; friends whom you didn't feel that you _had_ to impress just to keep them around you. Strange that he'd finally found people like that through his brother, instead of in _spite_ of him; the myth of the Kaitou Kid, and Kaito's silent, invisible influence in creating that myth, had understandably hard-wired in Toichi's son a desire to prove himself as a different sort of interesting, an attraction and entertainer in his own right.

But maybe he'd always been trying too hard, he mused, just barely letting the thought graze his heart as he worked one hand against the other, warming them up for performance. His relationships with Aoko and with Hakuba were all but set in stone; he hadn't shown them anything new of his own heart for the longest time. And honestly, Kaito wasn't even sure if that was because of his father's death, his brother's need for secrecy...or just his own insecurity. Not that he blamed himself for that, anyway; ever since he was eight and Toichi _left_, Kaito had learned, difficultly and definitively, that no one would ever praise him as his father used to. Toichi had given his love and approval freely; after him, Kaito found himself fighting harder and harder just for a note of approval or a smile from the people most important to him.

And maybe that desperate need to be liked was what had actually made things turn out as they had. Nobody likes a leech or a beggar. Not that Kaito thought he _was_ any of those things, but...well, maybe people had gotten sick of him asking.

_There __was__ that conversation on the school roof,_ Kaito reminded himself, nodding in Kid's direction to quell the thief's rising impulse to remind his brother of the same thing. _Hakuba...maybe there's more there than I thought. It's worth pursuing...if only to find out what he thinks I need from him. He never does anything without a purpose. I can't believe he doesn't have an ulterior motive, but... Well, still. I'm going to talk to him._

Kaito handed his huge skewerful of marshmallows (perfectly toasted) to Shinichi and stood from the fireside log, shaking out the muscles of his legs which had been sitting idle for too long. He rolled his wrists and arms in soft circles to flex them as he crossed to the opposite side of the fire from the others' seats. "Hmm hmm hmmm. Let's see." He rubbed his palms together, then drew them apart with fingers pinched together, as though stretching an invisible ball of taffy between his spreading hands. Again he brought them together, rubbed them briskly as though washing his hands, and repeated the motion. "Hmm. Well, let's see...I wonder..."

Falling into his playful role of 'accidental magician' with comfort despite all his thoughts about Ran, Shinichi, and expectations or the lack thereof, Kaito reached forward with both hands into the fire. Not the tops of its tongues; the _middle_, where the blaze was fattest and brightest. He drew them out again briskly, fists tightly closed. "Oh dear." Little tongues of fire were sweeping their way along his skin, dancing up and down his knuckles. Kaito shook his hands, trying to dislodge the flames like water droplets; they fluttered and hung on, and the magician turned his fists one way and the other, looking at the flames in puzzlement. "You guys just won't leave, will you? Shoo, shoo!"

Hands drawn up close to his mouth, the magician blew across his skin with a hard puff; the flames finally detatched, fluttering away from his hands like sakura petals, floating indirectly downward. Looking mildly alarmed but satisfied, Kaito nodded sharply, with a glare for the disobedient little things, and turned his attention back to his clenched fists.

"Well. Sorry for that little delay; let's see what I caught, hmm?" One finger at a time, Kaito opened his left hand, palm flat like a platform. And the tiny, smoldering ember that rested on a tiny cushion of wet felt was visible for a single moment before it flared up, huge and bright, in a gout of flame that traveled quickly from orange to blue as it increased in heat. As Kaito's audience gasped in reflexive alarm, the magician let his hand drop out from below the flame; the felt cushion, now blackened, fell away as well, and the flame simply remained where it was. It flickered for a moment, then split from the top down into three branches, joined at the base. The two on the sides flared out horizontally, tapering into swept-back points; the center branch folded forward, forming a head and a small beak; and then the blue flame dove flapped off contentedly, though it circled the camp, its little head turning side to side as it searched.

Kaito looked up at it with a smile. "Looking for something, lovey? How about this?" Now he opened his right hand, and as before, a wetted wool felt cushion and a single potent ember burst into flame. This flame burnt a chemical yellow-green, and coalesced into a rounded, asymmetrical globe which rotated slowly as it took shape. The base tapered, the top broadened, and a lick of greenest flame flared off of one side, forming a ragged, flickering leaf.

"Come on down, lovey," Kaito coaxed the bird, pulling his hand out from under the fire-apple and extending one finger as a perch. The dove fluttered down to sit on his finger, blue claws licking around the thief's bare skin, and bent her little head to the apple, rubbing her cheeks against it. The implication of happy cooing was so strong as to be nearly audible.

Pleased, Kaito glanced to his audience, then back to his bird, stroking his fingertips through the air over her head; the slight current from his motion stroked little blue tongues up from her form like feathers ruffling and being smoothed back down in sequence.

"Is it a good apple?" Kaito asked the dove, lifting her to look eye-to-eye with her, though she had no eyes, just roiling, flickering blue flame. "Would you like to take it to your kaasan? I think we shall."

With his free hand, Kaito snatched the apple out of the air, easy and casual as catching a ball, and carried both bird and apple back to the edge of the fire-ring. As he approached, the fire sprite - up to this point still sulking furiously - jumped up to her feet and watched them approach, the yellow-red sparks of her eyes widening as she spotted both the bird and the apple. Kaito crouched by the fire, his face lit brightly and flushed by its heat and glow, and extended both hands out toward the sprite.

The whole fire blazed up and out in a quick pulse of intensity, overtaking Kaito's hands and their burdens. When the spots faded from everyone's eyes, returning their vision to them, the sprite was again sitting in the center of the flames, laughing as her blue bird perched on her head, peering down at the green apple in her lap.

Kaito stood, brushed his knees off, and circled the fire-ring again, coming to a stop in front of Ran and Shinichi. "Well! That was fun."

Distantly, Shinichi was aware that his jaw was hanging open; with effort, he closed it. He didn't even try to stop gawking, staring from Kaito to the flames and back again over and over. His impulse was to rise to his feet and examine the Magician's hands and forearms for devices, gloves, burns, liquid- but that would've been worse than insult, it would have been a futile and unworthy attempt to decipher something that combined magics both stage and actual.

Kudo Shinichi hadn't gained either his notoriety or his nickname as Detective of the East by attempting the futile; nor did he, like some people who he could call to mind, believe flatly and definitively that he knew enough to decipher the whys and wherefores of the universe- it was a big, big universe, and it had _plenty_ hidden up its cosmic sleeves. No slouch at secrets himself, Shinichi knew enough to know that he _didn't_ know enough.

It was why he kept asking questions, really. Sooner or later, with any luck, he might catch up.

The most amazing thing about the entire bird-and-apple performance (he thought as these things raced through his mind) wasn't that Kaito had gathered fire in his hands or that he had shaped and controlled it; it was the plain and undeniable fact that the flames had _burned in mid-air without fuel or an apparent source._ Even the sun didn't do that; it consumed itself slowly and surely, like every other star in the cosmos. Fire by its nature required a source of fuel or it died instantly, from the largest conflagration to the tiniest candle-flame; and therefore, causing the blazes of both bird and apple to move independent of source had been spectacularly, ridiculously impossible... a word that, as had been said before, did not sit well in either of the Kuroba brothers' vocabulary.

There _had_ to be a source, if you followed the logic of physics. Kaito had said that magic was logical. Therefore, there was a source and the source was most likely the shaper and creator of the magic itself, the Magician. Again, Shinichi fought back the desire to stare hard at Kaito's hands and arms; he hoped fervently that the older of the two Kuroba brothers hadn't injured himself, since he was kind of fond of those hands and had plans for them later.

...weird thought.

Ran had scrambled to her feet; she was and had been for several seconds trying to get something coherent out, but gave up at last and more or less flailed her hands about, squeaking. It was, considering the look on Kaito's face, its own kind of applause... which was why Shinichi rose as well and began to clap with enthusiasm, a broad, admiring grin growing on his face. Ran joined in after a moment, bouncing, and the small clearing rang with the sound.

Startled but very pleased by the applause, Kaito basked in it for a few moments, beaming wider and wider as he took in Ran's squee and Shinichi's quiet pride. Warmer than the blaze at his back, their enjoyment and approval kindled his heart and sent tingles along every inch of his skin, down to the tips of his fingers. And speaking of those fingertips...

Kaito stepped aside; with his body no longer blocking the others' clear view of the fire, the sprite and her toys were again clear to the eye. But - and Ran opened her mouth on the beginnings of a shout of alarm until she looked closer and saw clearly - the bird and the apple were no longer bright colors. They, like the sprite, crackled and smoldered in deep red and orange hues, highlighted in occasional gold.

"It's very difficult to maintain zones of drastically different temperature within a single fire," Kaito explained, touching Ran's hand with a smile. "Besides, I could only give the apple a certain amount of Barium; that's been burnt up by now."

Meeting Shinichi's eyes next, Kaito took a seat on the log bench right beside the detective. "I appreciate your self-control, Detective," he said. "In thanks for your consideration...would you like to help me out of these?"

Kaito extended both hands to Shinichi, palms down and fingers spread; he smiled a bit as Shinichi did a poor job of disguising his eagerness as he pounced on and examined the magician's hands. They were tacky, almost as though his skin had _melted_, and in panic Shinichi dragged them toward the fire to shine a better light on them.

Kaito laughed as Shinichi's eyes grew wide. "That's not my skin," he chuckled, beaming at Shinichi's obvious confusion. "It starts at my wrists. Peel them off, won't you? I can't touch them together or I'll get stuck."

Baffled, Shinichi nevertheless did as requested, picking at what appeared to be a slight fold in Kaito's skin at the knuckle of his wrist. The 'skin' peeled back as Shinichi rubbed at it, and soon he had a small flap hanging loose from the magician's skin. Dry on his skin side, partially-melted and tacky on the outside, the elastic, sticky film slowly peeled free from Kaito's skin like a pair of latex gloves, or a paraffin dip. But the texture was all wrong, and the way that the film stretched - and stretched - and _stretched_ - as it was removed bore no resemblance to the limited elasticity of more familiar materials.

Eventually Shinichi had one of the 'gloves' off; dangling it from between his fingertips, he held it up to the firelight to examine it. Now the ashy, charred color of the palms and fingertips was visible; though the 'glove' was turned inside out, the blackened area on the palm, with a clear white circle in the middle of the blackened blast, was easy to see.

"The bare spot on it is from the wool starter," Kaito explained helpfully.

"Yes, but what is _it_, in general?" Shinichi tentatively tugged the film, which was sticking to itself now, massing into less of a glove and more of a chunk of taffy-like elastic, and watched it stretch.

Kaito rolled the other 'glove' off his remaining hand with professional ease. "The brand name you'll find it under is 'ClearTech.' It's a single-polymer elastic medium that comes in film, liquid, and aerosol forms. It can be wrap, dip, or spray applied, and it stretches approximately 2000% of its initial size without suffering permanent distortion. It is discoloration and stain resistant." He plucked the first 'glove' from Shinichi's hands and balled it up with the second, tossing both into the fire.

"It can take additives to change its color, reflectiveness, opacity, and even to add fire-retardant properties to it." Seated on the log again, one knee crossed, Kaito grinned with satisfaction at the entranced manner in which the detective was absorbing the information. "I've made my own modifications to it, of course; I don't use any of my equipment straight off the shelf.

"In this case, I messed around with its viscosity in liquid state, and developed a gel with less impressive stretch ability and discoloration resistance, but which air-dries in a matter of seconds, has zero reflectiveness, and most importantly, has advanced fire-retardant and heat-sapping abilities. So while I warmed my hands up for the tricks, I was applying the gel. Once it dries into a clear, skintight coat, it's indistinguishable except to the touch, and it allows me to play with fire in a rather intimate fashion. So..." He held up both hands, palms open, for Shinichi's examination.

"My skin's a little pinked, but I don't have a burn on me."

It was true; the palms and fingertips were flushed, but no injury showed anywhere- and Shinichi'd been expecting blisters at the very least. From behind his shoulder, Ran's voice said, "Did it hurt?" in a worried tone; she'd come to see as well, and as she peered at the Magician's skin she wrinkled her nose- the burning polymer smelled anything but sweet.

Kaito shook his head, but the detective eyed him, frowning, worry surfacing in his eyes like the fin of a shark. "'Magic is not free,'" he quoted softly. "That was... more than a little trick. What kind of fee are you going to have to pay for a fire sprite, a dove and an apple?"

(He hesitated; this was entirely unknown territory for him, but the thought had been born, he just _had_ to ask-)

"...and is there any way we can, I don't know, _help_ pay? Whatever it is you pay, and- okay, I don't know if I want to know what you pay it to. Earlier you said it was something like karma." Shinichi gave the detective a slightly rueful smile. "Magic's never free for the audiences either; they have to give up something, even if it's just disbelief for a little while." From his shoulder, Ran nodded tentatively; he'd told her about the meeting at the Ghibli in detail and he hadn't left out the thousand tiny red lines. _That_ wasn't something he'd forget about in a hurry.

"Not so much karma," Kaito clarified, noting the memory in Shinichi's eyes and nodding in acknowledgement. "At least in terms of what sort of cost is paid, and to whom. Usually it's a more immediate, physical response, at least with the magic that I most often do for Kid, and we pay it with our own body. Exhaustion, muscle pain, wounds, migraines; the magic amplifies what we do, and so the exertion is amplified as well. Think of it kind of like, hmm... Sprinting for a kilometer drains you in one way; sprinting for a kilometer while carrying another person and singing at the top of your lungs drains you in a different way." He grinned at Ran's horrified expression.

"Oh, don't worry, it's not _that_ bad. Trust me, I'm a professional." He grinned and continued, wandering back to his seat as he talked.

"For example, we could jump a very long distance. Maybe fifty metres in one bound. When we land, maybe we have to be quiet, so the people in the rooms below us don't hear a thump. And then we still have to have functional legs so we can run downstairs to steal the gems. Follow so far?"

Shinichi eyed the magician levelly, one eyebrow cocked. "You're enjoying this."

"Certainly," Kaito grinned, stretching his shoulders. "Ooogh. Anyway, we obviously can't pay with our legs; if we let the cost take our strength, or our endurance or the springiness of our steps, then we couldn't finish the heist. So for a situation like that, we'd probably put the cost off til later. Or, if we knew that it was going to be an expensive night, and that we couldn't afford to put off all the costs for fear of overloading our ability to postpone them, we might pay by sacrificing nerve sensitivity, or offloading the strain and pain that our legs _should_ have felt, into a migraine instead. Usually we have quite a bit of control over what sort of payment we offer, just so long as it's equal in value and strength to what we gained."

"So- you're paying reality, and you're paying with... consequences? That _almost_ makes sense, but-" Now Ran was frowning; she sat back down as well. "How do you judge the costs for things? Like- a dove and an apple equals a one-hour migraine, add in a fire sprite and that puts an extra hour on the bill...? I'm being stupid about this, I know; but you said there was a logic to it; I'm trying to learn the, the rules, I guess." Slumping down beside her, Shinichi spread his hands in a works-for-me gesture and looked inquiringly at the Magician.

Kaito laughed, genuinely amused, and shook his head. "Do you know much about the Egyptian mythology of the dead? A heart was weighed against a feather to find a balance. Those that could balance the two won the 'good' afterlife, and those who couldn't balance the scales lost the game." As Shinichi opened his mouth, objections already on his lips, Kaito put up a finger to stifle the detective with a smirk.

"I am vastly oversimplifying, yes. But I'm also vastly oversimplifying the way that my Magic works." The capital letter was audible; Kaito said the word like the name of a beloved friend. "The nature of magic is both rational and irrational. A fair balance of cost and magic gained is rational; finding an appropriate feather to balance against the heart is the irrational measure of the equation.

"In this situation," he continued, rubbing at his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, "Our options for paying costs are limited. We can't put them off, or they'll knock Kid out later tonight or maybe even make driving home tomorrow impossible. We would normally pay with our body, but there's already some preferences against that being strongly expressed inside here," he tapped the side of his skull with a knowing grin, "Much less what you two would have to say about that. It's little treat for me to show you magic at the cost of a coherent or potent boyfriend. Don't blush, Shinichi."

"Me?" Affronted, the detective looked to his girlfriend, who was slightly red in the cheeks too. "What about her?"

Kaito laughed. "You're much brighter red, Detective," he drawled, "And I know why.

"Anyway! No putting it off, nothing physically damaging, and I doubt you'd like to see Kid pay with a loss of intelligence for several hours; that would be a bit of a buzz-kill. So. What to do?" The Magician grinned at the other two, chin cupped in his palm, like a patient tutor waiting for his pupils' brilliance. "Well?"

This was a logic-problem again, as Shinichi was learning that so many things stemming from his lover's brother were; and he _enjoyed_ that particular discovery, it was tantamount to finding that not only had you won the Grand Prize, but the trophy had a million-yen note hidden inside. "Energy is never lost, save via entropy; and I don't think this is quite big enough on a cosmic scale to equal universal heat-loss. So that means that the energy gets replaced somehow, which means it has to come from somewhere else besides you." He blinked. "From us? From something we do? From-"

A thought occurred. He stopped, organizing his thoughts. _No. No way. But-_

"Kid..." Shinichi said slowly, "has, in his 'normal' everyday mode, a huge amount of energy. Magic, which you apparently have access to, could possibly provide at least some of that energy because you two share a body and it has to be stored somewhere. Therefore, turning it the other direction and replacing lost energy from his direction would have to mean-" He stopped_again._

Ran picked up the thread, brow wrinkling. "He'd have to feed it back towards you. How?"

By now, Shinichi's eyes had widened and the flush that had already made his ears burn had begun to stage an all-out assault on cheekbones, jawline and neck. Ran looked at him, perplexed and perfectly willing to show it. "Shinichi?"

"Ah-" He swallowed. "Ran, have you ever heard the term 'tantric'?"

She made a face. "Only in a couple of J-pop songs. It's, um, about s- Uh. Oh. OH." Caught off-guard, she stared straight at Kaito for a long moment before very clearly remarking, "You HAVE to be joking. Because he-you- I mean, BOTH of you've been doing heists for years, and... I, um, afterwards I don't think you've been-" Scarlet-faced by this point (the descent from pink to red had been steady and quite pretty to watch), Ran lost the ability to form words and covered her face with both hands. "'mmgnnhSHTPnw," came muffled through her fingers.

Her boyfriend, on the other hand, managed to drag some semblance of control into place and stared the Magician down. He was fairly certain that at this point even his _bones_ were blushing, but he had to ask. "Am I right? Or not? Kinetic activity? In the way that, ah, you can- can fuel a battery?"

_If I turn any redder I'm going to __catch on fire__. Get a grip, Kudo, you're all adults here, and- oh my god. This is gonna be __**so weird**__ later on._

Kaito, cackling with glee by now, settled down just enough to grin gamely at Shinichi. "Bold and creative of you, Detective. Not quite what I was planning, but creative, and possibly a theory that we'll need to test in the future. And no, Ran, we haven't been...venting the cost in that way. I'm not certain that it would work as Shinichi suggested, because there's little negative to self-initiated, enjoyable sex, and the definition of the cost is that it isn't positive. Sometimes we can use neutral costs to pay for neutral magics, ones which don't benefit us or cause us a detriment, but which simply _shift_ things. But a cost for a positive, like my fire games, has to be negative: it has to _deny_ in some fashion." He leaned back, bracing his hands on the log, and watched the stars as he continued.

"Tantric sex may be a viable method for pre-paying costs, though," the magician mused, listening to the silence afterward as though he could hear a response - and in fact, he could. "Kid suggests that expensive, extended-duration excursions would be made greatly easier by having a tantric 'credit card,' so to speak, but suggests that we try it on something somewhat lower-risk than an actual heist to find out if it causes any significant snap-back when the 'balance' runs out."

Looking back to his companions of the moment, Kaito smiled - at Shinichi in particular. "No, what I had in mind is tantric in a way, but has little to do with the kinetic energy of the act.

"Kid and I share, in most senses, an energy well; he spends his share on extreme extroversion whereas I have learned to be slightly more cautious with my energy for purposes of conserving it for magical use. For smaller tricks, this is sufficient; I get tired, he takes a nap, and it's all evened out. Either of us can pay my cost, and it counts just the same."

Kaito yawned, a jaw-cracking thing that brought water to the corners of his eyes. "Oi. It's hitting already. Mmm, as I was saying - For larger tricks, the magic drains most or all of the well, not just my share, and we've found that when we can, paying in a closely associated manner to the mode of expenditure loses less 'value' in the transfer, especially if we want to forestall or avoid paying the exhaustion portion of the cost in favor of a different mode of payment. Tonight's 'bill' was mainly based in control - of the fire, of providing it its fuel, and of localizing the chemicals and temperatures necessary for the color play and manipulation of the various flames. And we've already established that my brother would cause no small amount of crankiness if he were to pass out early." The magician smirked, a worrisome, hackle-rising sort of grin. "So to pay...

"Kid will offer his control, in a tantric manner."

"...Buh?"

The Magician laughed again, interrupted halfway through with another yawn. Wiping his eyes and blinking hard to keep them open, he smiled sheepishly at the other two. "And my moment of smugness is interrupted by the body informing me that I've got a balance due and can't put it off for much longer. 'Fraid I'll have to go soon."

Still trying to come to terms with what his mind was interpreting Kaito's matter-of-fact statement as (_He can't mean, I'm, wait a second, he_), Shinichi blinked. And became aware that he had, from the beginning of the dove-and-apple performance, been clutching in his hand- "Your marshmallows!" Dismayed, he held them out like a rather sticky sword. "They're cold, but you could heat them up a little...? And the sugar should help, shouldn't it?""

Ran, in the meantime, had put two and one together and come up with a rather interesting three. She was staring at Kaito with an almost expressionless face, inscrutable as a cat; it was slightly unnerving, but it reminded Shinichi briefly of the Game Face she'd put on when nerving herself up just before a match. "You'll... be okay, then?" she asked carefully. "Because this was amazing and beautiful and everything, but it... We don't want you hurt. That was kind of the point, we wanted you to enjoy yourself too." A little anxiously Ran leaned forward, her eyes on Kaito's. "We- well, we like you. You pay a lot of prices already, and tonight wasn't supposed to be just another penalty."

Kaito leaned forward, cupping one hand against Ran's cheek; his eyes were gentle but sad. "Nothing is free, Mouri-chan. Not in life, not anywhere. And I'm a performer. Your applause was more than enough reward." He kissed her cheek gently, then drew back, looking to Shinichi with a smile.

"And I _still_ haven't had any of those blasted things," he chuckled, taking the skewer gratefully. "Well, I'll toast them a bit further; they've got a way to go before they char completely."

As Kaito dealt with Stage Two of his marshmallow management agenda and Ran tried out the much-maligned pastel mallows (they were all going to be so wound up on a sugar-rush it'd be a wonder if _anybody_ slept), Shinichi finished off his own stone-cold treat and considered the principles of gain and loss.

Kid was, as was his brother (and each of them for their own reasons for good or ill), extremely proficient at manipulation. It was what he _did:_ fooled the eye, redirected attention, tricked the senses, took danger and risk and crafted them into truly masterful performance art. Shinichi understood this; murderers and small children did the same thing, manipulating their reality with the tools at hand. It was, of course, a far cry from a second-grader whining about how he didn't WANT to play dodgeball because his tummy hurt to an adulterous husband offing his wife and pretending ignorance in order to cash in her insurance... but the basic tools were the same. The difference lay in how they were used, what kind of outcome was hoped for, and how far they were willing to go to get what they wanted.

Kid and Kuroba Kaito were, so far as that went, benign. They wouldn't kill, they wouldn't injure, they'd give up their goals if they had to to avoid both of those outcomes, and they'd pay for what they did in flesh and blood and energy. Shinichi's new understanding of _how_ they'd reached a few of those goals and what kind of coin they'd paid for them in was, in a way, anything but a surprise... so long as he managed to make himself believe in magic. Somehow it'd been an easier leap to make than he would've thought; and in the back of his mind, the detective considered wryly that maybe he'd really _wanted_ to believe all along.

It helped _immensely_ that there were rules, of course.

_Kid's going to laugh his ass off at me, isn't he? God, I'm so predictable; 'logic' is like a magic word for me- hey, it's logical! Therefore it makes sense and therefore I can accept it! It's all good because it has LOGIC in it, like some special secret ingredient that turns all the nonsense into sense..._

_...or mostly._

_I'm really glad I haven't run across any murderers that've been able to work magic; god knows there've been enough that tried to make people believe they could, but so far there hasn't been a single trick that Hattori or I couldn't see through. Maybe it's because murderers are usually unwilling to pay for what they do- murder's inherently selfish, with rare exceptions. A 'selfless murderer' is almost an oxymoron; even a mother who kills to protect her child is preserving that life for her own wishes, and the cost for that is the life of their victim._

_Costs... We volunteered to help. Correction, Kudo: YOU volunteered your own and Ran's help... though I kind of doubt she minds. And there __has__ to be a payment, right? Or it'll be worse later on for both Kid and Kuroba. But I will be __**damned**__ if I force Kid into doing anything he doesn't w-_

The loud pop of a smouldering log breaking in the firering jarred Shinichi out of his thoughts; he became aware that he'd been sitting with an empty skewer in his hand, absolutely still, for some time. The other two were still talking quietly together, though Ran was curled closer to Kaito than she had been before, and Kaito's marshmallow concoction had disappeared.

"Have a good think, Detective?" Kaito grinned at Shinichi from his place beside Ran, and Shinichi had to blink hard to shake the unsettling sensation that Kid was looking out at him too, from beneath the dark-water depths of the same eyes.

"A typical one," he shrugged, looking to the dying fire instead of Kaito's face. The sprite lay sleeping, half-buried in the coals, the red and orange curves of her body slowly losing definition as she blended back into the glowing charcoal. "Is..." He stopped, trying to shake the worry away.

Kaito smiled, a little knowing, a lot smug. "Having an attack of conscience, Detective?" Shinichi looked back with preliminary alarm, which was not soothed at all by Kaito's amused tone. "Don't worry, you'll see."

He stroked Ran's hair back behind her ear gently, withdrawing his arm from around her waist with a gentle squeeze. "You keep your head, alright? I know Kid won't be able to, and your detective over there seems to be short-circuiting already."

"O-okay," Ran nodded, looking to Shinichi with in hopes of reassuring him. "You're sure we can't...you're sure it's okay?"

Laughing, Kaito stood, stretching, and hopped up onto the log, balancing easily on the toes of one foot. "Haha! You two. It's just a cost, and not even a major one at that; you should have seen me after Sadalmelik. Don't look so glum. I promise," he added, smirking at Shinichi, "You'll enjoy yourselves. And now that I've been a complete and utter lech at _both_ of you, I'll be on my way before my brother hyperventilates - or blushes - his way into an early cardiac arrest."

The magician hopped down from the log, landing in a shallow crouch on his toes with both feet together; the thief raised his head and straightened out of the crouch, blue eyes gaining identity as Kid...and just as quickly, hazing over slightly.

"Benten above, Magician, I keep _telling_ you not to do that," he muttered, cheeks flush and breath a little short, reaching behind himself to find the log and brace himself as he sat down heavily. "Oh, this is going to be interesting..."

The switch between one person and the other was, as always, so startling as to be like a magic trick of the first caliber itself- the difference was so very _definite,_ as much as if there really had been two bodies involved rather than one. Shinichi half-rose, heart in his mouth. "Are you okay? What's wrong?" he asked anxiously, while a small voice in the back of his head remarked brightly, _'Interesting'?_

"Nnngh." Fingers splayed across his face, one eye squinted shut in obvious strain, Kid peeked out from between two of them at Shinichi and Ran. "He started to have trouble holding off the cost _twenty minutes_ ago, but didn't find it a _useful_ time to let me begin paying. So we've got twenty minutes of interest built up, and he left the blasted sprite in the fire for the _whole_ time afterward, just ticking the meter up. And we've never tried paying this way before, so...I think the effects are going to be more profound than he planned. Not...that I'm complaining, it...simply rushes things...a bit." Swallowing, Kid coughed to clear his throat and let his hand drop, opening both eyes and looking straight toward his lovers; even in the dying campfire light, it was _extremely_ plain to see: his pupils dilated wide, almost obscuring the blue entirely.

"I have a lot that I want to add to the conversation you had with Kaito about magic," Kid said slowly, enunciating each word. "But, ahm, I think it's going to have to wait."

"..." Shinichi looked at Ran; she looked back at him, eyes rather wide. "Why do I think," he said slowly, "that your brother's laughing at all three of us right now so hard he can't breathe?" A little gingerly the other two approached, sinking down to either side of their thief. "The rest of the explanation can wait, that's fine, but-"

"-but what do we need to know _right now?"_ finished Ran, eyes worried.

Kid had sucked in a hard breath when the other two moved closer; now surrounded by them, he bit his lip, chest heaving with hard breath. "Oh, Benten, this is humiliating," he muttered. "Magician, I'm going t-to-" He stopped as Ran gripped his hand tightly.

"Kid. Focus."

With an effort, Kid took a deep breath, letting it out between his teeth, eyes clenched shut. "The Magician's magic trick tonight relied on controlling the air and several elements on a molecular level, making it possible to con-control the fire and its fuel unnaturally," he said, rushing phrases together. "In exchange for control of s-something he usually 'shouldn't' be able to control...I give up contr-" A tiny whimper leaked out, and Kid cussed in frustration, brows furrowed together. "_Benten._ -Give up control of something that I am usually exquisitely able to control. My self, my desires."

Hands now clenched tight around Shinichi's and Ran's hands, one each, Kid laughed just a little, and it was a self-reproachful sound if you ignored the breathy whimper tangled up behind it. "I believe you are both about to have a very, very good night. As am I, once I put aside my ego. ...Oh, lady above, I..."

"Hang on, we are NOT- Kid," said Shinichi flatly, warning in his voice. "There's no way we're going to- to do- oh, hell. This isn't going to be at your expense..." Belatedly he became aware of just exactly what words he had used and the meanings behind them: 'expense' conferred payment of a cost, which meant- "Aaagh." He ran his free hand through his hair, making it stick up on end. "Nobody's going to make you do _anything_ you don't want to do." That was an absolute, and the intrigued little voice in the back of his head could just go shove it.

Ran's fingers tangled tightly with Kid's, the knuckles showing white. "How can we help?" she asked a little more prosaically. "We said we'd help pay; tell us, Kid." Carefully she stroked his arm, fingers gentle.

Kid stared at Shinichi like he'd just spoken Russian. "Tantei, you are a blockhead." Turning to Ran, Kid quirked one eyebrow in amusement - which looked very strange when combined with his lust-dark eyes - and slammed her palm against his crotch, choking back a quiet groan.

Her eyes went wide. "...Oh."

Back to Shinichi, Kid managed a little laugh as he squeezed Shinichi's hand reassuringly, licking dry lips. "I think you've misunderstood, Tantei. All that's gone is my _control._ My two-weeks-held-back desire to _devour_ you is quite intact, thank you very much."

"...oh. Really?" Ran made a small noise in the back of her throat; she hadn't moved her hand away, and looked to be turning something over in her mind. As Shinichi stared at the thief, the small voice in the back of his head again made its presence known by making a few suggestions, most of which began with 'blanket by the fire' and ended in 'and/or sleeping bags.' He really_was_ a blockhead.

"Then we'll just have to take care of that," said Ran softly. "Besides... we're all out of marshmallows."

"Nnghkay," Kid managed, holding Shinichi's gaze with eyes that basically equalled _liquid sex_ as he nodded vaguely in answer to Ran. Between the three, the heavy scent of Kid's need weighted the air with brain-foggingly suggestive implications. "Uhn. S-sooner than later?"

.

* * *

.

_To be continued..._


	60. Quite an experience

_Last week the chapter contained stuff that was porny and delicious._

_This week, the chapter IS stuff that is porny and delicious._

_There's still plot in there, but it's not extricable from the plot. Er, porn. Porn-plot. So, here's 6,000 words of porn. Plorn? Anyway, enjoy! :D All warnings apply._

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* * *

_**Book Five, Chapter Fifteen**__**: "...quite an experience. "**__  
by Ysabet and Nightengale, we're borrowing Gosho's kids and sending them back home wearing hickeys, yadda yadda. _3

How they managed to get into the tent, much less the sleeping-bags, was somewhat of a mystery beyond even Shinichi's ability to fathom. He'd later congratulate himself on having set up the air-mattress earlier as well as zipping all three bags together into a kind of padded envelope, but at the time all he could do was swear and try to get a very unhelpfully helpful Kid between the folds. The thief seemed to be made of hands—they tugged at his clothing, pulled him down, hooked fingers in the waistband of a pair of jeans that were becoming entirely too tight. Ran was having a similar problem—well, not the jeans, but—

"Kid, lift your—_oooh_— mmmmmm…"

The air-mattress squeaked reproachfully as Kid kicked it with a socked foot; an attempt to remove the thief's shoes had turned halfway through into what would've been seduction if the other participant had been less willing and not giggling quite so much. Coming up for air (and halfway on top of Kid, pulled down right onto the floor), Ran blinked hazily at Shinichi. "Do we—uhhmmm… _have_ to get—" Kid nuzzled her throat and Ran swallowed hard, face flushed. "—in the bags? Can't we just—" She bit back another giggle as a hand snaked beneath her t-shirt.

Shinichi dragged the side-zipper the last few centimeters down. "It's getting cooler," he pointed out in a slightly strangled voice, "and I don't think we want cold air on ourrrAWP!" Kid's free hand, reaching blindly, had latched onto his thigh and pulled him off-balance to sprawl beside the other two on the chilly plastic floor of the tent; without letting go of Ran, the thief turned towards him and took Shinichi's mouth in a hard, desperate kiss that made worries of cold air anything but important.

_...okay, maybe the sleeping bags aren't all __that__ necessary..._ A little dizzy with sensory overload, Shinichi blinked past Kid's hair at the tent ceiling as Ran's hand slipped between and dragged his zipper down.

It took both Ran and Shinichi's combined efforts, but eventually all three ended up more or less tumbled between the layers of cotton and down-stuffed nylon; by then, though, some crucial bits of clothing had gone missing. Skinning out of his shirt (boxers and jeans had been discarded- with help- on the way in), Shinichi heard Ran giggle again; she was crouched over Kid, hands full, patiently trying to get the rest of _his_ clothing off. "A little-oops- help here?" she panted, attempting to sit on one of the grabby hands that had just undone her bra. There was movement; Ran's eyes widened enormously and she let out a startled yelp, showing that this had perhaps been a bad strategy. "ShinIIIIIIIIIchiiiiiiii... catch up!" Ran hissed, ending with a gasp and an abrupt ripping sound.

"Getting there-" Naked except for his socks, he yanked the upper layer of the bags up and over all three, ducking down into the tangle of warm limbs. One very no-nonsense hand (Ran's) grabbed his shoulder, and he found himself sprawling half on top of Kid, nose-to-nose and very much skin-to-skin.

Smooth, _hot_ skin. A pink bra and a pair of black boxers (not Shinichi's) went flying, bouncing off a tent wall and landing somewhere around their feet. Not that it mattered where they'd gone; not with those dark, insistent eyes fixed on his and Ran's nails stroking the nape of his neck.

This was... (Shinichi swallowed hard, hands involuntarily slipping down and around to cup Kid's ass)... rather like being given the keys to a very, very nice car. You knew where the ignition was and how to put it in gear, but despite however many times you might've ridden along in the past, you weren't quite certain how to handle the clutch or really drive.

But _**oh**_, it was a sweet piece of work.

Kid bucked up beneath Shinichi, ass clenched, breath coming harsh, vision foggy around the corners, as his boyfriend's touch electrified him. "Sh-Sh-nnnnngh, oh, ah, ah, oh Bente-" His stomach was sticky with his own precome, his hair already damp with sweat, as he held Shinichi's face firmly between both hands and attempted to kiss the life out of him. "Gods above, oh Tantei, oh my _gods_, want you, want you, Tant-ah-ah! Oh. _Ohhhh._ Wh-what?"

"That's Ran," Shinichi grinned, nipping Kid on the lip as Ran's fingertips twirled their way around the thief's very sensitive nipples. Kid licked his lips, trying to speak; every attempt fizzled out into gasps and little whimpers. He raised his head to try to kiss Shinichi again, but that, too, was thwarted by the pleasure from Shinichi's cock pressed against his own, Shinichi's hands on his ass, and Ran's wicked little fingers plying all the thief's best buttons.

"I can't, I- I want, I want, oh by her _name_, Tantei, I can't _wait_ any more-" With a groan, Kid arched up beneath Shinichi, wrapping his arms around the detective's neck and shoulders with a powerful grip; his hips pumped hard against his boyfriend, teeth gritted together when he wasn't gasping for air, strong thighs and calves powering his movement. And just as abruptly, he jerked hard and came across Shinichi's belly, without a single finger of _any_ of them having touched him. The noise he made, crying out as he threw his head back, arching his whole body in one lithe, suspended crescent against Shinichi's frame, was akin to a feral mewl, pure desire, no modesty or control. And when he was spent, all the strength went out of him; his grip around Shinichi's shoulders failed, and he fell to the mattress beneath them, weak as water, half-lidded eyes still black with lust, lost in the white static of his orgasm.

Above him, Shinichi groaned; it had been too fast, he was still- he hadn't- he could taste Kid's sweat on his lips, and he reached for himself, aching. But before he could finish the motion, Ran's arms slid around him from behind and she pressed against his back beneath the fabric, her skin soft and cool. "Shinichi. Let me-" Breathing hard, he supported himself on both arms about Kid's slack body as Ran's long fingers stroked him, tentatively at first and then with increasing pressure and surety. He fought at first not to move, but that was a lost cause; and with her voice in his ear murmuring encouragement, Shinichi sucked in a huge gasp of air full of their scent and allowed his body to thrust against her hands, hot and gripping tighter, gripping tighter, until the end came and the whole world narrowed down to feeling and the dark eyes that watched him as he surrendered.

Shinichi was vaguely aware of his own shout, muted by the fabric of the tent and the trees around them; then there was nothing but harsh breathing, his and Kid's and Ran's... and a very quiet, amused voice:

"...I'm expecting you to be _terribly nice to me._ When, you know, you get your strength back. One or both of you."

"Nnngh." This from Kid, who - surprisingly - propped himself up on both elbows, blinking hard to focus his vision. "Oh, gods, that...nnngh, that was like falling down a well." With considerably more coherency than he'd had before, he grinned at Ran and Shinichi both. "I believe I've still got just about zero control over my impulses right now, but I have a _bit_ of brain back. You're probably in more danger this way than with me in babble mode."

"_Nice,_" Ran reiterated, opening her mouth to say more. She never got the chance, however, because Kid rolled out from under Shinichi and pinned Ran to the other side of the mattress, his hands holding her arms down by the wrists. He let his gaze track over her body, top to bottom, lingering on the softness of her breasts and belly, the thick strength of her thighs and the slick thatch between them.

"Ran." Kid's eyes held something Ran hadn't quite seen in them before; a directed sort of attention, a lust that didn't understand her as 'Ran, Shinichi's Heart,' but simply 'Ran, Our Girlfriend.' Or maybe, Ran thought hesitantly, Kid was thinking '_My_ Girlfriend.' She brought her focus back to the moment briskly, discarding thoughts of semantic significance in favor of the questions in Kid's eyes. Shinichi was somewhere to her right, Kid's left, still breathing hard and sprawled limp on the mattress; how Kid was not only coherent, but strong enough to crouch over her like a predator, Ran didn't know. Maybe it was the marshmallows' fault.

"_Ran,_" Kid said again, bending elbows and angling his hips to lower his crouch, nose and lips dragging against the skin of Ran's throat, belly - and groin - pressing hot against her own belly and her mound. He was _hard_ again, well, mostly there, same difference really, as he rocked against her, making her bite her lip on a gasp. He couldn't possibly... it was the one thing that they'd both held back from, afraid to rush things, content to court and be courtly...

But oh, god. Ran whimpered, fighting the urge to roll her hips upward, tempted fiercely by the thick line of heat that he pressed against her. "K-Kid...wh-what..."

"I. Nngh." He buried his face in her shoulder, hips shivering against her own. "P-push me off," Kid groaned, as he rolled his body, hip to chest, against Ran's, sighing in pleasure as her plush breasts dragged against his skin, and his cock dragged a sticky line up her belly. "Push me off, Ran."

His need and her own weighed in, and the longing to keep him there gnawed at her. She turned her head- Shinichi, still limp-muscled and unmoving, lay to one side, but he had turned his face to watch them; there was no conflict in his eyes, only acceptance... and something that might have been hope. It was that as much as anything that made Ran make up her mind and pull her wrists loose, gripping Kid by the shoulders and rolling him hard over to the right until he lay shivering between them... and then _she_ was the one crouched on top.

Licking her lips, heat rising inside her, she kissed Kid fiercely. "My body," she said against his lips, breathing raggedly. "MY choice. Sh-shinichi? Under the edge of the mattress, there's- could you-"

_"Yes."_ And there was no mistaking the satisfaction in her detective's voice, or the soft crinkle of foil as he tore the packet open for her.

Kid watched her as her hands moved, dark eyes startled and for the moment still, like a stag's in the woods; her fingers were steady, and when the condom was in place and she rose above him, it was Shinichi who pulled himself over enough to press a long, easy kiss on Kid's mouth as she sank down with a deep, deep breath and began, slowly at first, to move.

Kid gasped into Shinichi's mouth, almost choking as Ran's heat enveloped him; his whole body tightened like a drawn bowstring, muscles straining as he fisted hands in the fabric of the sleeping bag at his hips, desperately trying to hold still as Ran adjusted. But his breath was short, his whole body shaking; dry lips licked again and again, gaze transfixed by the curves and pendulous weight of her body as she rose and fell above him, riding him with a deliberate, thorough attitude, as though she wanted to first catalogue and understand the sensations before giving herself over to them.

As his detective carded hands through his unruly hair, curling only as close as was practical, and Ran's toes dug into the cloth and mattress on either side of Kid's knees, her own knees braced at his hips to power her steady rise and fall, Kid found a single scrap of coherency big enough to write a grateful _IOU_ to his brother, for choosing what was possibly the most backwardsly perfect payment possible for the situation, stripping away the self-control which would have held him back from this.

He'd wanted her, he admitted this to himself. He'd watched Shinichi with her, watched the rapture on the detective's face. He'd benefitted, been comforted and strengthened by Ran's courage, her big heart and wise advice; and he'd enjoyed the varied pleasures of her body with enough regularity to be familiar with all the beautiful curves and musculature of her womanly athlete's form. But a gentleman courts a lady; a gentleman does not take advantage. A gentleman restrains himself.

_A gentleman can go hang,_ Kid thought distantly, as the weblike paralysis of sensory overload finally released him. Hands rising to Ran's hips, her pendulous breasts that swayed with her movement, her hard pebbled nipples that made her squeak and gasp when he flicked them, her muscled arms and soft waist and ribcage and _goddess,_ her thighs; Kid curled upward, tipping his hips with every thrust, moaning absolutely wantonly as her soft warmth, so unlike the separate but equal pleasures of his Tantei's body, sought to unravel his mind from his senses. He thrust into her, back and thighs straining, lightheaded, cock aching and balls dizzingly tight against his base. His gut lurched, a gasping, near-orgasmic sensation, every time Ran seated herself fully onto him, the soft, wet folds of her pressing open against the hypersensitive skin of his sack.

"Oh Benten, oh gods and goddesses, _Ran,_ oh _gods!_"

Head back, back arched, Ran gripped his forearms with her hands. Her rhythm was changing, becoming less deliberate and more erratic, and her hair was wild all over her shoulders. Biting her lip, she abruptly bowed forward, curling her chin against her own chest as she ground down against him in exquisite pleasure; Kid writhed beneath her, his own body straining upwards in a last, desperate thrust that made Ran shudder, snap her hips down again and scream.

The sound, this time too loud for the tent to contain, echoed over the noises of night and water outside; and through the pulse and rhythm that took them both as they collapsed, wrapped around each other, Shinichi's hands stroked their hair until they at last slid down into peace and all was still.

* * *

They all three dozed for a little, senses overloaded and bodies at least temporarily exhausted by pleasure and exertion. Sweat-damp and limp within the folds of the sleeping-bag, it was a breath of midnight air across Shinichi's cooling skin that woke him.

He'd forgotten –hadn't cared enough at the time to do it, really—to zip the tent shut; and now a wind was rising, flapping the nylon with tiny sharp _thwippthwipp!_ noises. Shinichi lay there for a few minutes, gradually shaking off the languor that infused every limb, before he got up enough willpower to crawl out of his warm haven.

Ran was sound asleep, her face shadowed by a bird's nest of hair she'd curse over in the morning; and, most uncharacteristically, so was Kid. The thief's brows were drawn together, though, and his eyelids flickered as dreams chased themselves back and forth beneath them. He lay spooned against Ran, her arms around him in the usual way (given the faintest chance, Ran would hug the nearest object to her while she slept) and one hand half over his face; as Shinichi crawled to the tent opening, the detective studied that face.

He'd seen every kind of expression on the mobile features: sorrow, manic humor, fury, pure delight, even tears; but the abandon he'd witnessed earlier had been something special, both when he'd moved with Kid and when Ran had ridden him. The pure lack of self-consciousness, all the brakes off—he'd been frantic, so unbearably desperate for touch and release, and while the intensity was a little terrifying it had been…

…quite an experience.

There was movement outside the tent-flap; Shinichi froze, kneeling stark naked on the chilly plastic floor—and stared into twin baleful golden gleams from the water's edge. For a moment his groggy mind muttered _fire sprite?_ before he blinked his vision into clarity; and then he watched as the fox who'd been regarding him from the waterline picked its careful way across the stones and continued on, unconcerned. _Huh. Kitsune,_ whispered Shinichi's thoughts, and if the fox had turned into a streak of fire or a flight of birds in that second he could have accepted it.

The tent-flap zipped closed with barely a sound. Before crawling back into the envelope of warmth, he picked up a towel from the stack Ran had left by their packs; a little cleanup wasn't a bad idea, and he spent a few minutes dealing with practicalities. Outside the tent the clearing was alive with tiny, vivid sounds: the buzz of insects, bird cries, something small and rapid blundering through the undergrowth. But inside, there was nothing but their breathing and the soft slide of cloth as Shinichi settled himself back in.

One sleepy, deep blue eye regarded him, and he ran a fingertip down Kid's nose from browline to tip. "Hey," Shinichi murmured.

"Nnnngh." Kid yawned without removing his hand, though it turned over, palm up and fingers curled loosely as his body cloyed of its own will against Shinichi's. "Hey yourself. You're probably..." The thief paused for another yawn, studying Shinichi's face with complete earnesty, his emotions laid bare in his single uncovered eye. "Y're the most amazingly beautiful, brilliant man in this whole Benten-blessed world that I could have possibly woken up beside." Shinichi blinked. Kid blinked, then squeezed his eyes shut with a grumble. "...Nnngh, shit. Hasn't worn off yet."

_Ulp._ You didn't get strings of compliments like that much, did you? Shinichi picked up his figurative jaw from the ground, feeling sneaky fingers curling around his hips. "Yeah, well... you've heard _me_ Apotoxin-drunk off my ass, so it's only fair. And it's not like I mind." That said, he leaned in, touching their heads together at the hairline, eye to eye. A leg wound around his, knee crooking, and Shinichi allowed his own hands to settle on his thief's shoulders. This close, skin to skin, it was impossible to miss (or miss out on) their bodies' reactions, but he didn't really mind that either.

A little more coherence would be nice, though... "Feeling better?"

"If by 'better' you mean, 'Can I speak coherent Japanese,' then yes, I'm doing a bit better," Kid admitted wryly, rolling his body softly against his boyfriend's. "Unfortunately, there's still quite a while left before I'll get my self-control back...which in normal circumstances, I suppose, would have Nakamori and the Task Force running for the hills. As bad as I am to them, I restrain myself from ten times as many pranks as I actually pull - though I'm not certain they would believe that proportion if given the chance to consider it, which is uncharitable, if anything it's an under-estimation - and some of the plans are simply so exquisitely awesome that it truly pains me to shelve them. Take the plan with the badgers, for example...expensive, yes, but such a very worthwhile payoff, especially considering what Officer Ito would have done as soon as he laid eyes on them, considering his personal history with the animals..."

Shinichi absorbed this in silence, feeling a moment of intense empathy for those persons employed in the mental-health and child-care professions, and other career fields where corralling persons with more imagination than sense was a common pastime. _Mental note: there are many, many ways in which curbing Kid's whims and desires can be considered an __**absolute good.**__Oi oi oi._

"Let me just express my relief that pranking Ran and I is low on your current priority list," Shinichi commented, voice dry, fingers rubbing gently at the nape of Kid's neck. The thief's unruly hair, which seemed a bit longer than normal now that he thought about it, brushed across Shinichi's knuckles as he moved his hand slowly, the midnight langour of the private world which surrounded their little tent still thick in his bones and his skin like the touch of the night's cool air. "Still costs left to pay?"

Kid nodded subtly, brow rocking against Shinichi's as he snuggled closer. Fingers spread, he gripped Shinichi's rear firmly, pulling the detective against himself with a shiver of pleasure. Head turned to the side, Kid lipped Shinichi's earlobe into his mouth and suckled gently, making breathy little mewling sounds, soft as an exhale, right into his lover's ear. "N-no matter what I would be doing right now," Kid murmured, lips brushing and flicking Shinichi's soft lobe as they moved with his speech, "I would have a mere breath of control over my desires, my whims.

"If I'm to abandon my control anyway, regardless of where or how I do so...I want above anything else to do so in your arms, beneath you." Kid sucked in a breath, teeth nipping Shinichi's earlobe reflexively, before he ducked his head and buried his face in the column of the detective's neck.

"...And I would very, very much love to have been left a _shred_ of control over what grandiose examples of sappiness I am actually saying out loud, thank you for nothing, you bastard Magician."

Despite the -well, you couldn't exactly call it _seriousness_, but something like that- of the moment, Shinichi swallowed a breath of laughter. "I don't know, he seems to've done a lot of good," he teased Kid softly. "I mean," and he angled one hip against the other's, rolling them a little until Kid lay on his back with Shinichi sprawled full-length on top. "-look where you are. Not that you wouldn't be here anyway, but-" He nuzzled the thief's collarbone, trailing tiny sharp bites along it in a line; there was something tangled into a knot in his throat, tight and knobby and difficult to swallow around. Maybe it was nerves; maybe it had something to do with the giddy feeling that was currently threatening to take the top of his head clean off.

It was getting hard to think, let alone talk. Kid was making small, strangled sounds as Shinichi kissed his way down his chest, eyes clenched shut and hands fisting tight in the sleeping bag just past the detective's shoulders. "You're- sure?" he asked, pausing as uncertainty welled up from the pit of his stomach. _Yes,_ he'd wanted to try this and _yes,_ he'd thought about it and hoped- well. But- "Really sure?" _Oh god, don't let me screw this up..._

Kid lifted his head with effort, looking hazily down the length of his body toward Shinichi. The tent was dark, and now that they weren't nose-to-nose any longer, fine detail was all but impossible to see. With the sleeping bag bunched up behind and under him, Shinichi's silhouette, what little of it there was, was made strange; but Kid could identify the sharp blades of his shoulders, angled up as the detective crouched over him. The feathery brush of Shinichi's fingertips across the crease of Kid's thigh derailed any further experiments in night vision; Kid's head fell back, breath shuddering through him, as Shinichi's soft fingertips caressed him again the thief groaned quietly, biting his own shoulder to try to muffle the sound.

"Kid? Kid, are you okay?"

"T-tantei," Kid gasped, gulping air as Shinichi moved his hands and breath _away_ from Kid's skin in unfounded concern, misinterpreting the desperation in Kid's noise for distress. "I'm, I'm, oh." He growled in irritation as syntax continued to escape him, and in frustrating irony, regained his command of full sentences only just long enough to curse.

"Oh for Benten's sake-!" The thief fought his way onto his elbows, propped up to again search for Shinichi's eyes. This time they were easier to see, less buried in shadow as Shinichi reached one hand up to cup Kid's cheek. "If I can get _half a sentence_ out, I was _trying_ to say that-"

"Not if you don't want to," Shinichi cut in, stroking with his thumb. "Not if it's just the cost talking."

"But I _do._" Kid turned his head to the side, lips dragging against Shinichi's thumb, wrapping around it, sucking hard, tongue working the digit with lascivious attention to detail. He whimpered, inarticulate and possibly just for show, and pulled on Shinichi's thumb with his lips while the rest of his body flexed, pressing whatever parts of him were hungriest against whatever parts of Shinichi were convenient.

Shinichi's thumb slipped free with a spit-slicked _pop_, and Kid's arms shook to support himself as he found and held the other's eyes through the gloom.

"There's a lot that pride and hesitation can keep even a man like me from attempting," Kid murmured, though his voice began to fray on 'man' and had fully devolved into rough tatters as he continued. "Like this, I'm free to say that I want to be cau- I want you to catc- I want-" He stopped, choking on the words. Even with as little reserve as the cost allowed him, this was one admission Kid couldn't force himself to speak, no matter how much he earnestly felt it. Frowning, he settled on a compromise.

"I want you, Tantei."

Heart in his throat, Shinichi nodded. He caressed the thief's cheek with his hand before allowing it to trail down his body, thumb stroking a nipple on the way. The sleeping bag's folds bunched and draped around him as he settled on his elbows at hip-level, and he pressed his face against Kid's thigh with a cowl of fabric half-hiding him from view. It was hard to find the words; not as hard as it had been for Kid, though, and with his pulse thrumming impatiently Shinichi did his best. "Do you know," he whispered against the other's skin, "what I want right now?" He stroked the velvety skin of Kid's erection, not erotically, not teasingly- soothingly; it seemed to shiver beneath his hands. "I want to show you what it felt like... the first time you did this for me. That- just exactly that, what I felt, what you gave me." One hand fumbled for a moment at the side of the bed; there'd been- there, he had it; and as he gentled Kid's body with one hand, the other flipped a cap open. "I want you to feel that _focus,_ how you touched me..." Slick, his hand slipped behind Kid and brushed, just brushed. "...how you moved inside me, went deeper than I-"

His voice caught. "I... didn't know anything about how it'd feel; just, I couldn't, wouldn't've stopped for anything in the world. Trusted you; wanted you too, Kid." Another brush, harder and more centered this time; but he wouldn't, Shinichi wouldn't, not without-

It wasn't the mechanics; he had those down pretty pat by now. It was... _I'm... scared of getting this wrong. I don't want it to- Oh, hell._ Calling himself six kinds of an idiot, Shinichi kissed Kid's thigh and slipped a finger into place, stroking and sliding.

"Ohhh. Oogh, T-Tantei, that's ver-very..." Breathing hard, and possessed of more coherent language now that he wasn't trying to admit to harboring desires which ran counter-crossways to his perceived self-definition, Kid wriggled against Shinichi's hand, shifting the angle around to find a comfortable position. It found him, startling a choked shout out of him, and the moan that followed, as he rocked his body in a smooth, instinct-driven curve against Shinichi's well-placed fingertip, shivered through the primal low notes of the thief's broad vocal range.

"Oh. Oh, Benten. Do that _again,_" he panted, once he'd gotten his breath back. A sticky thread leaked slowly from the head of his cock, and Kid fumblingly took himself in hand and began to stroke, breath hard and short. Biting his lip, Shinichi did his best to ignore his own body's increasingly insistent demands and slid a second finger in, curling them just a little, just enough, slippery and frictionless. It was strange, so strange; phantom sensations made his body flush with heat all over, and the sounds Kid was making- gods, they were driving him crazy.

Even as his one hand worked, even as he was aware of _Kid's_ movements just above him, his other slipped up to cover Kid's and slow him down. "Easy," Shinichi said softly; he didn't want this to end too quickly, not for either of them. His hand was moving steadily now beneath the other's body, a slow, insistent rhythm of its own. "Don't rush it." How did you tell- how could he know when to...? His own breath was coming fast now, and he had to fight down the need to move, to press against Kid's body and work his way back up-

Kid breathed raggedly, his movements more coordinated now as he pushed himself down hard against the fingers inside him. They were beginning to adapt the speeds and patterns of past movements, and like a ghost of the most recent time they'd been together, Shinichi twisted his fingers a little as he pushed in; Kid had done just that, and the look on his face here and now was- Shinichi bit off a moan of his own; this was, God, seeing him like this was nearly as good as being on the other end of things.

_So far, so good... so, so good; but I need-_ He reached for the foil package he'd brought into the bed with him.

Over his own harsh breath, through the dizzying, world-narrowing haze of absolute pleasure and need that Shinichi's touch kindled in him, Kid heard the crinkle and gasped, thrusting his hips down on Shinichi's hand, choking a groan as the detective's knuckles pressed flush against his skin. "Oh. Oh gods and devils, Sh-Shinichi, please, take me. P-please." His body clenched hard around his boyfriend's fingers, fighting the spreading, scissoring motion as Shinichi flexed within him; his cock bobbed against his belly as he squirmed and spread his thighs wide, pressing down and panting for breath.

"Working on it, Kid," the detective rasped, tearing the condom open with his teeth. "Stay with me." The thief choked back another needy sound, a grunt and a whine and a moan all wrapped together, fingers knotting in the cloth of the sleeping bag at his hips.

"Tantei, Tantei, I - oh, I, I, I can't- I can't-"

"Shhh..." One hand curled around Kid's hip, pushing him back. "Shhh. Just- just feel this. _Feel_ this with me, Kid." Carefully, steadily, Shinichi pressed forward and pressed in.

The world went stop-motion then for a while, narrowed down to the first tentative movements deeper, tiny increments as Kid sucked in a huge, shaky breath and groaned, his body sheened with sweat despite the cool air. Barely breathing himself, Shinichi did his best to hold still. Pressure, and oh god, so _hot-_ The thief's hands gripped his hips and he moved involuntarily, startling a sound out of Kid that made him freeze again. "Kid? Kid, is it- are you okay?" Another movement, another gasp, but it didn't sound like pain and then he pushed forward and **Oh**, that was...

The fingers on his hips slid backwards, down, jerked him _hard_ against Kid's body, and it was that which undid him, that and the noise that his partner made beneath him when he pulled back and did it again, and _again,_ and-

_Oh- god, oh- I- Kid, Kid! Nnnghyesss-_

Rhythm, inevitable as a heartbeat; shocks of pleasure blazing up like flames; hands stroking, grasping, fingernails scoring red marks where they dug into skin; breathing together, off-beat in time to their movements and the way the air-mattress squeaked beneath them, so much, too much, slowly as a pendulum swinging at first and then faster, harder, _deeper-_

And Kid bowed beneath him, arching up to meet Shinichi's every thrust, soaked in sweat, and when it finally all had built up to too much, too good, too sweet and full and hot and hard, oh so hard, filling him like nothing he'd ever known how to imagine, stroking steady and firm and over and over against the spot that lit up his nerves like sparklers-

When it was all just one drop from spilling over, Kid felt Shinichi pulse inside him. And he clamped down, instinctively, lustfully, possessively, nails digging raw scrapes in Shinichi's shoulders as he clenched the detective, _his_ detective, close to him, legs locked tight around Shinichi's thin hips. And through every inch of him, down to his deepest muscles, for one single second only, Kid imagined that all he had to do in life was hold Shinichi close, and never, ever let him go.

"I love you," Kid whispered, his voice hoarse and husky; and then there was just orgasm, white and electrical and overwhelming, and he held Shinichi tight to him as it took him over.

* * *

When they were still at last and their breathing had slowed into true sleep, she moved. Quietly tugging the sleeping bag over both somnolent, exhausted bodies (and cleaning up a little of this and that on the way; sex was nothing if not messy), Ran curled up a few inches away from Kid's back and regarded the two men she had just watched make violent love to one another.

People, she thought sleepily, either paid too much or too little attention to sex. One minute they treated it like something sacred and magical, a cure-all and instant fix-all for a relationship- how many times had she seen dramas on TV where all it took was a tumble into bed and the two lovers instantly understood each others' innermost thoughts? And then, next thing you knew, they acted like it was something sinful and dirty, only to be discussed in rude jokes and innuendo, bathroom humor full of leers and fumbling.

Too serious or too disgusting; how ridiculous- they needed some sort of middle ground for the intimacy to meet the earthiness. She'd seen Kid and Shinichi share more in a single kiss than any three romantic dramas she'd watched; and tonight...

They'd been beautiful. Awkward and so very unsure, SO nervous, wanting _so badly-_ Barely touching, Ran slid a strand of Kid's hair through her fingers and shifted a little closer, breathing in deeply. He smelled strong, a mingling of his own scent and Shinichi's. The thought made her smile to herself, and beyond Kid the detective murmured in his dreams.

"...'v you..."

And oh, how they'd looked towards the end; she'd lain there in silence, eyes drinking them in as they sweated and moved together, hard and hungry and unutterably hot. It was a good thing there was the spring waiting outside; they'd need the heat for their muscles in the morning. Ran sighed a little ruefully, feeling twinges in a few unexpected places of her own; so would she.

Kid turned a bit, restlessly reaching for something, anything, with hands that opened and closed helplessly; Ran eyed them both, thinking... and then moving. It took a little careful wriggling, but when the sleeping bag's folds settled around them again she lay warm and snug in the middle with Shinichi's sleeping face pressed against her shoulder and Kid sprawled like a heat-sink along her side. Both hung onto her and breathed in tandem; and as sleep slowed her body down, Ran felt a tiny bubble of laughter rise up when she realized that her own breathing had fallen into step with theirs.

People _were_ stupid. But they didn't have to be, did they? No. Maybe they'd found their middle ground.

Lying there, perfectly content with her lovers' hands meeting on her body, Ran closed her eyes again and slept.

* * *

.

_Continued next chapter: "Shovel"._


	61. Shovel

_Y'all only thought you were getting ONE chapter this week, yeah? Well, Em n' me thought that it would be fair to give you a bonus, just in case there's anyone out there who doesn't care for the explicit bits in last chapter. 'Course, we're not saying we think there's __**many**__ of you out there like that, but it doesn't hurt to be sure just in case, hmmm? =^_^=_

_So here we go; this chapter continues straight off after the previous, __so if you've just come over to the community to check up on us, make sure you don't miss the other ones, either! If you want to, that is. If it's not your taste, that's fine too; just start here, skipping __**Chapter Fifteen**__, and everything'll make sense, more or less. Last chapter wasn't unimportant by any means, but it had more person-stuff than plot-stuff, so if you skip it you'll miss the NC-17 bits and a bit of important characterisation._

_This chapter...well, this one, and the next, are going to be a bit of fun too, but in entirely different ways. Many truths and secrets revealed, some right on time and some a little late. And a little bit of more explanation of Kaito's magic! See, we told you there was more coming! So here we go, and hold on to your blood pressure medication, you just might need it. ^_^_

_-The Management_

.

* * *

_**Book Five, Chapter Sixteen**__**: "Shovel."**_  
_By Nightengale and Ysabet  
Warnings for Kid being Kid.  
Goodthings-warning for Kid being Kid and a little caving __(don't you love caving? I do. I take my sister caving and torture her whenever possible.)_

They slept late the next morning, all three buried in a tangle of bedding and too many elbows. When both Ran and Shinichi staggered out into the birdcall-loud clearing at last to wake up the campstove and scrounge some sort of breakfast, they both resembled casualties of a rather aggressively affectionate war—bruises here and there, teethmarks in delicate places and a certain tendency to hobble. Ran's hair had, frankly, gotten beyond all control and looked to be attempting to strangle her; wrapped in an unused blanket (the morning air was chilly), she muttered beneath her breath and tried to work her brush through the snarls. "Oww! Stupid—"

"Here, _give_ me that." Equally attired in Classic Refugee, Shinichi tucked his own blanket into place and gathered Ran's hair in one hand. Clumsily at first and then with increasing proficiency, he stroked the brush through the strands, beginning at the bottom and working his way up. "What'd you do, try to braid it in your sleep?"

Ran gave an exaggerated sigh, her hands now free to give the rice cooking away a stir before she lidded it again. "Noooooo, I _think_ it's because of people sleeping on top of it, trying to eat it, and at least one point during the night hanging onto it like a teddy-bear." The mock-indignation melted; "Ooh, that feels good. And anyway, you know very well why it's tangled." One amused, shyly grinning eye peered sideways through the hall of chestnut as she turned her head a little. "Ouch!"

Gently Shinichi squared her head in front of him with his palms. "Then don't turn your head, baka." He was silent for a few moments, sliding the brush through with more and more ease. Then, as shyly: "Did you…" Okay, so asking felt really weird, but— "…enjoy yourself?"

The blanket-covered shoulders hunched a little, but Ran's voice was small and happy. "I did. And… so did you, I guess." He blinked, brush frozen, and she giggled softly. "Shinichiiii, you two were _noisy. Really_ noisy. And all over the bed, and it's not like I was very far away, was I? Keep brushing, please. _Did_ you have fun?" Obediently his hands went back to work while his mind did a frantic little dance.

_-does she mind, is she upset/hurt/angry, I didn't mean, I wasn't trying to-_ Belatedly Shinichi's brain-cells put together Ran's tone of voice and the lack of tension beneath the blanket and came up with a sum total of 'extreme relief and/or you-ARE-an-idiot,-aren't-you-Kudo?' "I, um… ahh…"

A hand plucked the brush away as Ran turned in his arms and hugged him, face buried in his breastbone where the blanket had slid down. "I'm not sorry at all," she murmured, slightly muffled, "and you shouldn't be either. We're just… we're all of us really, really lucky." And he felt her smile against his chest. "But soon as breakfast is ready, I'm getting in the spring again; I'm, um, just a little…"

"…sore?" He allowed his chin to rest on top of her head as Ran muttered something that might've been a yes. "Me too. And as for Kid… Should we let him sleep? He's gonna be hungry. _AND_sore."

"This conundrum can be easily solved!" Shinichi and Ran jerked, startled, as an officious, presumptuous voice projected from the general area of the tent flap. "Clearly, the solution rests in the application... of breakfast in bed!" Now turned to face the tent, both of them bit back giggles as the bottom corner of the tent flap lifted up, revealing the upside-down face of their boyfriend. His bedhead was _awful_ and there were purpled crescents and spots peppering his throat and what little space of his shoulders was visible. The top of his head brushed the ground as he awkwardly rolled onto his back and smiled sheepishly at the other two.

"...Because," Kid continued, now in his normal tone, "attending the meal at the table may be somewhat beyond the capacity of certain members of this intimate gathering."

Laughing, Ran left the rice to Shinichi and went back to the tent, kneeling beside its opening to pull Kid's head into her lap. "Ohh, you. Did you flop your way over to the doorway?"

"Yes," Kid intoned with mournful solemnity, "And I lost half the sleeping bag while I was at it. I now sympathize with the inchworms and beached mermaids."

"Shinichi really did a number on you, didn't he?" Ran asked, impish, but her eyes went wide and she blushed even as the words left her mouth. "Eep. I didn't mean to say that out loud."

Again Kid affected a dramatic tone, sprawling himself shamelessly across Ran's lap, one hand to his brow as though feeling faint. "Yes! I was truly challenged! Pushed to my limit! Perhaps past it, into new heights of self-awareness! And _you,_ my beautiful, wild maenad," Kid added, grinning up at Ran with a loose giddiness, "were no less a part of it than he."

"I hope she skipped the _devouring animals and children_ part," Shinichi contributed dryly, smiling at his lovers despite the somewhat embarrassed flush that just wouldn't go away. "The Greeks were a bit less selective about separating 'lust' and 'rage,' you know."

"Admittedly so," Kid shrugged, letting his arms flop down limply. "Nevertheless! I can sympathize with their abandonment of control." The thief shivered, eyes fluttering briefly closed. "Mmm. I_really_ do not want to attempt to stand up. And while I was _going_ to say that I regret falling asleep before another chance to indulge myself...I'm not certain I'd be coherent, even yet."

"Oh, really?" Shinichi joined Ran at the tent doorway, wincing as he knelt next to the two and knuckled Kid's forehead lightly. "Think you could flop your way back to the spring? We could all do with a soak, and there's no reason we can't eat breakfast in the water so long as we don't drop it. And you'll feel a lot better... when we go hiking afterwards. Remember?" He grinned at the upside-down face, his eyes softening. "We've still got a cave to explore, don't we?" With one hand on Ran's nape, he touched a particularly vivid mark on Kid's neck, flushing as he tried (and succeeded) to recall how it had gotten there. "Umm... and maybe I ought to dig out that ointment of Ai's...?"

Ran blinked, peering down at the hicky. "Oooh. Better do something; that's going to show above your school collar." She ran combing fingers through the thief's hair, doing no good whatsoever. "Come on, nice hot spring- out of bed, you! The early bird gets the... um, rice?"

"Rice is bad for birds," Kid muttered, flopping over onto his stomach listlessly. "Think popcorn."

"You know, you're still not vertical," Shinichi commented, raking his fingers into Kid's hair to massage...then further down to tickle the thief's nape. "Up with you, you miscreant."

"Of course, Officer," Kid snarked, pushing himself up onto hands and knees with a bitten-off groan. "...Ow. Oh, gods. I clearly need more practice at this."

Shinichi leered a bit. "We can work on that. -_Later_," he clarified, as Kid's head perked up with a grin. "Come on now."

"Hai, hai," Kid yawned, accepting Ran's hand to get up. The blankets fell off of him as he rose; stark naked, he stepped out of the tent and stretched, shoulders popping as he rolled them. "Mmmm. Mmmh. Okay." The thief blinked hard, shaking his head a little to clear it, and smiled clearly at Ran and Shinichi. "Rice?"

"...Aren't you even a little chilly?" Ran asked, looking from Shinichi's bundled state, to her own, to Kid's bare skin. "It's not warm!"

"Heists," Kid reminded her simply, one eyebrow up to accompany his fond smile. "In all weathers, up high where the air is thinner and colder, flying fast with strong wind whipping past, wearing nothing warmer than a dress suit and under-armour." He grinned, heading for the camp stove and its tasty subject. "Besides." Kid grinned over his shoulder at both of the others, his expression one notch off of lewd and his grin one decibel down from shouting. "I _do_ have a fair amount of self-control."

Ran and Shinichi looked at each other, expressions saying _'NOW he does'_ so loudly that the words were completely unnecessary. Not like it had been his fault or anything, but... With mutual eyerolls they scrambled up and headed to the spring and to breakfast.

Shortly, clothes littered the bank, and three content bodies stewed in the steaming pool. The rice and other breakfast-type foods vanished way before anyone was ready to get out, and by the time ointment had been dabbed on and towels used, the sun was high in the trees. Scratching at a bandaid that decorated his own collarbone, Shinichi followed the flight of a handful of crows as they chased each other downstream. "I can't believe we haven't seen anybody here yet. _Somebody_ else uses this spring, right? There's the firering, it didn't build itself, and the marks on the shovel... What are those, anyway?"

Kid shrugged, busy pulling on his socks. "It's a hot springs thing, for wild springs at least; a lot of them have a marker somewhere for people to put the date that they used it, maybe their initials. Sometimes it's a tree or a boulder; here, it's the shovel." He glanced towards the implement in question, leaning against a nearby pine, and waved the other sock vaguely towards it. "The dates on that go back more than two dozen years... You might find them interesting, Tantei."

Shinichi brought the shovel back for Ran's examination too, studying the handle as he came. "Seems like this place has seen relatively constant use, in a way; the dates are well-spaced but regular. And some of the markings repeat - it seems like there's a small rotation going on here. Do you know any of these other parties?" the detective asked the thief, his curiosity sparked.

"Just one," Kid nodded, smiling charmingly. "The last visit that he made, though, was about twelve years ago."

Shinichi was already scanning the shovel's handle, moving up its length as he followed the years back. Halfway up, he slowed to a stop, eyes narrowing as he scanned the characters and dates for a pattern. And when he found it, his expression slowly opened up in astonishment. He looked up to meet Kid's eyes. "No...?"

Kid smiled. "Yes."

As he stood the heavy, weather-beaten shovel back up against the tree, Shinichi allowed his fingertips to rest lightly against the kana midway down its handle. _Thank you,_ he thought silently towards Kuroba Toichi, twelve years into the past and long gone... yet very present in the persons of his sons. Not for the first time, the detective felt regret well up in him; he would never meet the man, never have the chance to know him any more than he had so many other murder victims whose cases he'd been involved in over the years. If nothing else, that was enough to turn his thoughts briefly towards the work that awaited them back in Beika for a moment-

-but only for a moment. There was still time for a hike, and a cave.

* * *

The stream-bed was full of glitter from the sun, sky and clouds reflecting blue and white around their feet as they wandered downstream. Stiffness over for the most part, they splashed handfuls of water at each other, shied flat pebbles across the stretch of ripples and generally just played like children. Where the stream went to whitewater, Ran took off her shoes and socks and waded in the rivulets until she was shivering and laughing at the same time.

"Kid?" Stopping to shake a pebble out of his shoe, Shinichi cocked an inquiring eye at the thief, who had paused as well; a pale green butterfly was flickering around his head as if considering his hair for a landing pad. "You remember how last night you said you wanted to add to what your brother was saying about magic?"

"Mmm, yes." Kid stepped carefully forward, tiptoeing from stone to stone with smooth motions, leading his butterfly in a slow dance downstream as he answered Shinichi's inquiry. "Kaito tends to hugely oversimplify the process of magic, and he's given you the wrong impression of it, I think. It's not as simple as willing the magic to be and picking an arbitrary cost to pay.

"The cost has to equal the benefit gained, but how do you choose equal value? How many hours of unconsciousness equal two gems in the hand? How much extra does it add if you refuse to pay anything for an hour? If you guess wrong, how do you diffuse or pay the kickback? Also consider that the cost and the gain have to be opposites to each other in some way; there's a yin to the cost that has to fit or 'go with' the yang of the gain.

"There aren't any algorithms, no formulas for this sort of thing, and even if there were the values of each tradeoff would vary based on the strength of the magician, their specialties and weaknesses, even their mood and desires. Every use of the magic is a calculation of instinct, made on the fly. The magician has to be able to fearlessly make these decisions - these educated gambles, really - or else pay costs, in timing or in additional magic strain, for his hesitation.

"Obviously, this inspires many magicians to avoid showy displays when they can, and to find gain-cost trades which work for them and repeat them often. My brother, though..." The thief laughed. "I don't think he's ever exactly repeated a trick. He's always adding things, switching them around, playing and improving anything he does."

Kid sighed without sorrow, turning to face the other pair as they wandered down the bank, and spread his arms to the sides as he paced backwards. "For my brother, doing magic isn't really something he _does_; it's something he _is_."

The other two considered this in silence; at last, Shinichi nodded, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes distant with thought. "You paid for the transportation of Sadalmelik with strain and exhaustion," he said slowly, "and the loss of your own energy. Huh; makes a certain amount of sense, I guess, energy translating into mass and vice versa... I remember what you looked like when I found you; even sitting up was an effort. I'm guessing from what your brother said last night that some of what you were paying for was fighting back the pepper-spray effects-?" A flash of guilt suffused the detective's features for a moment; he still felt unhappy about that part of the scenario, and he was beginning to suspect that the spray had, at least in potential, done more damage than he'd originally guessed.

His mind still dwelt on the entire check-and-balance reasoning of magic and costs; algorithms or not, formulas or not, it was almost impossible for him to keep from trying to work it out in his head. "Mass and the energy to move it with your own energy; and last night, control with control; and it's all a judgement call? Practice would _literally_ have to make perfect in that case; no wonder your brother's so good. I hope he never has to move anything larger than that amethyst," Shinichi murmured, worry niggling behind the thought. "Like... oh, say, your entire body. Or anybody else's." Because if the translocation of an inert, lifeless stone over a distance of five hundred kilometers had put the two Kuroba brothers down that hard, then what would moving the living mass of an entire human being do?

Hopefully none of them would ever have to find out.

Ran followed the pale green butterfly's flight with her eyes; it dipped and wove over their heads, returning to circle Kid once more before straying aside to check out a spray of wildflowers. "You know," she said meditatively, "if Nakamori-keibu actually believed, really believed, that you were using honest-to-god _real_ magic, he'd probably... I don't know. Hire a priest? An exorcist? Or at least start carrying omamori with him on heists; that's what I'd do." She frowned. "I wonder how many of the Taskforce already carry good-luck charms?"

"Interdepartmental gossip says quite a few." Shinichi squinted through the sunlight; they were nearly at the rocky outcropping.

A little smile peeked out as Ran pushed a straggle of hair back. "Really? I'm not exactly surprised." The smile widened just a trifle as she watched Kid, still walking backwards, and she shook her head. "If your brother does magic because he _is_ magic, does that mean you do mischief because you're...?"

"Made of mischief?" Kid laughed, bending at the waist, arms folded behind him; the effect strongly emphasized the thief's slim build and angular shoulders and back. "I think you're right, myself. I don't know what I'm made of, but I'd like to think I've got my father's Puckish nature somewhere in me. And on that note, we're here."

The thief turned back to the path ahead of them, looking up. The streamside path buckled unsteadily upwards as the presence of large boulders and tree roots forced its adaptation; some fifty yards beyond the first rocks, an outcropping, almost clifflike in its abruptness, rose over the stream. The base of it, clearly worn away by the water in past years when the stream had run higher, sat further back than the moss- and vine-entangled height of the rock, which smoothly curved up and over the water and the scattered rocks below, casting shadows there. Also in shadow, darker with its own depth, was an opening into the rock, a cave of some depth, though its full size wasn't clear from the bank below.

With a grin and an incredible lightness in his step, Kid bounced forward, hopping from the trail to the tallest of the several boulders which began the uneven incline up to the cave. From there he leaped up to the next and the next, barely landing before he was pushing off again, never touching the dirt path three feet below. He gained the top of the shallow hill, which was more of an obstacle in its unevenness than its length or slope; balanced on a pointed rock like a perching bird, heels together, Kid pivoted to grin back at the other two. "You're slow!"

"You're a _mountain goat,_" Shinichi shot back, accepting Ran's helping hand to get up past a point where two boulders squeezed too close together to allow passage except by climbing over their middle. "Sometimes I wonder what would happen if someone used you to power a perpetual motion machine."

"Wouldn't work." Kid beamed, unruffled. "My brother's the twitchy one. Come on, we're nearly there."

Shinichi and Ran reached the cave mouth with a few more minutes' labor, and were each rewarded with a big, messy smooch on the cheek from Kid. Linking hands, the thief led them confidently into the cave. It was a small thing, and true darkness never really reached them; as they left the first enclosure, ducking through a narrow, arrow-slit-like channel into a larger one, they both made surprised noises as the loss of light that they'd expected never materialized.

"Is there another exit?" Ran wanted to know, slowly following Kid in the gloom. All three of them shuffled slightly, feeling their footing before committing to it, but Kid showed no hesitation, though both his hands were held, as he walked further into the room.

"Not an exit for us," Kid answered, smiling back at her. The whites of his eyes and his teeth caught a little light, standing out against the shadows. "It's right over there." He released Ran's hand, then Shinichi's, guiding them to proceed before him toward the back wall of the cave.

The wall was lit with a small patch of sunlight, as though a spotlight shone on the rough rock; once they were closer, its source became clear. A small, perfectly circular hole in the top of the cave, hidden from view by the lumps and edges of the uneven ceiling, was visible only once Shinichi and Ran had come all the way up to the back wall. One arm sliding reflexively around Ran's shoulders, Shinichi shielded his eyes against the light streaming in from the hole, looking to Kid for explanation.

"I don't get it."

"Hold your hand up to block the light so you can see," Kid advised, hooking his chin over Shinichi's free shoulder with a familiar smile. "Make an eclipse."

He did; they both did, right eyes blocked by hands held up a foot or so away and clenched in fists to mimic the circle of sunlight. As the glare diminished, the details of the ceiling came out of obscurity: veins of faint color, striations and cracks that the dimness had made invisible. And- a bit of black, trailing down from one side of the circle perhaps a foot or so and ending in a triangle, the four-lobed design within perfectly clear even in the gloom.

A monocle, a _very specific_ monocle, designed half by nature and half by the hand of man. A gentleman thief's graffitti- "Did you draw that?" demanded Shinichi incredulously, utterly fascinated; beside him, Ran drew in a breath and stood on her toes, vainly trying to get a closer glimpse. Kid shook his head silently, chin brushing the detective's shoulder. "...your father, then. Charcoal? Paint?- never mind, doesn't matter."

It was like an eye, looking down at them: enigmatic but benign, utterly silent but saying quite clearly _I was here and you are here and we are/were here._ If a Cheshire-cat smile had glimmered below and to one side, Shinichi knew that the shock would have driven him speechless as well... and yet, it would not have seemed out of place.

He turned his head, studying the current keeper of that smile; Kid's face was serene, unclouded by worry or pain. His eyes were fixed on the monocle, and almost without willing it Shinichi raised his hand up, thumb and forefinger closing in a circle and resting against his thief's cheekbone. "How did you find it?" Ran asked softly, wonderingly into the quiet. "Your father's notes?" Kid nodded, still silent; the circular spot of light that the hole allowed through made a dim golden sun all its own on the rocky floor beneath their feet, and tiny glints caught in his eyes as he leaned against them both.

It was, Shinichi realized, a blowhole. At some point many thousands of years past the small creek must've been a much larger river; the river had created the cave, the cave had put pressure against the weakest point in the surrounding rock, and the rock had crumbled to allow the water to spray through. That was why the stone was relatively smooth; untold centuries of seepage had coated the place in limestone, but the cave itself had been shaped by running water.

He leaned back against Kid, free arm going around his waist even as Ran's did the same; and all the while, Shinichi's mind worked at fitting fact to fact, conjecture to conjecture. "That's..." The word _remarkable_ wanted to come out, but it seemed inadequate. "I wish... I wish I could have met him. Who else knows about this?" he asked, fingers linking through a beltloop.

"You two," Kid answered, tipping his head against Shinichi's looped fingers as though into a lover's caress - because, actually, the touch was. "Jii-san and I read over all my father's work together, so he's known as long as I have. Kaito does, obviously. And that's all. Not Kaasan. It would just make her sadder.

"I always smile when I come here to see his mark," Kid continued, looking up at the marked stone with a smile. "I wish I could have showed you how it looks with the moon coming through, but it's not the right time of month for that.

"But!" Clapping his hands together, the thief stepped back from his lovers with a grin, stepping just far enough back that the darkness around him obscured much of his face; in the brighter beam of the cave's blowhole, Ran and Shinichi had to squint hard to even see him. "We should think about getting back; I don't want you transforming while we're on the road. But before that..." The thief held out both hands, palms up, beckoning the others to follow him away from the light. "I feel faint! I believe I've suffered emotional stress. Oh dear me, my poor heart is pattering! Clearly I must have kisses or I shall perish."

Shinichi looked at Ran; Ran looked at Shinichi. There was a brief, meaningful silence.

"...do you know him?"

"Never met him before in my life. Shall we go?"

"Took the words right out of my mouth."

With Kid making distressed, plaintive noises behind them, the two linked arms and strolled out of the cave and into the sunlight... where, of course, they separated to either side and tackled their thief to the ground as he exited behind them (not that he hadn't expected this.) A few interesting and involved minutes later, Shinichi propped one elbow on the thief's chest and poked him in the sternum with a finger. "Y'know, if we ever need a place to meet up- someplace safe, a place nobody else knows about-"

Kid nodded, or at least did the best he could flat on his back with two bodies more or less sprawled most distractingly atop his own. "The thought had- _mmmhh_- occurred." He squirmed slightly; Ran had decided that his left earlobe required a little protracted nibbling and was attending to the matter. "And all we'd... ahhm, just keep doing that... we'd have to leave in a message would be... 'spring', or, or 'marshmallows', or... Help me out here, Tantei, I'm having just the slightest bit of difficulty... concentrating..."

"'Shovel'," murmured Shinichi, and turned the word into a kiss.

* * *

Packing didn't take long, not with three pairs of hands working at it; when the last tent-stake had been knocked free of dirt and the firering thoroughly flooded, Kid spent a few minutes carefully adding a few incised lines to the shaft of the shovel, patted it affectionately, and left it standing upright like a sentinel in the center of the clearing. "We'll be back," Ran murmured, looking over her shoulder as she picked up the last of her burdens. And whether the promise was to Shinichi and Kid or to the place itself didn't really matter; they would.

The drive back was quiet, made in an easy silence only punctuated occasionally by conversation. Talk turned occasionally to magic or camping or the right way to make a S'more, but for the most part they listened to music or just watched the scenery roll past. Nobody referred to what lay waiting for them back in Beika or anything at all to do with the missing children; if their break was only to last a little longer, not one of the three wanted to be the first to nudge it into an ending.

Stretched out across the backseat once again (just in case of impromptu shrinkage), Shinichi contemplated the car's ceiling through half-closed eyes. He could feel the change somewhere off in the distance- it was interesting in a kind of creepy way, a thundercloud-dark edge to his senses waiting to ambush him when the time was right. Where _did_ the chemical trigger for the change lurk in his body, anyway? In his bone-marrow, in his endocrine system, or in the very components that made up his every cell? Shinichi mulled this over. He didn't recall being able to sense it before; that was new. And considering just how much physical activity he'd indulged in this weekend, being able to pick up on the odd, itchy sense of _transformation_ hanging over him like an impending headache might just mean that his time was nearly up.

_Well, what the hell; if it is, it is. I don't regret a goddamn thing; this has been... there aren't words. I needed this more than I could've possibly known, and so did Kid and Ran._ Shinichi spent a little time just lying there silently allowing gratitude to wash through his thoughts, deep and very nearly overwhelming. _A year ago I was still stuck as Conan with only a handful of brief changes to break it up; a year before that, pretty much the same. I remember- when I first got shrunk, I was positive I could get out of it- there was no way I was going to stay that way, it just couldn't happen. Agasa'd find some sort of fix, or there'd be some sort of breakthrough with the Black Organization, or the drug'd wear off, or... I was so certain. I wonder if I was certain because thinking anything else would've scared me out of my mind? Probably._

_And now..._

_I wonder if it was like that when Kuroba and Kid began together? If they thought they'd pull a few heists, find the right gem, boom! It'd be all over fast, abracadabra? And they've been at it longer than I've been shrunk. Years- At least they didn't have to do it alone; I'm glad of that. Heh; not the sort of thing I was thinking during most of their heists, but things change._

_And Ran; when I 'left', when she missed me, I... heard about it, as Conan; and at first it was irritation, then it was worry and she kept getting upset, and then... I hurt her so much; never wanted to, but I did. And she waited for me. All that time, she waited and never gave up on me. Anybody else would've- I have a lot to be grateful for._

Gratitude again.

Shinichi yawned; the motion of the car, the quiet voices from the front seat, the radio's indistinguishable murmur- it all blended into background, as soothing as the pillow he'd stuffed beneath his head. Sleep dragged at his eyelids, but he didn't want to doze, not just yet, even though the sunlight slanting through the opposite window burned his eyes.

_Sunlight... like the light in the cave._ Like the way it had caught the very tips of Kid's eyelashes and shivered down Ran's hair as they'd turned to leave, golden as old coins. Round as a coin, too, that disc of light- perfectly round, like the moon. _Kid didn't have to show us that; even those marks on the shovel that his father'd made, those were... a confidence; showing us the cave was ten times as much. It's been his and his alone all this time, and he __shared__ it with us; that-_ Shinichi's eyelids flickered closed, and he wondered at the level of trust that the secret had carried with it.

Sometimes just offering up his own secrets and self in return felt... inadequate, somehow, despite his non-inconsiderable ego. But, he reflected wryly, Kid would almost certainly laugh at him if he ever admitted this, and so he never would. The best thing he could do, Shinichi supposed, would be to try to live up to what he was offered and accept it with gratitude.

'Gratitude'; that word once more. _I can live with that,_ thought the detective drowsily, and smiled to himself as he buried his face against the pillow and slept.

* * *

"He's asleep already, I think," murmured Ran, glancing over her shoulder at the huddled form in the back; she had to smile a little—Shinichi slept like his childish other self, all wrapped around himself in a loose curl, face half-hidden. Some things never changed.

Kid's hands were steady on the steering-wheel as he pulled from the small side road they'd been following through the hills onto a larger one. "Good. We don't want him transforming en route, after all, it'd completely ruin the upholstery." He gave Ran a flicker of a sideways glance, half humorous, half serious. "And we'd have to open all the windows too."

The thought of speeding down the highway with eau-de-Shinichi streaming out the windows while their detective sweated and shrank his way into his more diminutive form was enough to make the young woman shudder. "Um. _**No.**_ You don't really think that he'll-?" She peered back at Shinichi anxiously, but there were no signs of anything other than what could be entirely normal weariness; he'd had a busy night, after all. They _all_ had.

Kid shook his head, most of his attention firmly taken up by his driving—there'd been a light rain in the area earlier and the pavement was wet—but he brushed the knuckles of his near hand against Ran's cheek soothingly. "I wouldn't worry so much. Even if this is the first of Tantei's usual dozes, we still have time. And besides…" That glance again, accompanied by a flash of white teeth, "…I think the culprit's more likely to be too much exercise." The grin had 'smug' written all over it. Ran snuck another look back, but, somewhat reassured, relaxed a little.

For a while, memories of the trip were enough to occupy her mind; and she leaned one elbow against the windowsill, idly watching trees and signposts tick past as vague thoughts of firelight and hot water slipped through her mind like sleepy, slow-moving fish. She was tired too, she supposed, and the sunbeams lay heavy against her eyelids. Kid was silent, only occasionally breaking the quiet to change stations on the radio or, at one point, to ask Ran if she minded a brief stop.

Japan had a fairly well-designed system of rest stations; they tended to be intimidating to foreigners but are usually well-stocked with automated machines of pretty much every type imaginable (and a few unimaginable ones.) Kid made a beeline towards the coffee dispensers while Ran leaned over the backseat, shaking her boyfriend's shoulder gently. "Shinichi? Shinichi-?" The mumbled reply she received had something in it of 'go away' and 'are we there yet?' both, and she sat back with a relieved sigh. "You could wake up a little," she told the huddled figure reproachfully. "We've still got another hour to go, and I wouldn't worry so much if you'd just _talk_ to me a little."

That got a response, though a muddled and half-aware one; Shinichi flopped over sideways, arm shielding his eyes from the low-lying sun. "Nnnngh… s'rry," he muttered. "Jus'….. sleepy. So sleepy—" He made an effort, dragging his arm down and wincing as his eyes cracked open. "Wha' time izzit?"

"Almost four-thirty." Ran smoothed the tangle of bangs back from a sweating forehead—and paused, concerned by the heat beneath her palm. "…Shinichi? Are you—okay? _OKAY_-okay?" she asked meaningfully, her hand still resting on his brow.

The detective blinked, blinked again, and frowned. "…m'not sure," he said slowly, speech still dragging with drowsiness. "Not—changing yet, but I don't feel… I'm cold." Shoulders hunched against the seat for a moment, and then Shinichi shuddered as he pushed himself slowly up. He looked pale, and his eyes had a bleary look to them as he squinted out the window. "Coffee?"

"Here, Tantei." Kid had his hands full balancing three steaming cups plus a rather random assortment of snack-food packages crammed beneath one elbow; as Ran hastily took two of the containers, he slid backwards into the driver's seat to peer at Shinichi with concern. "It's early," he murmured, "very early; but I suppose anything's possible after this weekend." One hand reached out to stroke Shinichi's forehead much in the same way Ran had, pausing as a shiver shook the detective's thin frame. "Cold?" An eyebrow went up, and without another word he slipped back out of the car to rummage in the trunk.

A few minutes later the heat of the coffee and a blanket excavated from the camping-gear had improved matters at least a little; the fog had faded from Shinichi's eyes to be replaced by alertness, though he still tugged the fabric tight around his shoulders. "Maybe we'd better get moving," he muttered, draining the last of the cup with a grimace as Kid leaned against the open door, frowning; "I think-" His cellphone jangled harshly, making all three jump. "-uh-" Huddling deeper into the blanket, the detective fumbled with the phone. "Moshi moshi... Professor? Wait, slow down, I can't-" He held the phone back from his ear with an almost comical expression of dismay. "Look, we- no, everything's okay, well, mostly okay, I might be pushing th- what? ...he _what__?"_

Holding the phone out again, Shinichi slumped rather pathetically against the seat, looking ill. "Note To Self: the next time we go off into the middle of nowhere _while under surveillance by the police,_ be sure and NOTIFY said police. So, you know, they don't panic and decide that we've been kidnapped. End Of Note. Ran? Could you-?" He brandished the phone, which was by now spilling all sorts of noises into the car; biting her lip, his girlfriend took it gingerly from him and Shinichi flopped down onto the seat with a groan.

The door beside his head opened and Kid slid in; hands scooped the detective's head and shoulders up carefully, slipping them into the thief's lap as he settled into place. "I take it we've caused something of a fuss, Tantei?" inquired Kid brightly, fingers threading through Shinichi's sweat-damp hair.

"Uh. You could say that," Shinichi grumbled, turning his face against Kid's knee; in the front seat, Ran's diplomatic tones grew more strident, bit by bit, as she attempted to politely out-talk the person (or perhaps by this point, persons) on the other end. "For starters, Takagi-keiji is _at the house,_ and I'm sure there's other officers, plural, at Mouri's place and maybe even Sonoko's or something. Professor Agasa is over there trying to minimize the damage, my parents are still at that hot spring in Osaka so _they're_ no help, and Mouri's probably _livid_." Covering his face in one hand, Shinichi groaned in frustration.

"I feel like an idiot. How did I forget that we'd have to warn the police? Or Agasa? Or _anyone_? I pointed out the _stakeout cars_, for God's sake, it's not like I didn't know they were there." Kid stroked his boyfriend's hair back soothingly, his smile confidently guilt-free.

"Well, perhaps you trusted, when I presented such a confident and absolute declaration of our weekend plans, that I had taken care of all the arrangements." Shinichi rolled his head back to look Kid in the eye, hackles rising in wariness at the tone in the thief's voice, _that one_, the one that meant pink bloomers were imminent. "And perhaps a few of them slipped my mind. So perhaps a few _B-R-B, gone fishing_ notes were left unsent."

"_Kid!_" Shinichi sat up fast, glaring at the thief; then groaned and crumpled back down, gentled and aided by Kid's supporting hands. In the front seat, Ran was having trouble staying focused on her conversation, most of which appeared to involve quietly listening to relieved screaming from Takagi, Megure, and of course, her father.

Burrowed into his nest of blankets and still shivering, Shinichi nevertheless fixed their boyfriend with his sternest glare. "Kid, are you seriously saying you pranked Division One? On purpose? That's not even- _that's not funny!_"

"No need to sound so scandalized, my dear," Kid chided him, leaning down to kiss Shinichi's nose. The detective frowned, shirking back from the affection like a disgruntled cat, and so Kid rubbed Shinichi's hair all the wrong way and chased his nose, kissing it - and his mouth, of course - excessively. When he pulled back, lips and tongue slick and tingling, Shinichi's glare was less convincing but still quite intact.

"For God's sake, Kid, this is just about the same as intentionally abusing police resources! Misleading authority! Hell, it _is!_" As Kid's smile simply grew wider and wider, Shinichi threw his hands up with an utterly frustrated half-scream. "But you know this already! You did it on purpose! I should know better, and you don't at all! Why am I even talking to you about this!" The detective flopped back into Kid's lap in complete defeat, still sputtering indignantly.

_That's my tantei~ ,_ Kid beamed, not listening at all.

By the time Shinichi's diatribe had wound down, so had the conversation on the other end of the line... to a certain degree, at least; Kogoro Mouri's voice could still be heard lecturing in a tin-plated dictator sort of way, and Ran wedged herself between the front seats and leaned back, intentions plain. So with the phone held well away, she stole a kiss from first Kid and then Shinichi before bringing the cell back reluctantly to her ear. "-Yes, Tousan, I _know,_ but we had a wonderful time at the campground, and I guess the hills just- I know, I remember that time we were in- yes, just like that; no signal. I'm really sorry, Tousan..."

"-um, home? When will we be-" She blinked, looking at Kid questioningly; the thief held up a finger, frowned, and added one more before holding up both hands in front of his eyes and making mock-spectacles with each thumb and forefinger before drawing a bushy moustache below his nose as well. "-We'll be home in about two hours, only we were going to go to- Professor Agasa's, right, because we, we- borrowed a lot of his camping gear. And we have to return it. Tonight, we promised. And we- Oh; oh, you won't? I mean, you are?"

Ran blinked, pulling the cell away again. "Mahjong," she whispered. "Won't be back til tomorrow."

Well, _that_ made things a little easier, at least.

"We can have an overnighter!" Kid gleed, squeezing Shinichi's hand and supporting his head in sympathy even as he continued to mercilessly tease. "Hide away in the Kudo master bedroom, have some rabu~rabu~ tii-aiiiiiya, aiya, don't pinch so hard." He grinned down at the cranky detective, gamely refusing to flinch away from the way Shinichi's thumb and finger torqued his cheek. "Okay, not the master bedroom. The living room instead? Ow!"

"_Kid,_" Ran interjected, covering the mouthpiece of the phone and aiming a pretty, steely glare at the thief, "Would you pretty please _shut up_ before Tousan hears you?" She turned back to the phone, anxious, ignoring her boyfriends as she listened.

"Okay, Tousan. Should I- Not even for tomorrow? I could make donburi... Oh! Oh, well if it's that way, that's much better. Tell Yoko-san hello for Conan-kun and me, okay? I thought everything was... Oh. Oh, I suppose so. I hope it's not too dangerous. -Don't give me that! You be careful.

"Of course we'll be fine! Ki-Kaito is a great driver. You remember him, he's a friend of- Yes, well. He was a perfect gentleman. Yes. Yes. No, of course not! You wh- oh. _Really?_ You're sure we can't just tell him we're fine, no need to worry, send home his other offic... Oh dear. Yes, of course. Yes. We'll drive safely.

"See you tomorrow morning, Tousan."

Ran clicked the phone shut with an intensely worried, preoccupied air, fingers fidgeting. Shinichi snaked one hand out of his blanket to wave it at her; she laced her fingers with his without hesitation, twisting around in her seat to accomplish the reach.

"It's nothing _horrible_," she began, answering the silent question in Shinichi's eyes. "It's just, um. ...Takagi-keiji will be waiting for us at Professor Agasa's. And he, um. Has some words for us."

"I'll just bet he does," muttered the detective, wincing. It wasn't as bad as it might have been (he'd developed a perfectly _wonderful_ mental image of all five members of Division One, Group Three lined up along the road to Agasa's with accusing looks and no less than a dozen squadcars parked beside them, lights flashing.) It still rankled that he'd forgotten; if there was an excuse for that at all, maybe it was simply that it had been a long, long time since he'd had to account for his whereabouts to anyone besides the very small, very intimate circle of people who knew his secret. That this circle had just expanded exponentially wasn't an excuse, but it was a reason.

Another thought occurred, and Shinichi's eyes suddenly widened. "Did- eeeergh. Did Takagi say anything about contacting Hattori?" he asked, sweating; Ran's expression was answer enough, and with flying fingers he snatched the phone back and hit speed-dial.

...fortunately, he managed to catch Heiji _just_ in time to keep him from paying for a very fast, very expensive trip via shinkansen to Beika. The Osakajin's command of profanity covered a much wider range than Shinichi had been aware of; some of those words would have to be looked up later. "And you aren't helping one bit," Shinichi informed the snickering thief as he ended the call. "Hattori said you texted him- when? And what'd you say?"

Somehow Kid managed to put air-quotes around his words using nothing but his voice. _"'Gone to Narnia with stalwart companions, BRB. No worries, wardrobe guaranteed free of all criminal elements save that of yours truly.'"_ He beamed at both Ran and Shinichi, eyes creased in amused crescents. "Right before we left, and from your own phone. Unsigned, of course, but he IS a bright sort, I was certain he'd figure it out."

"Oh, he did. And then Takagi called him, he got impatient, tried to reach me a half-dozen times, didn't get through and decided enough was enough." Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "And do you know what he was planning to do when he got here?"

"Oh, doubtless try to squash me like a bug. 'Try', of course, being the operative word." The halo was very nearly visible; Ran and Shinichi's eyes met in a moment of mutual _We're-Doomed,-Aren't-We?_ before Ran took the phone away, firmly turned it off, and tucked it in the detective's pocket.

The rest of the ride back was fairly peaceful, at least in comparison.

.

* * *

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_So whatcha think? Let us know! We'll see you next week - only one chapter then, so take your time with this week's and savor them! Til later... _


	62. A friend, Takagikeiji?

_Evening, all! Welcome to the end of the week; it's been a long one, and we hope you've all survived it in one piece (or bits that can be easily reassembled, at least.) Everybody got all their arms and legs in the proper places? Lets check. ...yep? Okay then, let's get going._

_Tonight's chapter has a great deal of dialogue and some rather important character development- or we like to think so, anyway. Those of you who are Takagi fans should particularly enjoy yourselves; he's a big part of this chapter. If you think Division One's been busy so far, just you wait... ____The Management_

___._

_**Book Five, Chapter Seventeen**__**: "A friend, Takagi-keiji?"**_  
By **nightengale** and **ysabet**  
Warnings: Conan-angst and Kid playing with his toys and Extreme Chess. :3

* * *

By the time they pulled into the Professor's drive the sun was setting and Shinichi was in less than prime condition. Some of his discomfort had been alleviated by more short dozes, but it was fairly obvious that neither time nor biology intended to wait for him. Sweating and feverish, he pushed himself up as the car halted. "Kid," he muttered, "Takagi. Cops. _**Cops**_. You leave us here, we'll be 'kay, can get our stuff fr'm you later." Shinichi struggled upright determinedly, pupils narrowed to pinpoints as he fumbled with the doorhandle. "Just need t'get inside and Ai'll—"

"Ai'll have our skins for a new lab-coat, is what she'll do," snapped Ran, sliding out even as Kid did the same. "We'll think of something, Shinichi; it's not like he's wearing his working clothes. AND he's quicker at thinking on his feet than either of us are right now." Practicality (and Ran's implacable stubbornness) won the day, and even as the front door opened Shinichi was beginning to rise to his feet, each arm draped over a willing shoulder.

Through the tumultuous, confusing scramble of getting inside and into the all-too-familiar bed in Agasa's tiny downstairs guestroom, Shinichi was aware of a pair of appalled dark eyes fixed on him: Takagi Wataru, hovering in the background. He knew better than to get in the way (although his eyes widened as he watched Haibara hook up an IV with cool precision) and stayed outside the doorway while the visibly-faltering detective was bundled between the sheets, medicated and at last allowed to rest. His eyes strayed inevitably to the one face he did not know, had not (officially) met nor could put a name to; and through the rising curtain of distortion that was gradually inserting itself between Shinichi's brain and everything else he could only be grateful that this was Takagi and not Shiratori.

_So much for Kid's sleepover idea, though. Damn, damn, damn. Stupid body, your timing __sucks__,_ he thought blearily.

When things had settled down and the world consisted pretty much of cool white sheets, the beep of an IV and the warmth of several blankets, Shinichi came back into focus a little more and found, much to his rather muzzy horror, that Takagi was in the midst of making Kid's acquaintance.

"-known each other for a few years now," the thief was saying, from his perch on the side of the bed at Shinichi's knee. Takagi sat in a folding chair a small distance away from Shinichi's bedside, watching Kid with great focus. "I have to admit, I was still angry with him for abandoning me for a year or so, even after he'd explained what had happened."

"A-angry?" Takagi tried not to choke on his surprise, looking at Kid's face and expression like he was expecting a physical consequence of the young man's seemingly absurd statement. A tengu nose, perhaps? "He nearly got killed by a-" Takagi dropped his voice to a self-conscious whisper, nervously glancing to the door. Ai, who'd just come in to check on the patient, rolled her eyes - utterly unimpressed.

"-A shadow organization," Takagi finished gamely, feeling somewhat ridiculous. Briefly he wished for Miwako's support, then scolded himself for thinking that way; he was an officer in his own right, and what sort of man would he be if he couldn't even conduct a conversation with two teenagers - well, one of them at the moment, Shinichi-kun wasn't quite coherent yet - without feeling apologetic or stammering? Even if the conversation in question was one that put his sanity in question as well? Not the sort of man that deserved Miwako, that was for sure. With thoughts of Shiratori-keiji's imposing nature and stiff upper lip, Takagi forged onward.

"What I mean is, he nearly got killed and you got mad at him for losing touch?"

"Well, of course," Kid - 'Kaito,' a close friend and confidante of both Ran and Shinichi, as far as Takagi had been told - shrugged, smiling easily. "We hadn't finished our chess match."

Takagi stared and a somewhat strangled noise came from the vicinity of Shinichi's pillow. "...Chess...match?"

"Yes," Kid answered, turning with concern to Shinichi and helping the detective to roll over onto his side, holding up a cup of water with a straw. "It's been about an hour and a half since you passed out here," the thief said, bringing Shinichi up to speed. "The chibi-tensai says everything is okay, but she's frowning more than usual. If that's possible." Kid paused, stroking hair back from Shinichi's brow with worried tenderness, unconcerned with what it would look like to Takagi's eyes. "...I'm afraid for your elbows. And so forth."

Shinichi coughed lightly, rolling his head into the touch. "...Bring it," he muttered, scrunching his face up as he buried it into the pillow. "I'm burning up."

"I don't know if lowering the temperature in here would be a good idea, but I can ask chibi-tensai if-" Shinichi held up - well, tried to hold up - a staying hand, and Kid gently clasped it with his own, stopping mid-sentence. "Okay. I won't."

Shinichi lapsed into drowsy incoherence again, and without releasing the detective's hand, Kid turned back to Takagi with a shallow smile.

"Please forgive that interruption." Takagi nodded, dismissing it, and Kid nodded in return appreciation. "But, you asked about the chess match.

"Tantei-san and I began an extended chess game some time ago; it was a good time for us, shortly after we'd met, and the excitement of facing off against each other made our matches very rewarding. When one game ends, we simply reset the board and begin play once more. There's a tally of wins and losses somewhere. I doubt either of us will ever win, as we don't intend to end this little private tournament anytime soon; we would have to get bored with it before we'd do that, and-" he squeezed Shinichi's hand, and though muzzy and in pain, Shinichi squeezed back - "I don't think we'll do that, either."

"I, um. ...Never knew Shinichi-kun liked chess," Takagi mumbled awkwardly, his gaze flicking from one friend to the other and back again. _This is going over my head on so many levels, I just know it._

"Oh, he loves it," said Ran softly as she came through the doorway, settling on the other side of the bed in one of the room's small chairs and lacing her fingers carefully through those of the detective's free hand. "He wouldn't be _him_ if he didn't, and he couldn't play without just the right opponent. If that's the right word. Opposite?" She bit her lip as Shinichi muttered something inaudible, face twisting. "Antagonist? No, that's not right..." She stroked his hair. "Adversary? Rival? Competitor?"

"I think," said Kid gently, "the word you're looking for is 'equal.'" His eyes met hers, but he directed his next comments back to Takagi again. "Keiji-san? You might want to leave now; things will be getting pretty ugly soon, and it's probably not the sort of thing you would want to see if you could help it."

Takagi looked from one to the other, and then to Kudo Shinichi. The boy he'd come to know lay encapsulated within the lanky form of the young man, just as the man's form had been hidden within the child's for so long; he couldn't see one without the other. And perhaps it was time that he witnessed for himself the terrible thing that Miwako had seen, the chemical equation that drew them both from a single person. But that wasn't his choice to make, was it?

Was it?

On the bed, Shinichi's eyes flickered open again; feverish and glittering, they fixed on Takagi's face. _"...S...stay,"_ he rasped out before they closed once more and he pressed his hot forehead against the back of Ran's hand. From the other side of the bed, Kid nodded as if a question had been answered.

"Ah, well. You heard him, Keiji-san," he murmured, never looking away from the pale face that turned restlessly again, this time towards his own. "Stay, then, if you can bear it."

"We will be," whispered Ran.

* * *

The scent came first, as it always did. Shinichi twisted and flinched, drifting between hazy awareness and unconsciousness as he tried to shy away from the growing pain. Ran and Kid stayed close, seemingly immune to the sickening, stomach-lurching smell that had Takagi breathing through his handkerchief. Perched in a chair on the other side of the room, Ai watched quietly, waiting for her device to do its work; Agasa brought coffee for her and himself, the only two in the room who cared to have any, and waited with her. When true unconsciousness finally claimed Shinichi, the scientists moved in and the partners moved away, scooting their chairs over to Takagi's side of the bed to watch and wait.

"You can step out for some fresh air at any time, Takagi-keiji," Ran said quietly, her eyes fixed on Shinichi's face. "It gets overpowering sometimes."

Takagi shook his head, also watching as Shinichi's face scrunched up in a grimace. "What...what _is_ it?"

"Mainly methane," Haibara offered, hands and a small pipette busy at Shinichi's hip where his black box device was attached. She was flushing the connecting points with saline solution before she replaced the skin adhesive which held in the box's fangs with a looser gauze that wouldn't cling too tightly to the detective's shrinking skin. Agasa was busy at Shinichi's head, maintaining a constant watch on his temperature. "The amount of his tissues which are not cannibalized by his body to provide energy to fuel the transformation are broken down in an accelerated decomposition process; the interaction of the apotoxin with the process, and the fact that Kudo-kun isn't actually deceased yet, means that the byproducts are treated somewhat differently than they would be during standard post-mortem anaerobic decay, but in general the cellular activity is the same.

"There's also a quantity of nitrogen dioxide produced as a byproduct of the degeneration process. Don't worry," she added, looking blithely up to meet the horrified officer's eyes, "Nitrogen dioxide is a fatally toxic gas in significant quantities, but Kudo-kun doesn't produce enough to knock any of us out, much less cause neural damage. Though if it's bothering you, we could vent a second window?"

Takagi swallowed hard, eyes wide. "Ah. No, that's- Ah, I mean I don't want to- He's _decomposing?_"

Beside him, Ran flinched hard, squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip. Kid's arms went around her immediately, guiding her head to his shoulder for comfort.

"I'd rather not think about that," Ran murmured, rallying enough manners to open her eyes again and smile weakly at the officer. Kid's smile, stronger but equally pained, reinforced the sentiment.

"You're welcome to leave if you've reconsidered, Keiji-san," he said. "If it's too much for you to handle."

Takagi gritted his teeth, turning back to regard the young man in the bed. _You're a police officer, Wataru. Pull yourself together. If these children can handle this, if Kudo-kun himself can endure this over and over, then the least you can do is manage the same. Just because it's a __new__ kind of horrific doesn't mean it's __more__ horrific than the more normal sorts._

"I'll stay," Takagi said, nodding at the others, observers and scientists both. "Kudo-kun asked me to."

* * *

"It's never been this slow before," Ran murmured, echoing the sentiments of more than one of the others in the room. She held Shinichi's hand loosely, trying to be alert to any sudden changes in the laxity of his skin, but her worry was likely unfounded. Shinichi had shrunk rapidly, meeting Ai's expectations for the transformation, down until he appeared roughly fourteen years old - a teenager still, but barely. And then he'd just...stopped. Save for Takagi, everyone in the room knew the expected timeline: Shinichi's full change normally took an hour and a half, or thereabouts, from the point at which he lapsed into unconsciousness the second time, to the point at which his body stopped shrinking at eight years old, Conan's age.

Kid glanced to the clock again. Thirty-seven minutes since they'd noticed that Shinichi was on "pause". An hour since the change had truly begun, more than that since Shinichi had fallen unconscious. Ran's free hand was clenching Kid's so hard he thought his knuckles were melding together. Takagi was quietly shifting in his seat. Haibara restlessly checked her charts again, glancing at Agasa with a frown.

"I'm going to push him." The small scientist met Kid's eyes and Ran's in turn. "Just a small additional boost of the apotoxin - just enough to get him over this...this speedbump, or whatever it is that he's hit." Frowning, her frustration and concern clearly visible even in her normally neutral features, Ai left the room briskly, lips pressed together tightly.

"She'll be right back," Agasa reassured the others, stroking sweaty hair back from Shinichi's brow. His hand came away dripping. "She's fetching the apotoxin."

"Is...Is Kudo-kun okay?" Takagi asked lamely, addressing Agasa. He wasn't sure he could bear to look at the fear and worry on the faces to his right.

"Hrm. Keiji-san, the best I can say is...probably. This has never happened before, but, hrm, Shinichi-kun's transformations have been somewhat irregular since we installed his device." Agasa frowned, taking a seat at the head of Shinichi's bed to take his pulse. Eyes on his watch, he spoke with slight distraction as he counted beats.

"Of course, his changes were _extremely_ irregular beforehand, and quite painful to him and traumatic to his body as well, so I wouldn't say that the device is doing him any harm, relatively speaking. Much the contrary. Still, this is, ahm, well, you can understand our limitations, hmm?"

Ai marched back into the room carrying a small tray with a number of implements, including three hypodermic needles and a small bottle of viscous fluid, and nodded to Agasa as she set the tray on Shinichi's bedside table and began preparing the syringes. "No control group, an experimental group composed of a single specimen, complete lack of precedent or external scholarship on the topic, a lack of documentation of the previous experiences with and conditions surrounding Kudo-kun's uncontrolled transformations... the list goes on." She exhaled shortly, tapping the glass barrel of her first syringe to knock the air bubbles free.

"I'm going to apply small amounts of the apotoxin in three graduated stages. I will stop as soon as Kudo-kun's body resumes its progress." Behind her, Agasa had been busy preparing and tying off Shinichi's arm, and now Ai turned to find the detective's vein, small fingers dextrous and gentle against his skin. Kid and Ran watched, holding each other's hands.

* * *

Ai's theory worked. Shinichi's body, which had been resisting the effects of the apotoxin at its normal dosage, succumbed when presented with a tiny bit more. "I only administered what I expected to be the minimum effective dose," she had explained, as they all watched her patient's skin droop and buckle, gathering folds and puckers as the bones within it shrunk much more quickly than the muscle, fat, and skin attached to it could keep up with. "Only a few micrograms. When you consider that his initial dose of APTX-4869 was one capsule likely containing 50 milligrams of active ingredient, absolutely no more than 100, you may be more able to understand how a very little bit more would be effective in this case. The Apotoxin is a very potent drug... I designed it that way."

While nothing ripped or tore this time, the transformation was no less gruesome for that fact. Ai explained that the bones, because of their quickly-reproducing marrow, would be the fastest component of Shinichi's body to change in either direction. The worst anticipated consequence, she calmly advised the others, as Takagi turned a bit green around the gills, would be an overabundance of cramped and knotted muscle caused by the cramping, scrunching way that his shrinking bones dragged his softer tissues around.

"No ripped elbows this time," she added dryly.

Nevertheless, for some time, Shinichi was truly gruesome to observe. His bones returned to the size and dimensions of a child's body rapidly; his muscle, skin, and fat, catching up slowly, spent a good amount of time bunched up in obscene ways. Tethered to the ends of each of his joints with tendon and sinew, and in regular intervals to his complex structures like his ribcage, pelvis, and face, the middle bits of each of his muscles - where its length simply was meant to lay alongside or over bones, rather than be attached to them - puckered up in rolls, making the detective look like some cross between an obese toddler and an experiment in pleating human skin. Takagi did end up having to leave the room, spending a few minutes out in the living room calming his breathing and his roiling stomach. Quite honestly, Ran wished she could do the same, but refused - on principle and in earnest - to leave Shinichi's bedside even for a moment. Ai remained concerned and mildly disgusted throughout, though it was clear her disgust came not from the aspect of her patient's appearance so much as the highly irregular and unpredicted manner in which his body was reacting to the drugs and its own toxins.

Around an hour past the secondary injection, and a little over two and a quarter hours since the beginning of the total change, Shinichi finally lay at rest. Conan-sized, Conan-shaped, and with heartbeat, respiration, and miscellaneous other vital measurements normalizing quickly at Conan's familiar levels, the detective slept deeply, scarcely moving, while those around him finally, hesitantly, allowed themselves a breath of relief.

"It was like his body didn't want to change back," Takagi said softly, studying the boy's small, distinct face with a mixture of confusion and awe. What he'd witnessed was a process no sane man would willingly endure... no man, it seemed, except the formidable pet detective of Division One.

_Except...we're probably the pet,_ he thought ruefully, palms clammy where he'd held them, clenched on his knees, during the final half-hour of rapid transformation. _Now I've seen, Miwako. I understand what you felt that night...why you couldn't stop crying when you told me about it in the car._

"A valid thesis," Ai nodded, sitting beside Agasa on the other side of Shinichi's bed. The small scientist, normally so proper and stiff, was slumped in her chair, clearly as exhausted by the difficult transformation as any of the other watchers felt. "I've got a bit of work ahead of me, determining what went wrong and what the consequences will be. But for now...we're through for the evening." She stood, brushing off her lab coat, and smiled wryly at Ran and Kid's surprised expressions.

"It's not my habit, I'm quite aware, but I think there's sufficient justification for an exception tonight. I'm going to make coffee. If you would like to remain here, feel free; after another twenty minutes or so, I think it will be safe to remove Kudo-kun to a more comfortable location, if either of you would like to bring him out to the living room or elsewhere. Just make sure that IV remains attached to him," she added, nodding to the single remaining line attached to the back of Conan's left hand.

"Professor, would you like some coffee? Perhaps with a bit of brandy?"

"Ah, Ai-chan, I think that would be nice," Agasa said, touching her shoulder gently as he rose to follow her. "Keiji-san, would you like to join us? I think tonight's trial has placed a strain on more of us than just Shinichi-kun. I imagine your shift ended a while ago; would you like to relax while we wait for Shinichi-kun to wake up? I think he'd be pleased to see that you endured it all alongside him."

Takagi coughed, fidgeting in his chair. "I'm certain I endured nothing compared to Kudo-kun himself," he deferred, feeling abruptly embarrassed. "It was nothing to praise me for."

"We appreciate you staying with us regardless, Takagi-keiji," Kid countered him, blue eyes sincere. Curled against him, one finger linked in Conan's palm, Ran nodded. "Please," Kid continued. "You're very close to Shinichi. I know he'd appreciate it, and want you to relax a little after he's made you watch this."

"Just for a bit, Takagi-keiji?" Ran asked, her voice and manner strong and unwavering despite the fact that she'd spent the last two hours near or in tears. "I think it would make you feel better to talk to Shinichi once he wakes up, so you can see he's okay."

Takagi looked from one earnest offer to the next, feeling something in him twiddling its thumbs in concern. _It feels like they're inviting me to be more a part of this than a simple witness,_ he fretted. _I feel strongly about them all - I definitely want to protect them all. But...should I feel this hopeful that they want to invite me in as a friend, as well?_

"...Alright. Only for a bit, only until Kudo-kun revives. Then I'm afraid I'll have to go."

Satisfied, Agasa nodded once. "I think that will be nice. Do you take cream in your coffee?"

"Liquor?" Though he'd seen her perform tasks far beyond the capabilities of any child, Takagi still sputtered in surprised alarm as Ai dryly appended her own offer to the Professor's. Then, with a sudden spark of something that he would later blame on Miwako's influence, Takagi smiled back.

"Ah. Yes, actually. A drop of brandy?"

* * *

_...What... the hell..._

_...crawled into my mouth and __died__?_

The world came back into focus slowly and grudgingly like a badly-done fade-in from an old black-and-white movie, and Shinichi came with it. He didn't particularly want to; somewhere behind the kaleidescope of dreams that he'd been wandering through there was an intimation of _pain,_ lurking darkly behind all the delirium but just waiting to be noticed. There were voices speaking quietly, as there'd been before upon waking up in just such a state. Dimly he recognized them: Haibara and Agasa some ways off, a third muted voice that teased at his senses with familiarity, and closer by, two others, the two he knew best:

"-shhh, it'll be alright." Soft sounds, fabric sliding against fabric.

"B-but he's never- K- You've seen him change, you _know_ he d-doesn't usually-" Slightly muffled, tearful. And then those sounds again; not just cloth on cloth, someone was being embraced.

"No. But with our Tantei, there's rarely a 'usually' involved, is there?" A touch of rueful humor behind the soothing, and Shinichi stirred within the cocoon of his own body, fighting to open his eyes. Just a little, just a crack, like breaking the shell of an egg or shoving lead weights up two flights of stairs a single tread at a time-

_Easy,_ he thought, gritting mental teeth. _Piece- of- cake-_

This cake, however, was laced with broken glass and Haibara's strongest sedatives, and while Kid and Ran whispered to each other beside what he now knew was his bed, he fought for volition and control. _Never been this hard before. Why? Wh- there, there we go._ Lids that felt like they'd been scraped with sand creaked up the tiniest bit, and then there were exclamations and hands stroking his face and voices saying his name, and the world clicked back into place again.

Liquid and a few IV stimulants made a huge amount of difference; and twenty minutes or so later found Shinichi sitting, well-propped by pillows, cup of water in hand. Ran and Kid sat alongside the bed, shoulder to shoulder, watching him with intent, worried eyes; he smiled at them weakly, swallowing. "I'm okay, guys, really."

Ran shook her head; the fingers of one hand were laced with Kid's, but with her free hand she brushed Shinichi's tangled, damp hair back from his face. "No school for you tomorrow, Mister," she mock-scolded him, trying to summon humor into her voice; "You're grounded." The effort failed for the most part, but the boy laughed weakly.

"I won't argue with you; I've... felt better." He rubbed at his eyes with the back of one hand and then held it up in front of his face, grimacing. "Small again." Shinichi sighed, looking up and meeting Takagi's eyes where he stood in the doorway. "And early too. It doesn't..." For a moment his voice faded and he slumped back against the pillows. "I usually don't start changing back until late at night; I guess this weekend I, uh..." Shinichi blinked, realization widening his eyes.

Takagi looked puzzled. "This weekend-?" he prompted.

"...overexerted myself. A little. Camping." Shinichi closed his eyes, childish face showing pink on his cheekbones. From his bedside Kid cleared his throat delicately, opening his mouth; without a word, Ran placed one palm over his lips. "We, ahh- long drive, tents, water... rocks... marshmallows..."

Takagi still looked baffled, gaze swinging from Shinichi to Ran to 'Kaito' before he visibly gave up on the matter. "I'm glad you're feeling better, C-" He blinked. "Kudo-kun. Err, sorry." Dark eyes studied the boyish figure in front of him, trailing down the bed to where the covers still lay in humped folds to accommodate adult-sized feet that were no longer there. "I've known you as 'Conan-kun' for so long that I suppose it'll take some getting used to, even if intellectually I know the difference." Takagi gave Shinichi an embarrassed little smile. "Don't be too surprised if I get your name wrong, at least at first; it's, ahh-" he waved a hand vaguely at the boy's diminished form, "-kind of an easy mistake to make."

"It could be worse," said Ran meditatively, her composure somewhat returned. "It took me the longest time to understand why Hattori-kun kept calling him 'Kudo', and when I finally _really_knew why-" She removed her palm from Kid's mouth in order to make a strangling sort of gesture with both hands. "I never did quite buy his 'I call him Kudo because he's a miniature version, et cetera' explanation." Beside her the thief chuckled but said nothing, content for the moment merely to listen.

"Um... sorry we made everybody so worried," Ran added contritely; her hands dropped to grip each other in her lap. "We didn't _mean_ to, but- we've all been so tense and stressed and we weren't sleeping well, and we needed the break. It really was nice." That last came out rather wistfully, and Kid reached across to take one of her hands back, petting it in the way you'd soothe a small furry animal. Takagi followed the motion with a somewhat perplexed eye, once more looking from Shinichi to Ran to their friend's face and obviously expecting a reaction that he simply wasn't getting.

Nor was he _going_ to get it; lying back among his heaped pillows, Shinichi mentally consigned his kneejerk reaction of hide-the-relationship to Perdition and smiled at the two beside the bed, weary but honest. "It really was. Best break I've had in a long time, and in the best company. We- all three of us kind of needed to go off the map for a little while." _'All three of us.'_Perhaps this wasn't the most discreet or intelligent way to handle things, but something inside him utterly rebelled at the idea of shoving Kid any more to the sidelines than necessary. Socially, culturally and legally, it might make sense to do so; but sensible wasn't always right, and... no. Just **no.**

They were 'off the map' pretty far already; a few more kilometers wouldn't hurt.

He glanced back at Takagi, a little hesitant but willing to trust the young officer's sense of discretion- and, more to the point, his unwillingness to ask questions about personal matters unless it seemed absolutely necessary. Now, if it had been Shiratori... but it wasn't. By the look on the officer's face, he would rather walk through fire than request more information. Which, really? Gave Kid another layer of protection, in a bass-ackwards sort of way.

"Ahh... err? I- see." Takagi blinked. "I, erm, assume you went somewhere safe?"

"Very."

"Oh, good. But next time-?"

"We'll notify you of our impending absence," said Kid cheerfully. "It was my idea, actually; and far be it from me to _ever_ cause difficulties or sleepless nights for the authorities. I'll be sure to leave proper warning." His helpful smile belonged on a poster somewhere, one reading _The Police Are Your Friends_ rather than, say, _Have You Seen This Man? Reward Offered!_ Shinichi and Ran looked at each other in trepidation, and Takagi cast around rather desperately for a diversion.

He found it in a memory, and looked at Ran. "Oh- Mouri-san. Did your father tell you about the robbery this weekend?" At her exclamation and Shinichi's blank look, Takagi launched into the story. It seemed that Mouri Kogoro had been eating lunch in a small café the day they'd left, and during his meal a lockbox of the previous few days' profits had been stolen. The culprit had only just escaped being caught red-handed and was almost certainly among the staff either just coming on shift or just leaving. Mouri, with his usual luck, had been recognized by the café owner as the famous Sleeping Detective and requested to solve the case.

"I only heard about it second-hand from Inamoto-keiji in Theft," he explained; "we weren't called out for this one, but- anyway, he went into one of his trances and-"

"He did _what__?"_ asked Shinichi and Ran simultaneously, eyes wide.

"His trances- you know? Those stupors he goes into when he solves cases?" Takagi shook his head. "Slumped in his chair, looked for all the world as if he were asleep... and then started reeling off facts and deductions as brilliantly as ever." His dark eyes danced. "Not ten minutes later, one of the waiters confessed to the crime and was removed from the scene in handcuffs... He didn't mention this to you at all?"

By now, Shinichi was biting his lip in an agony of mixed incredulity and laughter, the half-full cup of water shaking in his hands and threatening to spill all over the bedspread. "No," said Ran darkly; "he didn't. He _did_ say something about 'after all the excitement this weekend' before chewing me out for worrying him, but-" She closed her eyes, quite possibly counting to ten before opening them and staring accusingly at the smaller of her two boyfriends. "Anything to add, Shinichi?"

"...learned behavior wins out...? The mind is an amazing thing? Way to go, Ojisan?"

Takagi blinked, and his head tipped to the side, a little like a confused bird. "_Learned?_" he repeated, pointing at Shinichi inquiringly. "But that's not new. Mouri-tantei has been doing his trances for two years now." Takagi glanced to Ran, eyes narrowing at her guilty expression, and swung back around to Shinichi with a slight tic going in one brow. "...Unless there's something further which I'm still unaware of?"

_Crap, crap, crap, crap!_ Sweating, Shinichi glanced to Ran for help, but it was Kid - predictably - who successfully derailed the conversation.

"That reminds me, Detective," the thief commented lightly, smiling brightly at Takagi. "I'd been meaning to ask you. Did you learn to kiss from Sato-keiji, or did she teach you? We've been having a discussion about who should teach whom, you see."

Kid's angelic smile remained firmly in place as Takagi turned beet-red, heating up like a kettle as he stammered at the impudent teen, and throughout the subsequent chastising, involving many invocations of the phrase "_private business!_" But this made it no less true that the curiosities of Mouri's trances were no longer foremost in the detective's mind.

* * *

The next hour passed comfortably. Though he'd been anxious to leave earlier, Takagi felt his anxiousness melt away as he watched and listened to Kudo-san, Mouri-san, and their friend talk. They seemed most interested in idle conversation, much of which discussed Kudo's amusingly absent parents and the accomplishments of Mouri's father over the weekend. They seemed genuinely interested in involving Takagi in their conversation, asking his opinion on the elder Kudos' apparent irresponsibility and happily listening to him hesitantly relate some very mild office chatter regarding Shiratori's alcohol tolerance level. Kaito-san, for whom Takagi had not been given a surname, was a cheerful and brash foil to Mouri's politeness and Kudo's general exhaustion; but as the young detective gradually perked up, eventually requesting food, their friend took charge with a grin.

"Carry Shinichi into the living room, Ran. I'll go make something for us. I know it's quite late, Takagi-keiji, but do you like chicken?"

"It's, ah, it's perfectly fine," Takagi answered, caught off guard more because Kaito-kun had directly addressed him rather than the young man's actual invitation. "But you shouldn't trouble yourself. I think, well, I've been here quite a while and-" He checked his watch. "It's nearly midnight, Miw-ah, Sato-san may be wondering about me..."

In Ran's arms, clinging with what strength he could to her neck so she had one arm free to grab his IV stands, Shinichi smiled hopefully at the officer. "I know we've taken up so much of your time already, Takagi-keiji, but we really do enjoy your company. It's probably against some policy or another-"

"Or a dozen," Takagi added quietly, startled as 'Kaito-kun' said exactly the same thing along with him.

The teen grinned at the detective and nodded; amused, Shinichi continued.

"Well, it's probably against policy, but...I do like spending time around you when we're _not_ actually fighting for our lives." The boy shrugged a little, self-reflective. "I respect both you and Sato-keiji a lot."

"She's welcome as well, you know," Kaito-kun added, unhooking Shinichi's IV's from their stands and handing them to Takagi. "Help Ran with the IV's, please? So that they stay elevated. And here, the stands too." The teen stepped away, glancing to Ran to make sure she had her burden safely in hand, before preceding the rest of the group out the door.

"I'll let Professor Agasa and Haibara-san know that I'm making a late snack. I might as well cook for many if I'm cooking for a few, hmm?"

Ran looked mildly concerned. "Are you sure you don't need my help, K-"

The other teen waved his hand to cut her off. "I'm fine," he said. "I cook for Kaasan sometimes." He trotted out of the room briskly, leaving Ran, Shinichi, and Takagi in the room behind him.

Takagi, one arm aloft to hold Shinichi's IV's properly, turned his attention to Ran in preparation to follow her without yanking the tubes. What he saw on her face, in the split second while she and Conan-_Kudo_- shared a glance, and before she realized they were being watched, nearly made Takagi's breath catch.

_Maybe I should call Miwako,_ he thought, remembering the warmth of her hand in his own. _We're both off-shift, we don't do nearly enough things together these days, and I don't think she and Yumi-san have a karaoke night planned tonight...even if they do, it's already so late, they might be done by now. And she would want to see that Kudo-kun is alright with her own eyes, I think. It might be nice...Megure-keibu might not approve, but...maybe just this once, it would be okay._

Ran headed out of the small examination room into Agasa's living room with Shinichi, and Takagi followed, holding the boy's IV's up and trying to stay out of the way until Ran had him settled on one end of the large couch opposite Agasa's television. Once the IV's were replaced on their stands, Takagi took a seat in the chair nearest Shinichi, quiet and feeling a little awkward. After a minute or so, Kaito's voice called for Ran from the kitchen, and the girl made her apologies briefly and went to see what he wanted.

A few minutes of silence passed awkwardly after that. Shinichi shifted in his blankets, trying to get comfortable; when he made a hissing sound of pain between his teeth, Takagi was out of his chair and at the boy's side in an instant, hands hovering near.

"I'm okay, Takagi-keiji," Shinichi muttered, squinting one eye open with an effort to smile at the officer. "I just need about a day's worth of sleep."

"Kudo-kun, shouldn't you just go back to bed?" Takagi rocked back on his heels, meeting the boy's eyes levelly. "You shouldn't push yourself. Especially since you said you strained yourself this weekend."

"It'll be alright," Shinichi said, with a patience in his child's eyes that Takagi couldn't believe he'd never understood before. He'd seen it, most notably in the elevator in the serial bomber case, but never really known what he was seeing.

With a sigh, Takagi sat down on the carpet in front of the couch, legs folded seiza behind him. "Kudo-kun, you're really..."

Shinichi grinned. "Something? A pain? One of a kind? Unbelievable? An ahou? Singleminded? Ridiculous?"

Takagi raised an eyebrow. "I take it you've heard this before?"

"Maybe." The boy smiled, tugging his blanket higher over his shoulder; Takagi helped him arrange it as Shinichi's smile went fond and soft. "It's a hazard of spending time around very intelligent people who won't put up with my bullshit, I guess."

The officer paused. "...I didn't have any idea what I was asking about last weekend, did I?" he asked quietly, and smiled sheepishly as Shinichi's expression showed confusion. "When I asked you about figuring out a schedule. Whether it was difficult to work around the two week intervals. I, ah. Um."

Shinichi laughed briefly. "Oh! Well. It's a lot easier since I don't have to hide them from each other," he joked, but he blushed also as Takagi felt his own face heat up red. But the officer was laughing too.

"Kudo-kun, that's...ahah, oh, it is _very_ strange to hear things like that from you when you're like this," Takagi admitted, smiling wryly. "Miw-Ah. Sato-san teased me once about something similar," he said, startling himself with his own brashness. "That Yumi-san, her friend from Traffic, told her she should choose both Shiratori-san and myself and not tell us. She just laughed at Yumi-san and told her that would be most unfair to me, because I wouldn't catch on while Shiratori-san would." Finally Takagi's brain caught up with his mouth and he covered it reflexively, a little wide-eyed. "Um. Well, at least that's what Sato-san told me she said."

But Shinichi was smiling, a very adult, wry amusement in his child's face, and Takagi relaxed a bit as the confiding chuckle of a grown man came from the boy's throat (if in a much higher register than was typical). "Takagi-keiji, I think Sato-san was lying to you. She definitely wouldn't do that, but not for the reason she told Yumi-san."

"Well, I hope so," Takagi muttered, feeling a strange mix of comfort and nervousness as Shinichi continued. His thoughts distracted him from the boy's words. _It's strange, and...is it wrong? This is the sort of conversation other men would have over beers at the bar. He's a child - not as much of one as he appears, but he's still a minor. And not an officer, and someone that I'm supposed to protect. He's not exactly my peer. ...But none of the others liked me much in the first place, since I was working so closely with Miwako. And now...well, I knew there would be some grudges held, I just didn't expect so many. Chiba-kun and Megure-keibu don't mind, but everyone else seems to be following Shiratori-san's lead. I can't fault any of them for performance; they aren't unprofessional or rude to me at all. I would trust any of them at my back. But I think they'd all have prior engagements if I asked them to join me for drinks after shift. Yumi-san is a sweet face in the office, and Miwako's other friends like seeing me as well, but...that's not the same either._

_Is it wrong...is it strange...that I feel like Kudo-kun is the closest thing I have to a friend, someone to talk about work and life with?_

"Takagi-keiji?"

"Ah? Oh, I'm sorry, Kudo-kun, I was..."

The boy smiled, genuinely amused. "Thinking. I know, I get that way a lot. Ran and K-Kaito often laugh about how single-minded I can be. I was just asking - Do you mind? Me talking with you like an equal, I mean. I admit...it's lots better than the old 'Shinichi-niisan told me to tell you' trick."

"And a bit less flimsy," Takagi added, smiling in return. "I was thinking about that, actually, Kudo-kun. I admire you, and your talent for detective work. I always have thought you were a very talented young man...whether I was thinking of what I'd been told about you, or whether I was thinking about Conan-kun. I hope someday you'll be able to show your talents to the world without hiding them, or hiding who you are."

"I hope so too, keiji, but that day's a long ways off." The boy's expression darkened; visibly pushing away the temptation to begin brooding, Shinichi summoned a smile for Takagi's sake. "I think it's closer than it would be without your help, though."

"...I've been thinking, Kudo-kun." Hands folded in his lap, Takagi looked up to meet the boy's eyes with a wry smile. _Might as well,_ he figured. _I've already made the offer, after all._ "A little while back, I told you that you could talk to me or Sato-san about anything that might be on your mind. Do you remember?"

"You were trying to keep me from getting deeper into the kidnapping case," Shinichi nodded, remembering the brief carside conversation. "I can see why it would be worrisome for a little boy to get too close to that sort of thing."

"Well, that's true," Takagi said, frowning slightly. "But that's not quite where I was going with this, actually. Kudo-kun, I...want you to know that the offer still stands." Shinichi's eyes opened a little wider, and Takagi pressed on, feeling inexplicably daring as he did so. "You're underage, obviously-" (Shinichi snickered) "-but even if I can't buy you a drink at the bar, I want you to know that you can still talk to me if there's something on your mind. I'll leave my badge at home, if you like...I'm not exactly offering this as an officer. I..." He stopped, hesitant to go on.

Shinichi interrupted then. "Takagi-keiji, thank you, I appreciate it. I don't want to jeopardize your time or your work, though, but-"

"Kudo-kun, please." Takagi looked up, meeting the boy's eyes soberly. "I care about you a great deal. All of us do, even Shiratori-keiji. But... well...

"I just want you to know you're never without a...an ally."

Shinichi's eyes softened, and Takagi already had an apology forming in his mouth when the boy startled him yet again.

"A friend, Takagi-keiji?"

Takagi hesitated only a moment. "...Yes. If you'd like."

"I think I would," Shinichi said softly. "Thank you."

And after a moment, just before the post-affection silence could turn awkward and strained, a clear, loud voice called from the kitchen.

_"Ladies and Gentlemen! It's an amazing one-night engagement! Stealing away hunger under cover of night, it's Kaito's Midnight Special, tempura chicken! __Criminally__ tasty! Come and get it!"_

A pause.

"...Is he...?"

"Always like this? No." Shinichi covered his face with one palm. "Usually he's worse."

The look on Kid's face when he came in with two trays full of freshly-fried tempura and little dishes of sauce announced quite clearly that he'd heard this and had taken it as a distinct compliment; he beamed at Shinichi, set his tray neatly across his lap, fluffed up the pillows and bounced back out. The young detective and the officer could hear Ran talking to Agasa and Haibara back in the main lab, cautioning them that their own portions were very hot; a moment later they both came back in the room, their own trays in hand. The tempura was indeed piping hot and crisp, and all four dug in with enthusiasm.

A little shyly, Ran began to tell Takagi bits about where they'd gone that weekend and what they'd seen there- very carefully selected bits, of course, with great huge Fujiyama-sized chunks left out, such as a) location, b) specific activities, c) what they'd worn (or not) and d) sleeping arrangements. That was fine; there was plenty to speak of besides those little details, and for a while they talked about hiking and springs and Takagi's own teenaged experiences in what was commonly called the Japanese Alps. At one point he excused himself to call Sato- he'd been dropped off by a fellow officer, and rather than take a cab (as he explained) he thought it best to kill two birds with one stone- and, relaxed by hot food and the late hour, an apprehensive Sato Miwako arrived in the middle of Takagi's discussion with the three regarding just what you could get away with using a campstove.

Halfway through Shinichi's explanation regarding S'mores, The Making Of ("Peanut butter? I've had it in onigiri, but-"), Agasa's voice could be heard welcoming the other officer at the door; Kid, who had been quietly gathering up their dishes (and not-so-coincidentally on his feet and very alert) grinned to himself as he watched Takagi practically leap upright at the sound of Sato's voice. "Ever so slightly familiar a reaction, hmmm, Tantei?" he murmured in Shinichi's ear as he took his tray; the diminutive detective snorted to himself and watched fondly as he slipped out of the room, hands full.

Ran had straightened up at the commotion, but unconsciously scooted closer to Shinichi; not that he minded, and when Sato came in it was to find her with one arm around her small companion's shoulders, very obviously protective. Sato's eyes widened at the IV stands and needles; "It's all right, it's just... preventive measures, Sato-keiji," the Professor said, waving his hands soothingly. "Just making certain that his body is as, hmmmrm, healthy as the situation will allow."

A little tentatively, the officer knelt in front of Shinichi. "Are you... in pain, Kudo-kun?" she asked, memory painted large in her widened eyes.

"A little, but not so much any more," he answered honestly. "I just need sleep for the most part. It's a little more difficult, going back, and-"

"-and sleep's what he'll be getting; we'll make certain of that," said 'Kaito' from the doorway, startling Sato badly; she swayed to her feet, staring at him as if she'd seen a ghost. Even wider than before, her gaze drifted from his face to Shinichi's and back again-

"It's a remarkable coincidence, isn't it, Sato-keiji? The resemblance? But there's no, err, that is, they're not related." asked Agasa, nerves showing in his voice. "This is, ahh, Kaito-san; he's..." The portly scientist stopped and looked at Ran and Shinichi, eyes pleading.

"-he's a _very good friend_ of ours, Sato-san, and he knows everything," announced Ran firmly. "Everything."

"...everything?"

Kaito's smile was feline and beatific, figurative canary-feathers surely decorating one corner. "Oh, yes. _Everything._ You'd be amazed." He held out a steaming mug with the air of a prince distributing largess. "Coffee, Sato-keiji? Just brewed."

The coffee was exactly as she liked it—strong, hot, with one sugar and no cream, the stereotypical 'cop coffee'; she blinked at the first sip and sat down beside Takagi as, behind Agasa Ai came into the doorway and leaned against the jamb with her arms crossed. "Thank you," the officer murmured. Her senses, however, had been alerted by the presence of an outsider, and she watched the young man carefully as he took the place beside Shinichi, bracketing his small figure and slinging a casual arm across the back of the couch. "'Everything'," Sato repeated thoughtfully. "That's quite a lot, in Kudo-kun's case, isn't it?"

"Mmm. Several years' worth, certainly. School life, family, all that tedious detecting, drug-induced shrinkage, evil villains, more detecting…" 'Kaito' waved a lazy hand in the air, dismissing this as mere details (and, coincidentally, allowing it to flop forward so that his fingers played with Shinichi's cowlick; the boy swatted at the teasing fingers ineffectually, and they remained where they were.) "Of course," the thief added matter-of-factly, "that's not why I've kept in contact." He beamed at Sato, who was by now regarding him with rapidly increasing wariness.

"They, err, play chess," put in Takagi helpfully. "Lots of chess." …_I think maybe possibly, or possibly not_ his eyes said, and _Later, please, Miwako?_ rather desperately.

"Chess. Really." She took another sip of coffee. "All right. And what have your recent games taught you—Kudo-kun?" Sato asked, directing her question at Shinichi this time, though her deadpan gaze continued to dwell on Kaito.

"That he learns from his wins. _And_ his losses," muttered Shinichi, digging an elbow into the ribs to his left. ("Such as they are—ow!") 'Kaito,' who had been busily flattening his hair and watching it stand up again merely grinned. "Let me tell you about the last one. It started out with a couple of pawns; then my bishop and both our knights came into play, and…"

To Shinichi's right, Ran sipped the last of her own coffee from the previous pot and listened quietly as the shorter of her two boyfriends created a fabrication of not-quite-outright-untruths, not-quite-fantasy, and not-quite-symbolism. She was certain that in the end he'd inform both she and Kid that this was some elaborate game he'd witnessed somewhere (possibly in the fabled and mystical land of Narnia Hawaii) and that they analogy had been perfect, irresistible, and therefore not _exactly_ a pack of total lies…

"—Queen's Bishop three to—"

"Oh, you did NOT, Tantei; I moved my King—"

They were each, Ran decided, as bad as the other. There had to be a name for prevarication brought to the level of an artform and to the point that it wasn't in fact _utter absolute lies_ any more but a kind of symbolic parable, told to educate and amuse (or bewilder and baffle, in the case of Takagi and Sato; she wasn't quite certain it was working) and to stroke the teller's ego and/or continued sense of security. That first part, the one with 'ego' in it, definitely fit Kid's personality, though it matched Shinichi's as well; the security bit went with both of them, since, well, paranoia and all that.

"—had this Rook-to-Rook standoff over on my section of the board, and—"

"What he's neglecting to tell you—please stop elbowing my ribs, Tantei-san, unless you want to kiss them better—is that I had him _utterly_ pinned with nowhere else to go—"

Maybe the term didn't exist in Japanese? Other languages weren't Ran's strong point, but… oh; there _was_ this one phrase that she'd learned while watching some subtitled British shows with Sonoko and her older sister; it did seem to fit.

'_My boyfriend is a wanker.'_

But then again, which one? With a choice of two and the way they were both going on, it was a little hard to decide.

"—ended in a draw, so neither one of us won."

"OR lost; that's the most important thing. And what else could we do, after all?" 'Kaito' smiled a secret little smile, blue eyes laughing. "One might say that the winner in this game was the Queen."

"Oh? Which queen, though, black or white?" Obviously storing all this up for later consideration, Sato cradled her cup in her hands and took another long, almost unwillingly-appreciative sip. "Because sooner or later you _always_ have to choose a side." Suspicion practically radiated off her in waves.

Kid cocked an amused eye at the officer. "I," he announced breezily, "have _always_ been on Tantei-san's side; so obviously—"

"—aaaaaand that's enough of THAT," remarked a voice from shoulder level. "Did you know that in some countries they believe that if you lie too much you'll grow hair on your palms?" The thief displayed his hands, eyes brimming with innocence, and Ran stifled a giggle. "Then maybe you'd better watch out in case your nose grows instead."

"Like that old Disney movie, the one with the puppet?" Ran's hand drifted up to stroke Shinichi's hair as well; resigned to this, he sat between them, IV feeds and all, looking just a touch sulky. "It'd be easier to spot, and you could always shave your palms or use a depilatory. Or just tell really creative lies where you were really telling the truth, only—" (Ran yawned) "—so badly that it sounded like a lie…"

'Kaito' looked fixedly at Shinichi's small hands, still grinning. "And what do _your_ palms look like, Tantei?" he teased; the boy held them up, displaying clean, pink skin. "Hmm. You know, I've heard of another fascinating myth about hairy palms—two of them, in fact; one superstition claims that it mean's you've contracted lycanthropy, and the other means that you have a tendency to—"

"MY, LOOK AT THE TIME." Takagi stood up almost fast enough to upset the couch, one hand hooked under Sato's elbow; she gulped down the last of her coffee, perplexed and a trifle irritated, but stood willingly enough. "NEARLY ONE A.M., WE REALLY SHOULD BE GOING, RIGHT, SATO-SAN?" Still speaking in audible capitals, Takagi managed several slightly strangled thankyous and farewells before dragging his partner towards the door. A little helplessly, she handed over her empty coffeecup and allowed herself to be pulled through the front door and out into the night.

* * *

"Takagi, _what—?"_ Strapped inside Sato's car her partner cradled his head in his hands; and Sato had the feeling that this was pretty much the only thing keeping him from banging it repeatedly on the dash. Buckling her own seatbelt, she put a hand on his shoulder and tried again. "I'm not at all sure I understand. What was the—Takagi. _Wataru._ WHAT was the, the other superstition with the hairy palms-?" A stifled whimper was all she received in answer; putting the car into gear, she set her jaw and pulled out into the silent streets. "And who was that… that person? Why didn't Kudo-kun include him when he told us who knew about his secret?" Irritably she yanked the car across two lanes and into a right turn. "Wataru, talk to me!"

Breathing heavily, Takagi sat back at last against the seat, eyes closed. "Miwako?" he said faintly. "Do you remember that book that Chiba-kun lent me last year, the one on foreign superstitions and—I believe he called them 'old wives' tales'?" He shook his head from side to side as if dislodging something. "It was in there. I, ahh—" By now, his face was a truly memorable shade of red, even his ears; and if he hadn't looked so adorable Sato would've been more than half tempted to turn around, drive back and demand an explanation. "—if you want to read it," he said at last, "ask Chiba-kun. But for God's sake, please don't ask me again!"

(Sato resolved to ask Yumi-chan instead; she'd almost certainly know.)

"…and as for Kudo-kun…" Her partner gave her a long, somewhat ironic look; it sat oddly on Takagi's boyish face and had probably never been seen by even one of their coworkers. "Miwako, if you believe he's given up entirely on secrets with us, I'd think again. Secrets are a difficult habit to break."

"Hm. And that boy?"

He sighed. "That _young man_ is either going to be a great deal of trouble or a great comfort for both Kudo-kun and Mouri-kun. Probably both."

* * *

_._

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_We hope you enjoyed the show, ladies and gentlemen! Please stay tuned next week for... something you may want to kill us for. Something we've been building up to. Something special. _**___Book five, Chapter Eighteen: "Conan? Your parents sent me-"_**


	63. Conan? Your parents sent me

_This chapter carries a warning for brutality to minors._

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* * *

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_**Book Five, Chapter Eighteen**__**: "Conan? Your parents sent me-"**_

_**.**_

Monday, Shinichi did in fact stay home from school as promised. Ran remained at the Kudo house to tend to him and for company, while Kid was obliged to leave early, as he and his brother had classes of their own to attend - a fact which the detective nobly resisted poking fun at...mostly.

"I still can't believe he's younger than us," Shinichi snickered, carefully ensconced in his favorite armchair in the Kudo library. A copious amount of blankets and pillows filled the spaces between the detective's small body and the spacious breadth of the old leather chair; curled up around a hot drink (lemon tea today, on Ran's insistence), the chibitantei grinned up at his girlfriend as she re-entered the room carrying a small amount of snacks and three cell phones.

"Well, I knew it all along," Ran grinned, setting the snack plate on the endtable at Shinichi's elbow. "I sensed impish immaturity in him."

"Riiiiight," he snickered.

"I did!" Ran insisted, angelic. "I also sense a complete lack of common sense and an overdose of allowable levels of sexy, for what it's worth."

Shinichi snorted. "Right. I might take offense at that, you know."

She waved a hand magnanimously, arranging the three cell phones on the edge of the table. "Oh, don't worry. You're just as thoroughly endowed with both."

"Well, as long as that's settled. Thanks for charging these, by the way," he added, looking to the phones with a wry face. "Can't believe I forgot to charge them last night, and they're such old models they barely hold a charge now anyway."

"I think you were a _tad_ preoccupied last night," Ran commented dryly, stealing Shinichi's mug from him to take a sip of tea for herself. "You really ought to think about upgrading your phones, Shinichi. It would be bad if they died on you when you really needed them."

The boy detective shrugged, picking up two of the three phones - the two red ones. "I know. But I can't upgrade too well, or someone will wonder why an eight year old has a fancy phone. And with the trouble I get into, a fancier phone would just get smashed faster."

Ran shook her head. "Still. I don't mean you should go all next-gen with them, but think about a new clamshell style one? Maybe one of those rugged-built ones that don't die no matter what you do to them?"

"Hmm. Maybe," Shinichi conceded, smiling slyly. "If they carry them in the right shade of blue."

"Well, whatever," Ran grinned, pretending to miss the sidelong compliment. "Make your calls, mister. It's already ten a.m. and I think this is gonna take a while."

"Alright. First...Megure?"

"I think that's wise," Ran agreed, handing Shinichi his laptop in exchange for his tea, which she set safely on the endtable. "We should ask him for clearance to call Chirokawa-san, too." Shinichi raised an eyebrow, and Ran put up her hands in defense. "Just for form's sake, I mean!"

* * *

The calls did in fact take longer than either Shinichi or Ran had hoped they would. Though he was still too fresh from the change to visit the precinct in person, Shinichi had already informed Megure-keibu that he'd stay in touch by phone. At the close of the previous week, Kid, Ran, and Shinichi had come just short of reading through and roughly categorizing all two hundred and seventeen of the missing and murdered children's case files. As requested, they'd performed a preliminary check, looking for connections or insights that, through their greater experience with the Apotoxin, they might notice far before the police would. Kid being Kid and Shinichi being Shinichi, of course, the resulting spreadsheets which Megure had received in his inbox were rather more thorough than anticipated. With his copy of the data in front of him, Shinichi had called to discuss the trio's findings and the next steps that Division One would be taking.

Megure informed Shinichi that Chirokawa would be taking over the process of unpacking and organizing the data from the over two hundred cold cases in consideration; his team, led by Shiratori, would be working on the more active ones, including that of Kimura Eiko's deceased boyfriend Yoshimoto Ken and missing best friend Ozaki Tamae. Shinichi and his help, as Megure phrased it, had been very useful in screening the pool of suspected victims for any overt signs or clues toward explicit Black Organization connections. Now Chirokawa would do what he did best and organize the overwhelming volume of details and specifications from all the cases into useable, hopefully informative measurements of trends, similarities, and tentative theories.

"So...where does that leave us?" Shinichi finally asked, after nearly an hour of technical and speculative discussion with Megure. On the other end of the phone line, the elder detective humphed.

"Well. Kudo-kun, you must understand, we appreciate your help and this by no means marks the end of our, ahm, reliance on your unique perspective. But Chirokawa-san has, among other things, several algorithms at his disposal which will make the work somewhat easier than if you were to continue it manually. Besides that, maintaining your cover is very important, and I hope that you'll resume classes tomorrow with enthusiasm. Mmm?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Shinichi sighed quietly. "Of course, Megure-keibu. I just can't wait to get back to color-by-numbers and- Well, no. I mean no disrespect at all, keibu, but just try to imagine-" A space of silence followed, in which Shinichi made pitiful eyes at Ran and she patted his shoulder in commisseration. "Yes. Of course, keibu. I'll see you on Friday, then. Thank you very much."

Ran waited until Shinichi's phone was closed completely before letting one brow quirk up in humor. "He doesn't mean it," she reassured her boyfriend, who had let his head slump onto the large arm of his chair. "If he had to go back to writing practices and sing-alongs, he would be more sympathetic."

"If I hadn't been _doing_ writing practices and sing-alongs for two years now, I would be more dedicated," Shinichi grumbled, rolling his face against the leather til it smushed his nose. "Maybe I could lead the class tomorrow," he muttered into the leather, ignoring Ran's quiet _hm_ of amusement. "Mao! Sun Tsu. These are pertinent topics to the interests of the average playground warrior, you know," he continued, gesticulating broadly with one hand, face still planted firmly into the chair arm. "It's vicious out there. The third graders should know how to properly corral and motivate their first-grade troops."

"Where would you second-graders be, then?" Ran asked, teasing with her voice as she reached forward to gently massage Shinichi's shoulders, soothing with her touch.

"Scouts," Shinichi decided. "Reconnaissance. Communicati-ohhhhh. Mmgh. Right there."

Ran frowned, trying to balance delicacy with effectiveness, afraid of further complicating the problems and tendernesses in her boyfriend's small shoulders. "Ai warned us that you'd have a lot of knots because of the, um. Unconventionality of the change this time."

"Ooogh. I think if I'd been trying to walk around yesterday or today, instead of you carrying me, I would be in a lot more pain than I already am," Shinichi grumbled, drooping against the chair and Ran's touch. "Mmmmph. Please don't stop."

Ran smiled. "Well, I will have to eventually, or Chirokawa-san will get entirely the wrong idea when you call him. But I suppose I can keep going for a few more minutes."

Shinichi just grunted his agreement.

* * *

Though he hated to admit it, Shinichi's week went _much_ more smoothly than the one that had preceded it, and only so much of that ease could be credited to the mental aftereffects of a weekend spent pushing the limits of his body's abilities for pleasure. The more significant change was the absence of two hundred seventeen dead faces waiting for him at home each evening.

Of course the case was never far from his mind, and he wasn't at all the type of person to enjoy giving up a chase before its completion. But there was still significant relief in leaving the heavy lifting to the professionals for a while. And it was hard to argue with the obvious relief in Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, and Genta's faces - and even the more private relief in the eyes of their brand new second grade teacher, Tanaka-sensei - as the Conanish schoolday routines reassured them that the grimness of the past week was truly gone. Comforted by their innocence - and feeling more than a bit protective in light of the current case - Conan allowed himself to be dragged to the playground, the park, and the mall. But each night, long after the children's bedtimes, Shinichi stayed up with his own work, mulling over possibilities and probable - or even fanciful - cause. Frustrated with the broad sprawl of the facts before him, convinced that there _had_ to be some tighter association or causality between them all, Shinichi tried his best to synthesize as many connective theories, whether useful or far-fetched, as he prepared for Friday's meeting with Division One and Megure.

Unfortunately...Thursday got in the way.

* * *

"Conan-kun, you have to _promise_ you'll call as soon as you're done with your homework so we can go to the penguin slide afterward!" All business, Ayumi stood just outside the school gates with arms akimbo, threatening Conan with her very slight height advantage. Mitsuhiko and Genta flanked her, forming a three-sided human corral that kept Conan from running off without full explanation. "You _promise_?"

"I promise," Conan answered, smiling at Ayumi's earnesty. "Here, I'll even pinky-swear it."

"Okay! It's settled!" Genta's voice boomed over the others' heads and half the block. "The Shounen Tantei will reconvene at the penguin slide in...a while!"

"Yeah! Let's do it!"

"Alright!"

Laughing, Conan dropped his skateboard to the cement and tapped it on. As it powered up and he steadied his balance, he grinned warmly at all three of the others. "See you there. You'd better do your homework too."

"We will, Conan-kuuuun~" Ayumi promised, voice following him as he scooted quickly out of sight.

_'A while,' huh?_ Alone in his thoughts as he deftly wove through the flow of students, his powered board humming steady against his soles, Shinichi shook his head with a smile. _Going to have to teach Genta better estimation techniques._

As he progressed, leaving the elementary behind him, Shinichi smiled as he remembered how far the Shonen Tantei had come in the time he'd known them. He bragged about them to Chirokawa and so forth, sometimes taking their growth for granted; but other times, like now, Shinichi was glad for the Tantei's resoundingly indefatigable nature...and their childlike ordinariness. A grade school detective club they certainly were; brilliant or news-worthy enough to snag the Black Org's attention, they fortunately were not.

_They can stay just that way,_ Shinichi silently affirmed. _I think having one of them captured would constitute something along the lines of a personalized nightmare._

As his path straightened out, angling slightly uphill, Shinichi pulled himself out of his reverie with an appreciative smile. His appointed meeting-place with Ran was in the next block, out front of a French-style patisserie which made Shinichi determined to buy its delicacies for Ran sometime when he would be of a proper size to nibble the crumbs from her cheeks. He'd caught her looking at the displays once or twice, and earnestly wanted to see what she'd like best, and for which she'd go back for seconds.

_Ran's an amazing traditional cook, but sometime I'd like to take her out for a big five- or six-course French meal,_ he thought happily. _I think she'd really like the richer food for a change._

_Kid... well, he's surely had __real__ cuisine of most of the varieties which I could offer, even when I have the resources of the shopping centers to choose from. I'm sure I can come up with something that would surprise him, though._ Shinichi's head lifted, gaze rising from the sidewalk and the nose of his skateboard in front of him toward the end of the block, where a pretty face he knew quite well was just coming into view.

_Ran._ Even in his own mind, Shinichi said her name with reverence. _She looks well. I hope the second period test went well today._

It was around this point that the exhaust from a chunky foreign car caught his attention, and he turned to watch as the vehicle pulled up along the curb beside him. His own face reflected back to him in the tinted windows, sides and back.

_Not..._ Shinichi frowned. _Not good._

"Edogawa-kun?" said a calm, level voice as the window rolled down a little; it sounded like a woman's. "Conan? Your parents sent me- I have something for you, a message from your mother." The window rolled down just a little further, moving silently on electric tracks; inside, the back seat's inhabitant was merely a silhouette against the dark windows. "Come closer, please?"

It was like having icewater being poured down his spine: first the brief flash of puzzlement _(?- Edogawa doesn't HAVE parents)_ and then the sweep of _ALARM, ALARM!_ that followed. Adrenaline kicked in, and even as he heard the cardoor unlatch and he dropped a foot to the pavement to halt his progress—he could almost make out the shadowy face—there was movement behind him, smooth and unhurried and—

Later, painfully, Shinichi would flay himself for not seeing the ploy for what it was: a two-party operation, one half mobile and able to elude pursuit easily, the other an anonymous passerby following the target and signaling the first when the moment was right. The bait, to grab and draw the attention; the trap of the car, its jaws opening wide as the door swung open; and the large, dark figure that stepped up behind him and propelled him forward with one abrupt shove to the small of the back. It was all like clockwork, so practiced and perfectly timed that if he hadn't stumbled hard over the still-charged skateboard that skittered out from beneath his feet, it would have gone off without a hitch, and he would've vanished into the depths of the foreign sedan.

Never to be seen again.

He went down _hard,_ chin striking the pavement barely twenty centimeters from the edge of the door; behind him there was an annoyed exclamation (and later he'd shake when he remembered that, just irritation like you got when somebody carelessly dropped a shopping-bag.) Stunned by the impact, Shinichi felt the hand hook into the back of his pants and yank him up; he swung shockingly light in the other's grasp just above the sidewalk, and with the clarity of pure terror saw the hardened woman's face inside the car smirk as she reached out to grab him.

Pounding on the sidewalk, flat slap of running feet—

Pounding of his heart rabbit-rapid, small arms flailing to grab onto anything, _anything,_ kicking and twisting like a fish on a gaff; and he heard the man swear as huge hands tried to pry too-weak fingers loose from pantslegs—

Pounding in his head as he was shoved forward, striking the car-door with his temple with a dull CRACK! of impact— It stunned the voice out of him before he could do more than cry out once; still hanging onto fabric (and feeling something give way in a bright hot twist of pain) Shinichi was barely aware of shouts and sudden thumps and the woman's shrill curse. He fell a second time, this time the flat of his cheekbone striking the curb even as something whistled over his body and smashed into the door. He lay there, face at an angle, trying to will away the dazed echoes enough to scrabble backwards, but all he could do was watch:

_**Ran**__,_of course, though mostly all he could see was a blur of movement through the haze of distortion brought on by the blow. Sweep of a leg, the dull grunt from her opponent as the side of one her connected; a foot (_men's size 31, scuffed black steel-toe_ he thought groggily) stomped onto the pavement a hair's breadth from his shoulder and Shinichi felt more than heard the collision of bodies as the man swung and struck back. There was an anguished gasp, and then, sharply:

"_Heeaaaiii!"_

-and thud-thud-thud-THUD! And the bulk of a body falling on top of him, heavy, breathing harsh- Shinichi felt his own body contract, trying vainly to avoid being smashed by taking up as little space as possible. For a moment he couldn't see, could do nothing other than huddle where he was, hear a gabble of voices and the scrape of feet shoving at pavement; the weight came off, a heavy foot struck his side in a glancing blow, and then there was engine-noise and exhaust and a something that brushed the top of his head oh-so-delicately as it passed: the wall of a tire, just touching.

There were arms around him, lifting him up, voices everywhere—

And then nothing.

* * *

The call had come in via dispatcher, one among many; if the reaction of two officers in particular had seemed a little excessive, well, attempted abductions were never pretty. _Especially_child-abductions. It was odd, wasn't it, the dispatcher mentioned over coffee later on, just how many of those there'd been in the area lately, wasn't it? Really awful.

The ambulance had already come and gone by the time they arrived, despite Sato's attempts to break Beika-cho rush-hour speed-records (for once, her partner had said not one word in protest but had hung onto what a visiting American policeman had called the 'Jesus Strap' in white-faced silence throughout the trip.) Megure's voice crackled stridently over a private channel as the two turned around, speeding towards the hospital.

Neither spoke very much; they didn't need to. The thoughts were clear enough in their minds, mutual themes of _not an accident, not with this child_ and _the perfect target._

And, of course, _what do we do now?_

"They didn't get him," said Takagi quietly, knuckles whitening on the strap as Sato pounded the steering-wheel in frustration at the number of trucks, taxis and just _traffic_ in their way. "They didn't. I wonder—how many other failed attempts there've been?"

"Not enough," replied Sato grimly, and from that point neither said a word until they screeched into the hospital parking-lot.

* * *

_He looks so small. Why do people look so small in hospital beds? Or unconscious; and since he's unconscious in a hospital bed he looks even smaller. So small-_

The ER nurse had bandaged her already: ankle and wrist and elbow, though there wasn't much to be done about Ran's scraped cheekbone or rapidly-coloring jawline. Everything ached, and they'd wanted to put her in a bed too (she'd refused.) Scrapes and bruises would heal; they weren't important, not nearly as important as the small, silent figure in the bed.

_...so small..._

Noises in the hall made Ran glance up; she winced, her abused head throbbing at the abrupt movement. _Tousan,_ she realized, arguing with the doctor; he'd gotten there remarkably fast_(Takagi-keiji must've called his cell-)_ and when he'd held his daughter, shaking, she'd realized something. Her arms wanted to hold someone too, but-

_Not Tousan. I want Shinichi. I want Kid. I want... I want..._

Her arms wanted to wrap themselves around Conan's small body, to scoop him up into her lap in a simultaneous embrace of lover and beloved child; it was a confusing realization, but the confusion didn't stop the urge to protect the small boy she'd thought of him as for so long or the desire to hold one of her two most precious persons. And if that was strange or wrong, Ran didn't particularly care... she wanted, oh, she wanted...

In the bed, the sleeper's breathing hitched, caught and shook itself; dazed blue eyes opened slowly. "-R-R'n-?" Shinichi coughed, face pale below the bandages on his forehead. "R-"

"...Shhhh." Carefully she wrapped both her hands around his. Small fingers twitched, waking up, and gripped hers on his good hand; the other was bandaged. "Don't try to talk." Swallowing a huge, jagged lump composed of relief, tears and terror, Ran pressed her face to the boy's palm; it was scraped too, and she felt the plastic slickness of bandaids. "You're okay, we're both okay, and you're safe." _Thank god, oh thank god, Shinichi-_ She was shaking and she couldn't shake, she had to be strong for him.

But memory was coming back in fits and starts; stark, atavistic fear flashed across Shinichi's face for a moment, and his gaze flickered over Ran rapidly, taking in the bulk of bandages beneath her shirt on the left shoulder and the purpling bruises on her face. His fingers tightened, cupping her face, and she turned her head to press her lips against them. "...R-ran? 're you-" He coughed again, and the nurse was suddenly there and any privacy they'd had was, at least for the moment, over.

* * *

"-no idea, Takagi-keiji," said Conan patiently as the young officer jotted down notes in his Occurrence Book. "It was a late-model sedan, foreign, not new, and- I didn't see the driver or the man who pushed me." He sighed, slumping back against the starchy hospital pillows, looking small and cold and feeling not much different from his appearance. "But," he added soberly, still in Conan's aren't-I-brave voice, "I _did_ see the woman in the car. I bet," he added carefully for his audience- Mouri, two other uniformed cops, the nurse who was currently measuring out painkillers into a plastic cup and Eiri-san, who had appeared only moments before, "that I could recognize her in a mugshot book if you let me look..." His voice trailed off at Takagi's meaningful stare (and the far more intense one he was receiving from over his shoulder from his partner, who stood watching him fixedly with her arms crossed.) "...later?" Shinichi finished a little plaintively. "They're not going to keep me here overnight, are they?"

_Get Me Out Of Here,_ his eyes telegraphed urgently. _Right. Now._

Takagi shook his head the slightest bit, not in a negative answer but to indicate _Calm down, I'm working on it._ He folded the book closed and sat back in the uncomfortable folding chair that had been dredged up for him. "That depends on what the doctor says, Conan-kun; you could've been badly hurt. Both of you, actually; that was- closer than I like. You're certain you feel well enough to leave?" He hesitated, glancing to one side at Ran's father, who was looking rather morose. "I'm sure that you'd both prefer to go home, but, ahh-"

Eiri, who had been talking quietly with the doctor, shook her head. "They could come home with me," murmured Mouri's estranged wife; the detective stiffened, an outraged look crossing his face before he clenched his jaw hard in rather uncharacteristic silence. Ran, her hands still wrapped around the boy's unbandaged one, shook her head stubbornly.

"I- I don't want to be some place where-" Her voice faltered, but Sato and Takagi looked at each other, filling in the blanks: _Where we could be found. Where we can't talk. Where there's no more security than an apartment door gives._

"Then you should come home with us."

The small voice made Takagi start violently and drop his pen; Conan, though, let out his breath in a small sigh of relief as the police at the increasingly-crowded hospital room's door allowed Professor Agasa's bulky form and Haibara Ai's much smaller one through. Ai approached the bed, her face quiet and noncommittal as ever, though her fists were clenched silently at her side. "Not quite at death's door, I see," she added prosaically. She looked at the two officers, blue-grey gaze the calmest thing in the room. _"Can_ they come home with us? Is there any medical reason why not? Agasa-hakase has a very up-to-date security system. And of course you could look it over yourselves if you'd like."

The two officers blinked at her, and then at each other. Behind them, the attending doctor cleared his throat doubtfully, and the argument began.

* * *

Agasa and Ai won, of course. They would have even without the support of Takagi and Sato - but it was more polite to pretend that Conan's attending doctor finally conceded because Ai's idea had badged officers supporting it, rather than the true fact that the ersatz girl's seven-year-old glare, the changing nuances of which were seamlessly narrated by Agasa's persuasive but firm tones, would have likely been enough to crush the resistance of an entire panel of doctors, much less one MD barely out of residency whose medical background was far stronger (and more well-supported) than his own somewhat jumpy personality.

The papers were signed, the doctor and nurses made worried, disapproving noises in final ineffective protest, and Agasa and Mouri pushed two wheelchairs out of the hospital toward Takagi and Sato's unmarked car. There were no less than three drivers who wanted Ran and Conan to ride home under _their_ care; Sato had firmly settled the discussion with her usual bluntness.

"Mother, father, guardian of the victims you may be, but Takagi-keiji and I are _officers_, which means we will protect them until they're safe inside Agasa-hakase's house. You're all welcome to follow our car and our police escort if you'd like. If, you know, providing a ridiculously obvious caravan of vehicular identification is the sort of thing that you think will keep them safest.

"...No?" She had surveyed the frustrated faces before her: mainly Mouri and Eiri, though Agasa was looking a bit taken aback as well, and Ai was (as usual) piqued. "I'm sure the Professor won't mind you two making your way over to his house later this evening," she'd added gently, her heart twingeing in sympathy. "_Inconspicuously_, of course. But for now, it's best if we not draw attention to Edogawa-kun and Mouri-kun's departure from this building, especially in cars that are as, ahm, unique as some of yours."

Agasa had the grace to look a bit sheepish. "Hrm. The hazards of enjoying imports, I guess?"

Sato smiled, her icy attitude thawing a bit. "It's a lovely vehicle, Professor, but you may want to look into a rental if you find it necessary to take Edogawa-kun anywhere in the future. Of course, we would _prefer_ that you not do so unless absolutely necessary."

"Of course." At Agasa's knee, Ai had regarded the officers before her with a severity of expression that would have profoundly disturbed anyone not familiar with her secret - though even their familiarity didn't keep Takagi or Sato from being unnerved. "He will not be going _anywhere_ for some time."

From the bed, a weak, dry chuckle drew everyone's attention to the subject of the debate. "Am I grounded, Ai?"

"It's for your own good," Ai simply answered.

For once, Shinichi couldn't argue at all.

* * *

So it was under police escort that Ran and Shinichi returned to the Agasa house. The drive was made in silence, accompanied by the crackle and static of the radio layered over Megure's voice, and that of a dispatcher or two; police chatter, a call or two going out, and regular questions from Megure, the answers to which assured the inspector that nothing untoward had happened (yet). Ran held tightly to Shinichi, who'd been placed in the middle of the back seat so Ran could support him against herself. Agasa and Ai followed in the squadcar behind Takagi and Sato's car. Mouri and Eiri were still at the precinct, receiving advice on securing their living quarters against observation or follow-up attacks. The facts buzzed around in Shinichi's head, noisy and bothersome; never before in his life had he hated his hyperalert brain more than at these moments. Ran's ginger hand in his hair soothed what amount of pain and stress she could.

Just before Takagi slowed the car to a stop on the street in front of Agasa's, both teens - size immaterial - watched the gates of the Kudo house pass by with a pang of longing in their hearts. They didn't have to speak to share the knowledge that they both wanted to be safe within it more than anything else; nor could they speak the queasier knowledge that its walls might no longer be as secure as they had once imagined them to be.

Agasa's, though, Agasa's was bright, and cheerful. It was free of shadows. It would be just fine, comforting in its own way. _It'll be okay,_ Ran repeated to herself, apologizing to Conan as they got out of the car for her injuries, which made her unable to carry him inside.

"It's fine, Ran," he murmured, not bothering with honorifics, not bothering with the act, not bothering with anything at all that wasn't related to getting inside Agasa's front door, getting it closed behind them, getting into a soft, safe bed and curling up with Ran and texting Kid and-

Shinichi stopped dead in his tracks, his hand falling from Agasa's supporting grasp, and if the man's big hands hadn't immediately landed on the boy's shoulders, Shinichi would have sprinted to the front door no matter his injuries. Eyes shining, the small trio on the stoop beamed back at him with pure, undiluted joy.

"_Conan-kun!_"

Ignoring her own injuries, Ran did bolt forward, reaching the house at about the same time that Sato did. Sato steadied Ran and knelt to address the three children on the stoop.

"What in the _world_ are you doing here at this hour? Professor, get your keys, we have to get everyone inside."

The confused clamor of children's explanations, adult panic and relief, and the ever-present chatter of police radios burst into Agasa's house in a tangle of bodies, discarded shoes, and abrupt application of blankets and couches. While the uniformed officers arranged themselves just inside the doors, front and back, to watch for any immediate signs of trouble or following, Sato and Takagi plopped a very confused Shonen Tantei down on the Professor's living room couch, drawing breath for what promised to be a truly spectacular lecture. A heavy hand on each of their shoulders, gently patting, cut them off before they could begin.

"Please let me, officers," Agasa said, and the pair saw no reason not to, stepping aside as the Tantei belatedly identified danger in Agasa's bearing and shrunk down on the couch in front of him.

While the others were thus occupied, Ai startled Takagi by tapping him on the knee, gesturing for him to follow her; confused, he trailed her toward one of her worktables. He followed her back almost as quickly, scrubbed down and wearing nitrile gloves, carrying a tray of hypodermics, pills, and other implements with an apologetic expression as he approached the chairs where the two attack victims were cosily ensconced. Shinichi grimaced but held out his arm obediently; Ran squirmed quite a bit more.

On the other side of the sitting area, two eight-year-olds and one almost-eight-year-old were getting the talking-to of their lifetime.

"What distresses me the most," Agasa said, his voice and posture weighed down by alarm and worry more than his own girth, "Is that you three have _seen_ lots of the bad things that people in the world can do to each other. You know it's not always a good idea to trust people whom you meet. And yet you three waited on my stoop for hours in the dark, all alone? Without telling your parents where you were?"

"Conan-kun was _missing,_" Ayumi protested yet again, small fists balled up tight in anger. "He said he'd be at the playground and he _wasn't_ and he _never_ isn't where he promises he'll be. We were afraid something bad happened to him again and we were trying to tell you. And we stayed all together and we had our Shonen Tantei badges on and-"

"And you could have been hurt, like Conan-kun almost was!" Agasa frowned down at the three; to her credit, Ayumi cowered less than Mitsuhiko did, and Genta nibbled on his fingers in anxiety. Behind Agasa, Ran and Shinichi shared a look.

_'Almost?'_ his wry face said.

_'They're safe,'_ Ran's answered. _'That's what matters.'_

The lecture made a good screen for Ai to finish her treatments against. It wasn't so much that the medical team at the local hospital had done a bad job—they hadn't—it was merely that if she _didn't_ check over her one-person experimental subject (and, by extension, his girlfriend), she would probably spontaneously combust or set someone else on fire. Perhaps both. "You do seem to make a hobby out of being injured, Kudo-kun," she murmured as delicate fingers carefully checked out the set of the wires sunk into his hip; the black box had been knocked slightly ajar but showed no signs of damage. "While I understand that you might be acquiring a taste for drama- by contagion, perhaps—could you at least _attempt_ to keep it to a dull roar?"

Shinichi slumped in his chair. "It's not like I _tried_ to—oww! Dammit, Haibara, leave me a little undamaged skin, would you?—to get kidnapped, you know." He glared at her, but the look had as much curiosity in it as resentment. "Why are you taking this so calmly?" he asked, rubbing at his aching forehead with his bandaged hand; his good one was clasped in Ran's. "You DO realize who that had to be, don't you?"

A muscle twitched in Ai's jaw as she smoothed a new biopatch into place against his skin. "Of course I do," she said quietly, and there was the barest hint of a tremor in her voice, like the fine crack you might see in a carefully-repaired vase. "And I'm sure you can follow that line of reasoning to its obvious conclusion, can't you, Kudo-kun? Think: They made an attempt; They failed." The capital letters were clear enough to be quite audible. "They aren't likely to try for you again, not unless the opportunity is absolutely irresistible; you are, for the most part, safe. And by extension, so am I, as are the children; I'm certain that the influx of police activity will make us all _persona non grata_ to whomever decides the targets… at least for a while." To one side, Takagi watched silently as Ai's small, deft hands gathered the debris of her work and deposited it onto the tray. "Mouri-chan, may I see your ankle? Thank you."

Leaning his aching head against Ran's arm, Shinichi smiled a private, rather wry little smile. _She's right; and in a really screwed-up way, it's similar to the results of Kid's heists and returns. Every time he steals a gem, the security gets beefed up like __crazy__ as soon as the owner gets it back—kind of a barn-door-and-horse thing, but whatever—and the chances of it going missing again drop significantly._ He glanced surreptitiously at Takagi, who had been drafted to hold Ran's leg steady as Ai applied some of her Apotoxin-based balm. _I'm not even going to bother to ask if we're going to remain under surveillance; of course we are, more than ever. Kid ought to enjoy the challenge, he—_

_OH MY GOD__. Kid is going to have a CORONARY about this._ A little frantically he began fishing around in his pockets for his cellphone, which had of course been removed at the hospital. "Ran? Ran, we have to text K-Kaito, we—"

She shook her head tiredly, eyes shadowed. "Already done. I sent it as soon as I could think clearly, but I haven't heard back yet; your phone's in my purse. Ai-chan?" Ran's voice was exhausted. "Could we go lie down somewhere?"

The small scientist snipped the end of the fresh bandage she'd applied, taped it down with one easy motion and considered this. "I don't see why not. Neither of you have concussions despite both receiving head-blows—you _will_ be checked on at one-hour intervals, of course, but I imagine a night's sleep will benefit you both more than anything." She removed two small plastic cups containing pills, considered them briefly, and passed them over. "Swallow these, please." A little gingerly they did so, and Ai nodded in satisfaction. "That should help," she murmured.

Takagi looked at her. "Really? Ah—what did you just give them, Haibara-san?" He stumbled over the name slightly.

"A mild sedative." At the outraged glares that she received from all three parties, the small blonde raised an eyebrow. "What? Do you honestly believe yourselves capable of sound sleep after this afternoon's trauma? This should relax you enough to take the edge off and allow you rest and shouldn't interact badly with your injuries nor any of the other medications you've received. Be thankful that I didn't sedate you within an inch of your lives; you should wake up within a few hours without much grogginess." She peeled off her gloves and rose, figuratively brushing off her hands.

"H-Haibara-san, you _could_ have asked—" Takagi was still staring; mechanically he held out the tray for the discarded gloves, and the diminutive pharmacist shook her head.

"And they could have requested a sedative to settle their nerves. I see both unmade requests as cancelling each other out in a practical sense; it saves time, doesn't it?" The officer stared, appalled at the cold-blooded nature of this decision, but Ran and Conan merely sighed at each other; that was Haibara all over.

Subdued voices from the doorway heralded the approach of three rather woebegone faces, and Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta made their farewells; they were well and truly in the doghouse and knew it. "We're grounded," announced Mitsuhiko gloomily. "Agasa-hakase called our parents and they're _really annoyed_ with us because we didn't call them first, but they wouldn't've allowed us to wait here which is WHY. And now we gotta stay home all weekend and _behaaaaaave—"_ (Mitsuhiko loaded the word with extra whine) "-or no camping-trip next Saturday." Aggrieved moans accompanied this, and Shinichi—Conan—shook his head carefully.

"Can't help you there, guys. I'm grounded too."

"But you didn't DO anything, Conan-kun!" Ayumi, eyes huge over this outrage, put her hands on her hips and took on the aspect of a very small, very angry Valkyrie. "That's not FAIR!"

He sighed. "Sometimes adults aren't very fair," he muttered, very carefully not looking towards Ai as she bagged the last of her medical debris; there was a very quiet snort from her direction. "But we still have to do what they say, right?" Conan looked ruefully up at Ran. "I'd forgotten all about the camping-trip. …_That_ one, I mean. Am I even still going?"

She stroked his hair back from his bandage. "We'll see," she said softly.

It was Agasa who ferried the three miscreants home rather than Sato and Takagi; but it was Sato and Takagi who stayed to keep watch, talking quietly and a little stiffly with Haibara. Curled together on the oh-so-familiar bed where they had insisted on ending up, Ran and Shinichi had drawn somewhat scandalized glances from Sato… which had abruptly softened after her partner had taken her to one side for a quiet conference.

("But- Takagi, they're, he's not _really_ a child, he's- and it's-"

"Sato-san. No, listen to me, please, Sato-san... _Miwako."_ Out of sight of the others to one side of the doorway, Takagi brushed his partner's lips with one finger; startled into silence by the small intimacy, her eyes widened. "What's protocol in the rescue of victims during a hostage situation? Please, Miwako."

"I-" She concentrated. "'Ascertain that the victims are safe; reassure the victims that they are safe and that the threat has been contained. Reassure the victims that their loved ones are safe-' Oh. But Wataru, they're not..." Sato stopped again, thoughts flickering behind her eyes. "They are, aren't they? Each other's hostages; hostages to fortune." She sighed, her hands rising to rest on his shoulders.

Face sober, Takagi nodded. "Every day of their lives. Knowing deep down that each other is safe is more important than propriety, isn't it? -Not something I guess you thought you'd ever hear me say, but it's true," he added quietly and not without humor. "They need this. And, ah... well." He gave her a faint quirk of a smile. "It's not likely that they'll, err, I mean... there isn't much that they could... get up to, is there? Like this?"

"I suppose not." Sato glanced back at the doorway, eyes sad. "You're right, Wataru; you're right.")

Not that either of the two in the tiny room cared; Ran's arms, finally full, remained wrapped around the small form that tucked itself within the curve of her body, warm and swaddled in pajamas left from a previous sleepover. As their mutual breathing slowed under the soothing effect of Ai's sedative, Shinichi made a small, disgruntled sound from somewhere deep in the sheets and blankets.

"Hm?"

"Bed's… too empty."

"I know. He'll come, you know he will. Go to sleep, Shinichi."

Sigh. "'kay."

* * *

And he did. After all the panicked mental chatter had been talked down to calmness, layer upon layer of just-in-case plans had been laid, the gear had been checked, re-checked, the route had been refigured twice, and the alarms had been armed, but every password which Kid owned had _not_ been reset, because he wasn't being _paranoid,_ he was being _cautious_... after all was ready and everything was as safe - for both him and for them - as it could be, he did. Late in the night, brushing shoulders with dawn, Kid came to his lovers' bedside, slipping in a window on the third floor of Agasa's house, just under the eaves. Surrounded by dusty piles of books, some of which he tripped over in the gloom, Kid waited for some time for signs of a tail. When he was satisfied there was none, the thief made his way down through the house, treading quietly along the hallways between bedrooms.

Agasa's and Ai's room was full, two quiet sleepers resting there; Kid passed by silently. The next bedroom, the spare, wasn't empty as he'd expected; concluding that Shinichi and Ran must have chosen the comfort of this room over the exam room, he nudged the door open. Kid's breath caught silently as he noted the size of each occupant of the two twin beds.

_Officers,_ he thought, heartbeat just a bit quick as he swung the door silently closed. _Didn't expect that._

That left one remaining place; stepping quietly down the stairs, Kid made his way to the first-floor exam room where Shinichi had spent so much time, where the three of them had kissed, together, for the first time; where, of all the rooms in Agasa's house, they felt most reassured, if not most physically comfortable.

Kid jimmied the door open quickly, less worried about the ticking noises of his lockpicks than he might have been at another time. Inside, the single bed had been covered by additional blankets above and below the sleepers, presumably for comfort as well as warmth. The moon had helpfully stretched one of her beams across Ran's shoulders and the crown of Shinichi's head, the contours of her light following the curves of their bodies like the protective embrace of a mother, and Kid whispered sincere thanks to her for her presence as well as her protection as he approached the bed.

They both looked so _small._ Ran less so, obviously, but fear and anger traced her pretty face. Kid thought he could see the outlines of a bad dream hidden there. Her shoulder was bulky, probably bandaged under her night clothes to help her keep it immobile; Kid had injured his shoulders before, and he knew how obnoxiously tenacious the injuries could be. Ran's hand was also bandaged, and her cheek as well, though more lightly; a bruise, Kid deduced, and the bandage would simply keep the swelling down. Kid didn't know any of the details of the attack yet, just that it had happened and they'd both survived; the injuries he'd imagined for Ran were broad in scope and consequence, and he was glad to have been proven more paranoid than necessary.

Shinichi, though...

Kid bit his lip as he reached down, carefully stroking the boy's hair back from the bandage that wrapped his head. Shinichi was heavily swaddled in blankets, nearly completely covered, but even still Kid could see the proof of injuries more extensive than a knock to the head. One of his small hands was wrapped, fingers taped together to protect them all; Kid hoped sincerely that there were no broken or wrenched joints in that mess, though he knew his hope was likely too optimistic. Shinichi's face was a mess, one whole side of his jaw and cheek covered with patches of gauze, taped onto his skin like clumsy grafts. He lay on his side, curled stiffly against Ran; given his size and the slowly growing picture of the attack that Kid was forming in his mind, it was a fair assumption that the boy had taken at least one hard impact to his midsection, probably more.

As the observations lined up in his head, one after the other, mounted into a towering pile of _do not want_, Kid gingerly took a seat on the folding chair at his lovers' bedside. Unable to make himself grip their exposed, injured hands, and unwilling to disturb either of them sufficiently to make room for himself in their bed, or reposition them so he could reach the two hands (one each) which were safe for gripping, Kid just folded his hands together, bracing his elbows on his knees. Comforted by the warmth of the motherly moonlight and the slowly creeping dawnlight of her filial companion on his nape and ears, taking strength from the soft, un-strained breathing from both sleepers before him, the thief in black bowed his head over his loved ones, a quiet sentinel for the few remaining hours until morning.

* * *

_._

_Coming next weekend: Chapter Nineteen, "Did I just hear you suggest we contact a hacker, Takagi?"_

_Coming soon: An explanation of how the ages in Three Thieves work out - explaining my math, and the way it fits into DC/MK math, for Kaito and Kid, Shinichi, Ran, Yukiko and Yuusaku, Chikage and Toichi, and more._

_Screams, comments, praise, and chocolates can be left at the door. _


	64. Contact a hacker?

_**Book Five, Chapter Nineteen**__**: "Did I just hear you suggest we contact a hacker, Takagi?"**_

_He came to slowly, a memory of smothering cloth and a sweet, cloying smell harsh and rasping still in his lungs. Struggling against the stiff immobility of whatever it was that wrapped his limbs before consciousness had properly set in, a sharp stab of pain kindled the first sparks of alarm into a conflagration of panic._

_The low laugh that greeted him upon opening his eyes didn't help. "Shhh, baby, shhhh," said the blonde woman in the seat beside him, her coarse-faced mask lying limp and obscene in her lap; she stripped off thin black gloves, red lips curved. "Good little boys need to sit back and be quiet. We have a long trip ahead of us, and-" She brushed her bare knuckles along Shinichi's jawline; they stung, and came away smudged with dirt and dried blood. "-if they behave and don't make a fuss, they just might get a treat at the end of the drive."_

_Duct-tape across his mouth, binding his wrists and ankles; he writhed against it, uncaring of his injuries as the black sedan sped up, moving along an anonymous highway. Outside the tinted windows the sky had long since gone dark- how long had it been, how much of a head-start had they had? Had Ran seen the license-plate, had she-_

_(oh god oh god oh god Ran)_

_He tried to scream past the tape, eyes bulging._

_(be alright please be alright please be alright please be alright please)_

_Cold fingers stroked his hair, and Vermouth shook her head in mock-sadness at the wild terror she saw in Shinichi's face. "No, my sweet little silver bullet, you mustn't make a sound. There's nobody left to hear you anymore, not that pathetic excuse of a detective you've been living with, not those children- they'll be useful, though not in the same way you will- not that beautiful new friend of yours either, and __oh__ how he fought for you... and, sad to say, not your lovely angel either. Such a pity; she had to go in the trunk, you know. Too messy- I didn't want her to stain the upholstery." The Black Organization operative sighed, and the driver in the front seat grunted in disgust at her theatrics; the sound froze Shinichi all over again as Gin cast a cold eye at him over one shoulder, uncaring and rapacious, before turning back to his driving. "Oh, she's still alive, I promise you. Killing her right away would've been such a waste; how else would we keep you quiet?"_

_"But you know, sweetheart... she shouldn't've fought back. It's more fun when they fight, but it never ends well and I had to... damage her a little. You do understand, don't you?" Vermouth's black gloves were wet; they left dark smears against her fingers._

_(nononononono)_

_"No, your angel can't help you anymore; she can't even help herself. But you'll see her again, I'm sure of it." Vermouth leaned in close, those red lips smiling again. "And maybe if you're good I'll get them to let you share an operating room. Maybe they'll even anesthetize you both before they dissect you. I wouldn't want to hear her scream, would you?"_

_(no please god no please)_

_"But before that," she breathed, lips brushing his cheek, "you can scream for __me__. I promise I'll let you; that's the treat. So shush, my baby, be still; be still and enjoy the ride-"_

* * *

The nightmare ended in what would've been a scream if Shinichi had been capable of it; instead, muffled against Ran's breast, it came out as a strangled sob. He thrashed, tried to shriek, attempted to fight free of the enveloping bedclothes in utter mindless terror.

"Tantei, Tantei, hush, it's alright, it's _alright._ I'm here, I'm here, I promise." There were hands on his shoulders, arms enfolding him, voices; for far too many seconds they were still the stuff of dementia, and the boy twisted against the hold and the pain his movements caused. "Tantei! _TANTEI!_ Listen to me, you were dreaming, it was just a dream. Listen to me-"

"Sh-Shinichi, please- please, Shinichi, stop-"

It was the fear in Ran's voice that slowed him at last; that and the hands that cupped his aching face, stroked it soothingly, brought him partway back out of black misery and fear. He choked on his own voice, minimally aware that all the while he'd been struggling for breath. "R- R-Ran? Kid?" Shinichi drew in a deep, shuddering breath, unclenching hands that only now were yelling at him that they _hurt_ and would he please _let go right now_ in strident voices. He was aware that his cheeks were wet, but it didn't seem to matter.

"Shinichi, Shinichi, we're here." Ran's arms were around him; so were Kid's, awkward in their care but unbelievably welcome; coming back to himself but still dragging the chains of nightmare around his ankles, he clutched at Kid's hand, buried his head against Ran's breast and shook.

"Tantei. Tantei, breathe. Breathe, Shinichi. Slowly." Kid rubbed their boyfriend's small back in heavy, slow strokes, kissing his hair and the curves of his ears. Every few kisses, he tipped his head up to press against Ran's, temple to temple, leaving reassuring kisses on her cheeks and chin as well.

"I'm here. I've been here while you slept. I'm watching over you both, Tantei. You're safe."

"N-no, no, nobody's...she...she got you both, she got you, and Ran, she-" Strangling himself with his own words, Shinichi buried his face against Ran and clenched his teeth together lest they chatter with the tremors shaking his body; her heartbeat, loud to him in the ear pressed to her skin, provided a drumbeat by which to temper his thoughts. "Ran, Kid, they-"

"Didn't get us," Kid supplied, pushing his body as close as he could, sandwiching Shinichi between Ran and himself with as much enveloping contact and warmth as he could. Still Shinichi shook, less violently now, but as the terror receded, it merely freed his tongue.

"V-vermouth, she-"

"Isn't here," Ran murmured, pressing Shinichi's head closer to her breast.

"Th-they, the trunk, her gloves, they were-"

"Just a dream."

"G-god, god, Ki-kid, Ran, they- if they- I can't-"

"You can, and we will. Together," Kid reassured him, not even knowing what he was promising.

"But..." A gasp of breath, nearly a sob, as the small body between them finally went still, fine tremors vibrating his skin. His good hand clenched tightly into Ran's pajama top; his back arched against Kid, pressing where it could; the thief pressed back, confirming his presence, his safety, with the pressure.

"They didn't get you, Shinichi. It's okay. We'll solve it. I-I promise," Ran murmured. Kid leaned close to kiss her cheekbones and closed eyelids; Ran shuddered as a tight, nervous exhale passed through her, and she squeezed Shinichi tighter in its wake. "I don't know how. I don't know. I don't know. But we will. We have to. We will, Shinichi. All of us together, we will."

It was hard, harder than hard, making the body listen when some part of the hindbrain was still flooding it with fight/flight response chemicals and the sick knowledge of defeat; but slowly, slowly, the flood receded... leaving Shinichi to go suddenly slack and limp between the two larger bodies, exhaustion leaving him weak as water. "I'm... sorry," he whispered to them both. "I just c-couldn't... I couldn't get out've the nightmare, and you were, were both _part_ of it..." Eyes closed, Shinichi swallowed the remnants of tears and tried to steady his breathing, _one, two, three,_ pushing the rhythm slower and slower. It helped; but the touches, the feeling of being enveloped in safety, that helped far more.

Something Kid had said registered at last, and he blinked sleep-crusted eyes open, wincing as his face throbbed with the movement. "Kid? You've- you said you've been here? H- Wait, Takagi and Sato, they're... I think they're sleeping upstairs." Alarm filtered back in. "Are they awake too? Did they see you... no; no, wait, I'm being stupid." Shinichi realized that he was still clutching Kid's hand between his chest and Ran's; even in the semi-dark of the room he could see that the hand, though gloveless, ended in a black-sleeved wrist. _Stealth gear,_ he thought dazedly, and _of course they didn't see him, he's here. He can only be here if they didn't see him._ At the moment that made perfect sense.

Ran's hand stroked his hair, vanishing Vermouth's dream-touches with her own like a bad spell. "Can you stay?" she asked in a small voice, shifting her bandaged shoulder with a hiss of pain. "If you can't, it's okay, it's just..." Her voice was almost steady, but she ducked her head and kissed the fingers between them. "We missed you _so much._ We- wanted you here, and we knew you'd come when you could." When she looked up, it was directly into Kid's eyes, lucent in the half-light filtering in through the room's tiny window. "Can you?" she asked again. "Just... for a little while?"

"I don't care about them," Kid murmured, answering Shinichi and Ran both. "It wouldn't matter if you had the whole precinct in the house. I'm not Kaitou Kid today. Just Kid." Ran's eyes shifted, softening with a hope muddled by thin threads of confusion; between them, Shinichi made foggy noises of inquiry. Kid smiled just as thinly, leaning in close to kiss Ran's temple, eyelashes kissing her hairline. "_Your_ Kid. Kaito won't be going to school today. I - _we_ - thought it best that we stay with you to protect you. ...And to plan.

"I'm just sorry I didn't come sooner."

Like punctuation to his statement, a light knock sounded on the door - the triple rap that was the purview of officers. Raising one eyebrow, Kid smiled reassuringly at Ran - whose eyes had grown quite wide - and raised his voice to be heard through the door.

"Isn't it unlocked? Come on in."

A befuddled Sato - holding one of only two keys to the door - walked in first, leading Takagi and trailed at a distance by Agasa, bearing two steaming mugs of coffee.

"Ran-chan, did you unlock this last ni-oh." Sato blinked, actually focusing on the contents of the bed and plainly feeling confusion at their sum. "...When did you...?"

"I'm sorry," Kid answered, sitting up somewhat in a show of formality; Sato and Takagi both waved him down again, and the thief curled tightly against his lovers without compunction, meanwhile easily chatting with the officers.

"Agasa-hakase, you'll have to forgive me," he was saying, "I helped myself to your spare key, the one hidden in that place under the- yes, you know where. Ran texted me about everything last night but I wasn't able to make it over here until this morning. I didn't want to wake anyone with an early call, I'm sure everyone was up really late what with one thing and another and I just-"

Kid stopped, looking down at the boy bracketed between Ran and himself; then he met Ran's eyes, his smile warming in reassurance both given and received. The expression he returned to Sato, Takagi, and Agasa was a mixture of protectiveness, worry and fear, and something that might kindly be called 'twitterpatedness'.

"I couldn't stay away," he explained, somewhat unnecessarily. Sato was smiling - though hesitantly - and Takagi looked both relieved and distinctly uncomfortable. Agasa filled the conversation gap with his usual solidity, edging past Takagi with a few 'pardon me's, both hands full.

"Is Shinichi-kun awake?" he asked Ran quietly, smiling as she nodded in response. "Ah, that's good, very good. Shinichi-kun, I brought you coffee. Your father's blend, with a dash of brandy and a bit of chocolate in it. Would you like some?"

"Oh, I'll take his if he doesn't want it," Kid laughed, even as he helped Shinichi sit up, easing the small detective's pain as best as he could, til the boy was propped up against Ran, his back cradled in the curve of her body between breast and hip. The thief smiled. "There we go~"

Eyes bleary and voice a bit hoarse, Shinichi tried to tug the covers closer with his one good hand before reaching out for the mug of coffee in a nearly pathetic gesture of supplication. Agasa bent to give it to him, helping the boy to wrap his hand around it; Kid's hands steadied it as Shinichi took a long sip. The tension across the boy's shoulders unwound in a nearly visible manner, and Agasa breathed a sigh of relief, reaching gingerly forward to rub Shinichi's shoulder encouragingly.

"Does that help a little? Hrm, I hoped so. There's more, if anyone else would- Yes, K-Kaito-kun, I'll get you a mug of your own too."

Heat and the reassuring presence of the two bodies beside him—neither were willing to move very far— made a lot of difference, as did the caffeine. So did the brandy, though Shinichi expected Haibara to mutter dire comments regarding alcohol and its effects on preadolescent bodies. Oddly enough, though, she accepted a rather large mug of the same mixture and sipped it without demure; she looked particularly pale that morning, mothwing shadows showing beneath her quiet eyes, and he wondered if she had spent a restless night as well. Probably, all things considered.

_God,_ he hoped this wasn't the beginning of a pattern. Nightmares like that— Inside his head, Shinichi shook himself like a dog; he didn't have time to sit around reliving a sick little scrap of mental flotsam that he never, ever wanted to think about again.

Breakfast helped too: plain rice and eggs for the two invalids, something a bit more substantial for everyone else; the Professor was a decent cook when he chose to be, and this one morning his passing around a plate full of freshly-heated sweetbuns brought no more than a raised eyebrow from his fellow scientist. "I, erm, had forgotten about them; they were in the very back of the freezer," he explained a little lamely as she carefully divided one in half between the two of them; Agasa watched dolefully as the rather large bun that he had planned on taking for himself ended up on Sato's plate.

"Along with the frozen blueberry waffles and the double-frosted apple turnovers; yes, I know." She cast a jaundiced eye over his paunch. "You've lost five kilos in the past six months, Professor; excellent progress. Let's just keep that trend going, shall we? You'll live longer."

"….." Halfway between dismay that his stash had been found and gratification that he'd actually achieved a goal of dietary approval, Agasa hastily took a seat on the foot of Shinichi's bed. He patted the boy's foot with one large hand, plate balanced on his thigh. "Feeling better now?"

The boy, who had been silently amused by the pure level of _whipped_ that Haibara had the Professor undergoing, nodded. "Much better." And it was true. The sheer terror that he'd woken in had been replaced initially with a kind of numb film between Shinichi's mind and the world; that was melting away now, enough that his aches and pains were also ready to interact with the world in no uncertain terms.

He stole a glance sideways to his right; Ran was finishing the last of her eggs. Her face was wan, but when she felt him looking at her she smiled; it was a little lopsided due to the swelling in her jaw, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Her gaze slipped past him, however, and he turned his head to follow it; Kid had decimated his rice and sweetbun and was covetously eyeing Shinichi's, although his expression arranged itself into angelic innocence as soon as their eyes met. With a sigh, his diminutive boyfriend divided the bun in half and handed a share over. "You're going to get fat," he muttered in a stage-whisper.

"You can work it off me." Kid's near-soundless teasing answer was just audible enough that Ran choked on her rice.

It all helped, though. It _all_ helped, and when the last swallow of cooling coffee at last vanished and Sato went off to phone Megure-keibu, Shinichi felt very nearly back to normal. Except, of course, for—

"Oww!"

"Well, use your other hand, Shinichi." Hobbling on the crutches the hospital had supplied her with, Ran paused in the living-room doorway to watch as her larger boyfriend placed her smaller one on the couch; a bandaged hand had been pressed against a cushion. "Honestly. If it hurts, don't use it!"

"Does that go for my head as well? I haven't been using it for much this morning." He picked at the edge of the bandage; it itched. Ai's painkillers had taken away most of the ache, though he had a suspicion that her 'mild sedative' from the night before had something to do with his nightmare. _Nothing like a little drug-induced __sleep paralysis__ to put an attempted abduction into perspective._ Shinichi resolved to never again follow her 'take this' commands without a little accompanying info first.

In the meantime, though… He looked at Kid, who had just sunk down onto the furniture with his usual easy grace. The thief sprawled across a third of the couch, arms draped across the back; he was watching Shinichi, had been watching him more or less steadily since he'd woken up, and the deep blue regard warmed the detective all through. One of his hands dropped down to brush across the boy's hair very lightly, and from the doorway Ran smiled a little before settling to Shinichi's other side, bandaged ankle propped up. "You said something about planning?" asked Shinichi, tilting his head unconsciously into the touch.

"Yeah." Kid's expression shifted a bit, one notch down from the pure contentment he was feeling, and his hand cupped the back of Shinichi's head with even pressure. "We need to think about what our next moves will be. I say 'our' because I think it's as important that we act cohesively as that we act at all." His gaze, no less richly blue for the way his brows shadowed it, held Ran's for a moment. "They showed their hand first. That's a gift, a blessing if I can use such a weighted word freely. It gives us an advantage over them. We know what they want. We even know one of the faces involved." Kid's gaze shifted to Shinichi's, deepening.

"It makes it harder for them to blindside us. They already did once, and they weren't successful. They did us a _favor_." As Takagi reentered the room, coffee in hand, Kid rolled his head back over the arm of the chair, smiling at the officer as he continued.

"I am quite aware that what I'm saying may sound brash, even offensive, considering what Shinichi and Ran have been through," he acknowledged, bringing his head back up as Takagi rounded the end of the couch and took a seat across from the trio. "But I hope you can all understand my perspective on this. I've been-"

He stopped, realizing where he'd almost gone with that statement; Ran's eyes were resisting the urge to go wide in worry, and Shinichi pressed his lips together, apparently worried. But he spoke and made Kid smile, crafting a smooth transition out of Kid's near-slip.

"You've been worried too, I know," the detective said, head tipping against Kid's palm with a small sigh. "And it's okay. They didn't get me. That's what matters."

Ran curled close, holding Shinichi with silent, earnest relief and gratitude; Kid's hand transferred to Ran's head, fingers threading through her hair softly.

"Well, like I was saying." Kid looked around the room, and as Agasa and Ai rejoined the group, the thief's presentation shifted, more like a speaker with an audience than a conversation among friends.

_Always a showman,_ Shinichi thought fondly, tuning out a bit as Kid emphasized the need for coordination between all their allies' actions. _And he's not even...really hiding, at all. Even while he is._

"I hope I won't sound too dramatic when I suggest that we think of this as something of a guerilla war," he said, drawing Shinichi's attention again, and - somewhat surprisingly - no small sounds of derision from Ai's corner. "I imagine that Haibara's theory is correct, and Shinichi himself is safer now than he was before the attempt; but those around him may be more at risk, and whether or not he rises in publicity because of the kidnapping attempt, he will still pose enough of a threat to demand retribution if he becomes instrumental or vocal in the investigation against the Organization as it proceeds."

"Ah, with respect, Kaito-kun," Takagi interrupted, lifting one hand hesitantly. "This, ah, isn't terribly encouraging. If you meant it that way, I mean."

"Ah, but Takagi-keiji, it _is,_" Kid countered, letting his grin spread like a Cheshire scimitar. "We know what they want. We can use that against them.

"There's a pattern. There's a purpose. And now Shinichi has witnessed the method. We know the names and faces of hundreds of the children who may have been snatched by the Organization for their purposes. We know a little more about why they would have been taken, now. Shinichi was approached as Conan, and his parents were mentioned. If they wanted_Shinichi,_ they would know that the Edogawas do not exist. But they wanted Conan. Conan, the brilliant eight-year-old.

"The pattern that you and the other officers discerned, Takagi-keiji, is correct. They're not looking for witnesses, or children who may have seen too much; they want bright children, smart children. And they eventually dispose of these children, in gruesome and chemically questionable ways. When Chirokawa-san returns the demographic information about the suspected victims, I hazard that we'll see a lot more patterns than we're expecting. Some of them maybe closer to home than we'd like to acknowledge."

"Kid...s vanish every day," Ran said, blushing with nerves as she clumsily covered her slip. "What if Chirokawa-san's work only shows that's all it's been?"

"It won't," Kid returned confidently, one eyebrow lifted cockily. "What do we know about them? They're good with chemicals, as Haibara-san here can attest. They're brutal to deserters, mistrustful of new recruits; Shinichi's told me about some of the troubles that the FBI has had with the Organization in that regard. They have, in the past, trained members from childhood onward, indoctrinating them with loyalty and, ideally, complete obedience.

"And... all of the children haven't turned up dead yet."

"New recruits?" Agasa asked, frowning deeply. His hand moved instinctively to cover Ai's on the chair arm between them; she twitched but didn't pull away.

Kid nodded. "New talent. New minds. They're trying to figure out something, something complicated. Something that is worth bringing in _hundreds_ of new minds over the last ten years. Something that they're running out of time to figure out."

"How do you figure?" Intent, Shinichi leaned into his question instinctively, and Kid bit back a smile at his little 'terrier'. In the far back of his mind, he heard his brother's chuckle; with a word of thanks oft repeated in the past week or so, Kid acknowledged Kaito and continued with the conversation.

"The rate of kidnapping - _suspected_ kidnapping," he amended, nodding acknowledgement to Takagi - "has been rising. I wouldn't say exponentially, but it has been, and steadily. There's a couple dips in the data, I would posit at times when they felt the need for subtlety - it's been a few weeks since I looked at the figures, but I think there were two significant ones, around..." He thought for a moment and named two dates several months apart.

Takagi blinked, glancing to Ai on reflex; the small scientist glared balefully back at him, clearly growing more irritated with the conversation the further that it continued. A bit flustered, Takagi turned back to the trio on the couch, focusing on Shinichi.

"Yeah, I think those're exactly the dates," Shinichi agreed, rolling his eyes familiarly at Kid. "He's a little freaky when he does that sort of thing."

Ran cleared her throat, a small smile on her lips; Shinichi returned the look, getting a bit lost in Ran's smile and the private humor there. Kid's _ahem_ brought him back to the moment.

"The kidnappings are going up. The demographic isn't really broadening. And there's even a space of time in which the demographic narrows down even further, suggesting a temporary theory on specification that didn't go too far. But my point is that they know what they're looking for and they're looking _hard_ for it. They need someone intelligent, but who doesn't have the usual headstrong ethical compass that adults with above-average IQ usually possess.

"Well, except for the American serial killer who's been active since 2006 - Morgan, his name is. And others like him, as well. Rare anomalies, thankfully.

"Anyway, the Organization needs bright but malleable people. They already know from experience that very few of their lifetime employees successfully leave the Organization. Haibara-san's experience illustrates that fact very painfully." The thief paused, allowing a space of silence to speak his respect for Miyano Akemi, and Ai attempted to burrow deeper into her seat as Agasa's hand returned to hers, this time clasping and holding silently.

"We know that Shinichi - no, Edogawa Conan - fits their desired profile," Kid continued, eyes bright. "We can _use_ that." Shinichi watched him, working to resist the exhaustion already setting in, fogging his mind, and smiling as he watched his thief work.

_Don't care what he says,_ the boy thought, with a competitively satisfied grin. _He's as much a detective as I am a thief._

_...Which, I guess, says as much about me as it does him._ Ruefully pleased, Shinichi reached for Kid's hand with his one good one, but let his hand fall as he saw that the thief was wholly engrossed in explaining his plans.

"You know, Kudo-kun." Takagi lit up and Ran did as well, to a lesser extent, as Sato reentered the room with a smile and the snick of her phone snapping shut. "I'm not one to make premature judgements, but it seems to me that your boyfriend is somewhat ruthless."

"I appreciate your politeness, Sato-keiji," Kid returned, tipping his head over the back of the couch to grin at her upside down as she approached the ring of chairs. "But really, the 'somewhat' is unnecessary."

Shinichi, who was currently undergoing a Personal Moment after hearing Sato use the word 'boyfriend', wasn't quite capable of responding just yet; it was just as well that Ran beat him to it. "I like 'expedient' better than 'ruthless'," she commented thoughtfully. "Or maybe 'realistic'; that's good too." Her eyes were fond as she watched the two beside her, crinkling as she realized her detective's momentary minor trauma. "Close your mouth," she advised him. "You're going to catch flies." Kid reached around, tipped a finger beneath Shinichi's chin, and closed it for him with a click.

"And anyway," Ran went on calmly, "he's right. And _we're_ right; we all thought that Conan-kun'd be a target, didn't we? So now we know for certain that the profile really IS correct, and what do they do in police profiling when they have a proven pattern-?" At the room's silent pause, Ran sighed exaggeratedly and leaned back against the couch, arms crossed. "I've seen this done on police shows all the time. If they did what you expected them to do, then you can predict what they're going to do next, right? So-"

"-so if we know what kind of victims they're likely to target, we can predict which ones they'll go after." Sato's eyes were predator-sharp. "We know their hunting-ground, we know the characteristics of their chosen prey, and we have at least some idea of how they might strike. The earlier efforts may have involved coercion and recruitment, but the more recent ones have been far more blatant abductions... Kaito-kun, you're absolutely right, we CAN use this!" She turned to Takagi. "Academic records. We need demographics for Teitan and the other schools in the area, listings of above-average students, all the information we can dig up on them-"

Takagi, though, was frowning; he tried to take a drink from his mug, grimaced upon finding it empty, and dug out his ever-present notepad and pen from one pocket. The Professor quietly collected his mug and several others, disappearing kitchenwards as the young officer began to scribble a list. "That's... not going to be easy. Not without making it visible just exactly what we're doing, that is. Unless we disguise it by pulling in the data under some other motive, or pull in a previously-written report, or obtain it through, ahh, nonstandard channels..."

Sato (who had pulled out her own notepad as well) tapped the end of her pen meditatively against her teeth. "Did I just hear you suggest we contact a hacker, Takagi?" Her eyes gleamed.

"N-no! Of course not!"

"Mmm. I know one or two..."

_I'll just bet you do._ Shinichi had always suspected that Sato Miwako's own particular brand of 'ruthlessness' tended to ignore legal boundaries on occasion; perhaps that was why her comment regarding Kid hadn't been entirely disapproving. _If we __were__ to obtain records on the entire population of Beika's schools, no matter how we got them- and I honestly can't see any other way than illegally- we'd need them broken down to fit the demographic groups. So... heh. Of course. We need to talk to-_

"Chirokawa-san."

Shinichi blinked; he'd opened his mouth to say the word, but that hadn't been his voice, it'd been Takagi's... and Sato's... and Ran's... all at once.

And now Kid was smiling again. "Your pet Missing Persons officer? Yes." He stretched, draping his arms extravagantly wide across the back of the couch. "Isn't it wonderful when a plan comes together? And I wonder what information he might _already_ have available, hm?"

* * *

After putting together a list of the parameters and quantifiers they were going to need, both Sato and Takagi spent a little time on a conference-call with Megure, who (while very carefully avoiding any mention of illegality made it quite clear to his two fellow officers that _this information was crucial_) agreed that a talk with Chirokawa-san was necessary. Assurances were made that Agasa's home was under constant surveillance, promises were extracted that neither Ran nor Shinichi would go anywhere whatsoever for the duration, and Takagi and Sato left to return to work by way of their own apartments and a change of clothes. Rather tellingly, it was Kid that Sato turned to on the way out the door. "You'll make sure they don't do anything... ill-advised, won't you, Kaito-san?" she asked him seriously.

Kid smiled at her disarmingly. "I'll sit on them if I have to, I promise you, Sato-keiji."

After they'd left, the brief silence that followed was broken by a tiny beeping, a sound that (from the distressed noise Ran made almost immediately) the listeners realized had been going on for some time. "My phone!" Ran wobbled urgently to her feet, only to sink back against the cushions as Kid bounced up to retrieve not only hers but Shinichi's as well. As she dealt with her father's somewhat frantic and irate call, Shinichi looked at the thief and sighed, shaking his head. "Must be awful," he told him, disappointment evident in every word.

"Hmmm?"

"Having the police _approve_ of you. I think Sato actually believes you're a good influence."

"But why in heaven's name _wouldn't_ I be?" Kid returned, grinning gleefully at his detective from a distance of not very far at all.

Shinichi, Ran, Haibara and Agasa eyed him. The _furniture_ very nearly joined in, the pregnant silence was so profound. "...moving on," announced Shinichi after a moment. "You know, now that I have my brain working again, I think there's something else that needs taking care of." Ran looked at him inquiringly. "Hattori," he explained. "Or do you want him coming down here to rescue me again? He almost did last week; and he needs to know what happened." The small detective shuddered. "I know Division One kept it out of the news, but he's got a pretty good ear for the police grapevine; if he finds out without me telling him first-"

And so the next half-hour was spent reassuring the Detective Of The West that yes, everybody was okay, and no, he didn't need to come down there ("and hold Tantei-san's hand," put in Kid irrepressively; Shinichi took the call off speakerphone at that point.) This call led to Heiji pointing out that Hey, Somebody Might Wanna Call Your Okan and Otan, Yaknow? Just In Case. And _that_ led to another phone call, and...

"They're coming home." The cellphone clicked off, its tiny charm swinging as Shinichi dropped it onto the couch and slumped back against Kid. "I think they've worn out all the possibilities of the hot spring resort as well as their hosts' patience- Kaasan said something about 'if it wasn't a private pool it should've been marked public'. I didn't ask." He closed his eyes, energy draining out of his limbs. "It's not that I don't want them here, it's just... Kaasan fidgets. And hovers. And there's been too many people around, and-"

"-and Tousan's on the way over in a little while, maybe with _my_ Kaasan," said Ran unhappily, clicking her own phone off. "And I have to be the responsible adult and talk to them. _You_ don't, though... and so far as they know, you're not even here," she added to Shinichi and Kid respectively. "So if you two felt like going off and taking a nap-"

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Shinichi assured her. "Kid? Feel like taking a little break?"

"Oh, do you even need to ask?" Beaming like a cat with cream (or feathers in his mouth), Kid scooped Shinichi up off the couch, blanket and all, startling alarmed noises out of half the rest of the people in the room, including Shinichi. "Off we go, my love," Kid intoned dramatically, nevertheless being quite careful to cradle Shinichi's body in a way to support and protect his injured bits, and with a swish of the blankets trailing from his bundled double armful of detective, the thief stalked magnanimously off toward the staircase. "Upwards and onwards! Ever fearless! Ever noble! Ever-awkkk! _Leggo,_ Tantei, that _hurts_."

* * *

"I would suggest," said Chirokawa a little testily, "that we contact a hacker."

Somewhat appalled, Takagi looked at the older man doubtfully. "Are you sure that's wise, Chirokawa-san? Sooner or later this will be made public- maybe not for years, but anything we do that's illegal-" (he fumbled with the word; it didn't come easily) "-will be ammunition in the wrong hands."

"And the knowledge that we need will be a shield and an intervention in the _right_ ones, and much sooner. And that, Takagi-keiji, may very well save lives." Irritable dark eyes stared the Division One officer down; already irate at having his Friday disturbed, the head of Missing Persons had not been pleased by Takagi's deferential request that he concentrate his research on Beika's school population from a current-enrollment bias rather than a past-caseload one. As he'd put it, information regarding dead people was _much_ easier to obtain- they weren't around to deny access, and their families usually didn't mind.

Hence the suggestion. Takagi's head was beginning to hurt. "That's... true." He sighed. "And I honestly don't see a way to get the information going through the regular channels, and we need it."

The other man snorted, fiddling with the stack of printouts he'd pulled from a briefcase upon his fellow officer's arrival. "Of course we do. Quite frankly, I'm delighted to see a few preventive measures being put into place; I hardly need to tell you that I have enough work on my hands without additional cases being added, do I?" As Takagi's jaw dropped in outrage at what was, frankly, an extremely callous viewpoint, Chirokawa shook his head warningly. "Don't get me wrong, Takagi-keiji; every file that comes through here, every face and name, they're all tragedies; all I _see_ on a day-to-day basis are tragedies small and large. After a while, one manages to desensitize one's self... though," and his fingers squared the corners of the printout-stack, "sometimes that's more difficult than others." He was silent for a moment. "Perhaps you might see why I have no qualms regarding clandestine obtainment of the information we need, though? And you are not," he added darkly, "the first officer to consider the method. But of course you know this."

"Of course," agreed Takagi faintly. He wondered briefly how long it had taken Chirokawa to manage his 'desensitization'; for the older man's sake, he hoped the process had been swift. "So. A hacker. Would you happen to, errr... that is, if we were to decide to contact such a person... do you, ahh, have you been in contact with any such...?"

The older man shrugged. "I know one or two."

While Takagi was assimilating this astonishing bit of knowledge, the older officer continued on, passing the printout-stack over. "Here. Nine years' worth of the possible victims, broken down by the geographic, familial, financial and physical categories that you gave me; I added in a few subgroups of my own- did you know that there seems to be a prevalence of females under the age of nine among the abductees? It's a minor trend but it has some intriguing subsets; you might want to examine them when you get a moment." The stack was alarmingly large, and Takagi eyed it with resigned dismay. "Subsets and secondary sets are noted," continued Chirokawa relentlessly and with a touch of sardonic enjoyment. "So are individual files; and the data was compiled on a standalone laptop with no inter-LAN connections."

"Did you back up the files?"

The head of Missing Persons gave him an affronted hrrmph, producing a non-department-issue thumb drive from a labcoat pocket. "Of course, and deleted them from the laptop. _And_ ran a little viral program of my own that scrambles historical data of deletions in the root-directories and restore points... what? -oh; no, I didn't create the program myself." He gave Takagi what was almost a smug grin, or would've been if it hadn't had such high levels of irritability built into it. "No, it's not mine. But I know a hacker or two... And now, don't you have work to do? If you don't, I do; good_bye,_ Takagi-keiji."

Summarily dismissed, the younger officer rose to pad to the door, footcovers dragging as he reluctantly contemplated the discussion he was about to initiate with his superior regarding The Illegal Obtainment of Records, How To Initiate. As his hand rested on the doorknob, however, a thought occurred to him and he turned back towards the other. "Ah- Chirokawa-san? Just as a precaution... how safe is your home?"

Hands already busy on one of the office's several keyboards, Chirokawa shrugged. "As safe as they can be in this era of home invasions and terrorism. Why? I'm not an obvious target even if Division One's investigation becomes known."

_Think again, Chirokawa-san._ "Aren't you?" Takagi met his eyes, his earlier hesitance gone. "Anyone with any knowledge of K- Conan-kun's habits and associations will know that you're an acquaintance of his, one he comes to when he needs help. You also have access to this sort of thing-" (and he hefted the printout) "-and if you're under any sort of surveillance yourself will have been noticed in discussion with us lately. So- be careful, please, Chirokawa-san?" He shook his head. "If I were attempting to find out what ground a damaging investigation had gained, I'd look for the investigators' files; and if they weren't available on the usual departmental drives, I'd look elsewhere. And where better than in the hands of the one person with the most access to the largest variety of information?"

Chirokawa's typing slowed and halted; he stared at the young officer.

"Just think about it, please?" And with a nod, Takagi slipped out the office door, closing it behind him. His last sight had been of Chirokawa's startled eyes, and he carried that image down the hall with him for nearly a dozen meters before a passing colleague's startled face reminded him that he hadn't yet removed either his gloves nor foot-covers.

* * *

Shinichi woke slowly, overheating under what felt like a mountainous pile of blankets. His first instinct was to sit up, pushing them off; as pain spasmed through his body, he fell back to the mattress in an awkward curl, cradling his right hand against his body to try to protect it. Warm, solid arms caught him as he collapsed, supporting his head and back and laying him down gently.

"Tantei, Tantei, watch yourself," Kid chided him gently, kissing his brow. "I think 'look before you leap' is applicable when you're in this state, don't you?"

"Hot," Shinichi muttered, pressing his face against the swell of Kid's bicep as the pain receded. "S'too hot."

"I know I am," Kid preened, snickering as his miniature boyfriend scowled in irritation. But he folded the covers back anyway, smoothing just one layer of the cotton sheets over Shinichi with a gentle hand. "Sleep well?"

"Mmhmm." Carefully, the boy stretched, rolling his shoulders tentatively, but despite his caution something in his back yanked in a distinctly not-fun way and he flinched. "Nnngh..."

Kid frowned, one spread palm crossing both his Tantei's small shoulderblades in gentle support. "Roll over," he said quietly, scooting aside to make room; Shinichi managed to flop onto his stomach himself, frowning, and Kid helped straighten him out with soothing, deliberate touches. "Let me know if I do anything that hurts."

Fingers laced together, Kid flexed one hand against the other to limber them both up, then with precise touches and strong, hard fingertips, began to massage his boyfriend's back. Gentle at first, Kid strengthened his touch by stages as the surface tension of Shinichi's muscles faded away and the thief was able to reach deeper, sussing out the location of the knots that were causing him pain.

"Ai and Agasa-hakase had mentioned that you'd be all knotted up," Kid murmured, his bangs brushing Shinichi's ear as Kid bent over him in concentration. "But I didn't think it would still be this bad, even now."

Biting his lip with concentration as Kid tried to untangle a tight lump of muscle under his left shoulderblade, Shinichi slid his head on the pillow, brows drawn down over closed eyes. "It's...always pretty bad," he muttered, determined not to make any noises of pain despite the intensity of Kid's massage; he was willing to put up with any amount of short-term pain if it'd help in the long run, but he wasn't certain Kid would see it like that. "Since the device, I guess. The changes were hell before it, but they were months apart, too. Never done so many in such a short time before, and every..._nnngh!_"

Kid jerked his hands away from Shinichi's back, crouching close to bring himself within Shinichi's field of vision. "Tantei, are you okay? What'd I do?"

Shinichi slitted an eye open, his smile drawn tight but wry. "Did you feel anything go wrong?"

"Nooo, but that didn't sound comfy," the thief returned, frowning. "Should I keep going?"

The boy just raised a brow at him. Kid chuckled, a soft sigh blowing across Shinichi's brow as Kid bent to kiss his temple before returning to work. "As you wish."

Shinichi snickered, a little breathless from the pressure on his ribcage and the twanging sort of spasms that the muscles of his back were entertaining him with, and closed his eyes with a smile. "Like I was saying, it's...been building up. I haven't really wanted to tell Haibara about it, she'd...mmgh...want to scale back the treatment or something. Don't want that. Just gotta put up with a little stiffness, s'all. Overall I'm...definitely winning out this way."

"You're a masochist," Kid declared plainly, grinning in that audible way of his. His palms dragged warm and heavy across Shinichi's back, comforting.

With pillows and one of Kid's knees in his field of view, Shinichi just closed his eyes and let himself drift for a while, enjoying the feel of Kid's touch as much as the steadily decreasing level of pain spread across his shoulders and back. Kid's hands moved to Shinichi's upper arms and the base of his neck; out to his elbows and forearms, gently ghosting across his injured spots. Then the thief brought his hands back to center, tracing a steady, spiraling path down Shinichi's spine to his hips and thighs. Without a bit of awkwardness, the thief continued his massage down the length of his boyfriend's small body, loosening and soothing tension out of all his muscles.

Shinichi's hindbrain frissioned and sputtered as Kid worked his strong, long-fingered hands across Shinichi's gluteus and hamstrings. His brain, expecting his proper body, tried to respond appropriately to the sensuous impetus of his lover's hands so steadily kneading him. His body, equipped with no more comprehensive a hormone system than a normal eight year old boy's would have, read back big fat _ERROR_ messages at his brain, completely confused by the signals it was sending him. And Shinichi, stuck in the middle, tried to ignore the resultant mental static electricity, which felt very much like a cerebral version of the wintertime shock to your fingertip caused by carpets, socks, and a doorknob.

Kid had done his work well, so Shinichi's body was relaxed, comfortably warm and loose at nearly every point; while Kid worked on the soles of Shinichi's feet, the detective worked to beat into submission the mixed signals tangling up his hindbrain. By the time the thief had worked his way back up again, returning to Shinichi's shoulderblades and arms to stroke with smooth, tingling swipes of his blunt fingernails, Shinichi had himself under control again, and the comfortable, sleepily relaxing feeling of a thorough backrub was once again unmarred by inopportune_what-ifs._

"Kid, thank you," he murmured, and even his mouth was lethargic and sleepy, so the words came out mushy. His thief, now curled up beside him, smiled warmly, blue eyes sharp and satisfied.

"Glad to help," Kid murmured. "Can I hold you?" Shinichi made a quiet noise of inquiry, too contented to bother with an actual question, and Kid smiled and hooked one hand around his small waist, tugging lightly.

"Spoons?"

Shinichi had to laugh at the hopeful, impish expression on his thief's face; he nodded and let Kid roll him into his arms, sighing contentedly when his back pressed against the solid warmth of Kid's chest. "Mmmgh. Best boyfriend ever," he muttered, smiling more deeply as Kid bent to kiss the side of his head smugly.

"Yup. Best in the whole world ever."

The detective yawned, cuddling closer as best he could while still favoring his injuries; Kid drew him closer still, bracketing him in with knee and arms. "Modest, too," Shinichi muttered. Kid's chuckle mixed with the first wisps of his dreams as he dozed off again, and Shinichi let the sleep take him happily, lips pressing a drowsy kiss against Kid's bicep.

* * *

Dust from the road still gritty on his skin, Kudo Yuusaku closed the back-entrance garage door, no longer empty after so long; it now housed two motorcycles, fresh from the road. As he brushed off his clothing, he could hear Yukiko stomping up the stairs inside, heading towards the shower; the sounds faded as he passed through a small entrance into the short hallway behind the kitchen and from there through a door that few knew about and fewer had been through.

He'd had the passage installed himself, of course, with the Professor's permission; it had been an exercise in architecture and friendship, something that had amused them both- Yuusaku'd designed the tunnel itself and Agasa'd worked out the locks. It'd been much the same for the later tunnels and occasional hidden panel, of which there were several. Just little things, done for fun; but considering recent developments, he was grateful for his own past whims.

He did wonder, however, just how long it'd take for Shinichi to find them _all._

And speaking of which... Yuusaku listened briefly at the door, a frown furrowing his forehead; all was silent beyond, which was a little odd. Easing the door to Agasa's open, he poked his head through. Distant television sounds, and something rhythmic and- it sounded like- Biting back a laugh, Yuusaku toed his dusty boots off and tiptoed into Agasa's main room.

The portly scientist took up a considerable amount of one couch; sprawled against the cushions, his moustache rippled with his snores. At one end of the room, the small blonde form of Haibara Ai lay curled within the comfortable confines of one of the overstuffed chairs, her head pillowed on one arm; her own breathing was quiet, and Agasa's snores seemed to bother her not at all. However, after a moment of the writer's regard, she stirred a little and opened her eyes slowly.

Blue-gray and dark blue blinked at each other for a long moment. "...second floor bedroom, first one to the right," said Ai quietly, and turned over, tucking her head close before closing her eyes again. Bemused, Yuusaku left the two scientists to their respective naps and slipped sockfooted back out of the room and up the stairs.

The door wasn't quite closed, just pushed to. And inside... Swallowing a chuckle, Yuusaku stopped in his tracks and just took a moment to appreciate the sight.

His son, small again- a bit of a mess, too, one side of his face scraped and bandaged; a white swath of gauze was threaded through his hair as well, and Yuusaku caught a glimpse of medical tape on several fingers. He couldn't see them all that clearly, though, since they were pretty well enveloped in the broader hand belonging to the bed's other occupant. Kid, his chin tucked protectively over Shinichi's smaller head, curved his own body around the boy's smaller frame in a position of protection and comfort both; one hand gathered Shinich's two smaller ones close, carefully, while the other wrapped around his waist.

They breathed together, the boy and the young man; dark hair brushed dark hair, and if one face showed more exhaustion than the other then the peace that filled them both was enough to blur the distinction. Barely breathing himself, Yuusaku wished silently for a camera... and then mentally shook his head. At least one of the two wouldn't welcome any such thing; he'd just have to rely on memory when he described the scene to Yukiko later on.

Shinichi slept much as he had when he'd truly been a child: lightly, with dreams chasing themselves back and forth beneath his closed eyes and causing his fingertips to twitch; his father hoped that they were good dreams. And Kid... slept like...

He'd only seen Toichi asleep once in all the years of their friendship; only once, when jet-lag after a flight back to Japan had caught up with him. That had been long enough ago that it was hard to say if memory or mere supposition supplied the image in front of Yuusaku's mind's eye, but... He smiled at the similarities and let go of the twinge they gave his heart; after a moment it passed, and Toichi's son stirred, opening one sleepy deep blue eye and then the other.

(In his memory, Kuroba Toichi did the same, and smiled at his friend; there was nothing but time to alloy the memory with, no sorrow as yet, and no pain.)

"Shhhh-" In Kid's arms, Yuusaku's son still breathed lightly, at ease; his father touched a finger to his lips and drew back, pulling the door closed behind him. Wrapped close and protective around Shinichi, Kid nodded almost imperceptibly and allowed his eyes to slide shut; a sleepy smile crossed his lips as the latch clicked.

Outside, Yuusaku closed his own eyes for a moment before heading home, remembering another time and another place and another man... who had also smiled and drifted back off to sleep without a word, safe in the presence of his friend.

* * *

_._

_And there you go. Next chapter... well. If you thing things've been interesting up to now... stay tuned for next week's chapter: ____Book Five, Chapter Twenty - "I'm sorry, Ayumi." __Seeya! _


	65. I'm sorry, Ayumi

_**Book Five, Chapter Twenty**__**: "I'm sorry, Ayumi."**_

The rest of the day passed quietly enough; Shinichi drowsed, waking enough to eat lunch, greet Ran (who had been somewhat unwillingly ferried off by both parents to have her shoulder checked up on per physician's orders) upon her return, and then sleep again. Kid was there more often than not when he awoke; and once he'd blinked sleepy eyes to see not Kid but _Kaito,_quite clearly and definitely, leafing through one of Agasa's magazines in the chair by his bedside. The magician had given him a little wave but said nothing; and Shinichi had drifted off again to the quiet sound of pages turning.

His parents showed up later with a rather astounding amount of Chinese takeout, and Shinichi recognized the signs: his Kaasan was expressing her worries by smothering him with food, something she'd done in the past. That she hadn't actually cooked the food herself mattered not in the least; it was the provision that mattered, not the provider, and the strong urge to do something to help. He could sympathize; and, in between small helpings of Orange Beef and eggrolls, he did.

Kid left at last, very reluctantly; his and his brother's life couldn't be put on hold forever, and even Shinichi would be returning to school in a few days—Monday was slated as a final day off due to his own follow up doctor visit; his injuries had reached the itchy-scab stage and save for a few of the more spectacular grazes were unlikely to be much more of a problem. The knock on Shinichi's head had been less trouble than it might have been (Haibara and Ran had reached a somewhat worrying state of agreement regarding thick skulls and detectives about this) and his damaged fingers and bruised ribs, while painful, were well on their way to healing by the time Monday morning rolled around.

And he would have returned to school on Tuesday, he truly _would_ have, except for what happened that morning at Teitan Elementary.

* * *

"—_sixteen-year Beika-cho precinct veteran Ito Shuji, a neighbor of the abducted child. Witnesses reported that the uniformed officer had attempted to force the car's door open seconds prior to the shooting and had in fact been shouting and holding onto the vehicle's doorhandle when he was fatally struck down—"_

The newscaster's voice was matter-of-fact; she might have been reporting the weather or a worker's strike for all the emotion her words presented. Struggling with one-handed awkwardness to remove his light jacket, Shinichi might even have passed the newscast by if Mouri hadn't been watching it so intently… and if the background behind the commentator hadn't been his own gradeschool. Transfixed, the boy froze with one sleeve still half on, leaning against the back of the couch beside Ran, who had also paused; the apartment was suddenly very quiet.

"_Teitan Elementary was closed at noon today following the abduction; the student's name has not yet been released, but sources have revealed that due to the gravity of the situation, the school will remain closed until Monday, April 22nd. In the meantime, authorities are being very reticent regarding Ito-keiji's death and have made statements cautioning parents to keep their children under close watch over the coming holidays."_ With the oh-so-sincere look of a seasoned reporter, the woman stared straight at her audience for a moment before the report ended; behind her, an empty playground spoke more eloquently than her terse words ever could.

"…a cop was shot?" Shinichi heard his own voice ask. "Where did it happen?" The fingers of Ran's hand brushed against his back, either seeking comfort or seeking to give it.

"A block from your school," answered Mouri with none of his usual bluster; his voice was flat. "I knew him once; Ito Shuji, he came on the force about a year before I left." The detective was silent for a moment, standing with hands in pockets before the TV screen. "He was shot trying to prevent a kidnapping," he added without turning around. "Your school called, boy; you won't be going in until next week, and you're going back to Agasa-hakase's now. Ran, you are too; I've made arrangements. Get your things." He sat down with a grunt, still facing the television.

Shinichi did not move; he was uncertain if he could. "…do you know who was kidnapped?" he asked, voice faint; images of the Shonen Tantei's faces passed before his eyes, followed by those of his classmates' and he felt his fingernails biting into the fabric of the couch in front of him. When had he leaned against it? He didn't recall.

Now Mouri did turn around, perhaps alerted by the tremor in his ward's voice. "A fifth-grader named Tachibana Jun; Megure-keibu called this morning too." His dark eyes met Shinichi's—Conan's—and held them; there was nothing of the buffoon about him just then, nothing at all. "He'll be by a little later. Get going. Is the squadcar still here?" They had been transported from the Professor's to the doctor's office and back by an unmarked car, which still sat at the curb; Ran and Shinichi looked at each other and Ran nodded silently. "Good. Move."

Halfway to the hallway entrance, Ran paused. "Tousan?" she asked a little tremulously. "Where—where will you be?"

Her father's gaze softened just a little as it rested on his daughter's face. "At the casino; where else?" He shrugged, a flicker of humor lighting the bleak anger for a moment. "Think Megure-keibu wants me someplace he can find me, and he's still not satisfied that this place is safe. If you weren't under 24/7 surveillance…" Ran's father harrumphed. "I wanted to take you with me, but your mother threatened to begin divorce proceedings if I took you someplace out of her reach. Think she said something about dropping by herself… you might want to warn Agasa-hakase." His eyes sharpened. "Now MOVE."

"H-hai, Tousan."

* * *

At Agasa's, the atmosphere was tense. Shinichi - no, _Conan,_ he had to be Conan around these officers - laid in Ran's lap, ostensibly nursing his injuries while they both halfheartedly watched a television drama on low volume. In reality, he was curled much more closely than would have been appropriate were he a real eight-year-old boy, and the very soft warmth of her body cradled his shoulder and upper arm as Ran held him against her, both of them draped onto the arm of Agasa's sofa within a thick cocoon of blankets. Conan could feel the beat of her heart through her chest, thumping gently against his shoulderblade, and her breath and his own created a slow, wave-like progression of small shifts of position, tucks and minor wriggles for comfort and closeness. Her body warmed his own much more than the blankets could.

But even had he been grown, Shinichi knew he wouldn't have been able to enjoy the sweet intimacy of Ran's embrace. Regardless of his size, no connotation of their closeness could have been sufficient distraction from the anger, the helplessness, the confusion, and the creeping, insidious fear that nibbled at their nerves.

The television chattered; the officers talked quietly between themselves - there were two of them in the room, and a third one with the Professor in the basement workroom. Their presence was constant, polite, quiet, and unavoidably obtrusive; Shinichi already had realized that the only way he was going to be able to speak to Ran as himself would be by joining her in the shower.

Megure had been held up by duties related to Officer Ito's passing, and so his visit to the Agasa house was made at a considerably later hour than anticipated. Yukiko and Yuusaku came over from the mansion via the underground tunnels, and brief introductions were made.

"Megure-keibu, this is my kaasan, Kudo Yukiko."

"...Your kaasan, or your _kaasan_?" Megure asked, one eyebrow raised. Conan had just snickered.

"Either, depending on whether she's got a wig and makeup on. Kaasan, we have Pocari in the fridge, would you like some?"

"Definitely, Shin-chan." Yukiko leaned in close, kissing her son's head with affection that lingered. "Can I get you anything?"

"Just juice," her boy answered back, smiling from his snug nest in Ran's lap. The other officers had left the room momentarily, and only Megure was there to hear them, though he was making a point to professionally not do so, positioned a space away from them to give the illusion of privacy and the reality of a brief respite from pretenses. Shinichi wriggled one hand free of the blanket cocoon, aided by Ran, and both of them laid their hands across Yukiko's with earnest affection as she crouched in front of them, smiling.

"You didn't have to come, kaasan. Are we taking you from anything tonight?"

Yukiko clucked at him, ruffling his hair. "Don't you worry your head about it! Nothing important at all, just a book and a bit of baking. And I finished the laundry left over from the hot spring! All good things come to ends, and so forth, and perhaps they weren't terribly sad to see us go. And why, we can certainly go back anytime we want to. We could even bring you and a friend or two, if you'd like."

Shinichi's grin, Conan-sized though it was, wore teeth. "Kaasan, that's so _generous_ of you."

"Wouldn't that be lovely, dear?" Yukiko snickered, petting Shinichi's hair back affectionately. "Just think of all the color choices for Ran's swimsuit! Red of course, and silver, and blue, and this lovely purple-mauve shimmer I found which I'm sure one of my friends in Manhattan could whip up into something pretty quickly; she does absolutely amazing things with dancewear, you know, things that most people don't believe can even hold itself onto the body. She's just brilliant, and I'm sure if she designed something for Ran to wear it would be absolutely, exquisitely..."

She grinned, lifting her gaze past her small son's to meet Ran's coolly _just-you-try-it_ expression. "...Modest, of course. Full coverage, naturally, and with a matching coverup." Startled but relieved humor flashed in Ran's eyes, as Shinichi rolled his own with exasperation.

"Riiight, kaasan," he drawled, successfully holding a straight face except for the little curl of humor at the corner of his mouth. "Admit it, you want to see Ran all done up in some ridiculously glittery, skimpy thing, I know you do. You like shiny too much not to."

"Mouuu, Shin-chan," Yukiko faux-pouted, making puppy eyes at him. "She would look so _lovely_ in silver taffeta pasti-"

"_Ahem._" Ran's critically raised brow did all the talking for her, and Yukiko subsided with a titter, looping her arms around her small son's shoulders to embrace him closely, despite his closeness to Ran already.

Smothered between his mother and his girlfriend, Shinichi sighed in quiet relief. _She's finally relaxing, good. I'm sorry, Kaasan, I make you worry so much._ Though not even Ran could fully decode or understand his mother's flighty, impish, seemingly unflappable demeanor for what it was, Shinichi himself had never had problems seeing right through her. And as her worry and fear for her only offspring faded into a less panicked wariness, coupled with an unflagging desire to overfeed him as much as gastronomically possible, Shinichi relaxed as well, reassured by her reassurance.

"Where's Tousan?" he asked after their hug continued for a minute too long; with a pleased, distracted squeak, Yukiko disengaged and sat back on her heels, beaming at the two on the couch from her crouch in front of it.

"Oh, him!" Yukiko made a face, leaning back on Shinichi's other side; the brief span of cool Spring weather that had settled in over the past few days had had her digging out warmer clothing, and now she smoothed her soft angora sweater down as she crossed her long legs. "He's upstairs, going through the Professor's library for some book or other that he needed for this new story of his. You know your father, Shin-chan, he copes with his worries with work." For a moment, brief shadows chased themselves across the actress' face, and she shook her head. "His writing... well, it's something he can control; so it's soothing, I suppose, or as soothing as people drowning or poisoning or beheading each other in their baths ever gets... Honestly, the more he worries, the higher the body-count. His audience ought to be _terribly_ pleased."

Megure, already more than a little distracted by Yukiko's famous beauty (and, to be frank, her legs), eyed her cautiously at this. "We've worked together in the past a few times, of course," he murmured; "and you and I have actually met before this, Kudo-san, though very briefly..."

"I _do_ remember," she said with a little smile. "You had that same hat even then- Oh, Shin-chan, you wouldn't recall, it was years and years ago! You were just a tiny little tot at the time, though I think you would've loved the case- a museum forgery, wasn't it? Fake Utamaros, that sort of thing? No, not an Utamaro, it was-"

"Hokusai's _'Peonies And Canary'_ woodblock," murmured Megure reminiscently, "stolen from the Tokyo National. Your husband had just published that book of his about the insane artist who went around slashing Hokusai works, so we called him in as a consultant." Megure warmed to the story, taking a seat on the opposite couch. "The museum didn't want it publicized that one of their premier exhibits had been stolen, so we had a forgery belonging to a private collector put temporarily in place... and then it turned out that the forgery wasn't a forgery at all, but the original-"

"-which he expected the museum to hand back to him as soon as the 'real' woodblock was retrieved, thus establishing him as an innocent party when the forgery was finally discovered," said the writer himself from behind the couch; Shinichi and Ran both twisted around a little, and there stood Yuusaku, smiling. He had a small stack of books under one arm and dust smudged one shoulder and a shirtsleeve. "I remember that case; it read like cheap pulp fiction, but I have to give the perpetrator credit for ambition if not originality; the bait-and-switch method's been overdone." The books thumped down beside his wife, raising a slight cloud of dust: _Lives Of The Saints, A History Of The Popes_ and (oddly enough) _Casarett And Doull's Toxicology._ His wife waved away the cloud with a grimace. "I probably would've titled it 'Shell Game' and it would've gone through at least a half-dozen revisions before seeing print. Good to see you again, Megure-keibu. I wish it could be under better circumstances..."

"Hrm. Yes, well." The head of Division One sobered, eyes darkening. "Tragic situation; Ito-keiji was a good man. And," he lowered his voice, "with the current situation... It's a great tragedy as well that the victim wasn't retrieved; we have very few leads there, though I do want to follow through with your son on one thing. Kudo-kun?" The boy blinked at him. "Do you think you feel well enough to look at the mug-shot books in the morning? And Ran-chan, I'd like to see if you could identify your assailant as well. I'll have Chiba bring them by if that's agreeable...?"

"Of course." Shinichi frowned. "Megure-keibu, have you looked into any other failed kidnapping reports?" He had definite hopes along those lines. The harsh-faced woman who he'd seen might very well have been wearing a disguise, but he didn't think so; her expression had been too openly pleased when things had been going right for the kidnappers and too startled when they'd gone wrong. He'd clocked age, probable height and general statistics automatically of course, passing them along to Takagi at first chance.

The officer sighed. "Chirokawa-san's doing that, actually; if you're feeling up to it, I was hoping we could go over his results in a few days. And I suspect he might have a few surprises for us; according to Takagi-kun, he's showing an unusual amount of enthusiasm for the task. I doubt he gets all that many challenges, really." He rose to his feet. "And now I need to be going, I'm afraid; we still have a great deal of inquiries to handle regarding Ito-keiji's death and the Tachibana child's disappearance." Megure shook his head. "His family, what there is of it, has been less than forthcoming regarding his recent out-of-school activities; there're some unsavory backstories there, a few run-ins with the authorities, that sort of thing."

Ran cleared her throat. "Did he fit the profile, Megure-keibu?" she asked softly, and everyone looked at her. _"Someone_ had to ask," the detective's daughter pointed out logically, and in her arms Shinichi quelled the beginnings of a shiver.

"Ah... hrm. Yes, he did." Megure's voice dropped even lower. "Excessively high marks despite his background, isolated socially, few friends and family... yes, Ran-chan, he did." The officer stuffed his hands into his pockets, heavy brows beetling. "There doesn't seem to have been any unusual behavior displayed prior to his disappearance, though; that's out of the pattern."

"Yes, but Shin-chan's behavior wasn't weird either," pointed out his mother logically... and then amended it. "Or, well, no weirder than usual. Sorry, darling, but it's true; a psychologist would have a _field-day_ with your profile." His father's hand slid down off the back of the couch and rested atop his head for a moment before sliding away, and Yukiko and Yuusaku's son scowled horribly at his mother.

"Speak for yourself, Kaasan. Since when are you a doctor?"

She beamed at him, ruffling his hair affectionately; her hand then joined her husband's on the back of the couch. "Since never! But I've played one on TV."

Megure said his goodbyes at this point and left, promising mug-books and Chiba's presence in the morning; he took with him one of the officers, directing the other two to station themselves discreetly outside rather than indoors; one removed himself to a patrol-car and the other settled quietly in a corner of Agasa's yard with a thermos of coffee and a radio. Watching around a fold of curtain, Yuusaku allowed the fabric to fall back into place. "What do they think they're actually accomplishing out there?" he inquired. "Any anonymity as to where you're staying is long since lost; is Megure-keibu trying to make your involvement obvious?"

Shinichi shrugged and then winced. "Ow. But... yeah, in a way he is. Tousan, I _saw_ the woman who tried to lure me into the car; _Ran_ saw the face of the man she fought. The last thing the police want right now is a second attempt, and an obvious police presence is better than a poorly-hidden one. Could be worse, you know; at least they're outside now."

"I suppose." His father sighed, frustrated. From her warm cocoon of blankets, Ran watched Kudo Yuusaku as he paced, hands shoved in his pockets; he looked so much like an older version of his son just then that the resemblance was eerie. _No,_ she thought in fascination, _with those glasses he actually looks like a grown-up version of __Conan__. That's... I'm not sure if it's funny or sad, actually. Shinichi gets a lot of his features from his kaasan, his chin and his cheekbones, but his body-language... that's his tousan's. Or mostly, anyway. Some of it's just him._

Raking one hand through his hair in a gesture so like his son's that Ran had to suppress a laugh, Yuusaku dropped down onto the couch. "If I were a large, villainous organization who needed brilliant young recruits and I had flubbed an abduction- badly- _and_ been seen clearly enough that I could be identified... I'd find some way of suppressing the investigation, discrediting the witnesses, or making them unavailable through a second successful attempt, injury or death. At least," he added thoughtfully to the room, "that's what I'd do if I were writing this scene. It'd depend on what kind of groundwork I'd laid in... err, earlier... chapters..." Aware of the growing silence, Yuusaku had at last looked up from his ruminations to find himself the object of quite a lot of dismayed attention.

Shinichi's good hand tightened on Ran's as ghosts of his bad dream leaned in close for a second; she hugged him a little tighter. "A second attempt's not really all that probable; injury or death is a possibility and our most vulnerable moments would be during travel, which is why we're sticking close to home. Being discredited, well- not really likely." The boy tilted his head back, smiling up at his girlfriend; "It's not just me, after all, it's Ran too, and we both have enough background with the authorities that we- what?"

His mother had made a distinctly unhappy noise. "_SHIN-_chaaaan... you're looking at it the wrong way," she said reproachfully. Her offspring blinked at her, puzzled, and she shook her head in exasperation. "You shouldn't be figuring out things that aren't going to happen and why, you should be figuring out what MIGHT happen and how to make it NOT."

"...?"

"Like this." She began to tick off points on her fingers, and despite the seriousness of the moment Ran had to once again suppress a reaction- that was _exactly_ Shinichi's gesture, right down to how he held his hand. "One, being hurt or killed. Two, discredited. You've already said you're not going anywhere, though that's not exactly going to last forever, is it? So maybe you ought to go with Door Number Two."

Shinichi looked at his father, brows climbing. "-Tousan, you've got more practice in Kaasan-speak than I do. Can you translate, please?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Annoyed, his mother reached over and knuckled him (very gently) on his cowlick. "All I'm saying is that, to stay safe, you need to make yourself less of an attractive target. So if it got out that you _were_ discredited as witnesses..." Her son frowned, opening his mouth; Yuusaku beat him to it.

"And how would that happen, 'Kiko?"

She crossed her arms triumphantly. "Well, you have this Chiba person bringing over mugshot books, don't you? All you need to do is make it very clear that you couldn't identify anybody, that your memory's all scrambled or traumatized or, or- oh, whatever. That you got hit in the head- and you did, didn't you? Shin-chan, photos of you both with bandages on your head along with a news story about how you couldn't remember a _thing_ might do a lot of good." Yukiko wrinkled her nose, looking at them both. "...at least for a little while. Ne?"

"..." Father, son and detective's daughter all looked at each other.

* * *

"Kudo-kun, it's for you. Again." Haibara Ai held the phone at arm's length with a sour look, and Shinichi levered himself out of his chair and hobbled over to take it from her. She turned back to her work, seated at the small-projects workbench that stood at the side of Agasa's main room, and Shinichi wedged the phone between his good shoulder and ear as he levered himself back into his armchair with a groan.

"Moshi mosh-Ayumi, Ayumi, I'm okay, calm down, it's fine. Really. I'm still okay."

This was phone call number six if you counted from that night's evening news broadcast, which had prominently featured both Conan and Ran, heavily bandaged and photographed in the sterile, forbidding environment of Ai's exam room for added "atmosphere." If you counted from when Chiba-kun had come over with the files, the number was more like twelve. Roughly simultaneous to his visit, Conan's second-grade teacher had informed her class that Haibara-kun and Edogawa-kun would not be returning to school, but if the class wanted to write letters to them she had permission to deliver one packet of correspondance to the police on behalf of elementary class 2-A.

"I'm fine. Yes, it still hurts a lot. No, I can't- No, not even once I get better, Ayumi-chan." The boy's fist knotted tightly around a handful of blanket; as Ayumi began to sob, all he could say was- "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ayumi."

It hurt more than he'd expected, Shinichi was learning. A _lot_ more. And though he and Ai hadn't yet spoken with each other about it, he could tell it was bothering her too. Strange as it was, Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, and Genta weren't just his little charges or followers; they were his _friends,_ and Ai's too. Loyal to a fault, more forgiving than any adult could ever be, faithful and willing to put their complete trust in him no matter the circumstances...yes, they were children. They loved, played, believed, and fought like children.

But they weren't simple friends, either. Their age didn't limit their compassion. And they understood more than Shinichi would have ever given them credit for, if he hadn't spent two years at their side. Ayumi and her "woman's intuition." Mitsuhiko and his endless font of statistics and information - some of which was darker than many people would feel 'appropriate' for a child of his age to know. Genta and his bold single-mindedness, which could become an asset in the strangest ways, at the strangest times. They'd gotten him through a lot, given him and Ai hope and humor and relief.

Shinichi brought himself back to the moment as Ayumi's crying tapered off and grew more distant, further away from the phone.

"Ayumi? Ayumi?"

"Conan-kun." A woman's voice, calm and inherently comforting, despite the cool tone she took. Ayumi's mother.

"H-hai, Yoshida-san?"

"I'm sorry, Ayumi's very upset right now. May I please speak to one of the grown-ups with you?"

"Hai," Shinichi muttered. Putting the phone down for a moment, he dug his bow tie out of the seat of the chair and dialed it over to Agasa's voice. "Hrmm. Yoshida-san? This is Agasa."

"Oh, hello, Agasa-san. Thank you. The children were just getting so distressed, I decided it would be better for us adults to speak. Conan-kun won't be returning to school, then? Do you know how long he'll be absent?"

"Hrm." Shinichi squared his jaw. "Unfortunately...Conan-kun won't be able to return to school at all, Yoshida-san. After the attack, we've spoken with the police department and they've advised us that letting him go places in public will be too risky in the future. We also wouldn't ever want to put any of the other children at risk by association, you know. Things, hrm, sometimes have a way of getting larger than intended, and if those people, whoever they are, tried to kidnap Conan again...it would be horrible if he were at school, near the other children, if that happened. They would be in danger."

As he spoke, Shinichi could all but hear Yoshida-san's body language change, and Ayumi's sniffles grew louder again as - he presumed - her mother drew her close to her chest, hugging Ayumi and the phone tightly.

"Ah, Agasa-san, I understand. This is...this is a horrible situation all around, isn't it? Who in the world would want to hurt children like this? It's- it's monstrous. The world is monstrous sometimes."

"Very black indeed," Shinichi said quietly, squeezing his eyes shut. "Please tell Ayumi-chan that Conan-kun is doing alright. His head hurts a little bit but he's going to be okay. I assume you've been in contact with Tsubaraya-san and Kojima-san? Good. I appreciate very much your trust in me, and I've very much enjoyed getting to spend time with your children and take them so many places. It's going to be hard for all of us now, but it's the best thing for their safety. I hope I can rely on all of your families to look out for your children and each others', too.

"We didn't want the whole class to send too many letters which could be intercepted, it might give the people who did this information about how to lure other children in the same way that Conan-kun was tricked, possibly even with promises that they could see Conan-kun or Ai-kun if they went along with the kidnappers. But Ayumi-chan and the others are very dear indeed to Conan-kun and Ai-kun, so please let them know that they're welcome to send emails any time that they'd like to. I have an email account which is very secure, and I'll let Ai-kun and Conan-kun read their emails from that account for safety. I can send you the address, if you'd like."

Yoshida-san held the phone away from her ear a bit, and Shinichi could hear her quietly speaking to Ayumi. A sudden cry preceded a clatter, and Ayumi's voice came across the line very loudly and desperately. Shinichi could imagine her holding the phone in both hands and yelling into it.

"Conan-kun, I'll email you every day! I promise! We'll never forget you! And we'll get whoever did this! The Shonen Tantei will avenge you, I promi-"

"THAT will be enough," Shinichi overheard, as Ayumi's mother yanked the phone back. "Don't even think about it, young lady."

As Agasa, Shinichi cleared his throat for attention. "Please don't let the children do anything rash," he said. "They rarely listen to Conan or I when we try to tell them so, so you may have a bit of trouble on our account. I apologize for this. It's absolutely essential that you not let them play detective about this, though. The police have advised us that this is a very dangerous case. We don't know much, but we've been advised that the best way to protect all the children is to keep Ai-kun and Conan-kun separated from the others, and to leave the detective work to the adults. Please be strict with Ayumi-chan if you must; we're all worried for her safety, and the others', as well."

Promises were made, contact information exchanged, and 'Conan' took the phone back at the end to listen to Ayumi's tearful goodbye.

"Ayumi, it'll be okay," he said again, wishing he could reach through the phone and hug her small shoulders. "I'm really safe here, Megure-keibu and everyone are doing a really great job, and Ai and I can keep each other company. And I'm looking forward to your emails. You promised, you know."

"I-I know," Ayumi sniffed, her voice thick with the effort of holding back further sobbing. "I-Kaasan says I have to go, Conan-kun. And...I..." She trailed off, and Shinichi instinctively leaned forward, hearing her hesitation.

"Ayumi? Is everything okay? What is it?"

"I-" She swallowed. "'llalwaysbemytrueloveConan!" And then the line went dead.

Shinichi put the phone down across his knees, staring kind of absently at it while his brain chattered noisily in about twenty different directions and came up with nothing constructive at all. He'd already spoken - as Conan and as Agasa - with Genta and Mitsuhiko, and their parents; Ai had as well, at their requests, and when she'd given the phone back to Shinichi she'd been slightly flushed, and very short-spoken. Ai was upset too, as was Agasa and Ran and everyone, really; even Chiba, when he'd come by with the mug book, had commented on how sad it was going to be to not have "the kids" underfoot anymore.

"It's probably horribly against policy for me to say this," he'd admitted, passing time while Shinichi flipped quickly through the book, knowing exactly what he was looking for, "But it was always really nice to have you kids there. It was more cheerful, you know? And you guys helped us out a lot. Some of the guys were even saying that you were all our good luck charm, that we'd always solve the case if you were there."

Shinichi had looked up at that, smiling sadly, and pressed his small finger to one of the portraits. "Her."

"'Her'? You're sure? -no, never mind, of course you are." Chiba scribbled down the photo's number and began paging through the matching ring-bound index. "Lessee- no, not far enough, it's- there. 'Noda Leiko', age... she'd be thirty-two. Convicted twice for armed theft, six on-paper convictions while still a minor, serious gambling connections, two outstanding warrants in Niigata and Sendai for burglary, one in Yokohama for passing bad checks plus two more for armed theft again, but... heh; that's kind of funny." He turned the index around for Shinichi to see. "You notice anything?"

The boy frowned, wrenching his mind forcibly away from the memory of three anguished voices; it was harder than he would've expected. "Other than the fact that she's obviously patterning her crimes on a need for disposable income, not m- oh; yeah, I _do_ see. Everything stops seven years ago."

"Everything visible, anyway," said Chiba thoughtfully. "I'll have to fish up her file, but I wonder if she was 'sold'?" At the boy's questioning expression, Division One's youngest and most overlooked officer leaned back and tucked his linked hands beneath his head. "The gambling connections; it's a Yakuza thing, from the Bakuto families. You owe enough money but you can't pay, well- they can kill you, but that's not gonna get them their cash, is it? So if you look useful they negotiate with either a branch of their own or a non-rival branch and 'sell' you- take payment for your debts and hand you over, trussed up like a FedEx package." He snorted. "It's pretty medieval, straight out of an old _Zatoichi_ movie, but it still goes on. When we see somebody vanish like that and there's no obvious signs of death, well..." He shrugged. "It's just a thought. Maybe she found an employer who moved her out of the country. Maybe she decided to go straight for a while and see if it'd pay off, though I doubt it. That kind of record," said Chiba, nodding at the index, "says she's a survivor. That many warrants and only two adult convictions? Not just a survivor but good at getting away, too."

"Tell me about it," answered Shinichi feelingly, scratching at one of the places on his face where the gauze had only just been left off that morning.

Ran's look through the mugshot books was less successful; she'd been concentrating more on her assailant's body-language than his face, and she admitted that after a while all the heavy-set, beetle-browed thuggish faces had begun to blur together in her mind's eye to the point that she couldn't have picked a single one out with any certainty. "I'm sorry," she said dolefully, scrunched up beside Shinichi on the couch a little later; "They just... I mean, I _know_ he had a broken nose and I _know_ he had black hair, but-" She gestured at the pages of photos with a woeful expression. "I didn't see any tattoos or particular scars; he was wearing a jacket and sunglasses and... I just..."

"Ran, it's okay. Non-recognition's better than a false positive... and anyway, he was a little fish. So was Noda, really." Shinichi sighed. It was mid-evening on Tuesday, and the plates of takeout had just been cleared away; mugshot-books take time to go through, and truthfully he was glad of the preoccupation, as it kept both their minds off sadder subjects. "I doubt they'd risk anybody high-up on something like a kidnapping. I wish, though, that somebody'd seen the driver." A little irritably Shinichi slid off the couch and limped towards the kitchen, cradling his juice-glass in his good hand. "Anybody want anything?" He'd been cleared for ambulatory movement by both Ai and his hospital physician, and he was getting thoroughly sick of being stuck in one place.

_And that's __really__ going to be a problem for me now,_ he thought a little morosely, dragging a stepstool up to the sink and rinsing off the glass awkwardly. _Because I may have made the kids safer, but I've cut my and Haibara's throats in a way. Most of our chances to go anywhere were either socially with the kids or with Mouri and Ran, or just plain old going-to-school. But now there's no more school for either of us and no being with the Shonen Tantei and we've made it publicly clear that we're not going out much due to possible danger. So... Haibara and I, we're stuck inside. So's Ran to a lesser extent, though that could lessen in a little while. But- oh, dammit, __school__; in the eyes of the law we're both still minors and we both still have to be schooled. I wonder what the law is about homeschooling?_

_Crap._

The splash of water on his skin from the over-full glass in his hand startled him back to awareness; Shinichi had been standing, glass under the tap, for several minutes. _I need to focus,_ he thought severely, and finished up what he was doing before heading back to the others.

The mugbooks and so forth left with Chiba; afterwards, curled up in front of the television and some sort of relatively anonymous comedy show- they'd sworn off police dramas for the time being- Shinichi and Ran sat quietly together, talking about anything and everything except their problems. For the moment, it seemed best.

* * *

As promised, Chiba dug out what he could on Noda Leiko; the woman's profile showed her to be a habitual gambler with a taste for the races, no known address, three possible sightings since her last warrant. There was no way to find out if she'd been 'sold,' but Shinichi supposed that the Black Organization didn't recruit _all_ its operatives as children; any organism had to adapt to survive, and the purchase of what amounted to a virtual slave was probably just considered to be good business.

Two more days passed; Kid had kept clear of Agasa's, calling and texting regularly enough; he'd been as warm as ever when he spoke to his two lovers, full of sympathy for Shinichi's parting from the Shonen Tantei and plans for future possibilities. He seemed a little quieter than usual, though- not exactly distant so much as preoccupied, and Shinichi found himself wondering uneasily just how long it would be before a new Kid heist-note showed up via carrier-pigeon or miniature hot-air balloon or inside Nakamori Ginzo's bento lunch. It worried Shinichi somewhat, but he trusted the thief to take care of himself and his brother; it was all he could do, really.

With the passing days also came a torrent of emails from the the three gradeschoolers. Mitsuhiko's and Genta's were, frankly, bewildered and unhappy; Ayumi's showed a level of sincerity and downright loss that Shinichi winced away from. Heartsick, he wondered if, someday, three young Beika-cho detectives in their mid-teens would try to find out what had happened to their friend Edogawa Conan upon his disappearance so many years before.

Because he _**was**_ going to have to disappear sooner or later, wasn't he? The world could only have in it a Kudo Shinichi or an Edogawa Conan, not both. And if, ten years hence, three teenagers came asking questions of one Kudo Shinichi about his distant relative, what would he tell them? What _could_ he tell them by then? Assuming he was still alive at that point, of course...

He was still pondering this question Friday morning when their ride arrived to take them to meet with Chirokawa and Division One.

...and, three hours later, escorting a fuming Haibara Ai from one side with an aggrieved, appalled Agasa-hakase on the other, he still had no answer. He had, however, learned one very important lesson...

"Idiotic-! Of all the nerve- that pathetic number-obsessed example of cretinoid mongoloidism-"

"Now, Ai-chan, he didn't- I mean, I'm certain that when he called your research methods into question he didn't _really-"_

"I'd like to see him do better!"

"I'm sure he would too- no, no, that is, I mean I'm certain he couldn't-"

...the lesson being, of course, that just because people were intelligent, that didn't mean that they had to _act_ that way. Agasa and Chirokawa had gotten along rather well, but Ai had taken an instant dislike to the curmudgeonly man and it had been alarmingly mutual.

The meeting had produced a number of results, though- new demographic groupings, statistics regarding genotypes, and apparently _somebody_ had contacted their pet hacker; information from the schools would be showing up sometime that evening through channels that it was better not to ask about (interestingly enough it had Takagi who flushed about this, though Sato-san had been the one who blandly explained the details.) There would be enough data to keep Shinichi in particular busy for weeks on end.

Not that he didn't have enough on his mind already...

* * *

"He still isn't picking up." Ran snapped Shinichi's phone shut with a quiet growl, frowning at her audience. Shinichi, already tucked into bed in eager preparation for the transformation, returned the frustrated expression with interest.

"It's been hours. He would have at least texted us by now, usually," the boy muttered, fingers tapping his mouth idly as he thought. "Something's wrong."

Beside Ran at Shinichi's bedside, Shinichi's other audience pulled out his own cell. "I'll call Megure-keibu. He could send one of the-"

"_**No,**_" Ran and Shinichi said together, with enough force that Takagi rocked back in his chair a bit.

"Sorry," Shinichi continued, considerably calmer, "But he wouldn't appreciate that at all. He's a really private guy. And I doubt the problem's with him, actually...he's been distracted, a little distant this week."

"Do you think something happened?" Ran asked, leaning in to reach for her boyfriend's hand. Shinichi gripped hers tightly with his own - still Conan-sized, though it wouldn't be for much longer - and pressed his lips together in a tense frown.

Ai expected that he had a half hour before the device really took effect, since he'd already started getting sleepy; when they'd returned from Ai and Agasa's meeting with Chirokawa, it was with Takagi as an escort. Assigning a detective to his watch instead of a pair of uniforms was a decision that might have seemed strange to some; to those who knew Conan's 'schedule,' it was obviously the only choice. Uniforms couldn't be trusted with the secret of the transformation; the fact that six police officers knew already was bad enough, as they all saw it.

And with the transformation nearly on him, Shinichi was completely preoccupied with other things. Knowing that it was Takagi assigned to guard the household during the weekend - who, of all the possibilities, was the officer Kid felt most comfortable around; that they really _didn't_ know that much about what Kaito and Kid did at home; and that Kid needed them to trust him, no matter the circumstances; Shinichi couldn't settle his worried mind, which kept circling back around to the single fact that Kid _never_ didn't answer, whether by text or mail.

"I don't know, Ran," Shinichi answered, glancing to Takagi briefly. "It may have more to do with Kaito than with his brother."

Ran raised a brow, her concern shifting without changing intensity. Takagi looked from one to the other of them, puzzled.

"But I thought you just said it _didn't_ have to do with him," he said. "Kaito-kun has a brother?"

Ran answered quickly, stammering nervously. "Ah, yes, well, that's-"

_BEEP BEEP BEEP._  
_DING DING!_  
_DA DA DANNN~_

Startled, all three of them froze, slowly looking to the bundle of cell phones - three of them - in Ran's lap, all three of which had abruptly and simultaneously become very cheerfully noisy. She laid them out on the side of Shinichi's bed slowly, frowning. All three were flashing with a new message alert.

"Conan's, Shinichi's, mine," she listed off, pointing at each in turn. "There's only one person who knows all three numbers."

"Well, so do Kaasan and Tousan and Agasa and-" Shinichi, ever the well-meaning pedant, fell quiet at Ran's displeased raised eyebrow. "Ah, well, yes, but we know where they are, so they wouldn't need to mail us," he added, sheepish.

"Anyway." Ran took her own and Conan's; Shinichi picked up his own, and all three messages were soon pulled up.

"_Decade Moon,_" read Ran. "And this one says "_Kaasan._ Shinichi, what's yours say?"

"...Nothing important," Shinichi shrugged, snapping his phone closed with a smile. "He's just being a flirt. I'll show you later."

Takagi blushed, and Ran, catching the detective's misunderstood implication a second later, blushed as well. "Oh, ah, okay," she stammered, acting along with Takagi's assumption.

_But I know it's not actually something pervy._ She acted the part, thwapping Shinichi across the back of his head when he pushed the innuendo further with another open-ended comment, and relaxed a bit as Takagi's strong sense of propriety destroyed his desire to sort out the situation with the third side of the teens' triangle. _Takagi-keiji probably didn't get it,_ she hoped, biting her lip. _I __**hope**__ he didn't._

_Kaito and Kuroba-san. Seeing Kaito at the campground was really lovely and he was in such a good mood then...that campground must have sweet memories for both him and Kid. But I can't let myself forget about that time out on Odaiba. He's definitely not all OK yet. He...they both...are too hurt still. And...if it has to do with his kaasan..._

_We'll be okay on this end. Shinichi might not understand, but I'll pin him down if I have to. Or maybe Ai-chan can help me with that. Kaito and Kid aren't ready to show him how much they still hurt. I don't even think they were __**ready**__ to show me, but I'm glad they did anyway._

Ran reached again for Shinichi's hand, as his laughter - Takagi and he were talking about something unimportant, a crafted distraction - began to fray a bit around the edges, losing focus. "Almost time," she murmured, smoothing the hair back from Shinichi's child's brow and kissing him there lightly. "Are you excited, Shinichi?"

She was pleased to see Shinichi's sardonically amused grin suffuse his features at that. "Excruciatingly traumatic physical distortion, heavy drugs, muscle aches lasting half a week, dangerous experimental techniques?" He laughed, turning his grin on Takagi reassuringly for a moment, then swung it back over to Ran. "Heck yeah. You'll-nnngh, ow- You'll be here when I wake up?"

"The whole time," Ran promised.

_I have to believe that Kaito and Kid will come to us if they need us. I have to trust them to do what's best for each other._

_They will, won't they?_

_

* * *

_

_._

_And so ends Book Five of Three Thieves. Book Six begins next Friday with its first chapter, "Something is not the same here." If we were keeping with our old titling convention, I'd call it "missing him, indoor/ourdoor, conundrum" or something similar; and it begins the process of bringing in a very important person from Kid's and Kaito's world into our story- very, very important indeed. The chapter has its non-worksafe moments, but we doubt you'll mind. Take care, all, and have a good week! _


	66. Something is not the same here

_**Book Six, Chapter One**__**: "Something is not the same here."**_

IV stands and needles, cool sheets and warm blankets; it was all becoming almost routine. But it was better than, say, transforming in the back lot of an amusement park or on the cold tile floor of a bathroom, wasn't it? Or, come to think of it, thick pine woods like that time he'd met Ran near that temple above Osaka…

Sweat-drenched and well underway into his transformation, Shinichi drifted, caught in delirium. He'd been both more alone and less so than usual that time with Hattori, and the other detective had just barely missed seeing him undergo the wrenching, agonizingly short-lived transformation that had helped save them both. In that moment, deeply sedated, he was _there__,_leaning heavily against a pine and burning alive from the inside out; he heard himself moan and wondered why the bark crumbling beneath his diminishing fingers didn't catch fire from the heat.

Beyond the pain, beyond the heavy layers of chemical swaddling, he could hear quiet voices; and they soothed the agony a little. Cool and clinical: that was Haibara, reading out numbers in her measured little-girl tones. And Agasa, rumbling and a little agitated but steady enough, answering somebody's question—Takagi's? The voice was shaken, and the apprehension there dragged Shinichi a little ways above the fever and into cooler air for a second or two; his eyes struggled to open and he pushed against the covers with hands that were either too large or not yet large enough—

"Shhh, shhhh, Shinichi, it's okay, it's a-alright, you're going to be fine—No, shhh, stop fighting, please, Shinichi, please—"

The voice, _that_ voice, it was the one he wanted to hear, that and one other (where was it? where), and it soothed the fires enough that he subsided, sinking back into drug-induced numbness. As the darkness behind his eyelids deepened and became true dark, though, Shinichi strained to listen for the other voice, the _other_ one… he needed them both…

(where)

…and allowed the numbness to drag him down. Maybe it knew where to look. The blurred sounds merged into each other, and then _there was something happening outside the window. There was something happening outside the window, and the classroom was empty; it was always empty now, a tiny voice whispered in the back of Shinichi's mind, always empty because... he couldn't remember. It probably wasn't important. What WAS important, terribly important, was what was going on down in the street below and on top of the building opposite and in the alley just at the edge of view and in that crowd over by the bus-stop and... just everywhere. And the calendar on the wall, school holidays marked off in red, that was important too. It was almost Golden Week, and he was going camping with Ayumi and Mitsuhiko and Genta and Ai, only the tent wasn't going to be big enough this time, they'd need two._

_On the classroom whiteboard, the black marker scratched and squeaked._

_He craned his head, trying to see. Sensei wouldn't notice, she was busy at the front of the class, and Ran was somewhere nearby, he could hear her voice. The rest of the class was gone on, of course, and he was alone in the empty classroom taking a make-up test. He was always taking tests, always trying to catch up, always. The only times he wasn't was during the weekends, and then..._

_There was something sad about that, a lingering hurt that stung and burned. It wasn't so awful anymore, though, hadn't been for a while._

_His cell kept going off, pinging in three separate tones; that was weird, and he shoved them down into his pocket in an effort to keep Sensei from hearing. They tumbled out onto the floor instead as feet filed past, leaving him behind (but where were they coming from? The classroom was empty) and threw their messages at him in lines of changeable light, mutable and impermanent but oh so very important- They made no sense separately and nonsense side by side and absolute, inevitable sense if you touched the cellphones against one another, because then the screens changed and told him to go look at the calendar, the calendar on the wall with the red markings. And the years fluttered by like dead leaves and torn playing-cards and Ran's homework pages, old old old, flipping past/flipping forward until the weeks matched up like two microscope slides with the same fingerprints on them, a decade of moons apart. If only he could leave his desk he'd be able to read the red entries, and then he'd understand._

_(decade moon)_

_(the Ace of Spades and the Queen of Hearts and the Jack of Diamonds; it's alright)_

_The noise in the street below was getting louder, though. He scooted upright again- he could almost see- but Sensei turned half around and glanced over her shoulder at him, a finger to her lips. He'd only get one warning; Sensei didn't allow mistakes, mistakes were deadly. And anyway, if he read the questions on the test right, he might get a hint. Nobody'd told him this class was so hard. He tugged at his sleeves, irritated at how his uniform didn't fit right anymore; he was always changing clothes these days and some of them were so old, a decade old, his kaasan'd dug them out of boxes for him. Someday they'd be too small again._

_Three more questions left, just three, but he wanted to look at the calendar before all the pages blew away; Sensei was busy writing the next day's lesson, she wouldn't notice if he was quiet; so he slipped out of his desk (next to Ayumi's, next to Haibara's, next to Mitsuhiko's and Genta's and Ran's and Kid's- no, he went to a different school, but there was a desk for him and his brother to share) and crept along the wall where the shadows were thickest._

_(kaasan)_

_(whose? not mine, not Ran's. But it's alright)_

_But the calendar's entries were red and wet when he got to them, the lines broad and heavy and dripping; not dead blood, living blood, less horrifying than usual because it was alive and if he could just read what the entries said then he'd pass the test. Except, except, except the kana was blurred and so hard to decipher, seven words in all in tiny print like the texts on the three cellphones._

_And now he could see out the window from where he stood, and oh right, everybody was waiting for him to finish up and join them down there_

_everybody except for Ran (she was waiting for him outside class)_

_and Kid (he was on the roof, wasn't he? Wait, where) and_

_(the thickness of blood)_

_(it's alright, I understand)_

_he was almost_

_out of_

_time-_

* * *

Shinichi wrenched himself sharply out of sleep, heart hammering hard in time with the pounding that, after a frantic moment, he identified as being inside his head. There were hands on his shoulders, voices in his ears that were _outside_ of his head, and he grabbed at the sound like a lifeline. "—R—" He coughed, choked on his own attempt to speak, and the muted blur of voices resolved into Ran's welcome, welcome words, soothing Shinichi more than any drug.

He slept, woke, and slept again; there was pain somewhere, and the dim consciousness that something _was not right._ When he opened his eyes to the world again, the sunlight filtering through the window pointed to early afternoon and everything was quiet; soft breathing filled the room, and slowly Shinichi's eyes tracked it to its source: Ran, slumped in a chair at his bedside, head pillowed on her arms beside his elbow. Her face was flushed in sleep and her hair lay thick and loose about her face, gilded bronze by the small bedside lamp; moving carefully—everything _creaked_—he brushed it back, and was rewarded by a flicker of eyelashes and a slow, gradual awakening.

"…hi…" he whispered.

Ran blinked at him, sleep-dazed; there were shadows beneath her eyes. Slowly, though, a smile bloomed on her face: tremulous at first, and then open and full of all the relief and sheer relief that brimmed over in her eyes. "Hi," she murmured back, and kissed his fingertips.

* * *

Half a day later and just as evening was setting in, Shinichi wobbled up the short flight of steps leading from Agasa's into the tunnel that opened into his own family's house, a crutch beneath one armpit and Ran hovering anxiously at his other side. This change, again, had not been flawless; the muscles in his right calf had knotted and strained, enlarging unevenly in a way that left them painfully inflamed. It wasn't a bad injury, nothing worse than what Shinichi'd gotten a few times on the soccer-field, but the leg wouldn't bear his weight without threatening to put microtears in the damaged tissue and Ai had informed him that he was not to even consider moving without support.

Oddly enough, the scrapes and remaining soreness from his previous injuries had vanished like fog. _That_ had put Haibara to muttering to herself and typing notes so rapidly that Shinichi'd feared for the integrity of her laptop's keyboard. Agasa had watched her fondly. "Whatever makes her happy," he'd muttered to Shinichi, and settled down to work on his own notes, a smile hidden beneath his mustache.

They had yet to hear from Kid or from Kaito either, and that fact was steadily becoming less of a worry and more of a _WORRY,_ in great big flaming capitals complete with smoke and a full crew of firemen. Only the three texts had prevented them both from frantically seeking the brothers out; after all, Shinichi did know where the Kuroba house was, had known since that day not long after the fire...

But- those texts. _'Decade Moon', 'Kaasan'_ and _'The thickness of blood'._ They'd been a puzzle, a sideways set of messages for Ran and Shinichi to work out; and somehow the detective's fever-dreams had contributed their own set of clues. Not one to decry the effects of the subconscious on the reasoning mind, he'd taken the hints of calendar and wet red lines and the strange, sad wash of pure feeling that had run through his delirium and added them into the mix.

The results had been both alarming and, in an odd way, reassuring...

_'Decade Moon.'_ Ten years ago that week, one Kuroba Toichi had met his death in an 'accident' whose echoes had given birth to his second son. Shinichi had read the account perhaps a dozen times over since his understanding of just who and what Kid was had come into being; his subconscious had marked a calendar somewhere, even if his conscious mind had not.

_'Kaasan.'_ The little that either Ran or Shinichi had been able to deduce regarding the Kuroba brothers' elusive mother had pointed to a near hermit-like reclusiveness; they hadn't pressed the point- Shinichi could still hear Kid saying _'Kaasan is tired now'_ from when they'd spoken briefly of her up on the roof of the Ghibli- and neither Kid nor Kaito had volunteered much in the way of information. But if, as seemed likely, her husband's murder had driven Toichi's wife ("We don't even know her name!" Ran had exclaimed, distressed) into seclusion, then this week had to be a terrible time for her.

And, lastly... the third text: _'The thickness of blood.'_

The old European saying 'Blood is thicker than water' had a Japanese parallel: _Chi wa mizu yori koshi._ The translation was very nearly exact, and while the mention of blood in this particular context made Shinichi deeply uneasy, the voice of his own intuition that had whispered in his dreams kept him from lunging for his cellphone and hammering out call after call:

_I understand, no matter how hard this time is, it's yours, your family's; I understand, and I'll let you go and trust you to come back..._

Distraction had been their savior- even the distraction of his wrenched and painful leg; Shinichi and Ran had spent the day on Agasa's couch, quietly talking together or passing the time with books or the TV or (at least in Shinichi's case) sleep. Kid had been a gap on the cushions, a silence where his voice should have been... and a space between them both which should have been filled with warmth and unexpected caresses. But they'd managed, and they'd made do, and...

...they'd missed him horribly.

_Horribly._

It wasn't like they couldn't think of anything else; they could and they did, and they'd been content enough together, just passing time—not, this once, concentrating on files full of dead faces or statistics and probabilities—just paying attention to each other and enjoying the quiet. Shinichi had woken up at one point from a scrap of half-dream, Kid's voice asking a question that he couldn't quite hear; he'd muttered something (even he didn't know what) that'd had the thief's name mixed in, and Ran has smoothed his hair back from his forehead and pressed a kiss there, murmuring, "He'll be back."

And he would. The question was, how intact would he be? What kind of-

"—ichi? Shinichi, be careful—"

"Ow!"

Wincing, the detective did a kind of hop-hop-_thud!_ at the top of the stairs, the shin of his damaged leg stinging; he'd barked it against his own crutch. _Distractions again,_ Shinichi thought wryly, allowing Ran to support him for a moment as he rubbed the abused limb. Swearing beneath his breath, he got his balance back and continued forward, thinking very disgruntled thoughts.

…Shinichi _really_ hated crutches.

The distraction for the evening was being provided by Shinichi's parents, neither of whom could be persuaded to explain just what they had in mind (though Yukiko had been quite firm that they were not to come over any earlier than six p.m.) Now, with the door open and air wafting inviting scents along the tunnel, it was evident that at least part of the evening had to do with... "Is that -fried chicken?" asked Ran, sniffing. "Ooohh, that smells _good!"_ And it did; Shinichi's ever-starving stomach growled audibly as he pushed open the door.

"Tadaima... Kaasan? Tousan?"

"In here-" His father's voice came rather unexpectedly not from the dining-room, but from the library. And through the open door...

...was a little bit of the outdoors, brought inside.

"We thought you'd be tired of staying in all the time the way you have lately," explained Yuusaku, helping his offspring onto a floor-cushion, "and- well, we'd planned on taking you both out for dinner this weekend someplace private, only everything happened and this was the best compromise we could come up with." They'd outdone themselves; the few items of furniture had been pushed back against the walls and a half-dozen potted plants- no, small _trees_- had taken their place, making a miniature park out of the library. Tiny LED-lit ricepaper lanterns hung on the branches, shedding soft glows amidst the leaves; aside from that and a single huge white lantern that hung like a full moon from the balcony, the room was dark. A thick quilt had been thrown across the wooden floor, scattered with soft, plump cushions; and in the middle of it all, baskets full of hot food sent their appetizing aromas to wreathe through the air.

"We wanted to take you on a picnic," explained Yukiko unnecessarily from her place on a cushion, beaming.

"I- think you _have,"_ answered her son, a slow smile growing on his own face to match. He drew Ran down onto the cushion beside him; she was entranced, her head turning as she tried to take in the marvelously changed room. From somewhere, stereo-speakers played a montage of sleepy evening birdsong and cricket-chirps. "Where on earth did you get the trees?"

"Rented them," answered his mother breezily, passing paper plates; her eyes sparkled merrily. "You can rent _anything_ in Tokyo, you know. Now, who wants chicken?"

* * *

The silence was tense.

Narrow-eyed, Yuusaku stared his sole offspring down, determination in his eyes. Ran and Yukiko sat to either side, watching expectantly; a great deal depended on what happened in the next few seconds. Taking a deep breath, the senior Kudo spoke in a level, hard voice.

"Give me..."

"...all your eights."

His son smirked at him evilly. _"Go. Fish."_

"AAAAARGH!" Cards went flying into the air as Shinichi's father flopped over backwards in despair; they showered down around him, threes and sevens and twos (and three eights) fluttering red and black like autumn leaves. "'Kiko? Why did you want to play this game again? You KNOW I always lose," the writer sighed from beneath the evidence of his total failure as a card-sharp. "I haven't won a game of Go Fish since Shinichi was in elementary school- the first time, that is. I lose; and then I sulk. And then you have to get me OUT of the sulks..."

From her sprawl beside him, Yukiko patted her husband's head. "Of course I do. But it's always so much fun to see you try to win that I just can't help wanting to play." She leaned over and kissed him on the tip of his nose while her son snickered. "And I don't mind getting you out of the sulks, darling, because that's an awful lot of fun too..." Ran's laughter joined Shinichi's, and Yukiko shot her a mock-pout. "Besides which, it's a moot point at best; Ran-chan's snookered us all." And she had, of course; no less than five books of four cards each sat on the floor beside her cushion, making Shinichi's and Yukiko's pitiful amounts (and Yuusaku's total lack thereof) sad sights indeed.

The fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, biscuits and other very non-Japanese picnic foods (followed by a truly decadent chocolate cake of immense proportions) had vanished into licked fingers and happy memories. Yukiko had had her heart set on an American-style picnic dinner for some reason and had gone to quite a lot of trouble to make it as authentic as possible; she had, she informed her well-fed husband, offspring and girlfriend proudly, only set off the smoke-alarm twice during the entire process. The card game that had followed had been an exercise in silliness only outdone by the dramatics of its players; by the seventh repetition it had become easily apparent who the winner was, although Yuusaku had outdone Ran in bad dramatics.

From his defeated collapse on the floor, Yuusaku yawned; "Sorry," he apologized a little sheepishly. "Long day. A certain someone-" (and he smiled fondly up at his wife) "-got me out of bed at far too early an hour to see about renting the trees and so forth." He smothered another yawn and pushed himself up on his elbows. With his usually tidy hair tousled and a cowlick much like his son's very evident, Kudo Yuusaku looked far less the dignified author than usual. He had reason to be sleepy; three reasons, actually, in the form of three slices of the aforementioned chocolate cake. Shinichi's father loved chocolate as much as his son loathed crutches.

Yukiko leaned against her husband for a moment before climbing to her feet; the paper plates and dinner debris had long since vanished kitchenwards, and now as her son gathered the cards and stacked them into a deck, she yawned as well, vanishing between two potted ficus trees for a moment and reappearing with an armload of... folded somethings. Her son accepted the pile with a bemused look, realizing that they were blankets. "Uh- Kaasan...?" He raised an eyebrow.

His mother gave him one right back. "Well, darling, you can't climb the stairs in _that_ condition, now can you?" She pointed at his leg. "So there you both are, with plenty of blankets and lovely pillows and a perfectly beautiful place to sleep." She gave them both a charmingly innocent smile. "And I promise you, we won't be down the stairs until morning; so..."

Ran blinked. "Um..." She looked around, eyes wide. "We're sleeping here?"

"Unless you _want_ to come upstairs all on your lonesome; if you do, there's Shinichi's room and any of the guestrooms. But this was so lovely, I thought perhaps you'd both like to spend the night down here...and of course," Yukiko's blue eyes twinkled, "there's always the couch. If you really want it..." She patted her son's girlfriend on a cheek and helped her husband up, tucking one hand over the crook of his arm. "Oh, and there're things to sleep in hanging in the bathroom. Sweet dreams!"

And, leaving the two still sitting amidst the pillows and trees and hanging lights, husband and wife departed; the sounds of their footsteps receded up the stairs and along the upper hallway, ending in a closing door and a great deal of bemused silence.

The two looked at each other.

Ran was the first one to break; hand over her mouth to muffle the giggles that kept trying to escape, her eyes danced. "'T-there's always the couch i-if you really want it-'" she quoted, and dissolved into laughter as her boyfriend put his head in his hands. "It's _FUNNY,_ Shinichi! Y-your kaasan-"

"-is going to be the death of me. Or you." He fell over sideways in a less graceful but no less dramatic reenactment of his father's earlier collapse. "She just can't resist setting people up, dressing them up, _un_dressing them- she should've been a director instead of an actress!" He groaned, hand still over his eyes.

Still laughing, Ran flopped down beside him, head pillowed on his ribcage; her boyfriend gave an "oof!" as breath was expelled out of his lungs. "And obviously I'm terribly upset about all this," she agreed cheerfully, hands clasped on her own stomach. "I mean, just look what she's done! Forced me to camp out on her living room floor... on all these pillows... with you. And a bunch of trees." Another giggle snuck out, and Ran turned her head to regard Shinichi's flushed face. _"Terribly_ upset," she murmured again, and tapped his nose with a delicate forefinger. "However will you make it up to me, Shinichi?"

He had several thoughts along that line; and he explained them to her in great detail over the next few minutes. The explanation involved the strategic removal of several items of clothing and the rearrangement of a number of pillows, but in the end Ran got the general idea.

With blankets over them and pillows beneath (and nothing whatsoever between) they cuddled close, kisses and hands growing bolder and hungrier as the recorded crickets chirped and the false ricepaper moon shone overhead. Ran made to get up and turn off the tiny LED lanterns, but Shinichi shook his head; "Leave them on," he said softly. "I like being able to see you."

Blushing right down to the hollow between her breasts, Ran _was_ a lovely sight. Her skin, pearly in the dim illumination, deepened to rose at nipples, cheeks and lips; and as she bent down over Shinichi to kiss him lingeringly, he slid his hands along her hips beneath the blankets and cupped the smooth, curving globes of her posterior in each hand. She made a startled sound against his mouth, and he laughed into hers; "Gotcha," Shinichi murmured.

"Tease; that's more like something _Kid_ would d-" she started to say, and abruptly fell silent. After a moment, Ran sighed. "They never once mentioned him, did they?"

Mutely, knowing she meant his parents, Shinichi shook his head. "They were trying to distract us," he said very gently. "And as distractions go, it was a pretty good effort, wasn't it? Tousan... he and Kaasan know what time of year this is too, I'm certain of it." He nuzzled behind Ran's ear, kissing the place there that always made the breath catch in her throat. "We have to trust him, Ran; we can't hold him, and the only way we can _keep_ him is to not hang on too hard... and hope he'll come back to us when he needs to." Shinichi's hands slid slowly up her satiny back, a long slide beneath the blankets; Ran relaxed against him, lying full-length across his body with her hands pressed to either side of his head.

"I know," she muttered. "I... just..." She shuddered once against him, a long involuntary movement as the proximity and pressure of her warm body made itself known in the growing firmness between them. "I wish- I'm..." Ran went silent for a moment, and then smiled a little against his skin. "I'm spoiled, that's what the problem is. Do you know, Shinichi, this is the first time we've been alone," (she blushed) "in, um, bed together? We started out with all three of us, and... that's how it's been all along."

He kissed her softly. "Is this... alright?"

Ran's eyes opened wide; in the dim light they were enormous and dark. "Shinichi you baka, of _**course**_ it's alright! It's just- well." She sat up a little, a self-conscious flush still pinking her cheeks. "It's just funny what you can get used to. I don't think he'd mind at all, do you?" At her boyfriend's definite headshake, Ran sat back on her heels, blankets cascading back; she surveyed the thin, lean-built and above all _very wide awake_ body beneath her and her smile deepened along with her blush. "And you know," she said softly, long hair spilling down over her breasts and she rose up onto her knees above him, "I think we ought to make sure we have a few stories to entertain him with when he does return."

"Oh?" Shinichi bit back a gasp as she pressed her thighs against his, hot and silken; she was breathing deeply now, and as she made sliding, involuntary movements against his skin, his hands rose up on their own to grip her hips. Ran whimpered and pressed down harder, one hand tight on his shoulder; his mind was beginning to fray past worries and concerns into a much more immediate moment. "Like... nngh... like what?"

"Like," Ran breathed as she reached out with her free hand and felt around beneath the edge of the quilt beneath them for the things that she was certain had to be there (and were), "how you told me what it felt like to be inside him for the first time. While," (and she slid a fingernail along the foil) "you were inside _me."_

Shinichi's eyes grew easily as wide as hers had been a moment before; drugged and dark with sensation, they fluttered for a moment as she rolled the condom down the length that rose proudly between them. "R-Ran-" he whispered.

"Tell me," she said softly, sliding against his thigh again, her own heat moist on his skin. "Ooohhgod... Keep him here with us, Shinichi, like this. T-tell me-" Biting her lip, she arched against him again as her voice broke. "What- oh- what was, was it l- like-" Ran's hand stole between them, her nails sliding across his entire length in one long, mind-blowingly delicate touch before she grasped him, and it was all Shinichi could do to keep from groaning aloud.

She rose up again, and he _did_ groan as she took him into her, eyes intent; behind her, man-made moonlight shown like a halo. "Tell—me—" Ran gasped, beginning to move.

And he did.

* * *

All through the long, sweet night, Kid's absence was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because even in the heat of the moment the cool space in the blankets that he should have filled kept him in their minds; and a curse, because the space was there at all. But they loved and held each other through soft, endless caresses and the hard shock of immediacy, and bookmarked the moments to welcome him back with when he returned.

* * *

Maybe it was the chocolate cake, maybe not, but all four slept late the next morning. Shinichi and Ran had gathered enough presence of mind at some point to retrieve boxers and the pajamas that'd been left on the couch, so no-one was embarrassed (or not much, anyway) when Yukiko came sneaking silently down the stairs to make breakfast. She _did_ manage to capture a photo or two, though, and gloated over them privately as she set up the rice-cooker.

Clearing away the trees and setting the room back into a semblance of order took most of the remaining morning; the mass of potted ficus wouldn't be picked up until the next day, so they made an interesting new temporary border along the backyard drive leading to the garage, upright green soldiers all in a curved line. The tiny lanterns went back up to the attic, but when Ran shyly mentioned how much she had liked their false moon, Yukiko hugged her and informed her that it was now _her_ moon, no-one else's. "It seems appropriate," she'd said, and for a moment a faint shade of anxiety had darkened the actress' usually blithe blue eyes, but it had passed.

And once again, neither of the elder Kudos mentioned Kid.

* * *

It was noon. And then past noon, and then well into the afternoon. And as each hour passed, it became harder and harder for Ran and Shinichi to act as though they hadn't noticed. the afternoon evaporated, filled with much of the same comforts and indulgences which had filled the hours before. With the same comforts, but without the thief.

By seven in the evening neither of them could take it any longer, and no amount of misdirection from Shinichi's mother could convince either him or Ran to stay obediently put.

"Something is wrong," Shinichi insisted. Being the pacing type, he was trying his best to pace, but really only succeeding in clobbering three-footedly around his bedroom and looking very foolish indeed. They'd made it up to the second floor through stubbornness and mostly Ran's help, but Shinichi wasn't satisfied with settling there and had threatened, rather convincingly, to hobble his way all the way back downstairs and across town to the Kuroba mansion if that was what it took to see Kid before the transformation took Shinichi again.

Whether or not his parents and his girlfriend thought this was a wise idea had very little bearing on Shinichi's determination. And so, mostly on Yukiko's suggestion, Ran had suggested to Shinichi that getting a bit of altitude might help soothe his nerves. Really, what they were both interested in was putting as many barriers between Shinichi and a stupid idea as was possible.

Well, maybe not stupid. Maybe just rash. Ran watched Shinichi stare out the windows of the second floor of his childhood home, across the town toward the setting sun in the direction in which both of them could best guess stood the Kuroba house. Neither of them had had ever entered it of course, and neither of them had ever been invited inside. But they knew where it was, and in theory, this was useful information. In practice, it was just frustrating.

"We know where he is. We know EXACTLY where he is. And we're just- we can't- he's-"

"I'm not explaining it to Ai if you burst a blood vessel, Shinichi," Ran interjected, intending levity. But her voice was as worried as his was frustrated, and the uneven thumping of Shinichi's feet and crutch across the wooden floor went unremarked.

The detective paced, clomping across the floor with increasingly agitated steps, and the foot of his hastily-placed crutch slipped on the wood flooring. He regained his balance easily enough, but Ran jumped up from her chair, worried.

"Shinichi, please."

"Ran, there's something wrong with him, I can feel it. You know I told you about this before, how I can feel what's wrong with him. Something is very not right there," Shinichi said, "And it's not right for us to just sit here as though it doesn't matter to us."

"Shinichi, that's not the case at all." Ran held her hand held his hands in hers, gripping tightly, and despite how upset she was some part of her mind still marveled and savored the fact that Shinichi's hands were of equal size to her own. "You said yourself we have to trust him. We can't go running to rescue him when we're not even sure if he wants the rescue in the first place - I mean, if he needs it."

"Ran, that's exactly my point. I know he needs us the same way we need him. I know it. I can feel it. I wish… I wish there were some way for me to contact him. I could kick myself; he's always been the one to contact me. What I wouldn't give right now for some crunch pocky and…a…" Shinichi stopped and her startled, hopeful expression he followed the line of her hand out the window and against the light of the setting sun Shinichi's eyes fixed on the rose-tipped wings which seem to have arrived with perfect timing like the answer to a prayer.

"…Dove," Shinichi murmured.

"Keeta! Oh thank God, thank any god, thank something, Keeta, he sent you to us, he sent you." Shinichi hobbled toward the window, clomping and making a horrible noise of things, and Keeta flapped away, startled. The detective came to a stop several feet from the window which, though closed, blocked little sound between the dove and the teenagers.

"Ran, I think she's scared of the crutch. Go talk to her," Shinichi implored, fighting the urge to dart forward and attempt to take Keeta between his hands. "Ran, she's got a message from him, I know she does."

"Keeta, he said your name was Keeta? Come here, Keeta," Ran cooed, moving toward the window. "Do you have a message from your dad?"

In keeping with the rest of the Kudo house, the windows were European-style crank-operated, and Ran carefully levered one open, keeping an eye on the dove in case she spooked. Once the window was open, Ran extended one hand carefully, but Keeta refused to perch. Instead she opened her claws and a small piece of card stock attached to her ankle by a thin thread dangled down for Ran and Shinichi's observation. It read, "Keep climbing."

"Keep climbing." Shinichi's eyes were wide and bright when Ran turned to meet their gaze.

"You know what he means?" Ran asked, forgetting Keeta for a moment as she fixed her attention on her boyfriend's intent expression.

"Maybe," Shinichi said, but the hesitation in his words wasn't mirrored by the excitement in his voice. "He sent Keeta to us," the detective said gleeful. "And I think… I think I know what he means."

"Is he coming here?" Ran was hesitant as she left the window to sit beside Shinichi, looking up at him with a mix of the affection she felt for his admittedly myopic focus on the thief and trepidation as to what that myopic focus might cause him to attempt to do. At the windowsill, Keeta, content with the sudden lack of attention she was receiving, fluttered down to a comfortable perch on a book just inside the window, preening and cooing as she observed the two silly humans her master had sent her to fetch.

"I don't know," Shinichi said slowly, his voice quiet in the way that it grew quiet while he worked to solve cases. "We need to go upstairs."

"Upstairs?" Ran stepped in front of Shinichi as the detective wobbled to his feet, tucking his crutch under his arm with single-minded determination. "It completely wiped you out just to get up one flight of stairs," she protested. "I'll go upstairs and find out what Kid wants. You stay here, or you'll just hurt yourself further."

"Ran, I'm not staying," Shinichi insisted. "I know… I know it might seem like I'm overreacting. He's only been gone for a day or two, and it's only because I'm transformed that we think that's unusual in the first place. But somehow, somehow I know I'm not overreacting. I know that if we wait for Kid to decide to admit that he needs us, we'll have waited too long in the first place."

Ron's hand slid slowly from Shinichi's shoulder as he pushed his way gently past her, insistent without being forceful. Despite the crutch his shoulders were square, and he headed for the staircase leading to the mansion's third-floor and attic gables with the determination of someone for whom personal pain and discomfort plays no factor in their decision-making process.

"Shinichi," Ran huffed, trotting to follow after him. She overtook him easily, and smiled as the frustration evident on his face made his nose bunch up cutely.

"I'm never going to convince you that you're pushing yourself too hard, even in this situation," Ran said wryly, stepping in front of Shinichi to halt his progress with a smile on her face. "And I'm not going to try to either." Her eyes were bright and sweet as she leaned in close.

"I just wish you'd remember that I love him as much as you do, and I'm just as scared of being unable to help him no matter how hard I want to."

Struck by the honesty in Ran's eyes, Shinichi was only able to smile softly in response, acknowledging her wisdom and its necessary place in their relationship.

"Our voice of reason," Shinichi murmured smiling and leaning forward for a gentle kiss. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

Ran laughed, her eyes bright, and leaned in to kiss Shinichi back. "Probably the same boneheaded things you do now," she smiled, opening the door leading toward the attic stairwell. "Albeit with considerably less awareness of exactly how boneheaded it gets."

Now Shinichi laughed, proceeding ahead of Ran into the narrow stairway. His crutch was of limited use here; stuck between the two walls of the stairwell, Shinichi found the easiest way to ascend was to suspend himself, in a way, between one hand on the railing and the other firmly gripping the bar of his crutch. Ran remained behind him, ready to catch him if he wavered or fell, and her presence was more necessary than Shinichi would have liked to admit. The staircase was long and had several bends which were difficult to navigate under normal circumstances, much less when one was quite as invalid as Shinichi found himself to be.

"I don't remember this stairwell being this tiny," Shinichi muttered, grumbling as Ran helped him rearrange his crutch under his arm after yet another awkward landing. "For quite so twisty."

"Well, you were younger," Ran pointed out, reaching one hands back to grasp and lift, helping Shinichi support his own way. "Maybe everything seems larger back then."

"No," Shinichi mused, frowning as they continued to ascend. His wrenched ankle was clearly painting him, but Ran knew him well enough to know that mentioning the injury would do little to stop him, and probably actually simply frustrate and further inspire him, so she didn't mention it. "It's not simply explained by age-relative perspective. Remember, I'm pretty good at avoiding that sort of distortion, these days. Seeing the world from both perspectives in cycles tends to help with that.

"No, it's…different, somehow." He frowned, obviously deep in thought, and nearly tripped over the tread of the stair before him.

"Maybe we do the detective work after we do the stairclimbing," Ran suggested with a small smile, biting her lip as Shinichi muttered in perturbed frustration but agreed.

* * *

At the very top of house, in the narrow space underneath the gables and spires of Kudo house's unconventional architecture, Ran and Shinichi took seats on the small ledge of the window sill inside the tower's only source of light.

"You're sure he wanted us to go this far up?" Ran looked around the small space, holding her head on an angle to keep her hair out of the thick cobwebs and dust that adorned the ceiling. "There's nothing up here, Shinichi."

Shinichi's gaze followed his girlfriend's, taking in the unfinished rafters, the dust laid several inches thick on every horizontal surface of the boards and beams supporting the shingled roof of the gable. The space was small; to call it cramped would be generous. The detective's eyes scanned the walls, insofar as they could be called walls; there was no insulation, no drywall, no plaster. Birds' nests indicated the only use that the tower summit still had.

"It's here," Shinichi insisted, racking his brain. "It has to be. Tousan's intended to put an observatory up here, but I guess he never finished it… but I guess he never blocked it off, either…? Where did Keeta go?"

A soft cooing noise from over Shinichi's shoulder drew his attention, and he easily spotted the pale rose dove amid the thick drifts of dust in the rafters above the flattest wall of the small turret room.

"What did you lead us here for?" Ran asked, looking up at the dove with tired frustration. "Shinichi is tired," she said, reaching one hand up toward the bird. "Please tell us there's something up here that Kid wanted us to see."

As if in answer, Keeta began flapping her wings strongly, kicking up dust and making both Ran and Shinichi cough violently. Shielding their eyes and noses from the dust, both teens flinched away from its source, and only once the flutter of Keeta's wings was silent did they open their eyes again.

Shinichi was the first to notice it. "Ran. Ran, look. There's a handle."

Edging around Shinichi on the small windowsill ledge, a Ran approached the wall beneath Keeta's perch. A dully shining metal bar stood out from the rest of the old, dingy wood; the boards around it looked weak and fragile, and Ran grasped the handle with a hesitant but firm touch.

"Shinichi?"

Her detective's eyes were fierce. "Open it, Ran," he said, in a low, fervent voice. "Go ahead. Open it."

With one more glance at her boyfriend, Ran did so, putting her weight and considerable strength against the tight-fitted frame of the door. The years had not been kind to the wood, and it creaked and moaned, wrenching against its frame as Ran's strength forced it free.

The resistance suddenly gave way, and with rather more suddenness than she had been prepared to expect, Ran found herself falling against the opposite wall of the room, half-sprawled in Shinichi's lap, as the door held together and swung open, revealing the portal beyond it.

The thin light from the window of the tiny gable couldn't reach down the narrow passageway, and Ran and Shinichi stared, at a loss, into its black throat.

"You… did… have an actual third floor in this house, didn't you?" Ran's gaze shifted uncertainly from the black descending staircase revealed to them by the hidden door and Shinichi's equally startled expression. "I remember it. It was a big attic. You had a rocking horse up there."

"We did, yeah," Shinichi muttered, standing up and hobbling over to Ran's side to look down the stairs with her. "Something is not the same here," he said, voice gaining certainty as he clumped forward and on to the first tread of the narrow downward staircase. "Something is very much not the same as it used to be."

They descended, steps cautious; Shinichi pulled the flashlight watch out of his pocket to light their way, earning a questionable glance from Ran.

"We were going exploring," he protested, looking a little sheepish. "It made sense to bring it."

"You could have brought a real flashlight," Ran countered, fighting a smile at the corner of her mouth. "You didn't have to bring _the watch_."

"...You don't have to say it like that," he muttered.

They reached a landing, turning it with a bit of difficulty, and continued. After passing one more landing down, the stairwell widened and the treads leveled out. "Isn't it weird, Shinichi?" Ran wondered, steadying him as they descended. "This feels funny. We haven't gone exploring like this...well, as _us,_ I mean, in so long."

"Yeah," Shinichi agreed, tossing a grin over his shoulder for her. "Conan-kun and Ran-neechan aren't quite the same. But this is almost like when we were little."

"You dragged me around on all sorts of crazy things," Ran laughed. "Remember the time you made me hold that _huge_ knife? The one that mysterious guy threw at us in the library?"

Shinichi nodded, lifting his flashlight's beam to illuminate the wall ahead of them. A few treads further down, the staircase's ceiling dropped, leveling out into what looked to be a long, narrow passage that bent off to one side from the thrust of the stairs. "What the... this is crazy! I had no idea this was here."

"Are you sure your house wasn't made by that crazy trap master, Shinichi?" Ran asked, edging past him. "Here, hold on." She ducked under the low ceiling, holding out both hands to offer support. "Lean the crutch on the wall, I'll grab it once you're down."

Shinichi pushed hard against Ran's hands as he stepped down, wincing; his ankle wasn't taking the extensive climbing well and had, by the feel of it in his doubled socks, probably begun to swell.

"I'm sure," Shinichi answered wryly, accepting Ran's steadying shoulder as he flopped against one of the passageway walls with a heavy exhalation. "This is exhausting. But I think I've figured out the trick behind it."

Ran lifted one brow, fondly amused. "Trick? Oh? And what's that, Tantei-san?"

"That's a pretty appropriate tease, actually," Shinichi said, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him. He followed the beam of his flashlight up, into the ceiling beams of the rough passage, and smiled as they illuminated small colored tags of electrical tape wrapped around the wires and pipes of the passage's walls in mismatched pairs. "This is a detective's secret game with his partner."

Shinichi turned the beam down the hall; it bounced off the facing wall at the end, revealing the beginning of yet another stairway railing which he had known would be there.

"We _do_ have an attic," he began, turning to meet Ran's questioning gaze with a satisfied but sad smile. "The door we entered - the one that _should_ have led to it - didn't. Not anymore, at least.

"Do you know about interlaced spiral staircases?" Shinichi gestured with his hands, tracing a curl in the air, as he explained. "Sometimes you'll hear them called a helix staircase, or a double helix. One staircase curls the proper way, and one curls in reverse; they're closed channels, so you can't see one when you're in the other. The only clue is that they twist in opposite directions. Because staircases normally curl in one direction when they're true spirals, those type are easy to deduce.

"But for right-angle staircases, like the one we climbed to reach the garret, it's easier to fool people. Landings can turn left or right, correct? The swordsman's logic that originally dictated the proper direction for spiral staircases doesn't work with straight ascensions.

"Someone created a double staircase. No- probably, a second staircase was installed interlaced into the first one, taking advantage of the huge size of this house to disguise the necessary loss of floorspace. Nobody would notice a few lost meters of space when the room the space is taken from areas as huge as here. So a second staircase was made, one which led up to the tower with one window. That's never been accessible before; Tousan always told me there was no way to get up there after he abandoned the plans to install a telescope up there. But we just did. And furthermore, we didn't mean to.

"Someone switched the opening of the passage between the real staircase which leads to the attic and the secret one that leads to the tower. And it was done recently. Tousan closed off the tower staircase when I was small. It would make sense that I wouldn't have realized the two staircases were intertwined, and that to get to one you had to close off the other. Kind of like switching tracks on a railroad. That's why I thought something was strange about the staircase; I'd been so used to climbing up to the attic, using the opposite set of turns, that it felt like everything was backwards."

"But it's kind of crazy to say that your own house just went backwards on you," Ran added, nodding. "And you haven't been up here in a couple years anyway, so maybe you were remembering it wrong. Right?"

"Right," Shinichi agreed. "This secret passage is Tousan's work, I know it is. He's made plenty of crazy modifications to this house that we already know of; and if my deduction is correct, this one's the biggest and most ambitious of them all." Pushing off of the wall, Shinichi tucked his crutch under arm and set off at a fast pace down the narrow passage, thumping along with dogged steadiness.

"Shinichi, your ankle," Ran protested, catching up with him and trying to slow him with a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy."

"Can't, Ran. If I'm right, this passage is going to bend left again after this next set of stairs, then right, then two sets of stairs, then left. And then..."

"Three more sets?" Ran stared, uncomprehending. "Shinichi, the house isn't that tall. That'll take us underground. To the tunnel that goes to Agasa's."

"Nope," Shinichi countered. "Further down. One more level down, below the level of all the other houses' basements. We'll need to be that deep, too."

Silence, which Shinichi answered by continuing forward once more. Ran followed, staying at his elbow, and held her tongue as the path of the narrow, dust-muffled passageways unfolded exactly as Shinichi had predicted. Once they passed a narrow doorway that didn't let any light through from the room outside it; two floors down, another doorway that leaked soft sounds of music and the faint scent of onions.

"...The kitchen?" Ran asked, eyes wide, as Shinichi pushed onward. "Shouldn't we stop for a minute? You're going to wipe yourself out and change back, Shinichi," she scolded, gritting her teeth as she saw, by the light of his flashlight watch, the absolutely impermeable determination in Shinichi's eyes. "...You're not listening at all, you baka."

Shinichi leaned his shoulder against the wall, regarding Ran with sad eyes. "Ran, do you...no, you couldn't, I haven't told you about it yet." Shinichi sighed, reaching one hand out to her; dusty and worried, Ran eagerly accepted his embrace, wrapping her arms around him to hold him up.

"Tousan and Kaasan knew Kuroba Toichi," he said softly, pressing his cheek to her dust-greyed hair as he spoke. "Remember when we were nine, and we went on a clue hunt all over the city? And we saw the sunset, and I said that Tousan had made all the clues for us?" Ran nodded, cuddling closer with the memory.

"I finally got you to stop calling me Mouri," she smiled.

Shinichi hummed. "Yeah. But I was wrong about my deduction. Tousan's friend, who I thought was listening, wasn't. He wasn't there...he was busy, then. There was one final clue hidden in the wallet, inbetween the layers of the leather. It was much too complicated for us to solve then, Ran; he had meant for us to take it to my dad, because the message was for him.

"It said, 'Dear Yuusaku Kudo: **?**'

"It was signed, 'No. 1412.'" Shinichi hugged Ran tight as she gasped, beginning to understand.

"It was from...Kuroba-san?"

"The first Kaitou Kid, yes. He was sending a challenge...to Tousan."

* * *

They continued through the passages, close to each other's sides and for the most part quiet, lost in their own thoughts. As they added up the clues from ten years past, the connections kept adding up, one click into the next. They murmured their realizations to each other as they pressed forward, and though Shinichi showed obvious pain at the pace he was forcing himself to maintain, Ran simply supported him as best as she could and said nothing.

"Hakase was in on the game, too," Ran murmured, smiling thinly. "He was chaperoning us."

"I bet that's who taught him to love riddles so much," Shinichi returned.

"Your kaasan studied under him, we knew that one already," Ran added.

"Remember, the policemen were talking about how many thefts he'd been making at that time?"

"I wonder if they were consulting your Tousan back then, too, the same as they do now."

"...I wonder what he sees when he looks at Kid. I...I can't..."

"You know what, though, Shinichi? That means that their Tousan was watching over us even then, too. And your Tousan was probably taking care of Kaito, too."

"...I guess you're right. Come on, Ran. The sick feeling is getting worse. We have to get to him."

"Them," Ran corrected him. Shinichi pressed his lips tight and nodded.

* * *

As Shinichi had predicted, the narrow passages led them underground, then further down. The walls spread, opening out to a comfortable, cool passageway, and a series of very sparse running-board lights, just barely enough to make the dirt floor ahead of their feet visible, lit up in stages as they proceeded.

"Motion-activated," Shinichi observed with pleasure. "He would."

"Where are we...no." Ran frowned, rephrasing with only a bit of hesitation. "_Are_ we going where I think we're going?"

Shinichi grinned over his shoulder at her. "What other use would a passage through the walls of the house from ceiling to sub-basement be, really? Remember the first door we passed, on the second floor? That one probably led to the second level of the bookshelf balcony in the library. And I think the one in the kitchen opens onto the same secret door that we normally get to with the normal underground tunnel."

"The one with the creepy hand torches?" Ran snickered; Shinichi sighed.

"That one, yeah. Well, there's no torches in this passage; why do you think that is?"

"Whoever was going to use this one didn't need to be impressed or scared," Ran supposed, eyeing the sturdy but completely bare construction of the tunnel, which extended arrow-straight much further forward than they could see. "And they didn't need a lot of light either, I guess."

"You could also say it this way," Shinichi suggested, smiling even as he leaned against the wall to catch his breath. "Whoever was using this tunnel wasn't going to be impressed or fooled by Tousan's _I Am A Mystery Writer, Fear Me_ pretenses anyway, so he didn't bother installing them."

"Well, if we know where we're going, I don't see why we can't take advantage of that," Ran decided, crossing to Shinichi's side and poking him in the shoulder. "Just keep the crutch out of the way of my knees."

"Ah?" Shinichi blinked at her. "Ran, you're not-_aaaaaaack, Ran, put me dooooown!_"

With Shinichi's knees tucked over one forearm and his shoulders against her other, Ran waited for her boyfriend to get both hands around her neck, the crutch behind her back where it wouldn't get in the way, and his alarm under control. "You squirm like a wet cat, Shinichi," she grinned, beginning to walk down the passageway with steady paces. "It's pretty cute when you do it chibified, but I think I like it even better at this size."

Blushing, Shinichi stopped struggling, but glared at Ran instead. "Put me down, Ran. I'm way too heavy for you."

"What do you weigh these days, anyway, Shinichi?" Ran asked, quirking one eyebrow. "Forty-seven kilos, maybe?"

"_Fifty-five,_" Shinichi protested, petulant. "Put me down."

"No," Ran said, sticking her tongue out at him while she watched the passageway ahead of them. "I don't care if you're a boy or not, you're basically a stick, fifty-five kilos is _nothing_. And if you wear yourself out walking ten city blocks to the Kuroba mansion, which has to be where this tunnel is taking us or else we're both crazy, then you'll chibify as soon as we find Kid and Kaito, and _then_ what? So shut up and take a nap. You're lighter weight than Genta, you know."

"...That's not much of a compliment any way I take it," Shinichi muttered, but consented to lay his head against Ran's collarbone and close his eyes, listening to her steady breath as she walked.

* * *

"Stairs, Shinichi," Ran murmured, and the detective opened his eyes groggily.

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Ran agreed. "I guess your Tousan didn't make this one."

"I think that's a safe guess," Shinichi said, eyeing the door at the end of the tunnel passageway. The small set of steps, the dirt walls, the obvious disuse; it was all just the same as the entrances and doorways on the Kudo side of the secret passages, except that where Yuusaku had preferred to decorate with gothic indulgences, Toichi had obviously been more of a Bond fan.

"If this _opens,_" Shinichi muttered, staring at the glossy, perfectly round metal door inscribed with a series of spiraling lines that any movie fan - or member of the 20th century - could easilyrecognize. "...I'll eat his hat."

"Don't think he'll let you," Ran smiled, setting her boyfriend down gently and helping him get his crutch under him. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Shinichi said. "A little in shock, but fine."

Ran raised an eyebrow. "Shock?"

In answer, Shinichi simply clumped his way up the three stairs leading to the gun-barrel door. The center apeture was 'plugged' with a plated fixture that appeared to be the butt end of a bullet brass; Shinichi handed the crutch off to Ran and felt around the edges of the raised disc, looking for latches. He found two, and dug his fingers under the edge of the brass against the recessed buttons. The door clacked, something further inside of it _clunked_ rather heavily, and Shinichi stepped back just in time to avoid getting clocked by the heavy thing as it swung open. Ran was ready behind him, hugging him around the back of his shoulders.

"Oi oi," Shinichi grumbled, eyeing the bank-vault style locking bolts spaced evenly around the rim of the thick, disc-shaped door. "If I didn't know better, I'd say there was some sort of gentleman rogue theme to this whole setup."

Ran snickered. "Your deadpan needs work," she teased, turning him in her arms to kiss him on the cheek. "You don't sound unimpressed enough."

"Well, even if I wanted to, I really couldn't; this is definitely beyond my ability to be blase," he shrugged, smiling at her nose-to-nose. "Do you realize we just walked probably two and a half kilometers to travel a distance half that long by way of plain old sidewalks?"

"Would it have stopped you if it was five kilometers?" Ran smiled, leaning in to kiss Shinichi gently. He returned it, lips lingering, breath steadying and mellowing, and the strain and exhaustion from their long, frustrating journey faded softly away. When Ran pulled back, Shinichi's eyes were still gently lidded and unfocused.

"Let's not just stand outside the door all night," Ran murmured. "Kid and Kaito need us."

Shinichi nodded, and led the way up the stairs.


	67. It's been a decade

_**Book Six, Chapter Two**__**: "It's been a decade."  
**__(Author's note: 'daifu' means 'godfather')_

The room just beyond the secret passageway door was dimly lit, with just an end-table lamp left illuminated beside a comfortable-looking armchair. A book lay open on a table at the base of the lamp, and a mug of coffee just beside that. "It looks kind of like cookies set out for Santa Claus," Shinichi commented. "Though I'm pretty sure no one in this house believes in him."

"Probably not," Ran answered, "though I think it's more likely this wasn't left for us."

"Well, obviously, Shinichi answered, trying to keep the tip of his crutch quiet on the wood-paneled floor of the room they found themselves in. It wasn't quite a study and it wasn't quite a bedroom; somewhere halfway in between, the room had the feel of a place that had developed its characteristics after developing use. Briefly, Shinichi wondered, how many late-night vigils had been held in that armchair facing that door, waiting for the safe return of a master thief.

Along with that thought came the accompanying concern that Kaito and Kid's mother, whose name Shinichi and Ran still did not know, might not have been advised of their visit. It felt strange to simply wander around the house unattended despite the fact that the thought of calling or texting Kid to ask for guidance was even more uncomfortable.

"I don't want to interrupt him if he's busy," Ran said, echoing Shinichi's thoughts, "but how are we supposed to know where to go in here?"

"I think we'll have to take our chances," Shinichi said, as a second glance around the room revealed no doves and no helpful flashing neon arrows. "What?" Shinichi challenged Ran when she raised her eyebrow at the suggestion when he spoke it aloud. "This is Kid we're talking about; it's a legitimate possibility."

"Well, in lieu of any helpful neon," Ran said, clearly amused at her boyfriend's train of logic, "I think, since we _were_ invited, it wouldn't be too rude to find the kitchen and a drink, maybe?"

One hand wiped across Shinichi's brow came back gray and clammy with dust, and he had to agree. "If I'd known we were going on safari I would've packed a bento," he joked, letting Ran take the lead out of the small room into the hallway beyond.

The Kuroba mansion was clearly a product of a more modernistic style than the Kudo one; the bannister just visible at the end of the hallway had none of the ornate tooling and curve that Yukiko had so loved in their house. Instead, it was clean in design and in color and, Shinichi realized, looking at the walls, ceiling, floor and just about everything else like a bonafide tourist as they proceeded down the hallway, so was the rest of the house. The hallway was comfortably lit, neither bright nor dim, and the smooth, uniform mahogany color of the baseboard, pictureframes and crown-molding provided an inviting color in what was otherwise a very stark decor.

"Shinichi, look," Ran said as they slowly and somewhat hesitantly walked further down the hall, poking their heads into each doorway they encountered. "Their aren't any pictures- of them, I mean."

She was right; of course, Shinichi had already observed this. The hall was tastefully decorated, and this included pictureframes and centerpiece portraits placed suitably far apart down the length of the hall; but none of the images in these pictures were of the Kuroba family themselves. There was beautiful photography, many photos of the doves (which Shinichi realized were not loved only by Kaito but indeed by the entire family) and a number of photographs and pieces of art collected from around the world. "This kind of brings the 'international' part of his title home," Ran muttered, standing at Shinichi's side as they observed a sequence of photos obviously well-taken, personal photos, not tourist shop merchandise, of locations as exotic as Ankor Wat and the river at Giza. "I feel kind of funny nosing around like this," she said, hanging behind Shinichi as he peered into the next room- an office of some type, which had its door open. "I want to find him, but this... feels weird."

"I agree," Shinichi said, turning back to the hall with a frown. "Well, it's not so bad yet; all we've done is go down one hallway. And we still haven't found the kitchen."

"Don't remind me," Ran chuckled, heading forward again to examine the next series of pictures and the next doorway. It was a bathroom. "Every time I think about it I get even more thirsty. It's got to be around here some-"

"-where?" asked a familiar voice from somewhere above their heads. Both teens spun around, looking up to the staircase which rose in parallel to the hallway. And neither was terribly surprised to see Kid's face smiling down on them. What was slightly more surprising was Kaito beside him. No, not Kaito- Shinichi looked closer as Kid and the new person descended down the stairs, Kid wearing a smile and the other looking somewhat disheveled and distracted. "Tantei? Ran? We'd like you to meet our kaasan."

* * *

The kitchen, as it turned out, was located off an entirely different hallway, accessible only if the pair had been so bold as to make a full circuit of the ground floor east wing of the mansion and find themselves catty-corner to the second of the two matched mahogany staircases. "You can also get to it if you go in through the west wing and pass the ballroom and the grand stair," Kaito explained cheerfully, pouring cups of coffee for Shinichi, his mother and a glass of water for Ran and for himself. He snickered, seeing the expressions on the others' faces and smiled. "We've been meaning to install that map for a while; maybe we should finally get around to it."

His face rippled, shifting in a fluid and imprecise way, and resolved into the expression they knew best on Kaito's face, even as the second of the two brothers snorted, slightly annoyed. "He says 'map' like we're some sort of shopping mall," Kaito drawled, glancing at his mother with a grin. "We don't get nearly enough walk-through traffic for that." With Kaito in control it was easier to see how Shinichi and Ran had mistaken the twins' mother for him at first. Their features were exceedingly similar, somehow significantly more so than Kid's were with his mother's.

Rather than question how one physical face could possess two so very different aspects, Shinichi instead studied that of the other Kuroba, trying to interpret the tangled emotions he could see in her eyes.

"Kuroba-san?" he said a tentatively, and gave the woman a small, trust-me-I'm-harmless smile. "I've been hoping to meet you eventually, and I hope we're not, ah, intruding-?" The detective's gaze flickered towards Kaito. "I suppose your sons would've mentioned... us, and..." He trailed off.

"Kaito has mentioned you," the woman said in a voice so gentle and hesitant that Shinichi had problems believing it was truly a Kuroba that had spoken. "He talks about you a lot. He says that you two make my boys very happy." At their mother's elbow, Kaito and Kid sat quiet, simply smiling.

Shinichi blinked. "I'm... very glad to hear that." He swallowed; this had to be the grand champion winner of the Awkward Introduction Award; just how did you say _'Hi, I'm Kudo Shinichi, your son's lover and occasional opponent; and this is Mouri Ran, his other lover, and did I mention that I'm a detective and she's a former cop's daughter and we're both really delighted to meet you?'_ Stalling for time, he turned to smile at Ran, who was clutching her glass like a life-preserver. "We feel the same way about them."

Ran offered a smile as well; her eyes were wary. "Are we intruding?" she asked quietly. "We were- worried about them both, or we wouldn't have just, um, barged in like this." Her gaze strayed toward's Kaito's trying to read clues to where to go next. The woman's obvious dishevelment caused her a few internal qualms, but she did her best to keep her perplexity off her face. The situation was so very strange; commonplaces felt equally weird, but they seemed to be the best way to go.

"Well," Kaito said, meeting Ran's gaze levelly, "my brother did send you an invitation." Obviously feeling that further explanation was redundant, the Magician turned to his mother. "Will you be okay if I go fix that snack now?" he asked, one hand gentle on her shoulder.

His mother nodded, only slightly unsteady. "Thank you, Kaito," she said. "Would you two like anything to eat?"

They both demurred, and the Magician slipped away towards the counter. "You'll have to pardon our dust," said Shinichi ruefully, looking down at his own grimy shirt and the backs of his hands; they looked gray against the immaculate wood of the table. "We're not exactly dressed to visit, but... when the dove came, we just couldn't wait any longer." He deliberately refrained from turning his head towards the kitchen-sounds behind him.

They sat in a small island of light, dimly illuminated by small track-lighting overhead; appliances gleamed distantly in the large room, and Shinichi wondered why despite the absolute lack of dust he kept expecting signs of- what? Disuse, abandonment- He shook off the fancy and half-smiled at his friends' mother. "It was a bit of a walk, though Ran did most of the work."

"Mmm; I apologize as well- I'm not dressed for company myself either." She looked down at her own clothing, a simple long-sleeved shirt and a pair of thick jersey sweatpants, obviously comfortable and well-loved. Her house-scuffs were purple.

"Kaasan goes to bed early," Kid offered over the quiet hiss of oil in a pan. "She gets up very early every morning, so she'd already been in bed for an hour or so when I came in to wake her." His two guests blinked at this, and Shinichi raised an eyebrow; just where _had_ he been-?

_Stupid. You __know__ what anniversary this is; remember the texts? 'Decade moon,' that's this weekend, the full moon closest to the anniversary of Kuroba Toichi's death. Whatever he's been doing, wherever he's been, it all revolves around that date; and the last thing you want to do is mention that right now-_ A little desperately Shinichi cast around for a topic of conversation that wouldn't prove to be a landmine; the streaks of dirt from the tunnel, somewhat ironically, provided one. "I understand you and my parents were once acquainted, Kuroba-san?" he offered. "My kaasan said it's been a long time since she's seen you, but she remembers you fondly." There'd been real wistfulness in Yukiko's voice when she'd mentioned the other woman; Shinichi wondered when had they last spoken- ten years past, at a dead magician's funeral? And, not for the first time, he also wondered why he and Kaito had never met as children. Or had they? The memories of a four or five-year-old weren't the most reliable things in the world.

"Yukiko...! She's back in Beika?" Kuroba-san's eyes widened with her expression, opening up with the softness of intensity which Shinichi and Ran were quickly realizing characterized all her emotions. "I haven't spoken with her since...since, well. It's been a decade."

It was strange to see such a display of introversion from the mother of two of the most bold and definitive personalities that she knew, but Ran could tell, watching the woman's body language - small, earnest motions, a true interest weighted down by the inertia of a tired body - as she listened to Shinichi talk about his mother, that she wasn't faking it or trying to hide her true self. What they saw _was_ her true self, as much as Kid was a thief and Kaito a magician.

_If I lost Shinichi...maybe... Would I become so scared and tired, like her?_

"...apologize profusely, Kudo-kun, the tunnel hasn't been used since Toichi's passing, and we didn't see a need to maintain it. If I'd known you planned to visit, I would have had it-"

"Really, it's perfectly fine, Kuroba-san," Shinichi protested. "A little dirt won't hurt us, and I assure you, the entrances to my Tousan's end of the tunnels were no more cleanly kept. I did wonder, though, why the entrance was revealed again, after all this time; I had only the vaguest of memories of it, and it took me some time to discern the trick between the interlaced staircases. Did the late Kuroba-san work with Tousan on that?"

"I think so," she answered, smiling. Though thin, the expression seemed to have true heart behind it, and was maybe not 'unenthusiastic' so much as it was 'out of practice.' Encouraged, Ran joined the conversation, leaning across the table with a smile as she covered Shinichi's hand with her own on its surface.

"I think it's excellent, Kuroba-san. Shinichi's tousan and your husband must have been very good friends, to build a tunnel like this."

"They were," she nodded, again with the small, earnest smile, enthusiastic to the best of its limited ability. "Yuusaku even did us the honor of naming Toichi as your daifu," she added, turning to Shinichi, "And a year later, when we had Kaito, Toichi asked him to be Kaito's daifu, too. I don't think I'd told you that, Kaito. Did I?"

The thief and magician - likely, only their mother could tell which - returned to her side, bearing a small plate of lightly fried dumplings. "Don't think you did," they answered, arm around their mother's shoulders. "We did know that Kudo-san named Tousan, though."

Their mother nodded. "Yes, and Toichi's playful side so loved that nickname. Mouri-san, Kudo-kun, please tell Yukiko and Yuusaku that Chikage sends her deepest gratitude, won't you? You've all taken such good care of my boys..." Her voice trailed off, shoulders slumping down and against her sons as her gaze drifted to her plate.

"Kaasan, eat. You didn't really have any dinner." The Kaitou - because that was the only referent that made sense, really, when it was both brothers looking out of the same eyes - glanced up at Shinichi and Ran with a smile as his mother quietly picked up her chopsticks. "I'm sorry you guys got so dirty just trying to get here. I'll make you some hot drinks and tell you where the bathroom is. You can at least get some of the dirt off that way. I'll be along as soon as I put Kaasan back to bed. She's exhausted, please forgive us for being poor hosts."

They said their goodnights and, following the directions they'd been given, took their leave towards the stairs. The bathroom was on the second floor, and at the bottom of the sleek staircase Ran paused and looked expectantly at Shinichi. _"Oooh_ no," he said firmly. "I can manage." Somewhat disappointed, she waited for him to pass before following him up.

The hallway above followed the same plan as the lower story, and manners kept them from peering through the doorways they passed. The bathroom itself was large and streamlined, tiled in muted pewter mirror-tiles along one wall and trimmed in black and violet. It was a family bathroom- Kaito's? Kid's?- and boasted thick towels in mauve and a clothes-hamper in one corner; they both made good use of the washbasin, sending gray-streaked foam spiraling down the drain. As she rinsed her hands, Ran looked down at her socked feet (they'd shed their shoes before entering the kitchen) in distress. The dust had gotten even into their shoes, and three of their four feet were the worse for it. "Next time, let's come by the sidewalk, okay?" she muttered, brushing ineffectively at her ankles.

"Assuming there'll be a next time," answered her boyfriend wryly, drying his hands and leaning against the counter. "Even when I'm back to economy-size, going out in public much right now isn't exactly an option, is it? Not to mention that Kuroba-san doesn't strike me as... well, eager for company. Though she did kind of perk up a little when I mentioned Kaasan." He turned around, propping himself and watching Ran as she attempted to remove the worst scuffs from her jeans. "You think maybe-?"

She straightened, frowning slightly. "Maybe. If we explained that she, um... needed a delicate touch?" Ran hesitated. "She's so _quiet._ I wasn't really sure what to expect, but- it wasn't that. Considering her sons, I was more expecting... well, something very different. _Someone_ very different. But..." She swallowed. "If I had lost you... or if your mother had lost your father... I suppose it's understandable."

Shinichi nodded silently, accepting this. "And Tousan's Kaito's daifu. And Toichi-san was mine; that was unexpected." He looked thoughtful. "I wonder if you could consider Tousan to be Kid's daifu too, since he came up with the name? -Yeah, yeah, I know, it was for his father, but- anyway." He hitched the crutch back under his arm, leaning against Ran's shoulder. "I like knowing that," he said softly. "The daifu thing. All these years, and that link's been there."

A soft knock on the doorframe drew both of their attention. The Kaitou- it was still difficult to tell which of the two, if not both, were most present- leaned against the doorframe tiredly; but his smile was earnest as he observed the other two. "Find everything okay?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry to send you off by yourselves like that, but... well. I guess you understand."

He led them down the hall; they followed as quietly as possible through the silent house, Shinichi's crutch making soft clumping sounds against the polished hardwood floor. There were few lights; the majority of the illumination spilled out of a single entrance a little ways away, which proved to be a neatly-furnished sitting-room of sorts in warm tones of red and soft gold. A tray of what smelled like hot tea waited on one end table.

Kid, because it was pretty clearly Kid by this point (well, probably, he hoped) led Shinichi and Ran over to a small loveseat piled high with pillows. "Sorry about the decor," he said, taking a seat in the nearest chair. "Aside from our bedrooms we haven't really done anything with the house in general; the playroom was remodeled years ago into a music studio, and that's where the really childish decorations used to be."

The room _was_ on the formal side, and anything but Japanese in decor. It was, in keeping with the rest of what they had seen, totally spotless; there were a few signs of more casual use (an out-of-place book in the bookcase, footprints on the plush of the rug) but there were still very few indications of being lived in visible. Shinichi wondered for a moment how long it had been since anything had changed in the room, in the entire house, before answering. "It's fine," he said quietly, and passed Ran her cup even as he took his own. The steam clouded the air with a fragrant curtain between them and the thief; and it was with deliberate care that he added, "We're just glad to see you- both of you. We were worried." Shinichi gave Kid a somewhat abstracted smile. "I... got it into my head that you were, well, in trouble."

"That isn't so far from the truth," the thief answered, smiling quietly over the rim of his own mug. "It's been... tough the last week or so. It always is at Golden Week; but this year it's harder. But I'm sorry to have kept you here so late and so long; I forgot that it would take you a lot longer to navigate the tunnel than it takes me." The thief glanced at the crutch propped against Shinichi's end of the loveseat and then back at the detective. Seeing the determination in his eyes he reconsidered and held back his apology.

"Ten years," said Ran softly; she'd made the connection between the texts and the date as well- it wasn't like she hadn't done her own reading up on Kuroba Toichi, and the correlation between the date of his death and the current calendar wasn't exactly news. Her eyes were sad, and she shook her head. "I wish we could help somehow. Did..." She hesitated. "Did we upset your kaasan? By coming here, I mean." He shook his head, and she took a sip of her tea and sighed. "I'm glad. We- knew you had a good reason to not show up, and we didn't want to intrude, but we were so _worried."_ The last word was spoken very gently.

Kid's usually mobile expressiveness was... not exactly as usual; there was a stillness, a hint of Poker Face (or more than a hint, though less, Shinichi thought, that he wore at heists) very evident: control, serious control. _I was right; 'tough' isn't the half of it,_ thought Shinichi behind the rim of his cup. "Is there anything we can do to help?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"Just being here, really. I asked you to come just because I wanted you here. But as I said, I don't want to keep you longer than is safe. And I definitely don't want the chibi-tensai on my ass for distressing her experiment."

"Her 'experiment' got pretty damned distressed on his own," answered Shinichi dryly, leaning forward and clasping his cup between both hands. "And so did the experiment's keeper here." He smiled briefly at Ran, who smothered a smile of her own in a swallow of tea. "I still have a few hours left- I'm tired, but there's still some time before we have to head back. I'm, um, glad you sent the dove-" He blinked sheepishly. "I had _no_ idea that tunnel even existed, you do realize that, right? How long've you known about it? I guess it explains a couple of your surprise appearances, but Tousan- how the _hell_ he managed to pull that one..." Yuusaku's son allowed the sentence to trailed off, eyeing the thief. "They were really amazing, my Tousan and yours. I wish," he said, softer, "that I'd had the chance to meet yours."

"You did," Kid said; no, it was Kaito now. It was hard to tell with the poker face up- the tone of his voice was very similar but the look in his eyes...

"You did meet him. I don't know how many times, but I know one for sure." Kaito curled forward around his cup, looking levelly at Shinichi and Ran both. "I remember when I met your mother, Shinichi. Tousan took me along on one of his work meetings. On the way home he said something about how he and your father had traded sons for the day. He asked if I'd like to meet you and make a new friend. I was seven; it was the beginning of Golden Week."

Silence; that had been unexpected, to say the least. Shinichi blinked, trying to pull the memory from his childhood like a single card from a deck. The memory teased at him but wouldn't quite surface; what did, though, was the realization that the Magician was speaking of a moment that might have been not just ten years past but _exactly_ that, right down to the day. Because if it'd been at the beginning of Golden Week...

...then it had been just before Kuroba Toichi's death. Directly before. "I would've been almost nine," he said softly, trying to remember another boy, younger than him, messy-haired and noisy. Nine-year-old Shinichi had been more concerned with soccer and Sherlock Holmes than anything else; but- oh.

_OH._ Triumphantly he stared at the Magician, the past coming back into focus. "That night at the school- Ran, the wallet! The ghost in the hat! Remember? We talked about it on the way over, about 'Tousan's friend.'" She opened her mouth but he beat her to it, incredulous realization strong in his voice. "_'Tousan's friend.'_ He really was... The clues, the riddles- Agasa watched over us. I _did_ meet him, and so did you- my 'older sibling.'" He nodded at Kaito. "That's what you mean, don't you?"

Kaito nodded, smiling, though the expression had nothing of happiness in it. "I didn't know then what Tousan and your mother were talking about, but I've pieced some of it together by now. I believe your father knew about mine even then. I believe," and here Kaito paused as though uncertain whether he wanted to continue, much less could. "I believe that just as you are my brother's pursuer, my father probably made a habit of dancing just out of your father's reach as well. It's comforting, I guess, knowing that."

"Like fathers, like sons?" The memory of a question-mark meant for Kudo Yuusaku danced in front of his eyes; he shook off the image and nodded emphatically. "It _is_ comforting. I hope..." and Shinichi hesitated, wondering how to say the wish in his heart.

Ran saved him the trouble. "I hope," she said steadily, "that they enjoyed themselves. I hope they were as good friends to each other as, as Shinichi and your brother are." Nothing beyond friendship was emphasized; it'd be inappropriate at best and they all knew it. Half-smiling, Ran ducked her head. "He had a nice voice. He scared me at first, but- he went to a lot of trouble for us. I hope he had fun with that, too. Shinichi, do you still have the wallet?"

"Yeah- and your thank-you note, and the knife he pinned it to the wall with too." One corner of his mouth quirked up. "You know me, the inveterate packrat; they're upstairs in my old room, though for years all I had was the knife. We found the wallet again a while back and I kept it; if you want it, though-" Shinichi raised an eyebrow, the offer obvious. "Maybe you should have it; it was your and your brother's father who left it, after all."

There was that feeling of a link again, something with a delayed reaction... like a time-bomb waiting ten years to go off. Only this bomb hadn't caused havoc and destruction, it had instead illuminated the tiny threads tying two families together in previously unseen ways: mutual friendship and respect, hidden secrets, and the trust that asked that two men be responsible for each other's sons.

Shinichi fought down a lump in his throat. He'd had a godfather, a daifu; his godfather- was gone. Was _dead._ The realization was strangely personal even beyond the regret that already suffused him every time he thought about his boyfriend's murdered parent.

_If Kuroba Toichi had lived... I wonder: would I be pursuing __two__ Gentleman Thieves, the elder and the younger? Would our families have remained linked, would I have grown up knowing Kaito- and Kid, because he'd be there somehow, somewhere, he WOULD, I know he would- would we have been friends? More than friends? Would I have gone to him instead of Agasa when I was shrunk? What would he- they- be like?_

_We'll never know. The bastards that killed my godfather took all those possibilities away. God DAMN them._ It was a life that neither he nor the others had ever lived; but it hung in his mind like a ghost and refused to let go.

Shinichi became aware that someone had asked him a question, and it took him a moment to shake the cold introspection off. "-what? Sorry, I was..."

"-just thinking, I know. Don't _do_ that, Shinichi, you'll scare us," scolded Ran, thumping him on his temple with a forefinger. "Especially right now." The specter of his limited hours nudged him reproachfully with an elbow, and the detective winced, murmuring an apology.

"I'm not dead yet," the detective protested, glaring halfheartedly at Ran even as he leaned against her shoulder, finding and holding her hand with his own. Her gaze followed his as though signaled, both lifting to hold Kaito's quietly, open, waiting.

"I wish I could have met him, really met him as your father, Kaito," Shinichi murmured, his free hand tightening into a fist on his knee. "I wish..." He stopped, lips pressed together against sentiments which he suspected the magician would not welcome for their redundancy.

_Still. I wish he was still here. I wish that you...your kaasan...everyone...wasn't so sad._ It was a simplistic, almost..._definitely_... childish wish. But it was so strong in Shinichi's mind that he couldn't deny it. Didn't want to.

Sometimes, the most simple, hopeful wishes were the most honest.

"I apologize," Kaito said then, his voice low enough that the difference in volume was as significant as its tone in indicating his mood. "I'm...we're...indisposed to be proper hosts tonight. We know you don't care, but I still...feel awkward, with nothing to offer except silence." The magician looked down to his folded hands in his lap, and the thief looked up.

"Would...you like to see our bedroom? I'd wanted to show you, since...well, it's the only room that either of us spend any time in here, other than the aviary and greenhouse. And I don't care if you get dust on the coverlet."

"I'd- we'd like that," answered Ran for them both, once more very gently. "And... could we meet the doves afterwards? If they're not asleep, I mean?" Sympathy glimmered in her eyes, and she impulsively reached out towards their thief with one hand.

"They are, actually," Kid said kindly, crossing to take Ran's hand with a smile. His other hand cupped Shinichi's face, and the thief's brow pinched in the middle with held-back strain as he met the detective's deepwater gaze. "I..."

"The doves," Ran prompted gently, standing. She leaned close against Kid's shoulder, pressing a gentle kiss to its curve.

"Oh. Right." Kid pulled his gaze free from Shinichi's with difficulty, shaking his head a bit. "They're asleep. Sometime...later, you're welcome to come back over and meet them all. There's a lot. And the gardens are very pretty as well. It's all on the third floor roof on the west side."

"Let's just lay you down first," Shinichi murmured, turning his cheek against Kid's palm to kiss the calloused heel of the thief's hand. "Let's leave everything difficult at the door."

"Tall order, Tantei," the thief murmured, chuckling weakly. "Come on, then."

With crutch and support, Shinichi and Ran followed Kid to the second doorway in the sitting room, the one opposite the door they'd come in. It opened inward, and they stepped forward into the large, dark cavern of the room beyond, feet sinking indulgently into carpet pile thicker and softer than any they'd encountered before. Kid slid the dimmer lights up to half power.

The room was large - very large, master-suite-bedroom sort of large. It had few furnishings for its size; the main ones included a large bookshelf/cabinet/set of drawers which took up three quarters of the wall to their direct left. Wood stained a rich dark color, the assemblage had an open space in its center, which was filled by a flatscreen television monitor large enough that Shinichi doubted his arms could span it. The last quarter of that wall held a door, slightly ajar to show a modest bathroom in cream and black tiles.

The wall opposite the door was curtained; whether the entire wall was windows wasn't definitively certain from where they stood, as the curtains were ceiling-to-floor and all of them were drawn save for one segment near the other end of the room. But it wasn't a farfetched guess, either. Shinichi's gaze followed the vertical lines of the curtains up...and up...and up, to the height of what was likely a fourteen or fifteen foot ceiling, unobtrusively textured and pale, probably cream. Though there were small inset and track-mounted light fixtures evenly spaced throughout the ceiling, Shinichi found that even as he stared straight up, none of the bulbs burned painful impressions on his eyes. There had been obvious care taken to ensure that observation of the ceiling, at any time of day, would be a comfortable endeavor.

Ran's gaze had drifted right while Shinichi's drifted up. The length of the room extended mostly to their right; the doorway they'd entered through was far closer to the entertainment/bookshelf wall than it was the opposite wall. A large open space spread out from the television and bookshelf unit, rich red high-pile carpet that half-swallowed their feet as they walked. The space of open carpet ended where it encountered a large footlocker, textured with basketweave and studded wood bands to secure it. The footlocker, in turn, was pushed up against the end of the bed.

"Uh, Kid?"

"Yeah?" The thief crossed to the wall unit, opening one of the cabinet doors and withdrawing a glass and a small bottle of spring water.

"What's the name for that size of bed?"

The thief smiled, leaning against the small low counter to the side of the television screen. "Well, it's not a queen, and it's not a king." He smirked, just a little. "I don't actually think it has a name."

"...I think you could have a full-out orgy on that bed without anyone falling off," Ran muttered, startling a bark of true, abrupt laughter from Kid.

"I've had the thought, yeah."

Outfitted with a set of linens in dark reds and plums, the bed was large enough that an average person, laying sideways on it with arms and legs extended fully, probably could not have reached both sides. Its length was greater than usual as well, and it was easy to imagine the ungainly scooting that would be necessary to rescue oneself from its absolute center. This was all the more pertinent in consideration of the two - or was that three? - tangled, completely dishevled, exceedingly fluffy duvets spread haphazardly across it. Across the far end, which could be presumed to be the 'head end' if a direction as linear as that applied to such an exorbitant display of libertine pleasure, a veritable mountain of pillows, all bed- or throw-sized, in as many textures and fabric finishes as were known to man, mounded the profile of the bed in a fashion not unlike the changeable shape of a sand dune. The four posts of the frame, fully eight feet high and skillfully lathed into smooth, spindled curves, seemed small and short in comparison to the scope of the bed and the height of the ceiling above it.

There was a small endtable on one side of the bed, which held a small beaded lamp, an alarm clock, and a few personal effects.

The colors were unexpected; at the same time, though, the rich hues suited the two brothers somehow. And this room had a much more lived-in feel to it, more of an air of comfort than any of the others they'd come across so far. Shinichi's gaze wandered towards the bookshelf almost in spite of him, scanning the varied titles there: books on stage magic, mixed fiction of many sorts, histories- everything jumbled together, old leather volumes keeping company with ratty paperbacks in perfect comfort. He pulled his attention back to the thief after a moment, though, leaning his crutch against the bed as his leg twinged; and he sagged down against the end, pulling Ran down beside him. "Comfortable," he murmured, and sighed as the fatigue of the last few hours dragged at his muscles.

He wasn't the only one looking tired, though. "Kid?" he asked abruptly. "How much've you been sleeping lately?" Ran scooted to one side, leaving a space between them.

"Straight to the marrow," the thief sighed, halfway between exasperated and relieved, as Shinichi's insight cut straight through his Poker Face. One hand on the post of his bed, Kid exhaled slowly, long and deliberate, and when he looked up again the mask fell aside as clean as a shell, and his weary, angry, bleeding-raw emotions stood bare in its place.

"Not a...well." He stepped onto the bed, walking across its springy surface without the slightest hint of a stumble or a twisted ankle. "I don't think I sleep as much as you anyway, so saying 'not a lot' might not have any absolute value. But..." Kid knelt between Ran and Shinichi, further toward the center of the bed than they, and laid himself down in the space between them, his head and shoulders tucked between their ribcages, his arms reaching up to wrap around Shinichi's waist and hips.

"Kaasan's gotten even less rest than we have."

Two sets of fingers began, a little tentatively, to stroke his hair; he sighed and turned his head into the touch, and closed his eyes as Ran lay back, curling herself around him from one side with her head against his hip. Shinichi sighed as well and turned a little, shifting until his own body lay against Kid's in much the same way; and still their hands worked, massaging the thief's temples. "We can't help her," his boyfriend said quietly. "But we can be here for you." He left off to stroke the other's disheveled hair across his forehead, drawing a line with one fingertip down and stopping between Kid's closed eyes- it was all by feel, he couldn't see their lover's face from his angle- and brushed each eyelid gently with the pad of his thumb. "And we don't have to leave for a while yet."

Ran pulled a little randomly at the heap of duvets and blankets, tugging at a corner until something gave and a down comforter slithered free; she sat up a little, tucking it beneath all three bodies here and there until less lay uncovered than covered. Settling again, she worked her fingers through Kid's hair slowly and easily, letting the fine strands slip between like silk. "We didn't come here to ask you questions, you know," she said softly; "and we didn't come here looking for answers. We came to see if you needed us, and if we could help." She turned her head, resting it halfway across Kid's lap, and looked across the length of his body towards his face. "Can we... stay like this for a while?" she asked wistfully.

"Please," Kid murmured. One hand detangled from Shinichi's hip and sought out Ran's hand, fingers lacing together. With his other he drew Shinichi closer, burying his face in the detective's belly and locking him tight in place with one strong bicep wrapped around Shinichi's thigh. And he didn't need to say anything else; it was all evident enough. After a while his body shook gently, shivering into Kaito's control, and the brothers rolled over to bury their face against Ran's soft hip, dragging Shinichi closer against his back, for the warmth of another body laid close to his own. A while later, it was Kid again, rolling over onto his belly, fists knotted in the sheets above his head, face buried in the cloth, barely moving with his breath. Back and forth they switched, sometimes blending in the middle, sometimes more clearly one than the other, always clinging and holding close the safe warmth of both bodies surrounding. Eventually, it seemed to take a pattern, like the tide of the ocean pulled by the moon.

All three dozed; and somehow in the process of tossing and turning, more of the covers ended up in the mix of bodies and blankets. This was probably as much due to Ran's propensity to hug things in her sleep as anything, but the result was that when Shinichi groggily stirred an unknowable time later, it was to find himself beneath a fluffy, down-filled snowdrift of bedclothes. Everything was warm and dark and full of the scents of clean linen and warm, reassuring bodies; there were hands in his hair and something pressing on his knees, and something else that sounded like a muted hurricane, damply and directly blowing into his right ear.

He turned his head, and the breather protested sleepily; it was Ran, who had twisted around until she could more or less hang onto his head like a pillow; across her (as far as he could tell) Kid or Kaito or both had scooted until they were draped halfway across her thighs , turned sideways with their head on Shinichi's legs. The thief and/or his brother had managed to settle themselves in _both_ the other two's laps, a not inconsiderable feat, and their breath feathered across Shinichi's bent leg, warm and reassuring. In the dimness he could just barely make out a profile: the curve of cheekbone, absurdly long eyelashes and the sharp jut of a stubborn chin. Kid (it was him now) shifted in his sleep, and the half-light revealed shadows below his eyes.

Shinichi wanted to smooth them away. He wanted to chase off the bad dreams and grief, wanted it with a sudden savage intensity that was almost shocking even to himself. That look on Kid's face before he'd lain down... The nearest he'd ever seen on those features had been atop the Ghibli Museum, and it hadn't been as bad. And- it happened every year-

_He said it was harder this time, though; ten years. I don't know what we can do for him and his mother- what was her name, 'Chikage', I think? Yeah- except provide a distraction, and that may not be the best idea; putting off grief just makes you have to experience it later, it doesn't go away._

_Soon as I tell Kaasan about meeting her, she'll want to come over, I know she will. I think Ran's right, though; so long as I make sure she understands that Kuroba-san needs __quiet__company and not an explosion, I think a visit might be a good thing. She's so... lost; her anchor's gone, her focus. And I think she's been that way for a long time. Maybe Kaasan can help._The woman's weary sorrow made something deep inside him ache.

Shinichi lay still, not moving a muscle; Ran had, he thought, drifted back to sleep, and his own eyes lidded closed. But even as this crossed his mind, he felt gentle fingers card through his hair and a chin settle against the crown of his head. "Shinichi?" she whispered; her voice was cautious.

"Mmm?"

"...how did they get the bed through the door?"

The remnants of sadness receded, not quite away but at least not quite as immediate; he bit back a snort. "In pieces? They put it together up here, maybe?" He kept his voice very, very soft.

"Oh. I guess." Against his knees, Kid's breath hitched once and then evened out again.

"Shinichi?"

"Hm?"

"How did they get the _mattress_ up here? It wouldn't fit through the door..."

"...go back to _sleep,_ Ran."


	68. Pay the piper

_**Book Six, Chapter Three**__**: "...but sooner or later you have to pay the piper."**_

Kid didn't dream often. The times that he had, the dreams were always so very random that he had yet to figure out any sort of theme or predictability about any of them. "They" said (the general they) that you could learn a lot about yourself from your dreams. But Kid had never really felt there was much to be discerned from his own. He was by his own admission not a person to whom hesitation or self-deception came easily; so the occasions were rare when he found himself actually interested in the meaning of his dreams. Usually abstract and gestural, they made very little sense either on their own or in the context of the rest of his life. And they came so infrequently that they were rarely important enough for him to think about a lot anyway. In a greater context or a more symbolic one, Kid supposed that some sort of sweeping statement about his personal nature and active approach to life made him more a doer than a dreamer; but, again, he wasn't, so...

As little experience as Kid had with dreams, he had even less in waking up in a state as he was now. The months of partnership with Shinichi and with Ran had accustomed him to sharing a bed, but usually the arrangement of bodies in that sort of sharing was an entanglement of equals. Kid couldn't actually remember a single time that he had woken up quite as he found himself now- not holding and being held, but simply cradled, comforted and enveloped. Predictably his first instinct was to bolt for more open air and a clear exit route; he only got as far as jerking his head and shoulders off the mattress, looking around to examine the situation before the weight of familiarly-cuddly arms, legs and blankets tangled him up. He flopped back to the mattress, ungainly and more than a little confused.

"Go back to sleep," muttered a voice from somewhere under- beside?- near? him, and a hand (which he couldn't actually be certain belonged to the same person as the voice) rooted around through the blankets covering all of them until it found and grasped the nape of his neck. There were several layers of blankets inbetween the hand and Kid's skin, but the touch was no less affectionate as the thief was yanked back down to lay on top of the others in the bed.

On the other side of the blankets...

...Shinichi was fairly sure he had hold of the right body, though which part was anybody's guess. He heard a sigh and felt the other relax, settling in against his own limbs bonelessly. It was warm and a little airless beneath the covers but very comfortable; and from somewhere near his feet (he thought), Ran made a complaining grumble and pulled at the bedclothes. They slid; she was doing that thing again, the one where she hugged the covers to her, and Shinichi winced as his forehead and then face were gradually, dismayingly exposed to the dim light of the room.

There was nothing to be seen on the bed but a sea of lumps; there might have been bodies here and there beneath them, but again, they might have been pillows as well. Extracting his free hand from somewhere, he prodded experimentally at one of the lumps.

"Ahh-!" A startled and not altogether offended noise came from a point some distance away from the prodded lump; that lump and several others all rippled and slumped down, a mountain range of blanket-smothered thief rolling onto his back and striving for the surface. One hand flopped into view, followed soon by Kid's head. His mouth was slightly slack as his eyes focused, squinted against the light, and sought out Shinichi's.

"Tantei- aahh- hello?" The thief was very clearly out of it. "Are we- are- I mean- are you-" He shook his head, and his gaze cleared a little bit as he looked at Shinichi again. "Probably have no idea what you just poked, do you?"

"Well- um- hi?" Shinichi had the grace to look somewhat distressed. "You were awake?"

"Vaguely," Kid said, his smile gentle, the expression in his eyes warming. "Hi."

Shinichi wiggled his way around on the bed much as the thief had once inchwormed his way from a certain set of sleeping-bags, flopping ungracefully around until by dint of much effort his shoulder bumped Kid's. By then, his route had taken him beneath the covers again (which were, he noticed, being dragged steadily towards a certain lump from which a faint snore was audible.) He twisted around- his hand was still on the other's nape, and Kid _oofed_ as he found himself being used as leverage- and then rolled over and rested his chin on the other's chest. "Mmmph. There. Sorry 'bout the poke." Shinichi yawned deeply, jaw popping, and peered up through his own tangled bangs into the sleepy blue eyes beyond. "You okay?"

Kid considered the question. "Mmmmwell..." he detangled himself by stages from enough of the blankets that he could scoot himself closer to Shinichi. "I... don't think that I could answer that one honestly, " he said, "but, all things considered, I could be a lot worse."

Memory of more than the last few moments snuck back in from where it had been smoking a figurative cigarette in the wings and Shinichi winced, contrite. "…sorry. Not exactly awake myself yet," he muttered; he scooted a little further up so that he could turn a little sideways, tuck his arm further beneath Kid's shoulders and settle his cheek against the other's shoulder. His free arm came up and wrapped around the thief without a second thought, until he was basically using Kid very much like a living pillow. Their legs tangled together somewhere beneath the mounds of sheets and blankets, and Shinichi hooked a knee around the other's in a kind of lower-limbed embrace as well.

There wasn't, when all was said and done, much else he could offer right now than physical comfort… and not the sort that involved bedroom calisthenics; those weren't exactly on the agenda for several very good reasons (strange house, short on time, not the right mood, boyfriend's mother presumably somewhere down the hall, etc.) But the simple warmth of body-to-body- The Human Animal turned towards touch for reassurance, an adult no less than an infant, and if that was all Shinichi _could_ give then he'd do his best.

The heartbeat beneath his cheek was slow, heavy. "Whatever you need from us," said Shinichi quietly into Kid's shirt, "you have it. We'll have to leave sooner or later—I haven't a clue what time it is—but we can come back... whenever you want us to. Promise." He laughed a little, just a breath of it; "My arms won't be as long, but they'll still work perfectly well. And Ran's are long enough for us both."

The faint, steady snoring in the background of all this broke off at the sound of their girlfriend's name, ending in an interrogative snort. "Yes, yours," Shinichi informed the sleeping lump.

"Wstfgl…?" The lump appeared to think about this for a second. "…'rms? Whassa arms?"

"Yours. Ours. 'Round Kid."

"Nngh? 'kay. Arms." The lump was silent, and then spoke in a slightly more coherent (if very unwilling) fashion. "Getting up now?" Something wrapped itself around Shinichi's calf; it felt like a hand. There was a shuffling of covers, and something heavy and head-shaped came to rest across both Kid's and his feet. "D'we _have_ to? Sooo," she yawned, "c'mfortable." And she hugged both their ankles; as Ran dragged at the bedcovers, a very shapely sock-clad foot emerged right beside Kid's left elbow.

"Unless you want me to shrink right here, we do," pointed out Shinichi from the vicinity of Kid's collarbone. "Sooner'r later, I mean. Not yet." He closed his eyes and shifted a little; Kid's hipbone was digging into his own, and he ended up more or less on top of the other. "s'this too much?" he asked the thief beneath him sleepily. "I can move if you want me to." _He_ didn't want to, not at all (though he would if he had to); after the hours of worry and the Kid-shaped gap that they'd been navigating around, it just... the whole thing felt... a little like niggling a puzzle-piece into place, a little like filling a hunger.

It was deeply, almost selfishly satisfying, and Ran apparently felt the same way; she was wrapped around their feet like an anaconda. But- if Kid needed more room-

"No, don't move." Shinichi hadn't thought it was possible to push oneself closer to another person when that other person was currently laying on _top_ of you, but Kid somehow managed. He wrapped closer in tighter arms and legs and the sinuous curve of his spine telegraphing how very not too much Shinichi's closeness felt. "I…" The thief laughed, self-consciously, and for moments seem to swallow his own words, too hesitant to actually say them. Disregarding how out of character this was for Kid in the first place, there was little to be concerned about; the moment passed, and the thief smiled, curling himself closer.

"You're going to be seeing a lot of out of character behavior from me, Tantei," the thief chuckled, pawing through the blankets around them for Shinichi's hand to hold. "Of course, it's entirely not my fault, and I bear absolutely no culpability for it. It's just that time of the month. You know how we ladies get."

Shinichi stared, and snickered, at his efflusive boyfriend, pushing pillows and blankets into a more obedient arrangement such that both rested their heads on one pillow together. "As far as I'm concerned," the detective drawled, "you being absolutely ridiculous isn't out of character at all. What gives?"

But the thief smiled, scooting his head forward to touch noses with Shinichi. "Well, that isn't exactly the behavior I meant." Again he hesitated, and Shinichi wondered what in the world could embarrass the thief, especially a thing of his own making.

"You're _both_ ridiculous," a sleepy, interested voice from around the area of their toes commented. "And they sell stuff for that time've the month. Pills and..." (Ran yawned) "...things. Why're you both awake, anyway?" A hand worked itself through the layers of fabric and began to walk from foot to foot, two fingertips moving as if they were themselves feet. "Can't be time for us to- ooooh-!" The lazy tone suddenly shot into one of alarm, and Ran's head popped up like a very badly startled mushroom amidst the covers, still draped. "Shinichi! Shinichi? You're n-not-"

"No, no," he soothed her. "It can't be that late yet... um. Can it?" He considered, and then dragged his arm out from beneath Kid, who made a sound of complaint. "It's, uh... a little after eleven? Yeah." The dial was blurry to his eyes, and as he blinked across it at Kid's face, he realized that a) it was his (or rather, Conan's) dart-watch, and b) it was roughly a dozen centimeters from his boyfriend's nose. "Erk. Sorry." He shoved his hand hastily beneath the covers again, wondering if he should just take the damned thing off.

The thief looked from the watch to his boyfriend's face to the lump under the blankets where Shinichi hastily hid the watch and then back up again.

"…huh? Oh. That." The thief sleepily waved a hand, meanwhile working to re-close the space which had opened between Shinichi's face and his own. "It's not a heist." As though that explained everything—because, really, it did—the thief turned his attention toward the bed's third occupant, who was still bunching up the covers in strange ways, though more calmly.

"Not that it really has anything to do with me," Kid said, feigning innocence in the manner which he had perfected the best, "but why, exactly, is Tantei-san being ridiculous this time?"

The lump, now that its moment of panic had passed, giggled. "Because of you, of course. If you could've seen him worrying earlier... I was too, but then _I_ don't have the equivalent of an alarm going off in my head when things aren't right with you. Thought I was going to have to ask Ai-chan for one of her sedatives." The lump's voice softened. "I'm glad we found you." The foot beside Kid's elbow disappeared abruptly, and the lump began at this point to move, clambering up hand over hand across their bodies until Ran's head slowly appeared by increments at the thief's shoulder like an iceberg among the blanket seas. "It's not like-mmph, phfft!" (Ran used her chin to shove the edge of a particularly bouyant comforter down) "-it's not like he's not ridiculous most of the time, but he was... like a mama-cat who was missing his kitten."

The mama-cat in question blinked from his place half-sprawled across their mutual boyfriend's chest. "Oh, thanks. First I'm ridiculous, then I'm another species entirely. Better than being shrunk, I guess." He wiggled his fingers beneath the covers, working them haphazardly out of the overtight wristwatch until it slipped off, elbowing it from the bed; a faint _thwipp!_ sound and a tiny, mattressy _thunk!_ indicated that it had just put Kid's bed to sleep. "Anyway," said the detective after a momentary pause to slide his now-harmless hand back beneath Kid's shoulders,_what_ time of the month?"

Ignoring the question completely, Kid lifted his head far enough from the pillow to fix Shinichi with a level, disbelieving stare. "You- darted my bed." Fully squished by Shinichi and not complaining at all about it, Kid was unable to facepalm; but the expression came through pretty clearly anyway. "Ahh- right. Where was I?" He chuckled a little, grinning with teeth at his detective. "You know, I had actually been about to ask you for pampering; I'm not sure I need any more. It's amazing what a few minutes of observing true ridiculousness will do for one's mood."

In response, his detective solemnly crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. The effect, being at such a close range, was fairly impressive.

Never one to let pass an opportunity for point and counterpoint, Kid rebutted Shinichi's rebuttal with a kiss, tipping his head to fit his mouth and tongue more closely against the detective's. His expression was calm- eyes closed without any force, and he breathed in as they kissed in a manner not unlike that of a parched traveler at an oasis stream. Shinichi, warmth melting through him, breathed back through the kiss; from beside them he distantly heard Ran make a soft, happy sound. When he surfaced, eyes closed, she said a little wistfully: "Me too?" and he tilted his face to one side to allow her to scoot in.

Through half-lidded eyes, Kid watched Shinichi move away and Ran lean closer. It took a couple of confused blinks before things started making sense in the way that their girl intended them to, and as she leaned in Kid hesitated- only briefly, though. He caught up with the program and, with less confidence but a pleased smile, he tipped his mouth up to take hers. Shinichi still lay on top of him, so the angle of everything was beginning to look like some sort of complicated section of highway, all bridges and onramps and offramps clustered into the same fifty yards of driving space. Elbows were the least of the worst of things in the way; but the blankets were soft as Ran kind of flopped her way across Shinichi to land on the side nearer Kid. They kissed again, and the thief was less hesitant and more reassured this time, humming against her mouth as Shinichi's close presence against his side let the thief feel the tensing of each muscle-group as the detective thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Time slowed; one kiss melted into another from Kid to Shinichi to Ran and back again, unhurried and gentle. It became less about who was kissing who and more about the comfort the kisses gave, a kind of wordless communication that began with arms around each other and ended with the taste of shared breath. Libido did play a part in it- how not?- but less than might've been imagined, and the warmth that was traded back and forth was worth more than any momentary rush of hormones.

They might have dozed a little more, wrapped together; or maybe not, it was hard to tell. At last, Ran stirred a little and sighed. _"What_ did you say about it being your time of the month?" she asked, lips brushing Kid's collarbone. "Or did I imagine that?"

"Ahahahaha," Kid laughed, not entirely awkwardly, and grinned at each of his lovers in turn. "You wish," he said, directing the grin mostly towards Shinichi on that word. "No, nothing like that. I was simply making a comparison of allusions between the ever-so-justifiable, understandable and completely reasonable Gojira-Smash Mode practiced by many lovely, dainty, absolutely-"

"That's enough," Ran cut in, rolling her eyes with a grin. "So, obviously," she continued, looking at Shinichi now, "what we SHOULD have done upon arriving is now perfectly clear."

Shinichi still looked blank. "Ummm... wait."

Kid laughed again. "I won't turn away a gift of chocolate," he said, his voice warm as he tucked his chin down and nuzzled Ran's throat. "But highly-sugared and caffeinated cocoa-beans by another name would taste just as sweet." He nibbled, licking his way up towards her ear, and buried a chuckle against her skin when she made a little sighing sound.

Shinichi watched them both, eyes amused. "You make her sound like an ice cream cone," he murmured... and paused to allow a few very distracting images to fix themselves in his memory for later use. "Chocolate, hm? I'll remember that for-"

It took a moment before the others realized that he had gone silent; his indrawn breath, however, and the momentary catch in his voice as he continued made them both pause. "-later," he said carefully.

"Shinichi? Are you alright?" Ran, eyebrows creasing in worry despite her flushed face, blinked at him. "What's wrong?"

Head pillowed on Kid's chest, he shook it briefly and winced, eyes closing. "...just dizzy for a moment," he murmured; and when he opened them again there was a faint shadow of regret there. Shinichi tried to banish it, though, leaning in to press a kiss against Ran's lips and the curve of Kid's jaw; "It's okay, I'm not..." He winced a second time, turning his face to press it along the thief's throat as he breathed in deeply. "Nngh. I- guess maybe I am. At least..." (he swallowed) "...at least I'm lying down."

Frowning, Kid tipped his head back, studying the broad expanse of his bedroom ceiling for quiet moment. "It's not good," he said, voice tinged with regret and a mix of other, less presentable emotions. "Actually, I want to go back with you. Stay at your place, forget about all of this." Lips pressed in a thin line, the thief let Ran lace her fingers through his own without protest, returning the grip thankfully. "It's such an avoidant impulse; it wouldn't solve anything. I know that. But still…"

"We'll come back here," Ran said, squeezing the thief hand tightly. "You don't want to leave your kaasan alone tonight. And," she continued, reaching up stroke unruly bangs back from his forehead, "You'd feel bad about it later, and it wouldn't be fair to Kaito either, because he wants to stay as well."

"I know," the thief admitted, holding back a sigh. "I know." He smiled at the others, a little wry and a little sad. "It's just always nicer to escape than to face it, isn't it?"

Despite the haze of disorientation that was fogging his brain, Shinichi managed a wan smile in response; "Yeah... but sooner or later you have to pay the piper. Emphasis on the 'sooner'. And Ran's right, you need to stay. But-" he hesitated, trying to think; it wasn't easy. "Kid? We told you we'll do whatever we can for you, anything you need... but is there anything you don'twant happening? Like- Kaasan's going to want to come by; so will Tousan. Should they wait? Should we wait a day or two? Should we... should... do you..." He pressed his face against Kid's shirt, drawing in a deep, calming breath against the flickers of black that were beginning to blaze up like negative candleflames at the edges of his mind. They were all too familiar by now, and he didn't have very long at all.

And he had one more question to ask, an important one... but it was hard to think; Ran stroked his bangs back from his forehead, eyes worried. "Shinichi. Focus," she whispered; one fingertip brushed against the point between his eyes and lingered there for a second, giving him a reference point to fix on. For a moment there was clarity, and he used that moment to ask:

"...do you... have a wheelbarrow we could borrow?"

Silence.

From the expression on both his lovers' faces, it was fairly evident that they thought he'd bypassed Stage One (passing out) and progressed to Stage Two (stoned beyond all reason) of the transformation process. As distractions went, it wasn't bad, and even through the dizziness Shinichi took a little satisfaction at seeing the sadness vanish even momentarily from Kid's face. The perplexity that had replaced it, however, needed a response, and he dredged one up out of his remaining store of consciousness. "To- carry me back with. Ran shouldn't have to- I mean, she picked me up; this'd be easier... because I..." He gritted his teeth; damned candleflames, they were eating up the light...

Maybe he did black out then; something blurry happened, something brief. If he did it was only for a few seconds, and Shinichi was abruptly aware of hands cupping his jaw, an insistant voice in his ears. "-nichi! _Shinichi!_ Stay with us-"

"M'here," he whispered, and cracked his eyes back open, the blackness letting go slowly and reluctantly. "Better... now. But I- think we need to hurry."

With efficiency, if also some regret, the trio got Shinichi vertical, somewhat caffeinated, and tucked under Ran's arm for their journey back through the tunnels. Ran texted Agasa and Ai, letting them know that they were on their way back and that Shinichi's time was just about through, and Kid locked the passageway door behind them with a final kiss for each and his mother's best wishes, passed on her behalf, for Yukiko.

* * *

The return into the bedroom wasn't by any means a welcome one, and Kid curled himself into a ball in the middle of the blankets on his bed before even calling his brother's name.

'Kaito?'

"I'm here." The Magician offered a mental simile of pushing his bedroom door open with a toe, peering out into the shared hallway to address his brother. The obvious question remained unspoken between them; Kid just nodded quietly and walked in the door to sit beside his brother.

'Yes, it did help. Thank you.'

"It's not a big deal," Kaito said, though he didn't go so far as to dismiss the sincerity with a shrug.

'Well, I appreciate it,' Kid insisted, leaning his head against Kaito's shoulder with a weak sigh. "I really did want to go with them."

The magician shifted against his brother, inquiring more with his body language than with his words. Now it was Kid's turn to shrug, looking across the room into the safe, neutral, _nothing_ of its blank walls. Sometimes the only way to avoid the painful reminders was to remove reminders of all kinds.

'Well anyway.' The thief stood, offering a hand to his brother to help him up as well. 'You should call her.'

The magician just nodded. "I will.… Stay close, she won't know you're here anyway."

'Heh, how sweet,' the thief grinned, regaining a bit of good humor. 'And it's so very endearing to know that I'm so easily ignored.'

"Fool, you're a lot of things, but ignorable is not one of those," Kaito returned.

* * *

Back in the bedroom, the teenage magician, thoroughly ensconced in the tangled piles of his bedclothes, stared aimlessly at the ceiling while his thoughts filed reluctantly into order. After that, it took a few minutes' worth of hunting, but eventually his cell phone was unearthed, and Kaito flipped it open to dial a number he knew very well.

"...Aoko? Hi. No, I'm fine. Nothing's happened. Look, tell your tousan I'm sorry for making you late for dinner. ...Huh? Yeah, I am– No. No, that's dumb. Look, I was just- I know I said you didn't need to come back over tonight, but… yeah. I… I like that. ...I'll leave the back door open."

"… Thank you, Aoko. Really."

Kaito rolled onto his side, burying half his face in the rumpled sheets, covering the other half with a splayed palm. It didn't feel possible that he could have moved then; knowing Aoko was on her way to him was enough to keep him conscious, but just barely. Time slid sideways for him, skewing out into warped, uneven seconds and minutes. And that was okay with him.

The ring of his phone jerked Kaito out of his daze hard enough to give him mental whiplash. "Aoko, s'the key not-"

A clipped, cool voice interrupted him. "Kuroba-san, I am not Nakamori-san, but if there is a security problem at your home I am more than willing to chaperone her, if you'd find it helpful."

"...Hakuba-san."

"Indeed. Are you alright, Kuroba-san?"

Kaito rolled onto his stomach, shoving his head under a stack of three pillows. "M'fine."

"I believe you're lying." The Brit sounded genuinely confused, but Kaito _really_ couldn't bring himself to care.

"I believe I'm two seconds from tellin you to sod off," he grumbled.

"That is fine," Hakuba responded calmly, and the completely _honest_ way that he said it couldn't have been missed. "I don't mind whether you are happy to accept my help or company," Hakuba continued, and Kaito pulled his head out of the pillows so he could hear his classmate more clearly. Eyes open, he didn't seem to see the ceiling of his room as he listened to Hakuba talk.  
"I just want you to know that it is offered."

Silence, long enough that Hakuba cleared his throat, beginning to ask if Kaito was still there. The magician mumbled an interruption, reassuring him, but it took another long silence before he spoke again. "...Thanks."

"Would you like my compa-"

"M'fine," Kaito mumbled. "Really. But...thanks."

"Any time," Hakuba returned quietly.

It was too complicated to ask how Hakuba had known to call. They both knew it, and let it lay. "Aoko'll be here soon," Kaito said then, trying not to think about the plaintive tone in his voice. "Oughta go."

"Goodnight, then, Kuroba-san."

"Night."

Phone closed on the blankets beside him, Kaito curled his knees toward his chin, tucking himself into the smallest ball which he could manage. The silence of the house descended around him, and its vast stillness filled the space of time until Aoko arrived.

* * *

The trip back took years- positive _years_- but not for Shinichi; for Mouri Ran.

A wheelbarrow hadn't been available (or rather, Kid had admitted, there were bound to be several somewhere around the gardens, but he actually had no idea where they might be) but an alternative of sorts had been arranged. Somewhat to Shinichi's chagrin (and, truthfully, his secret relief) a foldable hand truck and several bungie-cords had been produced from some mysterious closet; he and Ran both had eyed the gleaming contraption dubiously. "It's for stage work," the thief had explained calmly as he snapped the handle up from the flat bottom with practiced efficiency, "and is rated for up to 150 kilos; it should easily handle one skinny tantei, hmm?" And it had, of course; truthfully, it'd been more than strong enough, and Shinichi had eventually replaced his crutch with it entirely, leaning his weight on the handle and pushing it before him much like a shopper might push a store cart. They'd talked quietly, Ran watching her hobbling boyfriend like a hawk...

...until he had simply folded up in mid-sentence less than a thousand meters in and slipped quietly to the packed dirt floor beneath; that had been a bad moment for Ran, and she had spent several frantic moments trying to revive him before she gave in to practicality and simply bundled her detective's limp form onto the device's extendable platform, bungee'd him in and wiped her face dry against his sleeve as she waited for him to wake up again. He had, of course- slower this time, a little fuzzier, and anything but pleased to find himself strapped on like so much anonymous luggage with his knees uncomfortably tucked up and his arms folded in. His annoyance had turned to apologies at Ran's watery-eyed distress, and Shinichi had at last resigned himself to being carted.

It was, at least, much quicker than using that damned crutch. And easier on Ran, too.

The trip from that point on was done in fits and starts; Shinichi had lost consciousness twice more and anything approaching sobriety upon his third awakening, lolling his head back to beam up at his girlfriend from his loose-limbed sprawl on the cart. Rather than his usual intoxicated buoyancy, though, he seemed to still be aware that things were not as they should be; so he hugged the detested crutch across his knees and kept more or less quiet.

The small black wheels dragged a little on the uneven ground, but they made decent time; and all the while, Ran's mind turned over the events of the last few hours. Kid's face, Kid's voice, melting and reforming into Kaito's without hesitation or self-consciousness... Kuroba Chikage's muted sorrow and listlessness... the great, echoing house with its spotless furnishings and multitude of doorways... all of it tumbled through her thoughts like bits of flotsam in a torrent, trying to fit themselves together in some semblance of sense or order. The resemblance between Kaito and his mother had been almost shocking; she wondered what it might have been like to meet Toichi at the same time, see both brothers with both of their parents present.

_Of course, if their tousan had lived, then Kid... might not have ever even..._ Ran shuddered, shoving the unfinished, unwelcome, _unthinkable_ thought forcibly out of her mind.

On the cart, Shinichi seemed to be half-dozing; well, that was all to the good. The detective's daughter skirted a slight dip in the dirt floor and pressed on, fighting back her own weariness; it had to be past midnight by now, and despite herself she was beginning to feel the strain. If she'd had to carry Shinichi back- fifty-five kilos might not sound like a whole lot, Ran thought ruefully, but she had in effect carried her own weight in her arms; and, strong or not, he'd been heavy. She _could_ have managed it again, but... well.

The small lights gave just enough illumination to allow her to steer; they lit up as they approached and died away behind the hand truck as the two passed so that Ran and Shinichi moved forward on the crest of a constant and ephemeral wave of electric light. Time and the low ceiling weighed heavily; and it wasn't until she was more than halfway through the long corridor that she realized that, distantly, there was another wave of light approaching.

Another wave... and two tall figures, just barely visible against the blackness behind them. Ran allowed the cart to roll to a halt, heart hammering in her ears- but that was silly, she realized a little wildly, because of _course_ the two had to be-

"Ran-chan? Shinichi?" Kudo Yuusaku's voice, familiar and incredibly welcome, echoed down the silent tunnel; and Ran shoved hard on the handle of the cart, vast relief granting her muscles new strength as she pressed forward.

* * *

The intervening hours between Shinichi's unconsciousness and his return to wakefulness were spent by his mother by way of a steady, unhurried, fixatedly not-worrying attitude. She straightened the kitchen, made food for his eventual wakening and for herself and Yuusaku, both of whom could use the energy afforded by a midnight snack. She tidied the living room, working around the couch where Shinichi slept. She scolded him playfully when his dangling arm hanging off the side of the couch got in the way of her movements and bent to kiss his forehead as she folded his hands back onto his lap. "I think you have more of a flair for the dramatic than myself OR your father," she commented quietly, pausing in her motions just to watch him breathe for a little while.

"I have to say this one time, I really wish you'd taken after us a little bit less well." Yukiko studied her son's drawn features with the sort of quietly resigned acceptance that a mother in her position was best advised to have. Of course, most mothers of teenagers with drug addictions didn't have quite the same parameters surrounding the situation.

She wanted to tell him that it would all be okay; she wanted to pull his head into her lap and cuddle it gently, stroking his bangs back and telling him that she was there, she was watching, she was keeping him safe. Instead, she kissed his brow once more and continued puttering about the room, straightening books and lampshades with perfect calm.

After all, she _was_ an actress. Quite a good one, too.

Yuusaku, on the other hand, sat on the opposite couch with that pinched look on his face that he got sometimes when he was worried and trying not to show it. Writers did all their acting_inside_ their heads, not outside them; something about it turned them into absolutely terrible liars in general, too- Yuusaku was awful at it. He was pretending to be perfectly calm and composed, of course, leaning forward to brush the back of a hand against his son's forehead. He'd started doing that twitchy thing with one eyebrow though. Not that she could blame him, what with IVs and the way her son's vapors still flavored the air. Yukiko sighed once, fishing a feather-duster out of a cabinet and beginning on the nearest shelf as she wondered absently whether the effluvium of Shinichi's transformation would set off a smoke alarm.

Focusing upon minutiae was such a useful habit; it kept one from hysteria, tears and all the other unpleasant reactions that tended to want to encroach at times like this. And it stopped one's hands from shaking as well.

Ran's voice filtered softly in from the kitchen where she sat talking with their other guest, the small lethal one with the blonde hair. Haibara Ai had her ever-present notebook out, jotting down times and reactions and tediously detailed bits of data about Yukiko's sole offspring; and the actress made a mental note to discuss interrogation techniques with darling Ai-chan. The poor dear hadn't yet figured out that you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar, and couldn't she see that Ran was dreadfully tense? Granted, absolutely _no_ effort should be spared towards her son's health, but there was a time and place for everything, and surely she'd get much clearer answers if she'd just wait a little-

A muted groan from the couch derailed Yukiko's train of thought entirely, and the duster was abandoned as she hurried across the room. The diminutive figure of her son stirred, his eyebrows drawing together in pain. Yuusaku was on his feet just as quickly, and from the sounds behind Yukiko, it was apparent that Ran and Ai-chan had collided in the kitchen door as both tried to exit at the same time. In the flurry of welcome, Shinichi's mother slipped an arm around her husband's waist and hugged him tightly, tucking her head beneath his arm as he let out a sigh of relief. "He'll be _perfectly fine,"_ she told her favorite writer firmly, walking him backwards one step at a time. "Now stop panicking and let Ran in- she's been waiting all this time while you hovered like a vulture-"

"'Kiko, I've been absolutely calm; I did _not_ hover-"

"-and Ran wants a kiss. Don't you, darling?"

"But-"

"Shush." As the young woman blushed and bent self-consciously over her now chibified boyfriend to brush his cheek with her lips, Yukiko tugged her husband's face down a little and did the same, albeit a bit more maturely. His hands brushed hers and then clung, and as he held them tightly, Yukiko realized that they too had been shaking.

"You are _SUCH_ a phony," she told him affectionately; he squeezed her hand, and she decided that neither of them had been fooling anyone.

To one side, Haibara Ai sighed and rolled her eyes.

* * *

Ai woke to the disorienting scent of bacon.

Further complications made themselves apparent as she slowly brought her brain online. She was covered with blankets but not the blankets of her bed; and further, she wasn't even in the bedroom which she shared with the Professor. She cracked one eye open, wincing and squinting it shut again as a strong beam of sunlight made itself well known to her.

She vaguely remembered having laid down on the couch in the living room, a cup of coffee at her elbow, after tending to Kudo's transformation; given the fact that she was still on that couch, Ai surmised that the Professor had found her there upon waking in the morning and that the bacon was probably something that she'd have to scold him for. Just as she was convincing herself that she really did have to open her eyes and get up and go check on her idiot patient and his idiot girlfriend, neither of whom knew the meaning of restraint or even something as simple as 'come back before the transformation starts', the scent of coffee very close to her face startled Ai into a distracted, curious murmur.

"Good morning," said Agasa, and Ai squinted one eye open to meet the elderly scientist's smile with a mild scowl of her own. "The bacon's for you," Agasa continued, looking hopeful and contrite. "I only tasted one to make sure it'd come out right."

"I'm certain you did. And that you brewed decaf for me as well, correct?" she said as she stifled an undecorous yawn, pushing herself up and allowing the blankets to slide off. Agasa looked instantly guilty, and she shook her head in mild reproof before giving him one of her rare smiles. "Well; never mind, stimulants do have their place."

The wall clock told her that it was nearly nine, a ridiculously late hour; and as the two disposed of rice, defatted scrambled eggs and the bacon (which Ai was _quite_ certain that Agasa hadn't purchased on _her_ watch) as well as half the pot of coffee, they talked quietly about small things: ongoing experiments, a movie they'd watched the night before, the modifications that the Professor had in mind for his recording device and its patent application.

Anything and everything, really, except about the boy sleeping in the next house over. That subject, too, had its place; but for the moment it felt quite relaxing, Ai admitted to herself, to allow it to rest for a while. Even the most promising experiment became a trial under too much exacting scrutiny.

"Ah, Hakase," Ai said, smiling a little over her newspaper, "Have you considered my suggestions with regard to the recording device again?" They had returned to the living room, and with coffee and reading material, sat comfortably relaxing for the short time remaining before Ai's unavoidably punctual working instinct kicked in and forced them both back to work. There were always projects to forward; while some would criticize her for being overambitious or 'not knowing the meaning of relaxing,' Ai preferred to think of herself as goal-oriented and very engaged in her work. There was no merit to the claims - often forwarded by Kudo - that she was unable to relax; the one-hundred-five minutes of unscheduled time this morning were proof of that, all the more so in light of the late wakeup that Agasa had allowed her.

In the chair beside her, the professor set down his water glass with a _hrumph_ of consideration and frowned mildly at her. "I have to admit I haven't," he answered, folding his newspaper neatly into a smaller size. "I know that this device has its benefits, but I just really don't know. To be honest with you, I somewhat doubt that people in general will find it as useful as you have, Ai. I believe that all my _other_ inventions are very useful, too, but, well." He shrugged, a sheepish smile on his broad features.

The girl tsked, snapping her paper smartly as she folded it, and laid it on her lap to focus on the conversation. "Hakase, you underestimate what you've made. Digital recorders, digital projectors, photo browsers and camera phones with digital storage eclipsing the capacity of a standard computer from one year ago - the realm of what you can do with pocket electronics is still highly competitive, despite its increasing age. The rapid development of new technology means the rate of obsoletion is, if anything, speeding up.

"Still," Ai smiled, and the quirk of her lips was a smug one over the rim of her coffee mug at Agasa, "I think you could dominate that market for several months, at least. There's definite marketability in a very compact and portable audio/video/photo recording device with high storage capability; the device you created to record Kudo-kun's transformation has many more features than those basic functions, and even if you scaled back to a somewhat simplified model for mass production, I still think that your device has a much more robust feature list, in a smaller size, than any other feasible competitor on the market. That might make you a respectable nest egg, mm?"

The Professor looked wounded. "I _already_ have a nest egg," he replied reproachfully, "a very nice one." This was true; earlier successes had netted Agasa Hiroshi several patents and, due to his addiction with taking freshly-marketed gadgets apart to see how they ticked, an occasional commission for improved performance in this widget or that. He'd always had a knack for design and for combining existing technology in useful ways; unfortunately, though, his view of consumer demand was lamentably lacking.

Ai knew this, and took it into consideration. "The nest always has room for more than one egg," she pointed out. "And you never know when you might need it. 'Planning for next year makes the devils laugh.'" She quoted the old proverb gravely, and had the privilege of seeing her colleague and friend raise an amused eyebrow; that meant that he was actually thinking about it.

Haibara Ai was quite aware of the inheritance (sizeable enough) that he had funded his original research with and built up into a quite respectable sum; if Agasa chose never to lift a finger in work again, neither his finances nor his future would in any way suffer. His _mind,_ however, _would;_ making 'gadgets', as he offhandedly called them, was one of the scientist's joys in life, and the work he'd put into the media device had been a labor of love. The Professor, a born tinkerer, tended to hum to himself when he was contented (he actually had a rather good if slightly nasal voice) and Ai'd been able to hear him from her own work an entire room away.

"Hrrmm... a simplified version, you say?" His eyes grew thoughtful, and Agasa smoothed his moustache down as he turned over the possibilities carefully in his mind. "I suppose I could... keep the recording and storage capacity as-is and concentrate on screen resolution; I'd thought about adding in an 'ebooks' audio function, something that would read any available format aloud- it's anything but new technology, but I can see it as being useful for, hrrm, entertaining small children on trips..." His voice trailed off as his face fell a little and silence followed the fall.

The not-a-child turned her cup around in her hands, watching the coffee wash back and forth. "I," she hesitated, and then shook her head; prevarication was both illogical and insulting. "I miss them too, I must admit."

"You do?"

"...I do. They are immature in every definition of the word, lacking in clear judgement, noisy and remarkably good at asking difficult questions... but yes. I miss their company." Ai tilted the cup, suppressed a sigh, and drank down the last of her cup. After a moment, she put the longing to have a third helping from the pot aside with the cup itself, and looked up to find the Professor watching her, eyes wistful.

"They miss you too, Ai-chan," he said gently as he rose, taking their dishes to the kitchen. "They truly do."

And they did; their emails (which both she and Kudo tended to read in several-days-worth batches) were invariably peppered with despondencies about how _boring_ school was without them both now. Tentative plans for secret visits had been offered, just as they had both expected; they'd also been very firmly squelched.

It had surprised Ai more than a little just how much she'd been missing the Shonen Tantei; they had been originally accepted as a kind of living camouflage, working on the theory that cutting a single sheep (or two) from the herd would be that much more difficult if the herd was large in number. That had changed, of course, as time had passed; they'd become less of a necessary evil and more of an attractive nuisance, and (she had to admit to herself) something that brought out a few heretofore unsuspected emotions in her soul. Ai had, somewhat to her horror, discovered that she had _maternal instincts,_ or at least the vestiges of such; they'd presented themselves in particular for Ayumi, but as well for the other two.

...but not for Kudo-kun, of course. The very thought was- well. It- they- just _no._ And besides which, the mother he already possessed was quite enough for anyone.

"I'll write them back this evening," she promised both herself and Agasa out loud; "And you should too." The Professor's head popped around the kitchen doorway, face startled, and she raised a wry eyebrow. "What? You've been quite a defining factor in their short lives, Hakase; didn't you think they'd miss you too? When they have children of their own they'll tell them stories about Agasa-Hakase, who took them wonderful places and asked them riddles. In fact," she added with a little quirk of a smile, "why don't you think one up and email it to them? I'm certain they miss them."

"Oh... you think so, Ai-chan? Really?" He looked absurdly pleased, and she resisted the urge to pat him on the head; it was so easy to see the boy he'd once been at times like this. "I- well. I suppose I _COULD_ work up a series of logic problems; I could, hrrmmm, send them one every few days- d'you think they'd like that?"

"Absolutely." _And that gives you two projects to keep yourself busy with: the modified media device and a handful of quizzes. The children'll be delighted to hear from you (though not about your 'logic problems'), you'll feel better about contacting them and will mope less, and I can get on with my own experiments._ With her personal world and her personal charges arranged at least somewhat to her satisfaction, Haibara Ai slipped from her chair and padded in her house-scuffs towards the lab to begin the day's work, feeling more cheerful than she had in several days.

* * *

Ai and Agasa's version of "morning" varied significantly from the Kudo version in two important ways. First, it began much earlier than theirs; even Yuusaku didn't clamber out of bed until well after eleven o'clock. Yuukiko and Shinichi, of course, had to at that point be forcibly extracted from bed, but that was no great surprise. The second difference was of a somewhat less indulgent nature; across the breakfast table- well, the lunch table- Yukiko and her offspring exchanged equally petulant glances.

"Yuuuuusaaaakuuuu, I'm bored! I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored- Can't you come up with something interesting for us to do?" The writer raised one eyebrow, biting his lip to keep his smile small enough that it could be concealed behind the edge of his newspaper.

"'Kiko," he said patiently, "didn't you already have plans for today?"

"Well, of course," she said, raising her hand in a dismissive manner. "But that didn't involve what to dooo... Obviously I can't fill a full day with 'go see Chikage'... and do what? Yuusaku, come up with something fun for us to do- a crisis or, I don't know, something interesting!"

Shinichi and his father exchanged knowing glances. Sometimes Yukiko really did seem to forget that the world was not her playground. "'Kiko," Yuusaku said, "What exactly do you want me to do? Stage an abrupt- oh, I don't know- bookburning?"

Yukiko smiled. "If you'd like, darling. It would make the collectability of your novels go up if there were less of them in circulation."

"For moments like these, mother, face-palming is not sufficient." Thoroughly unimpressed and unsurprised by his mother's answer- well, just by his mother in general- Shinichi hunched his narrow shoulders and attempted to bury his attention in his breakfast cereal.

* * *

And, a good distance away...

...Suzuki Sonoko's morning wasn't exactly going by the numbers either.

Ran had arrived several hours earlier, wan-eyed and obviously in need of more hours of sleep than she'd had; she'd dozed on the couch a full hour before her friend had stumbled down the stairs from her bedroom, bathrobe-sash trailing forlornly on the floor behind her. The plans that Sonoko'd enthusiastically made via email (and that Ran had somewhat less enthusiastically agreed to, knowing that she couldn't bring her freshly-diminished boyfriend along) had involved shopping, both window and actual. Ran had pushed herself into going- had, in fact, deliberately chosen to take herself away from the haven of the Kudo home and the too-quiet rooms of the Mouri residence. There was little for her to do at either place; she had college starting in a week, and a little retail therapy was in order.

The coming Golden Week at the [CAN'T RECALL THE DAMN NAME] Casino had dragged her father away; holidays were always workdays for pickpockets and petty thieves at resorts of that kind, and his contract had been extended to cover another minor rash of crime dogging the main entertainment lounges and stores. Ran didn't expect to see him until after she'd started college at Waseda, truthfully, and in a slightly guilty way she was glad; it lessened the chance that he'd put two and two about just how little time she was spending at home together, and that was all to the good, wasn't it?

_Not to mention the fact that we're paying bills regularly now, he's not spending half the night drinking anymore- well, not as much- and... this is good for him. Good for his ego, anyway; and the more he stays away from the beer, the more he'll KEEP staying away from it._ The detective's daughter sipped her orange juice and sighed, setting the glass down onto the table and eyeing her breakfast-companion. _I never thought I'd be saying this, but it's too bad Sonoko didn't follow Tousan's example last night..._

"R-Ran," winced Sonoko, hand over her eyes, "could- could you not make so much noise? Please?"

Her friend shook her head disapprovingly. "You," Ran informed her former classmate, "have only got yourself to blame. If you hadn't let your sister feed you all those drinks-"

"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaan..." moaned Sonoko.

"-you wouldn't be hung over. What on earth were you and Ayako-san _doing_ last night, anyway?"

Wrapped in a pale pink terrycloth lounger, Suzuki Sonoko looked miserable and altogether sorry for herself. Her eyes were squinty and red-rimmed, rather like a rabbit's, and had a tendency to water. "She had some've her friends from college with her," muttered the girl, "and they were drinking Piña Coladas," (she said the drink-name with loathing) "a-and... one of the guys said I needed to learn to drink like a c-college student aaaand..." The rest of the sentence dissolved into sniffles; Sonoko blew her nose on a somewhat worse-for-wear napkin and continued morosely on. "And, and then I just..." She sniffled again. "They didn't _taste_ like they had alcohol in them."

Fighting back a laugh, Ran shook her head. "The strong ones usually don't, Sonoko. That's kind of the point."

After aspirin and caffeine had been applied along with a little dry toast and a shower (Ran had napped on the couch in the interim), Sonoko had reappeared, looking less like a member of the walking dead and more like her old self; she still winced at the sunlight as they walked down the steps of her family's in-town home and swallowed convulsively at the smell of exhaust from the family's car and driver that waited at the curb. "Seems kind of funny, going places without Chibichan," Ran's friend remarked. "Where _is_ the shrimp, anyway?"

"Oh- um, Agasa-hakase's," said Ran almost a little too quickly; Sonoko gave her an odd look. "He can't- he's not supposed to come out in public much right now, you know-"

"Hm. Well, I could lend him a bodyguard or two," said the other young woman, tapping a glossy fingernail against her lips. "But at least you don't have to worry about him slowing us down with those short little legs of his," she added cheerfully. Just think, two weeks and we'll be starting our first semester!" The Suzuki scion sighed dramatically. "Oh college booooys, Sonoko's coming to seeeeeee youuuu-" she crooned; even the lingering effects of the night's alcoholic experimentation couldn't dim that particular flame of enthusiasm. "-hey, Ran? What'll you do with Chibichan while you're in classes? it's not like you can drag his short little butt along." The car pulled down the driveway, engine rumbling quietly. "I know you said he's not going back to school; what on earth _are_ you going to do about that? Ship him back to his parents?"

"Nooo..." They picked up speed a little, their uniformed driver merging effortlessly into traffic; Ran watched his hands turn the steering wheel and wished fleetingly, sharply, that he was Kid in disguise. "No, he's staying. But we'll have to come up with something, I guess."

Her friend leaned one elbow on the edge of the window, peering out at a passing storefront. "Mmhmm. Can't have little uneducated tantei-wannabe brats running amock all over Beika without supervision; he's too smart for his own good already."

Ran swallowed a sigh, remembering bandages and a few very bad moments. "I know," she muttered beneath her breath. "And sometimes I wish he wasn't."

"Hmm? What was that, Ran?" Sonoko blinked.

"...Nothing. So," she asked brightly, adding a cheerfulness to her voice that was (at least at the moment) more assumed than actual, "where're we going first?"


	69. Feel like a game of chess?

_**Book Six, Chapter Four**__**: "Feel like a game of chess?"**_

Around one in the afternoon, a time which seemed less carefully-chosen than in fact it had been, Yukiko stood patiently waiting at the front door of the Kuroba mansion. She shifted the basket she held from one arm to the other, a soft, general smile on her face. It wasn't that the contents of the basket were all that inspiring of smiles; it was simply that Yukiko, a professional actress, knew better than to be caught out of character when the curtain went up. And, after a somewhat lengthy five minutes had passed, it finally did as the mansion's door was opened not by a member of the staff but by Kaito himself.

Yukiko observed the boy with the kind of maternal concern she might use to examine her own son. The neatness of his hair was no indication towards his mood or readiness- Chikage herself was the only Kuroba over whom a hairbrush held any power. But he seemed awake, clear-headed and neatly dressed, implying that he and possibly his mother had passed a restful night.

"Kaito! I haven't seen you in a while," Yukiko greeted him. "How are you? Is your mother in?"

The boy magician smiled, not exactly a happy expression, and stepped aside to let Yukiko enter. "Kudo-san; such a nice... surprise."

Yukiko smiled, raising an eyebrow; and Kaito smiled back; the predictability of her visit was acknowledged by both and dismissed. "Kaasan is upstairs," Kaito said, leading Yukiko towards the kitchen. "I'd show you to a sitting room until she's ready to come down, but I think you would find that a bit too formal, hm?"

Yukiko beamed at him. "So insightful, Kaito-kun; please tell your mother to come down soon, I very much want to see her."

Left to her own devices while Kaito headed upstairs, Yukiko glanced around the kitchen. It looked very little different than it had so many years before, though the silence bothered her- the Kuroba house had never been this quiet, not with a small child or Chikage herself or...

...Toichi. Toichi hadn't been much inclined to silence; laughter had been much more his style.

She'd noticed a few differences on the way in- missing family photos, the kind you saw on end-tables and so forth; the artwork on the walls hadn't changed an iota so far as she could tell, but the anonymity of this bothered her just slightly. It was, she supposed, less hurtful, not seeing your lost loved one's face. If it had been her, though, Yukiko thought, she would've clung to a photo of Yuusaku like a talisman- or maybe not; maybe nobody could know that kind of thing until it happened to them.

Still, the Kuroba house was much, much larger than the Kudo, much more ostentatious; and once Yukiko and Yuusaku had learned of Toichi's night job, the reasons had of course been obvious. But after his death, it mattered little that the mansion had been part of the job, along with the rest of his entire life; now, it was simply the place where Chikage and Kaito had to spend their years after Toichi had gone. With or without reminders of him, it would have been hard, but Yukiko looked around the chill kitchen, which looked more like a photography set than the heart of a home, and shivered. Toichi's survivors had been rattling around the old mansion like marbles in a bathtub, and it had taken ten years for them to gain the bravery to let anyone else come in and fill up some of that empty space.

Footsteps were coming back down the stairs, accompanied by soft voices; twisting around in her chair, the actress felt hope buoy her spirits, just a little. "...Chikage?" she said, and smiled across the distance of ten lost years at her friend.

* * *

As frustrating as the schedules and deadlines of a professional writer's life could be, Yuusaku considered it a significant share of irony how fortunate it was that his and his son's monthly schedules were for the moment aligned. A tough session of research was always made more enjoyable when explored with company; likewise, a forced house arrest was always more bearable when coupled with adequate distraction. So, tucked into matching chairs with matching cups of coffee and matching piles of notes surrounding them, Yuusaku and son (currently economy-size) whiled away the afternoon engrossed in the very essential technical feasibilities regarding the use of a marlin as a murder weapon. "Ingenious," Yuusaku commented over the rim of his coffee mug, eyes bright with humor as he smiled at his son. "But it brings up the problem of timing. There wouldn't be sufficient time for the marlin to thoroughly defrost between the time of death and the sushi course at dinner that night."

"Do people even eat marlin?" wondered Shinichi out loud, childish brow furrowing. "Wait, duhh- swordfish, of course." He scowled at his father. "You do know that 'swordfish' is the most commonly-used secret password in bad comedies and God only knows how many videogames?" His father merely gave him a smug look. "Of course you do." Tucking one leg up beneath him, Shinichi fished (hah) out a page of notes and ran one finger down it in a critical fashion. "So, everybody died in fish-related 'accidents' and the murder weapons end up as dinner for the survivors? What're you going to do with the squid? Didn't you have something with a squid planned?"

Yuusaku blinked. "Ahh-" He thumbed through his own stack of paperwork. "Where was that...? Oh, here we go, that's after they move from Japanese cuisine to European. The squid doesn't come in until chapter six; that's going to be tricky, but I'm fairly certain that if I poison the squid itself first, the pasta dish'll be quite fatal. And everyone'll believe it was the mushrooms." He consulted his notes. "They'll have to make their own pasta, of course, and the rest of the squid can be discreetly flushed down the nearest toilet."

"That'll be after the part with the jellyfish, right?"

"Of course; it'd make absolutely no sense otherwise." Looking rather pleased with himself, the writer of the best-selling Night Baron series raised an eyebrow at his son's expression. "What?"

"Two things. One, never show this to either Kid or Kaito; we'll have to scrape them off the ceiling- literally. Two, if I ever end up with a case this demented, I'm going to take up fiction as a hobby."

His father allowed a second eyebrow to join the first. "And what do you think you've been doing for the last two years? Writing is all about lying in a creative enough way that other people want to believe in it... for a few hundred thousand words, at least. You've been writing a _life,_ Shinichi."

The boy made a face, kicking his leg restlessly beneath the chair. "Yeah, well- I'm ready to go back to non-fiction, thanks very much." He studied the top page of his notes, shook his head and shuffled them into a relatively neat pile, setting them aside on the coffee table. "I'd kind of like to get the editing over and finished with, and I'd _really_ like to tell my critics where they can stick their reviews... especially the ones in black trenchcoats." His father watched him in silence as Shinichi thumped restlessly down from his chair onto the library's hardwood floor, kicking an errant wad of paper that had missed the trashcan out of the way before stumping over to a bookshelf. He ran a small finger across the titles there; then he turned away, wandering along the shelves.

"Bored, son?"

"...yes. No. Okay, _**yes.**_ I hate that I can't go out. Ran's busy with Sonoko, Haibara's tied up in some sort of multi-phase experiment, and Kaasan's over... being neighborly." Touching a title here and there, Shinichi paused to pick up a faceted quartz bookend, cupping the heavy thing in palms that were a little too small to hold it comfortably. The planes and angles seemed to fascinate him for a long moment; but when he abruptly put the bookend back onto the shelf, it was followed by a sideways look at his father. "Tousan...?"

"Yes?"

"I heard about- you and Kuroba-san." His father seemed to tense for a moment, eyes widening. "Being mine and Kaito's daifu, I mean." He blinked as his father visibly relaxed. "What?"

"Nothing, really, just... yes." Yuusaku sighed. "Daifu. I hadn't thought of that in years, you know, not until Kid involved himself in your life; I suppose I'm his godfather as well, aren't I?" He smiled a little wryly. "Even though Toichi called you his 'older sibling' once, do you remember?"

"I remember; I thought he was mental at the time," Shinichi remarked wryly. "Now I realize I probably wasn't that far off. It took me a decade to learn what he'd meant, you know; I finally connected something Kaasan had said some time ago with that memory, and figured it all out."

The boy touched the quartz again, stroking its flat plane lightly; his voice was wistful when he continued. "What was Kuroba-san like, Tousan? As himself. Was he..." Shinichi frowned, choosing his words carefully. "Was he a magician-thief, or did he..."

"Have a brother?" Yuusaku smiled, sad and reminiscent. His voice was very warm and fond. "No, there was only one Toichi...just him. He was inimitable.

"Toichi was utterly unostentatious," he continued, brows quirking in humor. "Hard to believe, given his sons, but it's true. He was a companionable performer. Of course, his show was extraordinary, even when you knew which trick was coming up next. His technique was flawless. But his real gift - the one which was often overlooked - was in his demeanor. He put on a show as though the entire audience were his close friends. He would chat with them, so casual, discussing how unfortunate the weather had been recently, or the rising price of beef. And all the while, his hands would be busy, and then he would say - offhand, like he'd only just thought of it - 'Ah, here's a rose,' or 'Oh, here's a wedding ring; whose is this, do you know?' as though he'd bemused himself. He'd tease us. 'Where did that come from?'"

Shinichi laughed, quietly climbing back into his chair to listen to his father talk; Yuusaku smiled at him, nodding knowingly.

"Of course, he had his grand tricks as well, big complicated things that he'd ask three or more audience members onstage to assist him with; there were scarves and knives and cards and all manner of ridiculous, impossible claims made. And he'd accomplish them all. But he was always so congenial...so friendly with his audience. You never got the sense that he was performing in order to display how amazing and awesome his skill was.

"It felt instead like he had all these delightful surprises that he wanted to share with you. And even after I'd seen him perform dozens of times, I never lost the sense that every trick he did, every thing he told his audience, was sincere."

Yuusaku's eyes were sad as he studied his son's; their coffee was cool in their mugs and their paperwork was pushed aside in small stacks. Shinichi could have spoken; the sincerity his father talked of was a trait Shinichi saw so clearly in Kid, and he thought for a moment to mention this, son like father. But his own Tousan's expression kept him quiet, and after a silent moment, Yuusaku continued.

"I think he was just as sincere as the Kaitou Kid," the writer continued. "I didn't follow his career as the Kid as closely as I knew Toichi as a friend; I named him, so to speak, but I chased him by working with the police, not at his heists. But his sons seem to be wearing the mantle as he did, dramatic and charming at once. I think he would be amused - and pleased, maybe - to see them going after jewels he's already captured."

"Because they don't trust his work?" Shinichi asked, his expression quizzical.

"Not quite," his father corrected him. "Because they won't believe anyone else except their own eyes, even their father."

Shinichi smiled, showing a bit of tooth. "I can see that. I know Kid'd be disappointed if I took his word on anything that had to do with heists. He'd think it was naive, I think; since trusting another person's account is opening myself up to be lied to."

"To be fooled, perhaps," Yuusaku suggested. Shinichi smiled.

"Did you ever hold yourself back? From looking for clues, from trying to uncover him."

Yuusaku shook his head. "Never. I wasn't quite as...enthusiastic about it as you two are," he admitted, smirking a little. "We weren't quite so young as you two, either. But we loved to match ourselves against the other. It was like playing chess against the same person for too many years; eventually, what's on the board isn't half as important as what you know is in your opponent's head, and what he knows is in yours."

"Shinichi..." Yuusaku met his son's eyes soberly, his own gaze a little pinched by regret around the corners, but no less warm for the pain. "I hope with all my heart that you and Kid and Ran reach that point, someday. I hope your lives are filled with a joyful competition for a long time to come... for all the years that you deserve."

His son's throat tightened a little at that; he nodded. "I- hope so too, Tousan. I hope so too."

For a little while longer they went back to their notes, fine-tuning the the plot and timing of Yuusaku's next book, looking for holes in the logic and pace. Shinichi was familiar with the process of old- some of his earliest memories were of listening to his father hash out his mind's creations from earliest outlines to final form. The writer's son had even made his own contributions to the books now and then, just minor things but useful ("No, Tousan, if you make a hangman's rope too long, it'll break when the body drops or their head will tear right off. Shorter!") And, he thought, jotting down a fairly obscure reference that he'd finally teased out of Google, he'd come to appreciate the art of fiction quite a lot more over the last few years; his father was right, literally living a lie was its own form of creative writing.

_Except that the whole world's my page and I'm writing it at the speed of one second per second, and I guess I'm pretty bad at plotting because I don't know what'll happen in the last chapter yet. Sure hope it's a happy ending, though._

Halfway through a discussion of using fugu to kill off another victim ("Too hackneyed. Try something else") and the dubious effects of stingray venom when ingested, father and son heard a key rattle in the front door. "Yukiko?" Yuusaku blinked enquiringly towards the library doorway, through which the sounds of shoe-removal filtered. He received no reply, but a few moments later the uncharacteristically wan, silent figure of his wife appeared in her stockings. "'Kiko, what's wrong?"

Without a word, the blonde actress went to her husband's chair and more or less wedged herself in with him, half on his lap and half taking up the fortunately roomy space itself. She hid her face in his neck, and while her son watched his parents in alarm, wrapped both her arms around Yuusaku and held on tight.

He stroked her hair. "That bad, was it?" he asked in resignation, one hand drifting down to rub reassuringly between his wife's shoulderblades. "How was she, 'Kiko?"

"...faded," she whispered at last, muffled; her voice was sad, and she squirmed her way deeper into her husband's lap for all the world like a cat that needed soothing. "Everything was- Yuusaku, she always used to be so, so _vibrant,_ and now- It's like somebody turned the sound and color way down, or took a picture and underexposed it. No, not underexposed... What's that thing they do with photos, they turn them all shades of brown, antique-looking and faint and-"

"Sepia-tone?" Her son frowned.

"Sepia-tone, yes! Like that. And Yuusaku, it's been _ten years-"_ Shinichi's mother sniffled, hard; in answer to his father's look of dismay, the boy slid down from his chair and came back a moment later with a box of tissues, which Yuusaku passed along to his wife.

_Did you see Kid or his brother?_ Shinichi wanted to ask; but now, perhaps, wasn't the time. He drew back, slipping quietly out and up the stairs towards his room, leaving his parents to their privacy; and as his short legs carried him up to the landing, he head both their voices blending softly together until the two were indistinguishable from each other.

* * *

Several hours passed, mostly filled with research of another kind. Takagi had, somewhat to Shinichi's bemusement, sent him a brief text asking if it was convenient for him to stop by later that evening, bringing dinner along. It had come in via Conan's phone, which had startled him; and after he'd replied with agreement and the appropriate thanks, he'd closed the phone slowly and then sat there, staring at it and swinging the tiny soccer-ball charm back and forth.

His own phone had acquired two further charms just recently: the tiny coral-bells and clovers that Kid had given him what seemed an eternity past, bits of silver embodying challenge and luck. He'd threaded the cord from his regular phone through their loops, and over the last few days he'd caught himself running them absentmindedly through his fingers now and again. He'd seen Ran doing the same with her bracelet, the one Kid had given her at graduation; Shinichi supposed that they both took what comfort they could in their own ways.

But it seemed to him, watching the little soccer-ball swing on the end of its tether, that Conan's contrived life was... coming to a close, in a way. Or not so much a close but an alteration. _I mean,_ he thought, _look at me. Can't go out in public, can't go to school- not that I'll miss that, not __really__- can't look into any mysteries or meet up with Ayumi and the rest, can't even go check out what's come in at Kamakura Books like I always did once a week. My Conan-life's been whittled down, pared to being stuck right here or at the Professor's. So I can sit my ass down here and do something boring and quiet, or I can go to Agasa-hakase's and do something ELSE boring and quiet, or..._

The thought crept up out of a crack in the floor of his mind, stealthy and insidiously attractive: _...or I could go visit Kid._

_I could. I could go through the tunnel alone- my leg barely bothers me any more, most of the strain sort of reset itself with my shrinkage. I could just... It'd feel twice as long with my goddamned short legs, but..._

_**Should**__ I? Without warning? Without so much as a text? __Now__?_

The charm stopped its swinging, clenched tight in a childish fist.

...No, Shinichi decided with utter reluctance, he shouldn't; not then, not without warning, not to Kid and Kaito especially. They wouldn't appreciate it- an invitation was one thing, but to just barge in unannounced- no. Hell, they'd almost certainly spent time with his kaasan; that was probably enough company for one day.

_But- maybe later? Tonight? Maybe we could just, I don't know, meet each other halfway there, in the tunnel?_

Maybe.

'Maybe' sat on his shoulder for the next few hours; it followed him downstairs when he went to inform his parents that dinner was being provided by Takagi-keiji (as well as entertainment; his kaasan loved the way 'that cute officer, he's so _earnest__!'_ blushed and would almost certainly do her best to encourage this.) It hung around in the background of his mind, kicking stray thoughts and overturning plans at random; it nudged his elbow and waved a hand in front of his eyes, and when Ran called from some horribly noisy shopping mall to tell him that they were meeting Sonoko's family for dinner and not to wait up for her, it was all Shinichi could do to keep himself from blurting out the thought. 'Maybe' was a blabbermouth and rude to boot.

But afterwards, returning to his room with a couple of books tucked under one arm, Shinichi looked thoughtfully at the small travel chess-set he'd (he thought) unobtrusively slipped into the stack from its place on a bookshelf, and considered that 'Maybe' might have something to say worth listening to.

* * *

Takagi arrived at six p.m. on the dot, carrying cartons and bags redolent of chicken, curry and hot oil... and, as dessert, several CDs in a case which he handed over to Shinichi with a meaningful look. "Our hacker came through a little sooner than expected," he explained.

Shinichi knuckled the case thoughtfully. "How many did he manage?" he asked, unzipping the black, unmarked nylon; the CDs were dated in black felt-tip but otherwise equally anonymous. At the officer's raised eyebrow he explained. "There are forty-seven elementary and fifty-three middle schools in Beika-cho and the areas we're considering; he can't have hacked all of them already...?" The question was implicit in the statement, and Takagi's face cleared.

"Ah- no; that's just the first dozen or so of the elementary schools; he's working on the others, though- said he'll have them in a week at the latest." As Shinichi made impressed noises and fought down the urge to boot up his laptop (swiftly if regretfully stifled by the thought of his kaasan's wrath), Takagi quirked one corner of his mouth in a small grin and continued on. "I've never met this operative; he's some sort of pet technician of Megure-keibu's... I think he might be American, though; he doesn't slash his numeral 7's or his lower-case z's."

"Mmm." Shinichi flipped through the CDs; there were six total. "He does slash his zeros... maybe a programming background?" Sato's partner shrugged, watching Shinichi's small fingers as they ticked one after the other over. "-something wrong?"

The young officer flushed a little. "N-no. I was just-" He hesitated. "The, ah, transformation. I was- wondering about your fingerprints... Do they change?"

His fellow detective spared him a wry smile. "Yes and no; they become smaller, but the print doesn't alter at all. It's been one of my nightmares, worrying about someone comparing Edogawa Conan and Kudo Shinichi's prints. I've managed to keep my Conan-self from being printed so far, but the possibility has always existed... and my prints, my actual self's prints, really ARE on file; they were taken the first time I was allowed to see privileged information without my parents being present," he explained. "'Conan-kun' has always had a guardian of one sort or another available, so the issue's never come up."

Takagi blinked, mulling this over. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but at that point Yukiko appeared around the kitchen doorway in a really improbable apron and demanded their attendance at the dinner table, so the conversation was shelved.

A little later, though, the subject came up again; and to make things even more interesting, Takagi mentioned a little hesitantly that one of his other-departmental colleagues had asked after 'that Edogawa kid, had anyone checked to see what arrangements were being made about his schooling? Wouldn't want to have to contact the Truancy/Delinquency office, would we?'_That_ had made Shinichi blanch; "I'll have to take care of that, I know. So much for Summer Vacation," he muttered.

"Shin-chan, it's not summer yet," scolded his mother, serving herself a second helping of curried rice.

"No, but it _is_ almost Golden Week," Yuusaku said thoughtfully from the other side of the table. "Any plans, son?" His eyes twinkled. "It's almost your birthday as well; you don't seriously intend on spending the entire time hunched over casefiles, do you?"

The younger Kudo placed his chopsticks down and eyed his father carefully; far too many birthdays' worth of surprises lurked in the back of his mind, and it was this which made him answer with matching caution. "...no plans as yet, no; not- exactly. Not as such." At the end of the table, his mother cleared her throat but (when he glance her way) beamed with utter innocence back at him. In dread, Shinichi looked back and forth from parent to parent. "Do I want to ask why you want to know?"

Yuusaku merely smiled a polite, writerly kind of smile at his offspring. "Probably not. Just remember afterwards that it was your mother's idea, hm?"

"..."

* * *

Several hours later, scrolling down the first CD's tidy files of student information (and wondering how many of the names before his eyes would be missing before the year was out), Shinichi slowly sat back and wondered if an idea could get stuck in one's ear the way a song could. It wasn't inconceivable that a chain of _if-this-then-that_ could act like an earworm; and he was getting more than a little tired of having a certain thought pop up in front of his eyes, obscuring the data on his screen with its own alluringly shiny self. It really was as bad as an earworm.

Well; there was only one way to handle that sort of thing. And anyway, he was... well, just a little lonely. _Okay,_ Shinichi thought wryly, _more than a little._ And so, fingers flying, he sent a very simple text, meant specifically to intrigue and distract:

_If you're not busy, feel like a game of chess? Can meet you halfway. -S_

_Click._ Shinichi thumbed the Send key... and then, after a moment's thought, typed up a second text, meant to do a little more than merely intrigue:

_I'll even spot you a pawn. If you think you need it, that is._

Smiling down at the tiny screen, Shinichi sat back against the pillows and considered the unsent text; his thumb hovered over the key that would send it winging off into the aether. _That_should do the trick, the detective thought to himself optimistically; he'd brought the set upstairs with him, after all, and perhaps Kid and his brother were a little lonely by this point as well. Distraction could be a very useful thing. He had no illusions whatsoever that it'd defuse the grief they were dealing with at the moment, but it might help to set it at a distance.

...just a little. And even a little was better than nothing at all.

_Click._

* * *

Isolation had its uses. It could stabilize a person's thoughts and mood, removing outside crises and influences. It allowed you to just work through what was in your head, which was useful when your head was so overfull that you needed help just to carry all its weight. But the same stillness that could make room for problem-solving could also leave a void that inaction and self-doubt were all too eager to fill, on days - or nights - when the strength of your determination wasn't greater than the strength of your fears.

Kid and Kaito lay curled together in the middle of one of those nights, trying not to think, fighting back the urges to cry or scream or drink themselves into a stupor. Their mother was downstairs, drunk; it didn't matter much whether it was alcohol or pain of ten years' vintage that was drugging her mood and mind, making her cranky and quick to strike out at any extended hand. Kaito had stayed with her for as long as he could bear, staying close, petting her hair, kissing her temples, not saying anything, because there wasn't anything useful that could be said. Still she snapped at him, crying and shouting by turns, angered to incoherence by the smallest of slights - the taste of her coffee or the drape of the curtains.

Kid had drawn Kaito upstairs when the magician reached his breaking point, pulling him into their bedroom and pushing him onto the bed. Wrapped in layer after layer of light, warm blankets, the brothers yanked the covers as close as could be managed around their single body, straining their hands and shoulders in pulling tight the fabric anchored by their own body's weight. The pressure of the blankets around them, the tenseness in their ribcage and lungs, was a thin distraction from the building, itchy urge to scream or scratch their skin raw or cry themselves into unconsciousness. But it was something.

_Tousan,_ they begged, feeling frustration even with their body, which couldn't warm and cradle each other like two normal brothers, with two normal bodies, could have done. Kaito felt beyond tears, still and hollow and rotting from the center outward; Kid held his own tears back, gritting his teeth, trying and failing to overwhelm his gaping pain with anger and determination and drive for revenge.

The isolation of the night stretched out ahead of them.

"What's the date?" The voice was hoarse, strained; they'd screamed into their pillows a bit, but mostly, their throat hurt from screams held back, tears choked down.

"The twenty-second," they answered.

"One week."

"Seven days left." It was always easier as soon as The Day passed; it was possible to shut off the knowledge, shut off the awareness. The 29th brought with it - had brought with it, every year since they knew its significance - a kind of twistedly delicious overload; an ability to find their circuit breaker and rip out its switches for one more year. The power surged, overloaded their ability to bear it, and shut itself down. What flickered on in its wake, every 30th of April since Kaito had learned that Toichi's death had been orchestrated, was a sort of emotional brown-out, a backup generator that slowly gained power and steadiness over the next few days. And by the end of Golden Week, Kaito and Kid were usually back to full power, working well and seamlessly together, their goals once again in view as academic, cerebral, carefully plotted plans.

But until the 30th, they weren't Thief or Magician, nor the minds behind the International Criminal 1412 for whom whole police task forces were established. They were just tired, hurting boys, just shy of eighteen years old, and they wanted nothing more than to feel their father's hand wrapped around their own.

* * *

They woke up with the sense that there was someone waiting for them. Kid fronted, scanning the room and the sitting room beyond its open door. Kaito readied himself, tightening himself low, near his center of balance, in case aggression was needed. The vast bedroom was dark and still; there were no scents, no currents of air, no soft sounds or vibrations, that betrayed an intruder.

Shoulders tense, Kid swept his gaze back across the bedroom, not trusting its stillness; as he brought his gaze left past the doorway, a small blinking light caught his peripheral vision. He snapped around to focus on it, tensing - and abruptly relaxing as the little light's source came into focus, and his brain woke up enough to understand it.

The cell phone beside his pillow blinked again, a colorful pattern of three flashes that meant 'new mail from Shinichi.'

The brothers flopped onto their pillow, and Kaito smacked Kid upside the head as the tension fell out of their shoulders.

"Idiot."

"Shut up," Kid responded, his voice tired as he flipped the phone open.

_If you're not busy, feel like a game of chess? Can meet you halfway. -S_

"Chess?" Kaito raised an eye at Kid. "Weren't we supposed to play cards with him first?"

"I think I know where he's going with this," Kid murmured, thumb stroking the side of the phone absently. This wasn't exactly what he and Kaito had been aching for, but it was a hand extended, a nod to their loneliness and their circumstances, and it was very welcome.

"Do you want to play?" Kid asked Kaito, tipping his head onto the other's shoulder within their shared mental space. On the bed, their body curled around the phone, head pressing harder into their voluminous pillow. "I don't know if we'd win, honestly."

Ignoring the question, Kaito tapped the phone. "There's another text."

_I'll even spot you a pawn. If you think you need it, that is._

"..."

"..."

"Permission to wipe the floor with him?"

"Only if I can help."

_Twenty minutes._

The brothers pushed themselves out of bed with brisk purpose, getting dressed in functional and practical layers with efficiency. They bundled a deck of cards, the phone, and some other various essentials into the pockets of their utility vest and strapped it on, and headed downstairs at a clip, swinging into the library to inform their mother succinctly that they were going out and would - for once - have the cell phone on them if she needed them. They swooped through the kitchen for a few supplies, and then set off.

As the brothers made their way through the tunnels, working the locks and doors which their father and his best friend had crafted together, they didn't think much about what they looked like, or would look like to another person. They were only going to see the Tantei, after all.

They probably would have been surprised to see themselves in a mirror; the eager smirk, quiet but firm, which shaped their face and brightened their eyes wasn't an expression they had intended to wear, nor would they probably have known what to do with it if they'd realized it was there.

* * *

The chime-and-vibrate from Shinichi's phone jerked him out of a dream- something to do with chalkboards and hidden explosives- and two of the books littering his bed slid off with soft thumps as he stumbled back into wakefulness from where he'd dozed off. There was a dented feeling to his forehead; it had been resting against the edge of his laptop, and as the detective fumbled with his phone, he blinked and blinked again to clear his vision.

The time blinked back at him, _11:07,_ not all that late; the message that had awakened him jolted Shinichi upright in a wash of mixed emotions- eagerness to see Kid, triumph at drawing the Kuroba brothers out (considering what he'd sent, it was hardly likely Kaito'd sit _this_ game out), a twinge of worry that he'd pushed things too far... He had twenty minutes until he found out the latter, and the impetus shoved him into warmer clothes, made him grab his shoes and the chess-set and hurry out his bedroom door.

Two sets of snores winding up from below in a bass/soprano duet made the detective pause for a second before slipping down the stairs, sock-footed and silent, and along to the hidden door just beyond the kitchen. Following the winding route up and then down was out of the question- twenty minutes wasn't going to be enough time to get him to the midpoint as it was- so Shinichi slipped quietly through the door and took off at as close to a dead run as his shortened legs would take him.

The tiny lights edging the tunnel seemed to leap to meet him, two thin wakes of illumination that just barely preceded Shinichi's headlong dash. It wasn't until it had slowed to a trot that the lights gained on him enough to really illuminate where he was going rather than where he'd been; as if they too were in a hurry the small glows curved around the one sharp angle in the tunnel and vanished from sight, and it wasn't until a stitch was burning beneath his ribs that the boy slowed, squinting into the distance at-

-yes. It _was_ another light, still a long ways off but visible.

The trot slowed, staggered, turned into a solidly paced fast walk that gained him ground without, Shinichi felt, making him look like an idiot by the time he arrived. The twenty minutes had come and gone, but he didn't think it'd matter all that much.

Still breathing hard, chess-set clutched under one arm, he was dimly aware of his own wake of light meeting and merging with the horizon that pooled shadows around the waiting figure's feet. Shinichi stumbled to a halt and fought back the grin that had been growing all the way there. _This is not the time,_ he mentally scolded himself; _Just because you're glad to see him- them- doesn't mean they're in anything like the same frame of mind. Grow up, Kudo; this may make you feel better, but it may be a nuisance or worse to them. You __saw__ how they were._

But it was hard to force the satisfaction back; it was just too strong, and... this was a little like when they'd first met, those early times in the Kudo library. Shoving his sweat-damp hair out of his eyes, Shinichi stopped in his tracks. A little awkwardness mixed with the elation, dimming the grin down into a slightly shy smile. "...hi," he said.

Kid and Kaito watched Shinichi's eyes from the first moment that they could see them, gaze focused on the detective's face as he approached, footlights rising around him to ease the view. Excitement, determination, and the giddy sort of _a-fight-is-a-game_ competitiveness that he always seemed to be wearing around the Fool; it was all familiar to them. Familiar to Kaito was the way that Shinichi worked to dial back his outward emotion as he drew level with them, forcing shyness and hesitation where he didn't legitimately feel it; familiar to Kid, the spark of challenge in the detective's eyes, the light that said _You're here because I dared you to be, I won't give you an inch of ground and you don't expect me to, and I __like__ that about you_.

They filed it all, and smiled, tipping their head back to shade their brow and eyes with the shadows of the tunnel's ceiling.

"Good evening, Tantei," Kid answered for them both, voice smooth like velvet. Kaito watched Shinichi from Kid's eyes, two brothers wedged temple-to-temple to share the same pair of binoculars. When he caught himself lightly bating his breath, waiting with teeth barely sheathed for the detective to give the _right_ answer, the magician scolded himself, but he shared a glance with the thief and they both ruefully smiled to each other. The Tantei had _that_ sort of effect on them, after all.

"Evening, thief," Shinichi responded, eyes lighting up at the tone of voice; the strained tension of earlier wasn't exactly _gone_ so much as... put aside for the moment, in the way that a relay-runner catches their breath in the break between handoff and baton. He held up the set, flicking the catch open. "Feel like playing a little game?" Beneath the easy, casual question the detective could feel his heart hammering, half from the effort of the run and half (more than half) from pure anticipation.

He needed this too.

"I feel like winning a little game," Kid returned, stepping forward, to touching distance, and reaching a hand down toward his shrunken boyfriend. He didn't touch Shinichi's head, instead letting his hand hover over the detective's everpresent alfalfa sprig of hair for a moment. Then, sensing that Shinichi's knowledge of his mood was lesser than his own of Shinichi's, the thief turned his hand, pressing the back of his knuckles against his detective's cheek.

"Thank you for calling us," he murmured, still and tall in front of Shinichi. But the power between them was equal, and the thief's voice was quiet and calm, touched with notes of Kaito's. The magician swirled through the bottom notes of his brother's presence, like heavy syrup not yet mixed through seltzer water. Together, the brothers smirked thinly. "I'm sure you won't mind if we tag team you."

The detective eyed the brothers, hand coming up involuntarily to touch the larger one; the blended voice was intriguing, and the knowledge that he'd be playing not one opponent but two was anything but unwelcome. "Alternate moves? Go right ahead," he murmured, heady warmth running through him at the thought. He'd drawn them _both_ out, and win or lose, he'd already won in that much.

The bare dirt was a poor surface to sit upon; a large towel, gathered up in forethought along with the game itself, took care of that. Crosslegged and knee to knee with the small game folded out like the book it was between them, the detective fought back the momentary impression that the black-clad thief and his brother were wearing their more formal whites. "Challenger gets the first move," he said mildly, tapping the board's mahogany edge with a fingernail; "Whenever you're ready." And he smiled, teeth just barely showing.

This was going to be... therapeutic. _I'm going to get my ass handed back in a bucket,_ Shinichi thought cheerfully, and didn't care in the least. It wasn't that he was going to give a centimeter, oh no; but it didn't take a genius to figure out just who was outnumbered here. That was okay, that was fine; he was playing to play, not to stomp a certain smarmy thief and/or his brother into the ground. Not that he'd exactly MIND the latter, but...

_Getting them to play at all was my first win. Let's see if I can keep the streak going._

Kid's smile grew into a grin, and Kaito's brow arched up with a smothered snicker. With one hand, the brothers touched fingers to the corner of the elderly board and spun it, reversing the ranks of white and red. "And in that case, I'll need these," he smiled, touching the head of his white queen. "Though I'd usually be inclined to remind you that the bad guys never wear white, I don't think we've got much room for criticism on this board." Kaito grinned. "These colors are more like cards, don't you think?" With a glance down to the board, he moved his queen's knight forward, leaping his rank of pawns to land in front of his queen's bishop and start the game.


	70. A thousand maybes

_**Book Six, Chapter Five**__**: "...a thousand maybes"**_

Twenty-seven moves later...

_Okay, what did I say to myself earlier? 'I'm going to get my ass handed back in a bucket.' Only no, not a bucket. More like several mason-jars, suitable for displaying on the mantle or burying in the backyard._Biting his lip in concentration, Shinichi's eyes never left the board. It was his move, the twenty-eighth in the game, and he needed to make it count. He was, he flattered himself with a little flare of ego, giving his opponents a damn good fight.

It was interesting, the differences between the two brothers' playing styles. Seven moves for Kid, seven moves for Kaito; the magician had led aggressively with his queen's knight gambit, while Shinichi had followed more cautiously with an eye towards castling his king- the move appealed to him, with its layer of added defense and almost brutal air of ownership. Kid had watched him shift his rook sideways and had very, very slowly raised one eyebrow... before capturing his goddamn bishop with frankly insulting casualness.

And _then_things had gotten down and dirty, kamikaze chess. Kid had lost his queen, Kaito'd won her back; Shinichi'd used his pawns to lure and draw and misdirect. His own queen was still virginally intact, but there was a goddamned knight fork being built, he could swear it, and it was beginning to make him sweat.

It was a **gorgeous** game, and he loved it, loved it. Shinichi licked his lips, tasting sweat; he kept having to bite back a grin of pure glee, as manic as anything Kid had ever worn. _We should've done this, god, __ages__ ago._

...but they had, hadn't they? Had been for a long while, sort of. Kid and Kaito'd issued their challenges and set the board; Shinichi and the other players had responded, stepping forward warily into the open with arrogance and every intention of winning each match. The clashes that had followed had, even in the beginning, lacked malice (if not fury and a teeth-gritting desire to stomp on the others' heads)... but they'd been no less of a fight for all that.

Or a game. Always a game.

Fingers hovering above the pieces, he wondered idly if the two brothers knew that their eyes changed shades ever-so-slightly depending on who was in charge. It was interesting; Kaito's were just a fraction lighter and clearer while Kid's were deeper in hue, almost luminous with concentration. Pupil size also varied, contracting and expanding faster than he'd ever seen in another human being. Respiration patterns, they too were different; body language, blink rate... even how they sat, as if their center of gravity shifted somehow along with identity. It was the first time the detective'd had a chance to observe them both _at the same time_really well like this, stepping forward and backing away like the partners that they were, and it was utterly fascinating...

...but he'd have to study it later, because now Shinichi's sneakiest pawn was moving forward into the eighth, the _EIGHTH_rank, something he'd been working on for quite a while. "Promotion time," he murmured, the grin escaping its holding cell to do a fast run across his face. "Let's see... oh, I know; why don't we turn him into a bishop?" Not that he expected the piece to live very long, not that far in; and the Look he was getting (from Kaito, he could tell) promised Death From Above, With Prejudice. Still... Shinichi smirked as the exchange took place.

_I'll pay for that one, but who gives a damn? I got my bishop back... for however long I manage to keep it._The detective wiped his damp palms against his jeans, still grinning.

"You know what's amusing, Tantei?" Kid's purr danced its way right up the detective's spine, challenging him with syrupy sweetness, as the thief's hand hovered over the game board, considering. Kid's gaze was fixed on his pieces, but his attention was on Shinichi, reading his reaction from breath and tension. "You're so proud of your little pawn, journeying all the way across the board to be sacrificed in rescue for your bishop; but it hasn't occurred to you that your bishop is now exactly where he needs to be, mm?" Kid's thin fingers stroked the tops of the bone pieces; heavy as they were, a gentle sideways touch _should_have tipped them at least a little. But Kid's lithe touch disturbed not a single one.

"Bishops can fly to the rescue of other pieces in need, even ones halfway across the board. Isn't that noble of them?" The thief glanced up, just a flash of smug blue eyes and fangs, as his thumb and forefinger came to rest on the crown of his rook. "But isn't it a shame that so often, they merely have to charge ahead to catch the spear meant for their kings?" The rook slid, four spaces, and came to a rest. The thief sat back and smiled.

Shinichi studied the board. By moving his rook, Kid had invited Shinichi into a complex, prearranged chain of moves. Kid's rook now threatened Shinichi's king, but it was right in the path of his newly reclaimed bishop, an easy kill. Problem was, if Shinichi's bishop slid down to kill Kid's rook and bring his king out of check, the pawns to either side of its position could rather easily skewer it through in the next move. If Shinichi instead used one of his other pieces to kill the rook - two or three were within striking range, clustered in the dense corner of the board surrounding Shinichi's stationary king and queen and their pawn guard - then Kid's pawns would be in place to kill _those_ pieces, and they would (possibly) mark a more significant loss for the detective, as they were all better-positioned to defend the court in future turns. And since there were _two_ pawns placed at the ambush space, if Shinichi sacrificed his bishop, then attempted to avenge it, the second piece he sent would just as summarily die. If you were to cipher the pieces for letters, their positions for words, the whole corner of the board read to Shinichi's eye like a love note: _"And you can't do anything abouuuuut iiiiiit~"_

Well. Kid's idea of a love note, that is.

The thief was grinning like a Cheshire when Shinichi looked up to meet his eye again. "So, basically, I make the smart move or the ego move," Shinichi summarized, tone dry, even as Kid began to giggle.

"You _are_so very fond of that bishop, after all, Tantei. I could understand your interest in preserving him."

Shinichi raised a very slow eyebrow, fighting back his own grin. Grinning would _not_ help; grinning was just the kind of invitation that the laugh building in his chest would need, and then it'd be Game Over... in the non-chess sense, at least. "You do like your traps, don't you?" he murmured, checking all the angles to make certain he hadn't missed a possibility. "All nice and tidy; you build your moves just like you build your heists, with everything covered and all the exits marked." _Okay, I can't do __that__... or __that__... or __that__. Or that either. Well, shit; Chess 101, protect the king. What the hell, at least I got him to show me his traps._Ruefully he moved his bishop into place. "Smart move," he added calmly. "But you knew I'd do that anyway."

"I did," Kid said airily, shrugging one shoulder with as little concern as a dove shaking out its wings to settle down for a doze. "I like it when I can predict you. Of course, I like it just as much when I can't."

He pulled his hands back from the board, inviting Shinichi to see what he'd done.

Shinichi's bishop stood untouched. But one of his knights was gone, replaced by a white one which stood silently in the captured one's place, beside Shinichi's Queen. She was perfectly safe from it - knights needed a radius of three squares for an attack. Anything closer was immune until the knight could 'back up' to put the target in range. But a queen can kill anything within a straight line of sight - whether the piece stands across the board or at her elbow. Shinichi scanned the board again, taking stock: his bishop, with the figurative spears of Kid's two pawns holding it still; and his Queen, scowling down at the knight beside her who'd killed her own, and which now stood completely defenseless under her blade. Shinichi scanned again - Kid didn't even have a defense prepared behind his knight; if Shinichi's queen killed it, she could do so utterly without consequence.

Mentally the detective groaned softly to himself, even while he admired the symbolism and utterly ruthless bit of play. It didn't take a psychiatrist to see what he'd been doing, keeping his queen back and under guard; and it didn't take one to see the symmetry in the sacrificial knight, either. "Somehow I don't really feel like killing off any knights today," he said lightly. "Maybe my queen should keep an eye on him for a while... make sure he behaves himself, that sort of thing." He moved one of his few remaining pieces, a pawn, an unthreatening space forward... and waited to see what Kid would do.

If the brothers' knight remained where it was, it would live; if it moved, it would die. If Shinichi's queen remained where she was, she was safe- for the moment, anyway. Let them keep each other company while the rest of the war went on.

Tilting his head a little, he smiled up at his opponents. "Your move."

For a while then, Kid, Kaito, and Shinichi traded pawns and skirted around each other, positioning and repositioning their troops. They set up attacks, defenses against them, and winnowed their way through each other's defenses to prove that they could - but, save for three sacrificial pawns and one unavoidable rook - drew no blood. This continued for some time, until it became less of a subtext and more of a billboard that they couldn't ignore if they wanted to: They were stalling for time.

"Honestly," Kaito huffed, glaring at the board. "You two have completely tangled this up."

"You helped," Kid protested; while Kaito's eyes, posture, and gesture remained, the thief's voice issued from the magician's mouth. Shinichi was reminded, obscurely, of the speakerphone function on cell phones; it was clear that Kid's protest had been 'broadcast' for his benefit, rather than left on the private mental channels which the thief and magician shared.

Kaito rolled his eyes, shifting a rook forward in aggressive challenge; while it wasn't a capturing move, it obviously had more intent than the meandering playfulness his brother had engaged in for the previous five turns.

"Your turn, Detective."

Shinichi blinked; the back-and-forth dialogue had brought up something he'd wondered about a time or two before, particularly during his and Ran's previous visit. His hand hovered over the pieces, one small part of his attention on his move as he asked, "Um- just out of curiosity- do you two-" He hesitated as the brothers looked at him inquiringly. "Okay. Obviously you two talk. _How_do you talk? If it's not, um, too personal." The boy smiled a little wryly. "There's no real way to ask the question accurately without it sounding pretty bizarre, but I think we left 'normal' gasping in the dust a long ways back." He moved his unchallenged knight into a defensive position; off across the board, his king still stood hedged around by enemy pieces but unthreatened. "I don't hear you speaking aloud like that all the time, and obviously during heists it'd be a problem... and I'm answering myself, aren't I?" The knight clicked into place.

Kid laughed, his eyes bright. There was some sort of mixture of pride and glee in them. "We usually stick to one persona during heists," he explained, beaming like the lunatic he was. "It's not quite me and it's not quite Kaito. It's 'International Criminal 1412, Kaitou Kid'..."

"The Magician Under the Moonlight," Kaito finished, pride in his voice despite his obvious attempt at casual unconcern. "We both work - my magic, his..._himness_... and switching off is too complicated with so much else to do."

"It's like a sentai show! By our powers combined, we are-"

"On mute," Kaito deadpanned, strangling off his brother's gleeful ridiculousness with a thought. Shinichi's brow went up; Kid's voice had clearly been clipped off, like the feed had been squeezed mute then turned off, and Kaito's had replaced it, nearly overlapping. The magician, now in control, rolled his eyes and examined the board, considering his move.

"You asked how we talk, not how we do heists. It's basically like the stereotypical myth of telepathy, but within one physical brain, mind, whatever you'll call it, not multiples." The magician frowned, pressing his lips into a tight line; after a moment, his hand rose to rub at his temples and he closed one eye, smiling ruefully at Shinichi from the other.

"My brother - who is not getting taken off 'mute' anytime soon, _thank you_- is of the opinion that we are one brain and two minds. I believe that makes sense; I'm the logical half of the brain, and he's the insane half. Also, I took your knight. Your move."

"...ouch."

_And that's what I get for being distracted by curiosity. Story of my life, literally..._Dismayed, the detective surveyed the space where his knight had been and the dwindling number of his pieces; the board had been very gradually taken over by a swath of pale-colored chessmen, eradicating his own red army and driving it into a complete rout. Granted, the progress had been slowed down as much as possible by their own unwillingness to end the game, but the outcome was inevitable and Shinichi hated losing. "One brain, two minds... the old 'two heads are better than one,' only packaged for easy storage. Makes sense." A pawn stepped up into a position of certain death; Shinichi might lose, but he'd be damned if he rolled over and showed his throat. He focused on Kaito's face. "Headache?" the boy asked.

"I wouldn't call it easy storage," Kaito muttered, surveying the board along with the detective. "And- no, I'm fine." Frowning, he scanned the board again, then shrugged. "Well, endgame and all." And he took Shinichi's guarded, stationary bishop.

_**"Nngh."**_It wasn't like he hadn't been expecting that, but... Reluctantly, Shinichi ceded victory to the brothers by ducking his king. He took a deep, deep breath and looked straight up into his opponents' face, allowing the mixture of chagrin and satisfaction to creep out, plainly visible, just as much a prize as the words that absolutely needed to be said:

"You win. Good game."

_Very, very good game... __**God**__, I wish I was my adult self right now._ His pulse thrummed beneath his skin, still adrenaline-hyper and keyed to the fight; if he _had_been in his older body with all its advantages, the evening might have ended very differently... But he wasn't, and it wasn't happening, dammit. So instead Shinichi just quirked an eyebrow up in challenge, still grinning openly over the board with all the delight and relief that the battle had kindled in him. "Rematch? Not now, obviously, but later? Or- possibly another kind of game?"

_-Shut UP, brain. I didn't mean __that__ kind of rematch. Or at least not until I change again._

The quiet smirk which flickered across the thief's lips very clearly said that he'd seen Shinichi's distraction in his eyes, and was amused by it; the smirk in his eyes lingered longer, and was drawn from those parts of his personality less defined by kindness and more by qualities best described in obscenities hoarsely screamed by his 'fanclub' (founding member, Nakamori Ginzo).

"Another sort of game," Kid purred, nearly lascivious, grinning wider as Shinichi's eyes flashed apprehension and then anticipation. "I like that plan. Well then, Tantei, I believe your graceful loss tonight merits you a consolation prize of some measure...Hmm, what to grant you. Mmm, advance notice. That's a fair gift."

Kid rose to one knee, elbow braced on the other before him as he sketched a brief bow in the process of standing up. "Listen, Tantei: There's more than two occasions to take note of, two weekends from now. Two are anniversaries...one is a fresh occurrence of an imprecise repetition." He reached forward, gently stroking Shinichi's bangs back from his small face, and let a true, electrically happy grin suffuse his and his brother's shared features.

"If you need more of a hint than that, chibi-chibi-tantei," Kaito continued, stepping back from Shinichi and his chess board, "Just wait one week.

"Regards to Ran-san for us," the magician added, tipping an imaginary hat. "And thank you for the game. Ta."

"-wait." Shinichi held out a hand, and the brothers glanced over their shoulder, pausing mid-step to listen. "Would you- either of you, both of you- feel like meeting again sometime this week?" He hesitated, mind already full of the clues he'd been given, systematically dissembling them and looking at them carefully like the puzzle they were. "I, well. I miss you." He could feel himself flush; the admission held more truth than awkwardness, though it tried to lodge itself stubbornly in his throat. "Ran does too. We won't come here if it's not a good time, but... if you want..."

Kid in control now, the thief turned and stepped close to his inconveniently-sized lover, kneeling to bring them to a level. His hand curled gently around the nape of Shinichi's neck; his other held the boy's shoulder, neither firmly nor weakly, and his ungloved thumb stroked the line of a tendon in Shinichi's shoulder. Kid bent his head to the other's, foreheads touching, and exhaled with a small smile.

"Thank you, Tantei, for thinking of me." Fingers gentle, he combed through Shinichi's hair in a steady repetition, nape to crown and back again. "We appreciate it. But..."

Shinichi had opened his lips to speak, probably to excuse away his request or Kid's rejection of it, when the pad of the thief's thumb pressed them closed again. "You helped us in more ways than you know with this game, Shinichi. I will explain the ways to you, soon enough. For now... my brother and I have work to do, work we've been neglecting this last few weeks.

"You will see us next week, we promise you that. Until then...please know that you've done everything that you can...and that it's had more benefit... given us more strength... than you know." Kid pulled back a bit, fixing his eyes on Shinichi's; the thief's deep blue eyes were nuanced and their depths spoke, though Shinichi didn't quite catch the language.

Detective and thief remained still, watching each other, for a moment more; all that moved was Kid's thumb, stroking Shinichi's hair, and Shinichi's hands, gripping tighter on the cuffs of the thief's shirt, protesting without words. As their stillness remained, the motion-activated footlights that illuminated their small halo of tunnel slowly dimmed and went dark, starting from the furthest lit lights toward the center, where Kid and Shinichi crouched. As the tunnel grew dimmer, the expression of Kid's eyes shifted, and he tipped his head aside, leaning in close.

Kid's breath was warm on Shinichi's skin, drawing closer, and through the tangled fit of emotion that sought to distract him - _Gods __**damn**__ it, I'm too small for this_, as well as _I wasn't supposed to be selfish about this; damn it, Kid, this was supposed to be about __**you**_- the detective, small in stature or no, couldn't help but inhale sharply and let his eyes flutter shut, mind overwhelmed with intense emotion and want, body wracked with rebound pain.

After an eon, Shinichi's breath caught when Kid's lips finally touched his skin - and the sudden tenseness in his neck and throat only served to press the soft curve of his cheek against Kid's mouth more firmly. The thief kissed his cheek tenderly, oh so carefully, butterfly touches of the gentlest, dryest lips, one after another.

"Kid-" Shinichi was embarrassed to hear his child's voice in the stillness of the pitch-black tunnel, though it wasn't as embarrassing as his adult's voice would have been; that voice would surely have cracked, strained to breaking by the intersection of desire and confused love the detective was feeling.

"Shh, Tantei," Kid murmured, turning Shinichi's face in his hands gently. He kissed his other cheek, more briefly this time, and drew just slightly back; Shinichi could hear the movement of air through the thief's teeth as he smiled.

"Well. Ta."

Though he should have expected it, after _how_many times of Kid using the same trick, Shinichi was still blinded by Kid's sudden leap away and subsequent exit, obscured rather than revealed by the sudden flare of tunnel footlights which chased him down the endless passage and blinded the detective he left behind him. Shinichi stood silently watching the lights fade away, a belated coda to the thief's departure.

Moving slowly and methodically, hands gathering up and storing away the chessboard and pieces with mechanical, absentminded care, the boy's eyes were hooded and unblinking. Small fingers shook out the towel, folded it precisely, squared its corners; when he turned to go, there was nothing left behind in the corridor to show that the battle had ever taken place save for a rectangular scuff in the hard dirt floor.

Like an echo of Kid's vanishing act, the edge lights blinked into wakefulness as Shinichi made his preoccupied way back towards home; the boy's thoughts were in turmoil, but it was a strange, gentle kind of disquiet. All the pieces of the evening were turning and tumbling through his mind, each one brilliantly colored and distracting- as if someone had shattered a kaleidescope and left it up to gravity to put the pieces back together.

Confusion, Shinichi'd found, could have a peculiar sort of _comfort_to it. His usual instinct was to niggle at the pieces, sort them and separate them and lay them out plainly... but if he could will himself to be content with mystery, to let all the shards and bits of color land haphazardly in a jumble, then sometimes the patterns they created made the truth easier to see. Emotion had its own logic.

He walked on, the heavy silence of the tunnel making his heartbeats drum in his ears. Acutely aware, Shinichi could still feel Kid's breath against his skin, the thief's gentle hands on his shoulders and face. Strangely, though, there was far less discordance this time and what there _had_been was- bearable. More than bearable. Maybe (and his thoughts attempted momentarily to shy away from this) it was... because what he'd been feeling had been more to do with love than desire?

_Maybe. Or maybe it's because... I've been worried about him all this time, thinking about him; maybe it- levels off or something. Maybe it doesn't hit as hard, maybe the effect is wearing down. A thousand maybes._

That's what he is: a thousand maybes.

His shoes were almost silent in the dust; behind him darkness trailed, before him darkness lay ahead. Fleetingly Shinichi thought about the verse from Omar Khayyam's _Rubaiyat_, the one where the swallow flew from window to window through the lit house with darkness lying to either side; and then he thought of the blackness of the tunnel only a little earlier, and closed his eyes briefly to call it back.

It was funny; the fragmentation, the lack of coherence in his thoughts... was almost peaceful. For once, he didn't fight it.

When his hand at last gripped the knob, opened it, pulled the door shut behind him, all the house was quiet; the tv still played, muted into an indistinguishable murmur against the silence. Following an instinct that crept in from out of nowhere, the boy slipped quietly through the hall towards the library.

His father and mother were curled up on the couch in each other's arms, faces softened in sleep; there was a book upside down in his tousan's lap. Without another thought- without anything likethought, really, just a desire to _not be alone_- Shinichi took the narrow space at the end of the couch and made himself comfortable, closing his eyes against the dim lamplight. As sleep stole over him, his last flicker of awareness was that of a hand brushing against his hair and his father's eyes resting on him before all the fragmentary light and color dancing in his mind faded into warmth and an easy, gentle darkness.

* * *

The next few days passed without trauma, more or less; Ran, who had been tied up with enrollment and class schedule matters, sent text after text to the shorter of her two boyfriends to assure him that a) she was still alive, b) she hadn't been swept off her feet by suave and sophisticated college boys, and c) yes, she _would_pick up dinner for them all on the way home. The latter was from Wednesday; her father was once again out at the casino due to another rash of minor thefts. Anything but averse to earning his retainer and his idol Yoko-chan's graces, he'd headed out on that morning's train.

The CDs that Takagi had dropped by had been enough to keep Shinichi busy; Division One's pet hacker, whoever he or she was, knew their stuff. The basic demographic data for the dozen or so schools' student bodies had been laid out in neat tables with their files cross-referenced by multiple tags- age, family background, grade average and so forth; apparently the hacker hadn't been enlightened as to what the data was needed for, but that was fine.

The detective typed until his fingers were worn; he cataloged and sorted, winnowing through the thousands of names systematically, looking for children who would fit in the at-risk categories. They had so little to go on; but it kept Shinichi busy, kept his mind occupied and stopped him from being utterly consumed with the boredom his informal house-arrest would have otherwise caused.

By Wednesday evening, he'd extracted twenty-seven possible Black Organization targets, all within the six-to-fourteen age bracket, all exceptionally intelligent, all with either disfunction in their home lives, single parent situations or similar. Sixteen of the twenty-seven were less than ten years old; four of the sixteen had developed recent absentee patterns that lay out of sync with their past attendance. He contacted Megure, presented the names as the most prominent set of targets...

...and learned that one of the four had run away from home two days earlier.

Or so it had been reported.

The boy had had an absentee father, had been one of the city's many 'latchkey' children, without siblings, had been actively picked on by his schoolmates for not fitting in and had missed school no less than an average of two days out of every ten for the last six weeks. He'd gone out Monday afternoon on his bicycle and simply never returned. His mother, at first frazzled and then frantic, had phoned the police after coming home late from her job and finding their apartment dark and empty; all searches had come up zero on results, though the current theory pointed towards the possibility that the child had gone in search of his missing father.

Staring at the screen, chewing his lip in silence with his cellphone still clutched in one hand, Shinichi swallowed, remembering a woman's voice saying _Your parents sent me, I have something for you, a message from your mother._ This child had been only nine; if someone had told him they'd had contact with his father, if they'd already been working on his dissatisfaction and unhappiness...

Shinichi drew in a deep breath and went back to work.

More prospects, sifted from the files using different characteristics: this time he went from the outside in, not looking at school-related data other than age but instead at family and home-related factors; if there was one thing he'd learned over the past few years, it was that seeing things from only one viewpoint skewed what was seen. _In fact,_ he thought wryly as he fed conditional-formatting parameters into a worksheet, _I'm probably a better detective now than I would've been if I hadn't been shrunk. I've __had__to look at things from a new viewpoint… nearly a meter down, in fact, and with a ten-year handicap. There've been cases I couldn't have solved if I'd been my old self, I know that._

…I wonder what cases I never saw because of becoming Conan? How many people died whose murders I never knew about? What chances did I miss?

He brought up two other screens, set up a few new columns and began to feed the data from one file into another, frowning as cells highlighted here and there among the results; those were high-risk names, and there were more of them than he liked. Maybe he'd made his search criteria too loose? _Hmmm…_As Shinichi worked, his hand bumped against a cup to one side of the keyboard; absentmindedly he picked it up and drank—and drew back in surprise; it was hot.

A hand smoothed over his forehead, brushing back his bangs, and he looked up into Ran's face. "I thought you might need a little coffee," she explained, her beautiful smile lurking somewhere in the dimple to the left where it liked to hide. "You were so intent, you didn't even hear me arrive. –shh, shh, it's okay, Shinichi; it's not like I haven't seen you this way before." And she had, of course, as his old self and then as his new: the work taking precedence over everything else, body and time and needs all sublimated in the chase.

_Kid wasn't the only one who used to have just one focus._

"Thank you," he murmured; the coffee was perfect, and as Shinichi slowly resurfaced back into the world beyond his laptop screen, he glanced around; the house was remarkably quiet, which meant— "Tousan? Kaasan?"

"Out the door as I came in." Ran tugged a pillow off the nearby couch and plopped down on it, socked feet tucked neatly beneath her. She wiggled, settling comfortably with her back against his chair and resting her chin on the frayed, overstuffed arm. Amused eyes regarded her boyfriend. "Your kaasan said something about 'not wanting to cramp our style'... or maybe it was 'their style'?" At Shinichi's raised eyebrow, Ran blinked. "Um." She raised one of her own eyebrows, that little smile peeping out again. "She also said something about a planetarium...?"

"OH." The wayward Kudos' son snickered. "They'll be back in the morning. The 'planetarium' is kind of a code word for this hilltop where they used to go parking when they were dating, and... uh, watch the stars."

"That sounds pretty harmless, though..."

"All night. With a blanket."

_"Oh."_

"Yeeeeah. Kind of surprising I wasn't conceived there, but they told me that actually I-" Ran winced, holding up a hand. "-TMI, huh? Sorry." Looking into her eyes, watching the sparkle come back, Shinichi thought about missed chances... and, fingers typing steadily, saved and closed down his files. The laptop cycled down, chiming as he smiled back at her. "So," the detective said cheerfully, reaching out and brushing her cheek with his small fingers, "tell me about your day, huh?"

They talked for quite a while; Ran told him about the campus and the large park nearby, Okuma Garden; her schedule was spread out onto the couch, and they surveyed it from either side, sprawled nose-to-nose across Ran's paperwork as they critiqued the list of classes. More shopping trips with Sonoko (who had finally, somewhat randomly and to her family's startlement, picked Bunkyo Gakuin University, intrigued by its emphasis on foreign contacts and beginning management studies. It didn't hurt that Waseda Law and Bunkyo were only about a half hour apart by intercity transit; in Ran's private opinion, the Suzuki family was more or less humoring their wayward daughter, but a person had to start somewhere.

"Sometimes I wonder if Sonoko'd be so flighty if she had less time on her hands," mused Ran, flat on her stomach, chin propped on her palms; her socked feet kicked idly in the air. Shinichi made a noncommittal noise, something that with only a little more emphasis would've translated as 'not damn likely'; he _was_trying to be supportive, after all. His girlfriend made a face, not fooled in the least. "Oh, you. I'm just glad she'll be so close by, and glad she'll have something else to think about than how bored she is, and, um-"

"-stalking her boyfriend?" asked Shinichi dryly. "If anything, it might help their relationship; when she gets that predatory look in her eye, there's not a guy in the world that wouldn't think about hightailing it as fast as he could move." He mock-shivered. "-OW! It's _true,_you know."

"I know, I know." Ran brandished the class catalog she'd thwapped her favorite detective and smartass with warningly before dropping it beside the couch. "She's also my friend... and I have to agree with you. Besides which, if he's really not interested in developing things further with her, maybe being out there with all those college guys'll be a good thing."

"Could be." The boy cocked an eyebrow at his girlfriend, pushing himself up to sit crosslegged on the couch. "I kinda noticed how she didn't pick a private womens' college."

Ran made a face, brushing her hair back. "Did you really think she would?" She grinned, mimicking her friend's voice as best she could. _"What would be the fun in that, Chibi-chaaan?"_At the look on Shinichi's face, the detective's daughter giggled and sat up as well, pushing the paperwork over and settling herself comfortably against the couch-back. "Okay, your turn. What've you been doing with yourself?"

Conversation turned serious for a while as they discussed the files and the newest of the missing children. "That's horrible," Ran said quietly. "It's bad enough to know what kind of kids they're targeting, but to just miss one..." Her eyes were bleak.

"Megure-keibu has the names of the others," the boy beside her told her, "and I'll have him a secondary list tomorrow. This isn't a cure or even a vaccine, it's just a palliative; but it's better than nothing. And it'll help when we go up against the _real_ disease." Shinichi's teeth gleamed briefly, a bit of his own predatory nature showing in his childish face. "If the Organization can't get what they want by their usual means, then chances are they'll either back off or get sloppy. If they back off, then at least there'll be less children going missing; if they get sloppy, then..." The smile sharpened, developing fangs. "Just one actual agent in custody, just one..." He drew in a deep breath, small fists tightening white-knuckled where they rested against his knees.

"Shinichi. _Shinichi._Don't-" Ran reached out, brushing the soft hair on top of his head; he looked up, startled. "Don't get too hopeful. They're awfully good at staying invisible, aren't they?" Her eyes were anxious, and she leaned against his small frame. "And good at keeping their people hidden."

"Yeah, they are." Fangs again, that familiar hunter's look; sometimes Ran wondered how she'd missed it, even on Conan's little-boy features. "But sooner or later they're going to slip. And when they do, the game'll be up." Seeing the distress in his girlfriend's face, though, the detective visibly wrenched himself onto a different subject. "-but enough about that. Speaking of games... want to hear about what playing chess with Kid is like?"

Ran grinned down at the shorter of her two most important people. "I think I already know- kind of like a heist, only without a hang-glider or people waving handcuffs. And no great big sparkly jewels-" She flipped around, flattening out on the couch again, this time with her head in Shinichi's lap; "Did you win?"

"No. And yes..."

Move by move, the game was detailed out; at one point they interrupted things to put the frozen pizzas that Ran had picked up into the oven. Not a chess-player, the detective's daughter was still duly impressed by the intricacies and pure lengthiness of the battle, and after a particularly enthusiastic depiction of a series of moves began to giggle. Shinichi paused, hand in mid-sketch of an invisible chessboard and an immaterial rook; "What? What's so funny?"

Her eyes crinkled. "If you'd been your real self, I bet you would've tackled him right then."

"...!..."

"C'mon, admit it, Shinichi... Fighting him gets you all hot and bothered," she teased him, fingers capturing his; he squirmed beneath her, mouth opening in indignation. "And I know, you're too small and not exactly set up, um, physically and everything, but- you _were_thinking about it at the time, weren't you?"

"Um. Maybe."

"Knew it." Ran settled back happily against Shinichi's lap again, pleased with herself. "So how did the game end?"

_That_ took a lot of describing, both the endgame and its aftermath. By the time he'd finished, his girlfriend's cheeks were blushed with pink, and her eyes were bright. But she said nothing, only turning over and propping her chin again on one palm before reaching out to tap his nose with one fingertip. "I was right," she said softly, dimpling. "Fighting him _does_make you-" She cut herself off as Shinichi turned equally red. "But seriously, Shinichi? I think that game did you both a lot of good."

"Both?"

"Mmhmm." Ran tilted her chin towards his laptop. "You're not as depressed as you would've been, going through those files- not like before, I mean. You're not so weighted down; you're thinking about ways to fight, not ways that we've failed. That's good."

The boy considered this... and smiled a little. "I suppose I am. It feels good, actually figuring out a preventative measure that might work; like I said, just a palliative, but still." The smile hovered, angling Conan's face and turning it into something resembling Shinichi's sharper features in ways that went beyond mere flesh and bones. "I guess the next thing to figure out is-"

DING! In the Kudo kitchen, the oven timer went off, announcing that their pizza was ready.

"-what'll we do next?" Ran gave her boyfriend a Look. _"Eat pizza._And watch a movie. What did we tell Kid a while ago? 'All work and no play...?'" She slid off the couch, heading kitchenwards, her hair tousled. "What do you want to watch this evening, Shinichi?"

"Hmm..." Shinichi considered for a moment and then chuckled. "I've got a subbed cut of _Knight Moves_with Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane. Murders and strategy and tournaments... unless you're tired of talking about chess-?"

Ran gave him another Look as she slid on an oven-mitt. "That's fine, Mister Detective Otaku," she murmured, opening the oven door. "But I bet _their_end-game won't be nearly as romantic as yours was."

* * *

Part way through the movie Ai arrived in the Kudo house den with the look of someone carrying a message. She stood to one side of the doorway, waiting for her turn at Ran and Shinichi's attention, but it was obvious that her patience was wearing thin. Shinichi reached forward to find the remote and put the movie on pause.

"Something bothering you, Haibara?" he asked, refusing the urge to get up immediately. It was warm in the curl of Ran's arm, dammit, and he didn't want to give up their time together just yet. "You look worried."

"That's a fair enough about approximation, Kudo-kun. I said, 'The professor and I are currently entertaining an unusual guest. I think she would like it if you came over to join us.'"

Shinichi and Ran exchanged concerned glances, and Shinichi tried not to think about how Ran's arm tightened instinctively around his shoulders. In the doorway, Ai just stood unmoving, her narrowed eyes observing and dismissing the importance of Shinichi's sentimentalism.

With a sigh, the detective ceded to the inevitable, and reluctantly untangled himself from his girlfriend's embrace.

"I'll just be a few minutes, Ran," he said, but it was obvious that even he didn't believe his words.

"It's okay, Shinichi," she said. Her voice was patient but weary. "I'd feel better if I could come along with you, though." Ran looked to Ai, her voice considering.

The small scientist frowned. "You might as well come along," she said, and it occurred to Ran as she watched that Ai's poor temper was significantly more pervasive than usual.

"Is everything okay, Ai?" Ran asked, her voice hesitant. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, honestly, but Ai seemed grim.

"No more nor less than usual," Ai said, her tone truly sardonic. "Can it ever be said of mine and kudos lives that all is truly well?"

Wincing, Ran nodded her acknowledgement of the unfortunate truth. Meanwhile, Shinichi cleaned up their dishes and turned off the television and DVD player; now wearing a heavier sweater, he stood waiting for the other two, a thin frown on his face.

"No need to be perverse, Ai," he said, frowning at her. "Ran, you may want to bring a sweater. The tunnel may be chilly at this time of night."

"Whatever you choose, please choose it expediently." Ai, obviously impatient with the other's casual attitudes, headed for the tunnel ahead of them. Hurrying to catch up, Shinichi and Ran shared a frustrated and worried glance, wondering what sort of crisis would be visiting them next.

* * *

"COOL KID!"

Barely through the kitchen door of Agasa's end of the tunnel, Shinichi jerked to a sudden, startled stop. He blinked, eyes wide, experiencing an overwhelming flood of relief and dread, inextricably mixed. "_Oh._"

Behind him, Ran's eyes were wide in surprise as well, and she looked to Shinichi for guidance in the few moments remaining before her English teacher, one of the leading FBI agents assigned to the Black Org case in Tokyo, the woman able to send ice up the spines of every fluent Japanese speaker in a 50 meter radius with a single exclamation – that is, Jodie Saintmillion – entered the kitchen, arms spread wide.

"Cool Kid!" Shinichi didn't even have time to duck before Jodie was on him, squeezing half the life out of him with an enthusiastic hug. "I haven't seen you in _for-ever!_ And you were so sick! Are we were worried! It's much harder to work when you're not around," she continued, beaming at him with the sort of alarming intensity one might expect from a a young girl facing a unicorn. "Dai-_jou_-bu des _ka_?" she continued, throwing emphasis into the words seemingly at random. "I'm going to be your private tutor! So you don't have to go to school and be in danger! Abunai yo, gakuen desu-_ka!_ Chou ben-kyo mai_ni_chi desu, ne?"

In pain, though he couldn't have conclusively said whether it was due to his growing headache or Jodie's excruciating and completely false broken Japanese, Shinichi held up both hands in a placating gesture, trying to gain back some of his personal space - and hopefully, interrupt her before she could continue. "Jodie-san. Jodie-san–- _Jodie-san_," he said again, raising his voice to get her attention. "Hi. It's been a while. Jodie-san, this is Ran, as you know." He paused for emphasis. "My _girlfriend._"

Finally silent, Jodi sat back on her heels and stared from Shinichi to Braun and back again, repeating the process several times when her gaze finally settled, it did so on Ran. "Ohhhhhhhh," she said, her expression comically wide-eyed. "You're a shota-chan, Ran-kun?"

Red-faced and choking, Ran shook her head violently while Shinichi pressed fingertips to his temples. "This isn't going all that well. Jodie-san, I'm not what I appear." He leveled a glance on her which, since he had taken the Conan glasses right back off as soon as he'd seen it was her, had an entirely different quality to it than any expression she'd seen on him before. A strange, new light came into her eyes as she looked at him as though it were the first time.

"...I think I'm going to need some really good alcohol before you tell me this story!" she said, beaming. "How about some bourbon?"

From the doorway, the clank of glass against wood drew their attention. "I would suggest _Paikaru_," Ai said, her voice dry as bones. Shinichi winced as she glared at him. "I suppose this was inevitable," she continued, shrugging one small shoulder as she turned away from them, carrying a bottle of wine half her size toward the living room. "That doesn't mean I have to go through it sober."

Staring now at Shinichi, Ai, and Ran in equal measure, Jodie allowed herself to be led back into the living room, where Professor Agasa sat where she'd left him, now looking very awkward on his sofa.

"As I was _trying_to tell you, Jodie-san," the professor said apologetically, looking very embarrassed, "Ai and Kudo-kun have some special circumstances of their own."

* * *

As quoted from the classic American sitcom, Shinichi had some explaining to do. It took a while.

He had been considering contacting the FBI sooner or later, anyway; it was the logical next step in the process of eliminating weak places in his surrounding support and strengthening the defenses provided by the forces of law and order. Equally, of course, the more people that became privy to he and Haibara's true identities, the more chances for the information to be leaked; but for the moment, this particular risk seemed appropriate to be taken.

…even if it was giving him a _very_severe headache.

Shinichi had to give Jodie-sensei—Jodie Santemillion, Jodie Starling, whatever her actual name was—credit for one thing: once she dropped the silly-ass act, she was all business and intellect, though modified somewhat by her obvious horror over what she was told (and by what he suspected to be self-congratulatory vindication. Apparently she had more than suspected something of the sort.) To his dismay, Ai seemed to have noticed this as well; they weren't quite getting along as yet, but there was a noticable lack of Ai's usual animosity in regards to the FBI agent. Maybe it was the wine?

For wine there certainly was. Agasa had produced a surprisingly nice 2002 Blaufrankisch in lieu of Paikaru (something Ai probably wouldn't have touched under fear of death anyway); disconcerted, Shinichi had watched the portly man pour the Austrian wine into three glasses… and then a fourth, half-full, which he presented to the diminutive scientist as he passed one each to Jodie and to Ran.

"None for me?" Despite his best efforts a slightly sulky tone made it through.

Haibara gave him a cool stare over the rim of her glass. "Since my own brief transformation in the Haido Hotel warehouse, Agasa-hakase and I have experimented with the application of alcohol in both its distilled and fermented forms on live cells supplied from both your and my tissue cultures; Paikaru seems to have an effect which is not duplicable by other beverages… in _my_samples. On yours, the results vary, and therefore alcohol in all its forms is strictly off-limits for you." Rather pointedly she took a sip from her glass and regarded the vintage calmly. "Ingestion, injection, topical application… We've also tried these methods as well, though very sparingly and obviously not with Paikaru; all they've done has been to give me something of an appreciation for French Beaujolais and a strong dislike for rye whiskey, as well as an understanding of just how limited this body's tolerance of alcohol actually is."

"Ai-chan, you, um-" Brow furrowed, Ran blinked at the girl. "You drink?"

"Only under strictly controlled conditions."

_...and these fit the criteria __how__?_ Settled in on one of Agasa's comfortable couches, Shinichi watched Jodie-sensei carefully as she smirked down into her wine. She was still a trifle wide-eyed and unnerved, but the spate of questions that she had hammered him with immediately following Shinichi's matter-of-fact explanation had abated with the statement that a lot of trouble could've been avoided if he'd just gone to the authorities right away instead of hiding. _"Easier said than done, especially when we still don't know how deeply those authorities have been infiltrated,"_ he'd answered dryly. For a moment her eyes had flashed deadly serious, narrowing in a way that wasn't silly-ass at all.

It was something of a comfort, Shinichi thought as he rather morosely headed into the kitchen for a glass of fruitjuice, that the very small contingent of the American FBI that they were going to have to deal with did not, at least, have to be convinced of the Black Organization's existence.

They already knew the truth.

"-temporary so far, at best, though considering Kudo-kun's recent progress I do believe I'm on the tight rack." Haibara blinked and shook her head slightly as Shinichi paused in the the kitchen doorway. "...ah. On the right track, that is."

"More wine?" suggested Jodie, holding out her glass. The Professor, face slightly flushed, hastened to pour. Ran traded a look with her boyfriend but willingly held out her own glass even as Shinichi settled in beside her on the couch.

For a while, they talked; this time, the young detective sat quiet and let Ai and Ran do the work of explaining his and Haibara's 'special circumstances' without his input. It was a little strange, a little Conanish, to draw back and listen to the adults talk; as the conversation became more animated and lively (and the bottle became empty, replaced by a 2003 St. Laurent), Shinichi finally dropped out of the conversation altogether and merely listened.

"-all that time?" (Ran sounded miffed.) "If you'd told us you actually worked for the FBI, Shinichi might've come forward sooner-"

"Doubtful." (Haibara sounded... remarkably cheerful?) "As it was, he had to be shoved bodily into it anyway."

"Really?" (And Jodie-sensei sounded incredulous. Not good.) "Surely you'd think he'd be eager to finally _explain_, given the chance. What _is_ it with men and their secrets?" At Shinichi's outraged sputter, the agent made one of her characteristic broad gestures. "Yes, yes, but I was under orders, Kudo-kun, wakarimaaaa-su ka? You, on the other hand, had a lovely young woman _pining_away for you, ne~e?" She waved her glass; it sloshed. "Tsk, Kudo-kun, tsk!"

Wilting under the tripartite feminine glare, the detective clutched his glass of juice defensively. "I wastrying to keep myself and everyone close to me alive," he pointed out.

Ran sniffed. "That's no excuse," she told him. "And don't think I've forgotten all those phone calls. And the next time you're adult again I'm going to remind you-" (she hiccuped behind one hand) "-excuse me- and, and you're going to spend _hours and hours_making it up to me-"

"Really?" Jodie-sensei leaned forward; she seemed to be holding her alcohol much better than her fellow female imbibers (the Professor had stuck to a mere two glasses, possibly out of terror of Haibara's sharp tongue) and now she cocked an interested eyebrow at Ran. "How?"

"Sharpie marker," said Ran automatically- and clapped a hand over her own mouth, eyes enormous; she flushed bright crimson.

"-aaaaaand that's **absolutely enough**wine for you," muttered her boyfriend, taking her half-full glass away and setting it down on the table; hand still in place, Ran nodded hard and fled the room. Shinichi watched her go before turning back to the silent trio who sat watching him owlishly. "You've probably had enough as well, Haibara," he pointed out, glaring daggers at the diminutive scientist.

"I," Haibara announced in her most don't-make-me-point-out-what-an-idiot-you-are tones, "am _quite_capable of judging the capacity of my current form and when it has reached sufficiency." She placed her empty glass on the table and slid off the couch, house-scuffed feet finding firm purchase on the floor. For a moment she stood there, firm and unwavering and-

-swayed once, briefly.

"Ah; shimatta. Kudo-kun? Please take care of the arrangements, would you? Thank you, I believe I'll go see how Mouri-chan is." Determinedly upright and moving with care, Haibara Ai left the room as well.

"...You know, I've never heard her swear before, not even once," said Shinichi thoughtfully. He turned to Jodie-sensei; "Arrangements-?"

"For your schooling, of course," said the agent cheerfully; she downed the last of her glass and picked up Ran's discarded one. "Just because I came to teach little Conan-kun and little Ai-chan, there's no reason I can't simply move things up a few grades. Or, well, a dozen; I _am_ certified, you know," she added, "and despite your 'special circumstances', there's no reason you can't plan on taking the appropriate tests for a high school diploma... so long as you have a qualified private tutor listed as in charge of your instruction. Or didn't you wantto graduate, Kudo-kun?"

He blinked. Hard.

_Graduate?_Shinichi was aware that he was probably goggling in a very visible manner; but he couldn't really bring himself to care about that. After his conversation with Ran- not that long ago at all, really, though so much and so many events had passed between then and now- and he finally, finally had begun to consciously think about what his life would become even after the cure; what his life could never become, and he'd begun the process of accepting that. He really had, and for somebody who had been so certain and so sure of exactly how his life would turn out, well... well. And now Jodie was offering it all back, easy as a whim with that offhanded sort of smile and nudge that she always used around him as though it was no big deal to suggest that Kudo Shinichi's real life didn't have to completely abandoned his planned life.

"Yes," Shinichi said finally, with more emphasis than he'd intended- and he'd intended emphasis. "Yes, I do want to graduate. Yes... I do."

Jodie smiled, and if she could tell that her suggestion had rattled Shinichi so significantly, she didn't say anything about it. Instead she just nodded and launched into a lengthy prattle about the technicalities, the paperwork, the details. She mentioned the possible necessity of a forger in the near future, and _that_drew Shinichi's attention. But mostly Jodie rambled and rambled, and Shinichi sat quiet, not really listening, thinking about the possibility that reports of his fatalism had greatly been exaggerated.

"Jodie-san," Agasa intervened, narrowly succeeding in cutting off a lengthy tangent which would over its course probably involve much more detail about the suspected liaison of Jodie's coworkers than either Shinichi or Agasa were comfortable with. The scientist smiled, mildly sheepish, and in as sensible way as he knew how, indicated the clock on the opposite wall. "Could we continue this discussion at a later time? We very much appreciate your offer and your support, but-"

With a squeak of alarm, half English and half Japanese, Jodie jumped up, waving her hands. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to- well. I talk," she said, smiling. Agasa was relieved to see that she didn't even try to affect the ditzy act. "Thank you for having me, Hakase- I'll just see myself out."

"No need," Shinichi answered, standing. And though diminutive, he still managed to exude the air of a concerned host as he proceeded Jodie to the door. "Thank you very much again, Jodie-sensei."

"No worries at all, Cool Kid!" Jodie said, winking. "You make sure to tell Ran-chan she has nothing to worry about! We'll keep this shota-chan business just between us, okaaaay?"

The door closed behind her.

* * *

_Knock-knock-knock._"Mouri-chan? Please come out."

"No."

"Whatever you said that's so embarrassing, it cannot be that bad." Outside the bathroom door, Haibara Ai crossed her arms.

"Go away." There was the sound of water splashing.

The scientist cleared her throat delicately. "I would, except that, ah, necessity requires that you leave the bathroom _fairly quickly,_ Mouri-chan. You aren't the only one needing the facilities..." This wasn't precisely true, but it gave good results; a mortified noise came through the door and the water shut off hastily. Moments later, a flushed-face detective's daughter opened the door with speed; her hair tendrilled damply around her face where she'd splashed it (obviously to clear the lingering effects of the wine) and she muttered an apology even as she slipped past Ai. The unchildlike child shook her head (_'Sharpie markers'? I suppose I'm better off not knowing_) and watched her go.

Sounds beyond the bathroom door told Ai that Kudo-kun had rejoined his girlfriend; doubtless the FBI agent had left, which was all to the good, she supposed. The woman had proved remarkably likable, though, surprisingly so; and if what the scientist was deducing from the conversation that she could half-hear was correct, then what Kudo-kun called 'kiddie school' would at least be a thing of the past.

_Good,_ Ai thought with satisfaction as she dried her hands. _Let 'Haibara Ai, gradeschooler' be laid to rest with her coloring books and elementary kanji textbooks._She'd miss the Shonen Tantei, though... in truth, she already did.

Odd, what one could get used to.

Kudo-kun seemed to be in the midst of a very intense, rather amusing conversation with his girlfriend when Ai found them both seated in Agasa's informal den. By the little smile lurking on Mouri-chan's face, she had apparently regained her equanimity; and Kudo-kun seemed to be quite pleased with himself as well if a bit shell-shocked. Ai watched them with curiosity as they spoke quietly together, the larger and smaller heads tilted close. She wondered a little distantly what it must be like, that intimacy, the desire to share so immediate and intense that it invaded every facet of one's life... and shook her head mentally at her own fancies; doubtless it was the wine.

Agasa's eyes rested on her with fondness, and she gave him a reassuring smile in return before accepting the glass of cool water he'd poured her.

_Doubtless. How fortunate that I do not seem to share the need for such closeness._ Still smiling, Ai drank deeply.


	71. Bring the lamp closer, Kaito

_Welcome to Three Thieves. This week you get a bit of everyone, but especially the Kuroba brothers. Read slowly, think calmly, question carefully, comment copiously._

Welcome.

* * *

.

**Book Six, Chapter Six****: "Bring the lamp closer, Kaito."**

The chess game - and Jodie's visit - were Wednesday. Shinichi spent an hour or so before bed writing emails to the rest of the Shonen Tantei, telling them how much he wished he could go on the camping trip they had planned for the weekend, and that he was doing well on his own, watching lots of fun movies and reading very interesting things. Mitsuhiko had emailed to make sure that Shinichi was keeping up with his handwriting practice; with a wince, the detective responded that yes, he was practicing, and no, he hadn't yet perfected some of the more difficult characters which Mitsuhiko had showed him on one of their last shared school days together. Genta's email mainly had to do with food; whether Shinichi was eating enough, whether he was eating good food, whether the Professor was making him eat gross food. He also wanted to know about Haibara's condition, whether she was eating enough, and he closed by offering to send some of his share of lunchtime unagi to Ai the by way of their parents.

Shinichi left that one unanswered for the moment, deciding that he would like Haibara to see the email herself before responding either way about the unagi idea, and moved on to the most recent email in his inbox. That one was from Ayumi, whose use of panicked, all-capital letters had decreased as more time had passed since the attack on Conan and he clearly failed to be attacked again and/or perish. Shinichi read the email with interest, smiling to see that Ayumi had included very little actual content, casual and mostly idle rambling which talked around and around her obvious impulse to tell Conan how much she missed him, how much they all missed him, and how horrible everything was and had become since the attack.

_She's a good kid,_ Shinichi thought to himself, typing out an email which answered most of Ayumi's more interesting topics. _She knows that asking me if I'm okay or telling me how not okay they all are would just worry me. That's a really brave thing for an eight-year-old—no, a nearly nine-year-old girl — to be able to do._Then, not entirely certain that it was the right decision, Shinichi still chose to indulge his impulses and included as his final paragraph of his email one extra line.

_We miss you guys too, Ayumi. It's easier for us to be brave because you're being brave too. Thank you.  
Conan_

Aside from emailing the Shonen Tantei, the night following Jodie's visit was mostly just focused on recovering Ran, the Professor, and Haibara from the effects of their wine. Then Ran stayed the night, as did Shinichi, as neither of them wanted to separate just yet, nor did they want to return to the Kudo mansion before Shinichi's parents had returned home. You never knew what you would be walking into when Yukiko was involved. When she and Yuusaku did return, however, they came through the tunnel in search of their child and found him curled up in Ran's arms on the couch in Ai's examination room. Yukiko woke Ran, and Yuusaku carried Shinichi, despite the protests which the boy made when the motion of his father carrying him woke him up. The four returned to the Kudo mansion, and Haibara closed the door joining the Agasa house with the Kudo tunnel behind them, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

From Thursday onward, the days proceeded similarly. Ran was busy with about ten things at once, so Shinichi tried to stay out of her way as she juggled taking care of her father, keeping an eye on Sonoko to make sure that she was actually filling out the paperwork she was claiming to do, and keeping an eye on Shinichi to make sure that he actually remembered to eat, drink, and occasionally bathe himself as he buried himself in the work of examining the data from Division I. It was easy for him to lose half a day that way, looking up from his computer and past stacks of files to notice that the sun was setting, or Ran was standing in front of him with a meal or cup of cocoa. More frequently than he would have readily admitted, though Ran surely could tell each time, the type of food which she brought to him was what reminded him what time of day it was.

His father and mother assisted as well, though something about Shinichi's attitude gave them the sense that he would preferred Ran's help to their own. They didn't take offense, of course, though Ran did address them with some distress as she helped them prepare dinner on Saturday night. The Professor and the Shonen Tantei had been gone for a full day by that point, up in the mountains on a camping trip which had been planned since long before Shinichi's attack meant that Haibara and he would not be attending. Though she had been invited to join the Kudos for dinner, Ai instead opted to stay on her own in her laboratory. She was the only one who didn't realize that it wouldn't stick for very long. Personally, Ran believed that as soon as the food was on the table, Yukiko would phone up Haibara with some fabricated emergency and make the girl rush over entirely under her own power. She also believed that Yukiko was the only one who wouldn't take the threat of Ai's retribution very seriously at all.

"I'm trying to make him focus on something other than the screen," Ran told his parents with concern. "That at least to talk with you as well. You're not in town all the time, and I feel badly that he's not paying you any mind right now. You should spend time together, you've been apart so long..." Ran trailed off as Yukiko laughed happily, leaning into her husband's arm in a casual embrace.

"It's okay, Ran," she said with a smile. "He knows we're here, and he can also tell that we're not leaving in the immediate future, either. Otherwise he would be paying mind, and we know that." Her smile was knowing, less of a mother's smile than that of a co-conspirator. "And we are both very used to this pattern of working, too. Where do you think he gets it from, anyway?"

Looking embarrassed, Yuusaku nodded. "The English phrase is 'a chip off the old block,'" the writer said, leaning a bit to the side to look through the doorway into the living room, where Shinichi was rattling away on his keyboard. "You've never seen me in need-to-write mode, have you, Ran?"

Shaking her head slightly, Ran felt that she could understand, in part, why her boyfriend was so strange. Well, why _this_boyfriend was so strange. The other one was strange in all sorts of creative ways, but Shinichi and Shinichi's strangeness really did have its own clear sources, when you knew how to look for them. "Well," she said, sighing and hoisting a tray of food high onto her shoulder, "At least he's not being all depressed this time. If he started letting the case eat him up like that again, I— I don't know what I'd do, but it would probably involve walruses, or—or something!"

"Walruses?" All three in the kitchen turned, with varying levels of guilt or glee, to face the diminutive speaker now leaning against the doorframe. "I'm not completely incommunicative," Shinichi protested, frowning in a way that on his normal face would have looked disapproving, and on his smaller face simply looked adorable. "I answer when people say my name," he continued.

"He's so cute. Isn't he so cute? He is so cute." Yukiko advanced on her son with a gleeful, predatory look in her eye, and Shinichi backed quickly away towards the library while Yuusaku and Ran brought their dinner, chosen because it could be eaten from trays instead of at a table, and thus could be shared between all four of them even while they worked.

Together, they got the meal set up and arranged, and the dinner conversation that followed was more of a brainstorming sort of round-robin than an idle discussion of topics and interests. Yuusaku's new book plot, Ran's troubles with Sonoko and the college application process, Yukiko's continued concerns over which production currently courting her services she should sign with, and of course, most prominently, Shinichi's work with the Division One case, were all discussed— though not in any sort of linear fashion. After the meal, Yuusaku pulled a chair up beside his son's, and instead of beginning work on his own writing, peered over Shinichi's shoulder and offered critique until they were both tired enough to go to bed.

* * *

In this way, by Monday Shinichi had made significant progress in applying filters and categories to the data provided by Division One's hacker in order to make the data useful for the investigation at hand. He was grateful, in a sort of backwards way, that the hacker had not been provided with the intended purpose of the data he or she had gathered. Though it had taken several days of work sorting and organizing the raw figures that they had been provided with, Shinichi knew that the fewer people who knew the true investigative intent of Division One's work, the better. Especially when those persons were in anonymous and inherently trust-questionable positions, such as this hacker was.

Contact from Kid and Kaito, meanwhile, had been sparse but steady, and in the meantime Shinichi had related Kid's warning—and his clues—for Ran's benefit many times over the intervening days between the chess match and the next week's start. It had reached the point where Ran looked at Shinichi with a serious, fond, and utterly exasperated expression, and informed him that if he rehashed the thief's message one more time within her range of hearing, he might have to deduce how to remove duct tape from his own mouth when his hands were handcuffed to a bed.

"Ran, he was giving me a clue. I think it's about a heist." Though Shinichi's tone could not have been more intense nor more earnest, Ran was unimpressed.

"Yes, he might have been. And so what if he was? You, Mr. Detective, have more things to focus on besides decoding clues about what our crazy boyfriend is going to tell us anyway, any day now. Focus on the mysteries where you're not going to get the answer book handed to you, and not the ones that are only presented to you for fun."

"It's _not_ just for fun," Shinichi reminded Ran, frowning. "Kid has more at stake than just games and jewelry. I feel like I want to help him with it... I want to actively... _help him_with it." The detective looked distressed by this admission, and Ran sympathetically nodded.

"That's a big deal for you, isn't it?"

"It is," Shinichi admitted, looking at his girlfriend with grateful but somewhat overwhelmed eyes. "I want to help an international criminal more effectively and quickly break international law... I can't _believe_I just said that."

Ran laughed, pulling Shinichi close, and hugged him, resting her cheek against his temple. "But you don't," she corrected him, her tone smug but not sanctimonious. "You want to help Kid, not 1412."

"And Kaito," Shinichi added, sighing. "I know that they'll let us know what they're up to soon enough, but that doesn't mean that I'm any good at being patient about it."

Ran raised both eyebrows at the boy she had known since childhood, and who (this was important) had demonstrated on _many, many occasions_just how bad he was at patience. She was halfway through recalling some of the more interesting ones out loud and with detail when a muffled chuckle made them both look up. Agasa was leaning against the doorjamb, eyes amused. Shinichi, who was already half-scowling in embarrassment, eyed him. "What?"

"Oh- just remembering." At Shinichi's glare, he elaborated. "Your parents, Shinichi-kun; they used to go on in very much the same way. Come to think of it," he murmured, rubbing at his moustache thoughtfully, "they still do. I can hope that you and Ran-chan and, err, whoever else you, erm, choose to add... have the same chance to do so for many, many years." His smile was warm, directed at the memory of a very young not-yet-famous mystery writer as well as at the boy before him, and both teenagers colored a little as they smiled back despite themselves. "Speaking of which," added the scientist, changing topics, "We haven't seen your, ah, friend around lately; is everything well with him?"

The two looked at each other. "...I think we'll have to get back to you on that one," said Shinichi, his smile slightly quelled by Ran's _If you get started I __will__ find the duct-tape_expression. "But I'll let him know you were asking."

* * *

At a further distance from the Agasa house in Beika than any of its inhabitants would believe possible, Kaito leaned over Kid's shoulder - in a figurative sense, of course, which for the moment was a fortunate fact of his existence - and hummed.

"A little busy here, Magician," Kid muttered back, speaking around the assortment of thin metal implements pinched between his teeth and lips.

"Mmm," Kaito nodded, flipping forward. Within their private awareness of their world, both Kid and Kaito sensed, in a strange combination of not-sight, not-scent, and not-touch, the motion and weight of Kaito's presence moving. A single hand on Kid's shoulder anchored him; Kaito "flipped" over the thief's shoulder, twisting around to face his brother as he rearranged himself and came to a resting stop some distance below Kid's head. The magician reached up, idly running his fingers through the thief's hair, and hummed again.

"Our hair needs a trim," he observed, flicking the downward-hanging strands of bouncy brown hair back and forth. With a tsk of mild irritation, Kid adjusted the firm grip he held on the nylon climbing strap wrapped around his right wrist and craned his neck back, eyeing the image of his brother floating below his own physical presence on the underside of a very cold, very textureless, and very precariously gravity-insulting perch.

"Magician. Either reorganize the molecules of my hands and feet so that I can magnetize myself to this blasted slippery building, or stop distracting me. I do not want to end my days in an unattractive mush of fleshy tissue down _there_." Kid stretched his left arm out, hand pushing through the image of his brother's sternum with no more consequence than if the image were a hologram, and pointed straight above his head.

Kaito rolled over in midair, lolling like a floaty raft in a perfectly safe swimming pool, and followed the line of his brother's pointed finger down twenty-seven stories to the cement sidewalk below.

"Oh, I don't know. It would keep Kaasan's secrets if our body couldn't be identified."

"_Kaito._" Kid's teeth ground against the metal tools held between them. "Shut up or help."

"Hai, hai," Kaito said, floating upward as Kid turned his attention to his task attached to the bottom surface of the structure again. With his insubstantial presence spooned behind his brother's very physical one, Kaito reached out toward the material of the building they currently clung to, sending lines of magic straight out from the tips of his fingertips. The thin filaments of power, vaguely visible, hooked into the building, almost as though they had barbed ends with which to dig in, and Kaito tensed his arms against the pull of the magic, holding the length of the threads static.

Kid breathed a single relieved sigh as he felt his brother's presence curl around his back and tensely braced legs like a cosy safety net. "Thank you," he murmured, working most of his tools into one cheek and tongueing a small, round bit out of the other cheek and to the fore of his mouth. He spat it into his fingertips and immediately began to apply it to his work, brow furrowed. "So what did you want to tell me?"

Kaito hmmed over his brother's shoulder again, watching Kid's hand work. The thief had to work one-handed, because even despite Kaito's support, the brothers' survival of this installation depended entirely on the grip that Kid held on the very sturdy purple climbing strap that wrapped around the corner of the structure and out of sight; its anchor was steady and concealed, and the tension that Kid exerted against it made it possible for him to brace his feet in counter-pull, effectively wedging him between a couple seams of the building and one pivot point.

Kaito would have lent a hand if he could have, but spending enough magic to physically manifest control over Kid's tools or equipment would have been foolish; the magic cost would far negate whatever help Kaito could have offered. Now that Kid seemed to have gotten past his difficult moment and was working quietly again on the work before them, Kaito figured a little quiet rambling couldn't hurt. Much the contrary, considering the subject matter.

"I was mostly muffling a chuckle," the magician explained, hooking his chin onto Kid's shoulder and leaving it there. "Your boyfriend evoked you. I don't think he meant to - or realized he did, but you've always been the brighter one."

Kid frowned. "I...can't actually decide whether to defend his honor or agree with you," he laughed, keeping his speech to their shared mental channel so as not to disturb the equipment he was manipulating with his mouth. "Evoked?"

"Not as though he was controlling it, no, but -" Kaito shrugged. His voice betrayed him, revealing a much more enthusiastic approval than he was trying to let on. "I'm not surprised, it's obvious that what he feels for you passed the level of normal emotional power a long time ago. I'm just amused that this time it was so focused - but quiet - that I could hear it."

"You're eavesdropping on my Tantei," Kid quipped, smiling thinly. "You voyeur."

"I confess it," Kaito deadpanned. "He and Ran were very entertaining last night. —Ack, watch it, you'll drop us!"

A moment of silent effort, in which Kid readjusted his body and balance, and released tension from the reflexive muscles which didn't need it, followed.

"...Sometimes I wonder about you, brother. In case you have the memory of a beetle, _hanging from bottom of skyscraper garden balcony! __**Slightly**__ preoccupied!_"

With another snicker, Kaito subsided, flexing his fingers against the pull of the thin cables of energy which helped to give himself and his brother purchase on the slick surface, and left Kid to his work.

* * *

If the previous week had been filled with intense and time-consuming work, Monday evening was anything but busy. Takagi had by now dropped off enough hacked information to keep a baker's dozen of inquisitive detectives occupied… detectives who had _lives_ and _other occupations_to take up their time as well, that is; in Shinichi's case, with no school (yet), no other cases (yet) and hardly anyone else around (again, yet; he expected this to change) in the Kudo residence, he tore through the accumulated data with ridiculous speed. And now, of course, he found himself with nothing much to do.

The absence of his parents was due primarily to Yukiko's acceptance of a contract regarding filming what she referred to as the 'Japanese _Gone With The Wind',_a culturally-modified creation that would keep her figuratively tearing her hair out over the next half-year or so. She hadn't been cast as the lead, somewhat to her displeasure; that role had gone to a bright young starlet with a strong fan-base and a dramatically popular set of measurements. It was her first starring role, and she could, Yukiko admitted grudgingly, act; she also had a lovely voice and even seemed to be showing signs of an actual personality, and therefore the older actress had agreed to spend a little time in private rehearsal that evening with the rising young idol.

Yuusaku had gone back to his usual post-research writing habits, i.e., finding himself a good coffeeshop near his wife's filming location to perch in with his laptop, roughing out the first draft of his latest book while drinking liters of the equivalent of high octane; it tended to make him jittery and absent-minded, but it kept him out of his wife's dressing-room and got the work done, which relieved everybody…

…except, possibly, Shinichi. Who, really, could have done with some company just then. It would have kept him from glancing at the calendar in the kitchen, or the desktop version on his father's desk, or-

Agasa, who had been absent with the kids over the weekend, was busy with—patents? That was what it had sounded like. Haibara had withdrawn to her basement to work on something that had to do with both genetic coding and possible medical uses for Apotoxin derivatives; Shinichi had the feeling that she was following some suggestion his mother had made and hedging her bets for the future. Ran was busy with _her_mother again, who had decided that it was high time she met even more of her professional circle of acquaintances and had made a point of meeting her that evening for dinner. What with Mouri still spending most of his time at the casino, Shinichi hadn't been 'home' in days.

_Home._ Sitting back with his laptop open in a silent, oversized house, the boy considered the word. _Home_ had once meant the Kudo residence; after that and for far too long it had become a nebulous concept, half Ran and her father's place, half nowhere. Now the word had come full circle, linking him back almost forcibly to the house he'd spent most of his years in… and he'd found that he likedthat. Some tiny bit of his brain allowed itself to relax, wrapped around with the comforting book-lined walls; and even the silence seemed less weighty than it might have.

He liked the idea of the tunnels linking both Agasa's and the Kuroba brothers' home to his; it made the isolation less… isolated.

Restlessly, Shinichi clicked open a new tab, bringing up 'Conan's' email; as expected, it was full of _OMG CAMPING TRIP_from the Shonen Tantei, and he smiled as he read Mitsuhiko's careful descriptions of the bugs he and the others had found and identified around their camp, the magpie that had stolen Genta's entire bag of chips and the small grass-snake that had been startled out of a pile of dead leaves. Ayumi and Genta's emails were full of much the same (with a few more exclamation points in Ayumi's in particular), and he spent a good deal of time answering them in Conan-speak. If a thread of wistfulness crept through now and then, well... that was in character, wasn't it? There was nothing wrong with missing your friends.

He sighed and sent the last response, closing tab after tab.

Down in the bottom corner of the screen the time hung in thin white characters: _5:45 PM._He'd disabled the date out of pure irritation after looking at it too often, but he knew it well enough- April 29th, 2010. The first official day of Golden Week.

And the anniversary of the original Kaitou Kid's death.

_I'm not going to think about it,_ Shinichi told himself firmly. _I'm not going to... I shouldn't... He won't want me to intrude. Not now. And what could I do, anyway? Text him and his brother and say something stupid and formal like 'My sympathies on the anniversary of your loss'? Or something equally stupid like 'Thinking of you'? They're both true; he said to wait until today, and I have, and I'll wait as long as he needs me to._

But I don't have to like it. Kid...

I'm here.

When you're ready, I'm here.

Closing his laptop without bothering to shut it down, Shinichi sat alone, wrapped in the silence of an empty house, waiting.

* * *

"Bring the lamp closer, Kaito."

Chikage reached out one hand to her son with quiet weariness; and the low light in the room illuminated only her face and Kaito's so that it briefly seemed that there was less space between them than was actually the case. It was around six in the evening, but the washitsu room at the top of the Kuroba mansion where Kaito, Kid and Chikage had gathered was much darker than the hour would suggest, as the fusuma were drawn to cover the glass doors which led to a long balcony that ran the length of the room, and served as its primary light source. The room was comparatively large, but arranged narrowly, a sixteen-tatami room of only four tatami width. Glass sliding doors spanned the length of one of the two long sides, currently covered by the fusuma; at the far end, the sliding shōji door provided entrance. At the other end, in front of the gathered Kuroba family, was a kamidoko shrine for the kamiof their deceased father and husband.

Chikage sat some distance from her husband's shrine, sitting with legs drawn up beside her on a futon mattress for comfort if not rest. Kaito brought one of the oil lanterns which provided illumination in the dim room closer as requested, placing it on the floor in front of his mother, and sat seiza beside her, palms on his knees. He was wearing his school uniform despite the fact that it hadn't been a school day. Regularity was useful sometimes, and tradition even more so; the respectful garments of Shinto held less usefulness to himself or his brother than garments with more practical symbolism to them, thus, the black school uniform of their everyday life was appropriate for the night. Their mother was dressed in black kimono, with white seals on the shoulders; a widow's kimono. A funeral kimono.

"Which gem did you pick this year?" she asked quietly, leaning her head on her sons' shoulder. "I have my guesses, but I'm probably wrong."

Kaito dug into his pocket.

The stone was neither small nor large: a middling grade, a middling carat-size, but a pure and perfect color. The brothers placed it gently in their mother's cupped hands, cupping one hand under her own. "It's a red jasper," Kid said, encouraging their mother to run her fingers across the surface of the smooth, flat stone. "Only semiprecious, but it has a wealth of meaningregardless."

"I was sure you would've gone for the bloodstone," Chikage commented, lifting her head to smile wryly at her sons. "Just melodramatic enough for you."

Kid chuckled. "You're mean, Kaasan," he whined, pouting for a moment; but the fingers of his other hand flipped outward, down, over each other; from the roll of his knuckles a dazzling cardinal ruby was produced. "I did bring a spare, though."

Chikage just smiled and hummed, curling close to hug her sons' arm again, and then released them. With care, Kid and Kaito squared their position as relative to the shrine, facing it respectfully; they bowed, Chikage bowing with them, and the three of them murmured words of greeting and conversation that they'd picked together and repeated many previous times.

The Kurobas greeted their absent father and husband, now the guardian _kami_of their family, and conversationally began to tell him what had kept them busy in the time since they'd greeted him last. They included words of power and veneration, as well as casual conversation and even a few teary-eyed jokes. Chikage spent some time reviewing the nervous wonder she'd felt to find Yukiko on her doorstep again after so many years. Kid hesitantly - then less hesitantly - told his father about his work and experiences in the past year, and the detective who'd followed him home and insisted that Kid keep him. Kaito snickered at that, reminding the others that Kid was rather enthusiastically interested in keeping Shinichi, too... and Kid, head bowed, addressed the shrine, asking for his father's blessing and protection on his detective, his girlfriend, and their lives.

"...Oh, and please help them not get tired of keeping me around, either— the cuddles are amazing," the thief added as an afterthought, grinning as his delivery made Chikage snicker.

"You're so like him," she murmured, lacing her fingers with his own and squeezing tightly. "So like."

"Thank you, Kaasan," Kid murmured, his throat thick. "There's no greater compliment."

The lanterns burned low, and they added more oil, keeping the portions low so as not to waste it. The oil was thickly scented and burned steadily, a more intimate light than the inorganic light of small lamps and less apt to cause spills than open candles. The light flickered off the two gems Kid and Kaito had brought, one dazzlingly bright and faceted, simplistic in its appeal; the other smooth, cool and luxurious in the hand, marbled darkly with intricate inclusions and veins.

At the altar, more gems answered the new pair. No mirror or single stone could have sufficiently served as the shintaiof Toichi Kuroba; too strong a person, too greatly in love with his wife and his sons, the physical repository which gave his family a concrete target for their veneration and longing had to be more than a single, simple item. So a collection of fine jewels and semiprecious stones, selected carefully by his sons, was his shintai. And each year, the collection increased. Each was shaped, sized, and cut differently. Some opaque, some faceted, some still in the raw, the gemstoneslay in a loose cluster around the base of a twin pair of portraits, two photographs and two facets of one great and greatly beloved man. The only characteristic which all the gems shared was their color; crimson alexandrite, drusy pyrite, ruby, garnet, red jade, carnelian, tourmaline, agate, zircon, coral, beryl, spinel - even a star ruby and a piece of reddest dinosaur bone. Every one of them looked bloody-black in the low light.

The Shintoist system of belief, a broad and multifaceted method of spirituality and by no means a codified religion, allows great breadth and discretion in the beliefs and customs of ancestor veneration and ways to pay respects to the deceased. Beneath the broad umbrella of _kami_ are many variations on a similar theme: spirits of the earth, natural forces of the weather, and essences of the whole world. From the consciousness and sentience of the deer of Nara to the great kami of Mt. Fuji-san to the spirits - the souls - of deceased relatives and friends, those who have moved on and those who remain close, watching and helping their remaining family, the Shintoist world is filled with _kami_, always close enough to touch. These venerated spirits, even those of the dead, are _with_the living as much as the cat that crosses their path.

The dual souls of the _kami_ - the gentle and assertivepaired souls, each representing an aspect of the kami's nature, and its ability to be changeable- this was the belief with which Kaito and Kid struggled most significantly, and most recurringly. Their father, Toichi Kuroba - a single man, a single soul. Chikage had told them as much, many times. He had not been split, as had they. He had been one man, one very ambitious, very kind, very loving man. A father, a husband, a playful man, a fierce idealist. His games had turned serious when whispers of Pandora reached his ears. He could have turned away - he could have closed his eyes to the clues, his ears to the implications, of a gem like that, of a legend that could convince powerful men and women to hunt it, or to ask him to do their hunting for them.

If he'd been a different man, he could have; but he wasn't, he hadn't, and he was dead now.

The beliefs of Buddhism and Shinto crossed often in the life of a Japanese family; Shinto at happy times, Buddhism in sorrow. The Kurobas cleaved closer to Shinto at all times, preferring spirituality to faith, having 'a good idea' to having a 'belief.' But the cycle of saṃsāra was one Buddhist teaching that they could not escape from - and escape they dearly wished to achieve. The Buddhist rebirth cycle: the belief that there was no soul, no _id_, that the sentience of a person flowed and changed form as many times as was necessary, as many lives as they needed, seeking to consistently rise higher in the hierarchy of sentient life. This was a belief with which, on its surface, Kaito and Kid had no complaints. But deeper, digging through its implications and the fears and anger of fatherless sons, they'd reached an uncomfortable, troubling possibility, one which haunted them recurringly.

Toichi Kuroba was dead; his bones were cold and burned clean, and his ashes held in a small jar, the only sort of container from which a thief and magician of his rank couldn't escape. Or could he? It had shaken Kid to the core of his being on the first anniversary of his father's death for which he was present - or, it could be phrased, for which he existed. Where had he been before? Kid and Kaito had stared at their father's _shintai_ and felt fear, real, true fear, because in a moment of flickering uncertainty and absolute clarity, they had wondered whether there was any _kami_ in the stones at all. After all...if Toichi Kuroba had been reborn, and the Kaitou Kid had never died, then who _was_ sharing space with Kuroba Kaito, anyway, and why did the_shintai_stones feel so cold?

Chikage had fiercely denied this possibility. Whether her eyes were full of fear or she was speaking from true certainty, Kid wasn't sure, and the uncertainty worried at him. Kaito only knew he had never before seen his mother consumed by such strength of conviction, literally to the point of forbidding through pure charisma the possibility of disagreement. _'You are my son,'_ she told Kid. _'You are my son. You are my son, not my husband. If you ever were my husband, you are not now. If you were ever Toichi, you are now Kid. It doesn't matter at all what was or what will be. Live now, my Kid. If Toichi's strength is in you, give his _kami _your thanks. If his spirit inspires you, bow with me to his shrine. If your glider flies with his knowledge, know your father is protecting a son he loves._

_'Don't question what you have been given. Live the life you have without petty ingratitude that you don't know its source.'_

Chikage's words from three years past echoed in Kid's mind, and Kaito bowed with him to their father's shrine, breathing deeply, staying calm, filling their mind with Kaito's memories of the father whom Kid never met.

On Toichi's shrine, incense burned beside the jewels, and small mochi had been brought as the morning offering. A daruma doll, one-eyed for a decade and counting, stood beside a small inkstone and vial of sumi-e ink. Though the ink would be dry by the time that the doll's second eye could be drawn in, after the wish symbolized by the doll was granted, it stood beside the daruma as a reminder, as though to say, 'Any day now, we'll need this. Any day now, we'll have found it.' Two haraegushi stood opposite these, on the other side of the shrine; at their foot, a third _haraegushi_lay flat, spread across the surface of the shrine. It was unlike the snow-white others; constructed from a deck of playing cards, this one's zig-zag lines were achieved by stitching the cards together at right angles to each other, and the red and black spots of the cards peppered the unconventional wand with color which Shintoist tradition would consider 'impure' and which Toichi would have thought a great laugh.

Despite the traditional elements of their family shrine, the Kurobas' annual observance of April 29th departed in some significant ways from traditional ancestor veneration; this was why, rather than Buddhism's more codified ritual, Chikage had raised her sons to use remembrances and respects for the dead which felt _right_for them and their unconventional little family - some Shintoist, some created whole cloth. The importance, for all of them, was in respecting the truth of their emotions.

"Kaito, there's getting to be quite a lot of gems, do you think you can keep them all aloft this year?" The magician's mother smiled at him playfully, nodding her head lightly at the quantity of precious rock on her husband's altar.

"Maybe," Kaito shrugged, flicking small sparks off his fingertips like water droplets; they landed on the jasper and ruby and began to dance, skittering back and forth across the surface of the gems as though static electricity or a similar force held them captive and compelled. "Kid and I had a difficult installation this afternoon and with the heist this weekend, I'd rather save my resources," he admitted. "I'll juggle for you next week, Tousan."

"He won't mind," Chikage smiled.

"We do have a heist planned," Kid added, addressing his mother and his father's shrine equally. "I'm sure Kaito could use help with the winnowing." Chikage nodded, and Kaito through Kid's eyes closed his own, drawing a deep breath. In the presence of his father's shrine, Kaito joined hands with his mother and grounded himself through his brother's presence, reaching down and outward, detangling the paths and threads of energy that he could feel in himself and in the world and things beneath him, as basic as the 'earth' and as complex as the futon they rested on. Like working tangled threads free of a larger bundle, Kaito let Kid and their mother help him keep his balance while he concentrated on the minutae.

The process always took a long time when done to such detail as Kaito did now; but Kid and Chikage, paying attention to the feel of Kaito's energy (and thus their own), were unaware of the hours passing. Kaito reached out around him, looping his fingers into the dense filament grids of magic to read their lengths, their origins and their potential, choosing which were troublesome, which would be useful, and which needed a bit of tugging to get them back into useable, properly flowing shape. Kid and Chikage felt the energy flow through and around them, able to understand what Kaito did, but by no means able to replicate even a tenth of his proficiency.

As deep breathing is in comparison to the energy work called reiki, so is reiki related to the alterations Kaito made within his own energy flows, and his brother's. Kaito touched the _ki_ of the living things around him, the _kami_ of the rest; in ways that could be compared to the careful, small, precise movements of a Bunraku puppeteer, Kaito moved his spirit through and among the webs of energy, arranging them around himself and himself around them until there were no more gaps, no more empty spaces between the edges of _him_ and the start of _them_. He fitted himself to the world and the world to him like a perfectly tailored suit to his body, or a dancer to her partner. He moved, and the webs of energy around him moved; they pushed, and he bent to match them. When he was done, the world's energy was not just around him, but through him, and his energy through it. Call it _ki_, _kami_, or magic; when Kaito breathed in, the world exhaled; when it drew breath, Kaito felt the push, the momentum and energy so perfectly aligned to his own that with a simple motion, a liquid step of his body, an arc and thrust of his arms, he could have propelled the magic of the world through him like water over a falls, and to as great an effect.

When he was done, and surfaced from his haze of concentration, the evening had progressed significantly, and the cracks between the fusuma leaked much less light than before. Kaito bowed to his father's shrine, thankful and furious as always, but feeling these, as well as the rest of his emotions, in a clear, ice-smooth way.

Kid grinned, twisting to look at Chikage over his shoulder. "I am never going to not get a thrill when he makes us feel like this."

"Technically, you're correct." Kaito blinked his way into their shared eyes; his facial features shifted, his expression entirely his own. Kid retained control of one hand to poke his brother in the cheek. "...Idiot. I just gave the whole body a tuneup, among other things. Your blood just went to the spa. Now your brain's drunk on oxygen."

"Now I have to excuse myself for a minute." Chikage rose slowly. Kid jumped up to support her as the bloodflow returned to her legs in a prickly rush. Kid and Kaito's body wasn't having that problem, despite sitting for so long, and their mother smiled to see it.

"Just give me a moment or two," she said, heading for the door and the bathroom beyond. "Could you two make some tea?"

"We'll start the water for the soba, too," Kaito nodded.

* * *

Dinner in the Kuroba house that evening was a quiet affair, as the meals of April 29th always were - cold soba and hot green tea. It was a simple meal, one suited to clearing the mind and focusing the attentions of the body on things more important than the vanity of fancy food. Soba nourished, gave energy, and was simple to make and to serve. Kaito, Kid, and Chikage sat together in the washitsu, sharing a large blanket between their two bodies, and ate informally and comfortably, slurping noodles and talking intermittently.

"Red jasper, mm?" Chikage smiled at her sons, leaning her head onto their shoulder. "'Protection against the night, stability and security against emotional strain and damages.'"

"'Courage,' and a mirror against negative energies," Kaito added, folding his hand into his mother's. "It seemed appropriate."

"You're planning something," she answered; it wasn't really a question.

"Yes," Kid said quietly.

"You've found something new?"

"Almost."

"I can't bear it if-"

"Kaasan, don't. It's not going to go like that."

"Just- just promise me you'll stay safe."

"We'll do our best, Kaasan. And...we'll have Tantei with us."

"He _brings_trouble."

"He brings _solutions,_" Kid countered, lifting his head to look his mother in the eye. "True, the only times when murderers and criminals don't congregate around him is when I'm around, countering his natural effect. But they _never_go undiscovered, Kaasan. He thinks of himself as a murder magnet, a harbinger of problems and pain...but I could as easily think of myself as a Quixote of impossible ambition. Yet neither of those describes us in whole.

"Where I bring safety, Tantei brings results."

"Together, maybe..." Chikage sounded hopeful.

"Maybe," Kaito allowed, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. "In the end, we may need the detective's results more than my brother's safety. But either way, they'll have my power."

Chikage folded her free hand tightly around the stones of the year, red jasper and ruby. Though it wasn't unfamiliar to her, the sensation of being so close to her sons when they were so deeply attuned to the energy of the world around them was not one that could be pushed to the back of her mind. Chikage closed her eyes briefly, feeling Kaito feeling her heart beat. Not for the first time, she wondered what the true extent of her son's power was. How much was the world spared because of his morality? Using his magic took huge costs from him, and his abilities were in no way without boundary. But the breadth of territory and ability between those boundaries, from stacking a card deck to containing and controlling the momentum of a falling human body (or three) to giving shape to the small forces in nature, sprites of fire and spirits of air...

_Thank you for watching over them, __hotoke,__ thank you, my dear Toichi._Chikage closed her eyes, resting her brow against her sons' shoulder. Eventually, she retired to bed and her sons settled her there, before heading out on their own task.

In the darkness of the washitsu room, oil lamps extinguished, the one-eyed daruma watched unsleeping.

* * *

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_Thank you for reading. If anyone more personally experienced in the use of the belief systems, items, and terms in this chapter would like to offer guidance or identify mistakes, I would appreciate it. _


	72. I wouldn't miss it for the world

Hallo, hallo, hallo... Time to ramp things up a wee bit. **halo**

I do believe this chapter will make a few wishes come true. 3 Please do let us know what you think- we'd really like to hear! And since it's rather a long chapter, let's get started... _The Management_

_._

_**Book Six, Chapter Seven**__**: "I wouldn't miss it for the world."**_

Shinichi woke suddenly, with the immediate and certain knowledge that he was no longer alone in the house. Wedged uncomfortably into the corner of his favorite chair in the Kudo library, Shinichi took stock of his situation slowly, moving minimally. His laptop, which had been resting on his knees, had ended up half on his hip, half propped on the seat of the chair. His head and shoulder rested on the arm of the chair, but his little Conan body was too small to rest there comfortably; his back was torqued from being stretched between that point and the sideways-twisted position of his hips. One arm was asleep, and one foot. His glasses and watch were on the table, out of immediate reach; the suspenders and shoes hadn't even been put on today, so those were out.

And, most importantly, there was a _massive_presence sitting not fifteen feet away from him, perfectly still. Shinichi tried to smooth his breathing, keep it as shallow as possible; there was still a chance that the intruder hadn't noticed that he was awake, and so he could probably-

"Tantei, I can _hear_you thinking. That, or there's steam coming from your ears from too much thinking. Come on, sit up; that can't be comfortable."

_Kid?_Shinichi blinked his eyes open, gaze fixing on the white shoes and pant cuffs of his favorite thief. Eye level? Oh. Shinichi blinked again, clearing his vision, and sat up; he grinned in unsurprise to find Kid perched on the back crest of the room's second armchair, ankles crossed daintily and heels tapping the back of the seat.

"Shoes off the upholstery," the detective greeted his boyfriend, one eyebrow raised. Kid glanced at his feet, then back at Shinichi; with a shrug and a smile, the thief folded one ankle over the other knee, without any threat to his precarious balance, and began carefully unlacing his white patent leather shoe.

"Well, I wasn't sure what you'd do when you noticed us, so I was keeping my shoes on in case I had to run away from your darts," Kid explained calmly, smiling a little from under the brim of the hat; his head was bent to his task, but Shinichi could tell he was smirking. "I didn't know if you'd recognize us before you woke up completely."

"I almost didn't," Shinichi admitted, watching Kid curiously. "So now I have questions." The thief looked up, expression open. "...Don't give me those Bambi eyes," the detective continued, laughing just a little, despite himself. "Even though you're really good at them. So why are you in uniform?"

"Can't deliver a notice without being properly attired, you know," Kid grinned. Crossing his socked feet beneath him, he flicked one white-gloved hand, wrist flexing quick and sharp. A white envelope, embossed and marked with his caricature, appeared suddenly between his first and middle fingers, and with them extended straight as though holding an _ofuda_, he flicked it across the distance between Shinichi and himself.

The detective snatched the notice out of the air with a quick hand, narrowing his eyes at Kid. "Second question, before I open this," he said, even though the notice in his hands felt like Christmas morning deferred for every second that it spent unopened. "What's different about you two? You feel...different." And much different - in very positive ways - than he'd expected or feared they would be, but he wasn't going to tell them that part.

Kid grinned, and told him.

"...Note to Self. Triple the Task Force personnel." Kid's grin notched a bit wider. "...On second thought, just tell Nakamori that we're fucked from the start. End of Note."

"Oh come on, Tantei," Kid wheedled, hopping down onto the seat of his chair and perching, crouched, with elbows on his knees. "You can't give up before the fight's begun. You don't even know the stage yet."

"I'm _not_ giving up," Shinichi corrected him, narrowing his eyes. "I'm just _saying_we might as well be realistic about how much batshittery is going to occur before I get cuffs around you."

"Oooh, kinky, Tantei," Kid cooed. Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Or should I not mention _that_bit until after the heist?"

Shinichi cocked one brow at his crazy thief. "After the heist?"

"This weekend...?" Kid prompted, beaming expectantly at the detective.

This weekend? _OH._"You didn't- you're not-" Shinichi's attention snapped to the notice in his hands, and he'd already begun to tear it open before Kid's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"Not yet," the thief purred, and Shinichi - Conan - looked up into brilliant, deeply blue eyes which were suddenly very close to his own indeed. "Not while I'm still _here,_Tantei. That wouldn't be fair; you'd tease clues out of me in an instant."

"I'm not so sure about that," Shinichi muttered, but let Kid guide his hands away from the envelope's sealed flap. Focusing on Kid's touch on his own skin reminded him of his second question, and he frowned, covering Kid's hand with his free one to hold him in place.

"You feel...it's like you're electric," he murmured. Fingertips touching Kid's skin, he could sense a hum of sorts - not 'hear,' and not 'feel,' but simply sense, with an awareness beyond the basic five. "Like there's electricity under your skin."

"Not quite electricity," Kid said, freeing his hands from Shinichi's and raising them slowly, fingers spread and crooked, toward the detective's face. "But energy, yes. Close your eyes and feel this."

Kid brought his fingertips to rest against Shinichi's face and temples, encompassing his child's features with ease. Each fingertip made a point of contact of which Shinichi was strongly aware, more strongly than normal by far. Kid's touch had always electrified him, but this was different, a vitality that had nothing to do with eroticism (though some part of his mind couldn't help but imagine the possible applications in that area as well). He leaned into the touch, eyelids suddenly much too relaxed to stay open, and his breath left and re-entered him on a deep, smooth sigh, the ease of which belied the cramps in his body.

"Mmm." Kid cradled Shinichi's head gently, drawing the detective against his body as he slowly relaxed. He bent to kiss Shinichi's hair, temples and nape and crown, stroking his fingers up into Shinichi's thick hair, thumbs lingering at his hairline. "Want a backrub?"

Mouth open to reply with the immediate affirmative that sprang to mind, the detective hesitated... and then, _very_regretfully indeed, reconsidered. "I- think I'd light up like a Christmas tree and then pass out cold," he said feelingly, pushing his head against the thief's touch like a cat despite his resolve. He looked down at his hands, now clutching Kid's sleeves. "But... remember that first time I worked on you here, right after that murder at the Italian place?" Shinichi flexed his fingers with a grimace; the dislocation and bruising of more than two weeks earlier had faded, encouraged both by time and by Ai's healing salve. They still ached occasionally, though, especially considering the abusive typing regime he'd been putting them through on a regular basis. "Could you work on my hands for me instead? And," he smiled up into the dark blue eyes so close to his, "you can save the backrub for when I'll really be capable of appreciating it- and returning the favor."

Just the thought of Kid touching him, working luminous, liquid heat into his muscles, one at a time- it was enough to send a shiver through Shinichi's small frame, make him swallow despite his currently shrunken state. He saw Kid catch the shiver and watched the other's eyes gleam with appreciation and amusement. _God._The things Kid made him do, the things he made him think of... It was criminal, that's what it was, Shinichi decided as, without another word, the thief leaned forward a little, settling against Shinichi's chair, and took one small hand into his gloved ones.

The energy thrumming beneath Kid's skin, there and not there, seemed to blur the definition between touch and touched; it took very little time for the detective to decide, dizzily, that he'd made the right decision in forgoing the backrub. _Pass out, hell; I think my brain'd fry itself like an egg,_ he thought as silky, strong fingers massaged the tired muscles at the base of his thumb from tense knots into lassitude. The effect, he realized after a moment, was curiously like what you got when you ran the mallet around the rim of a _suzu_ gong, a Tibetan singing bowl, a thrum felt curiously deep inside the bones. It sank into muscles and joints and bloodstream, firing off nerve endings like miniscule bottle-rockets, and he shivered again once before closing his eyes.

"I had a visitor the other day," Shinichi heard himself say; he was conscious that his chin had come to rest against the arm of the chair as the rest of his body went boneless. When had he decided to slump down like that? _Oh well. Ooogh-_"Jodie... Santemillion. Jodie-sensei... Mmph, right there-" It was hard to concentrate, but he gamely persevered even as the careful, incredible pressure traced the lines of stress in his hands as if Kid had been given a map. "Think I told you a little about her a while back, the FBI agent?" He felt his hand turned over and sighed as Kid began on the webs between his fingers. "She- um. She's... We told her. About me, I mean, not about you. Though I think she already knew about me, mostly."

_She knew. She might not've known __what__ she knew, but she knew enough. And now there's two sets of law enforcement who know about the Black Organization; if one goes, the other... ooh... the other'll still be there. Telling her turned a weakness into a strength._ The not-quite-there thrum of energy sent sparks through him, causing strange little flares behind his closed eyelids. _Wonder if... there, that's exactly... wonder if Megure'll see it that way, though?_"She and the others working with her- they're aware of the Organization, have been aware of it for some time now. The only people in any sort of power with the knowledge and, possibly, the firepower to actually bring them down. If they can." Eye still closed, he stretched, lethargy beginning to take over. "If... things... ever turn bad... if they ever go wrong..."

He paused. This next thing was hard to say, but he'd thought it, and it needed to be said.

"...I wanted to know that there was a way out, somewhere. To send people to, to keep them safe. Just in case." He didn't say 'Ran', not out loud. "Not that I think they will, of course. But..." He sighed again, going limp. "I wanted to let you know," Shinichi murmured into the arm of his chair.

"I appreciate that," Kid said after a moment, hands stilling briefly. "Knowing that we would have somewhere to send Kaasan or Aoko is a comfort."

Shinichi lifted his head, brows up; Kid smiled back, hunching down to his boyfriend's diminutive height to grin at him on a level. "Why fool ourselves that Ran would ever let us ship her off somewhere 'safe' while we get our asses toasted?"

The detective snickered, sitting up a bit straighter. "First, I don't think I've ever heard profanity from you while you've been in uniform. That's kind of distracting. But - maybe, yes." Propping himself head and shoulders into the corner of the chair, Shinichi spread his hand within the hold of Kid's, small fingers spanning and pressing the webs of the thief's hand through his gloves.

"Take your glove off?" Kid quirked a brow in mild confusion, but complied, flashing his bare hand, front and back, for Shinichi's view before reweaving his fingers into the grip of Shinichi's small ones. A frission went through the detective, and he bowed forward a bit, clapping his other hand over the back of Kid's, sandwiching him and keeping him there.

"Not ten minutes ago you told me a backrub would be too much for you to handle. Now you're getting grabby?" Despite Kid's critical words, his tone was warm and fond, and his fingers wrapped tightly around Shinichi's as he spoke. The detective smiled, seeing the thief - _his_thief - waver slightly, reconsidering the urge to move closer, and wavered as well, shaking his head in soft regret.

"Would you understand me if I said that just feeling your touch through your gloves was enough to make me not _want_to care if getting closer would fry me? That holding your hands right now, the pulse I can feel through your skin, is just about fogging my mind over with fuzz and sparks? Some part of me - a lot of me - doesn't care about logic or caution. It just wants to keep getting closer and closer."

"Naughty, Tantei," Kid chuckled, leaning just a little closer. The self-conscious chuckle and smile of Shinichi's voice told the thief so much; about what Shinichi was saying, and what he wasn't. It was nice - more than merely 'nice' - to know that Tantei wanted him like that. He could even say, Kid mused, that Shinichi yearned for him regardless of size, when he was small and Kid was right there; that sexual or not, complete or not, wise or not, he was drawn toward the thief.

It was a small knowledge, but it felt good.

Kid leaned close, one hand still captured. His other, still gloved, curled around the back of Shinichi's head, and the thief leaned in, eyes sliding shut. His forehead pressed gently against Shinichi's, both their bangs between, and both his skin and Shinichi's sizzled, energy running through, just under the surface, like a liquid circuit.

"You had _better_not burn up all of this at the heist," Shinichi warned his thief, teeth gritted against oncoming incoherency. "I want to feel this when I'm in my right body."

Kid opened his mouth to respond, then thought better and snapped it shut again; a quiet, pressed smile on his lips, he simply threaded his fingers deeper into Shinichi's thick hair and breathed deeply. Conan's scent was a different scent than Shinichi's should have been, but it was still Kid's Tantei, either way, and so it was good, and good enough.

_I'll make Kaito winnow us through again just _for _the weekend if we do run out,_ Kid thought to himself with a shiver. _I want to feel you feel this from inside of me._

_'Perverse, aren't you, Thief?'_Kaito eyed his brother with a dryly unimpressed glare from his seat in their mental ballroom, this time in an armchair, comfortable and broad, providing an excellent and very solid wall to put his back against.

_I dare you to feel __that_, Kid returned, tossing a sensory memory at Kaito. The Magician caught it, opening it perfunctorily; Kid showed his brother the pressure and heat of Shinichi's body fitting within his own, the power of the strength and closeness that that could bring.

_Imagine that from inside, when we're so connected,_ Kid said, brow raised. _Fun, mm?_

_'You're perverse and that's not what the magic is for,'_ Kaito returned, cross. _'I'll cut off blood to your cock at a very inopportune time if you push the topic.'_He retreated into his private space, fading from Kid's view. The thief let him go, smiling despite his brother's harsh words, and didn't point out that he'd noticed the way that Kaito didn't discard the memory, instead tucking it into his pocket, grasping it tightly but with clear care.

Kid brought his focus back to the outside world and the beat of Shinichi's pulse in his temple, pressed against his own. "Tantei?" The detective hummed acknowledgement, drifting on the energy a little, and Kid slid his head up and to the side, replacing the press of his temple with the press of his lips against Shinichi's pulse.

_Love you,_he said.

_Love you too,_said Shinichi's heartbeat back just as silently, and for a long time there was no other sound at all.

* * *

The chimes in the Kudo home's library clock were striking half past nine when Mouri Ran let herself in, tired and irritable after a long day and too many hours spent meeting people who her mother seemed to think she would need to know. Gratefully dropping her backpack and several heavy bags (they'd bought her textbooks that afternoon) to the floor, she sighed with relief… and only then noticed how deep the house's silence was against her own breathing.

"Shinichi?"

There was a light on in the kitchen, but it was the thin glow emanating through the library door that drew her. Moving quietly, the wooden floor chilly beneath her socked feet, Ran hesitated at the half-open entrance before slipping through. The room was very nearly dark except for a single lamp, but that was enough to show her what she needed to see.

Shinichi, of course: sound asleep and curled up like a kitten in his favorite chair, still-open laptop clutched like a high-tech teddy bear against his body. His face was tucked against the back of the darkened screen; the unchildish lines that shouldn't've been there were smoothed away and turned the little-boy sham of innocence into reality, just this once. His bangs fell over his face, and one overlong strand tickled forward against the laptop screen with every slow, even breath.

There was something very white balled tightly in one small hand; she wondered what it was. There was an envelope, too, tucked against the laptop's screen.

Crouching beside the battered chair, Ran settled against it as softly as she could with her chin pillowed on her folded forearms, watching. Even when she hadn't known- even when he'd just been Conan- she'd liked watching him sleep; there was something so peaceful in the smooth, unworn face... Watching his quiet settled her own disquiet, and it was enough to make you believe that calmness could be catching.

_He doesn't get enough rest. I don't think he ever has, and now- you'd think it'd be easier with more people knowing his secret, but it isn't. He worries about us and about the cold cases and the at-risks and he's going to have an aneurism if he doesn't stop. Can eight-year-olds have aneurisms?_ Barely touching, she brushed back the untidy strand of hair and then bit her tongue as something, a static crackling _zzap!_jumped from that tiny touch into her fingers.

Dark blue eyes opened, slowly. "...Ran?"

"Hi." The crackle was gone; gently she stroked the rest of Shinichi's bangs back. "I didn't want to wake you."

He yawned, stretching; the laptop slid a little, but she caught it before it could make a break for the floor. "'S'alright. Was... mmf. Was just waiting for you to get here anyway." The white something had sprung free of his hand as he stretched and was now busy uncrumpling on the laptop keyboard; Ran blinked at the heavily wrinkled white glove, her face lighting up as hope sparked. Shinichi followed her gaze and smiled, slow and sleepy. "Kid," he said softly.

"He was here? Like-" She picked up the glove. "-this? And he left it behind?"

"Mmhm. I'll give it back later. We are," Shinichi added with another deep, slow smile, "going to be seeing him this weekend. In his professional capacity, I mean." Ran absorbed this in silence, her hand lingering on her boyfriend's forehead again and playing with the silky strands. She allowed her arms to slide off the upholstery at last, instead stepping around and simply wedging herself into the overstuffed chair alongside Shinichi's small frame. "Ooof! Ran, this chair isn't _that_big-"

"Oh, shush." She solved the problem by scooping him up with her usual practicality and settling him, laptop and all, in her own lap. _"Tell_me, Shinichi. Was he okay? Is he going to be alright? Shinichi, is he-" A finger placed over Ran's lips stopped that line of questioning, and, bundled into his girlfriend's lap, the boy tucked his head beneath her chin and told her everything.

It took quite a while, but neither of them minded.

* * *

It had been, thought Kudo Yuusaku as he wheeled his silent motorcycle towards the opening garage door, quite a night.

Ahead of him, Yukiko was already shaking out her long hair from its confinement in her helmet; the black orb had as yet no identifying decals or detailing- it was too new for that- and he mused thoughtfully on surprising his wife with some sort of custom design one day soon, something in red or turquoise or maybe a few touches of metallic silver to match her bike. His own mutually anonymous black helmet swung from his handlebar, and he kicked the bike's heavyweight stand into place as the crunch of gravel beneath its tires turned into the quieter hiss of poured concrete.

Rehersal had gone well, so far as he'd been able to tell from his wife's somewhat disjointed description. They'd spent a very late dinner at a small restaurant near the studio, and he had to admit that Yukiko's complaints of the script's inadequacies and eccentricities had been filtered through a brain stuffed with a developing plot-outline and a great deal of coffee. But they'd taken the bikes high into the hills north of the city afterwards, and the starlight had eventually washed down through Beika-cho's skyline haze, clarifying his mind and rinsing away some of the caffeine jitters with clean air and stretches of highway.

(He closed the garage door, smiling to himself. They'd parked for a while and talked idly about various things, minutia of the day; during discussion of a particularly improbable scene in a movie they'd seen Yukiko had speculated that, while some things are impossible to do on a _moving_motorcycle, they might yet be possible to do on a parked one. It was something they'd have to experiment on in the future... in an appropriately private location, of course.)

His wife yawned, stretching as she opened the door to the house; the black leather of her favorite driving jacket caught the overhead light, throwing it back like seamed dark water, and Yuusaku frowned. That had been- there _had_been-

-one odd thing-

They'd come down from their drive, snaking leisurely out of the winding heights. Yukiko'd been in the lead and he'd been following the beacon of her taillight like the red butterflyshe'd once jokingly called herself. But she'd pulled over to one side- he hadn't seen her make the turn, she'd stopped to adjust something and a tree had blocked the view- and Yuusaku'd shot past and pulled up at the last stop just above the main highway.

Beside a woman on a motorcycle. A _blonde_woman all in black- plain black helmet, stylish black jacket, black jeans and boots, engine idling as she waited at the curb and watched him arrive.

He'd stopped, turned to ask her something, he couldn't recall what, before the feeling of indefinable _wrongness_had caught up with him and he'd frozen, staring. The woman's face had been invisible behind the inky expanse of her faceplate, but he'd known she was staring quizzically at him, and something in the tilt of her head had told him she was smiling.

Laughing? Softly, at him?

-but she'd gunned her engine (sleek vintage chrome, matte obsidian finish, something foreign) and pulled away while he'd stared after her, open-mouthed. The last thing he'd seen had been the flutter of her long blonde hair, somehow more distinct even than her taillight as she'd whipped around the curve and vanished in a roar of engine-noise. The writer had sat there for a few minutes, dumbfounded; and then, well, 'Kiko'd pulled forward and taken her place without a word or a ripple. She obviously hadn't even seen the other woman at all.

It was enough to make a person believe in ghosts. It was enough to make a writer think up plots. It was enough to-

"Yuuuusakuuuuu~? Aren't you coming? Darling, it's after one a.m. and I'm _tired._What's wrong?"

Jerked out of his thoughts, Kudo Yuusaku blinked at his impatient wife and pulled the keys from his Vulcan's ignition. "...nothing," he murmured, frowning, and followed her into the silent house.

* * *

_3653 days since a lifetime.  
Six nights late, the Kaitou Kid will perform a search and rescue.  
What is the stone buried since that time? What is the healing it will bring?  
I will liberate it, bringing it to the 18|09th floor. But you'll chase me for the treasure I'll gather once we get there.  
Who comes before black sails? Ask what Inoue brought, and where it's gone.  
The heroes never wear black, so don't you dare!  
Listen, look, remember.  
Bring your cars and your searchlights, let's throw a party.  
The greatest gift of Inoue, never delivered, will be given the spotlight,  
and the Kaitou Kid will dress in grey, so as not to detract from her beauty.  
But don't forget what I will carry in my heart's pocket._

-Kaitou Kid =D

In the glare of his bedroom's gooseneck desk-lamp, Shinichi studied his boyfriend's—Kid's- _1412's_, dammit- heist note. He was (somewhat to his annoyance) unable to shake the distinct impression that it was studying _him_right back. And, quite possibly, smirking.

Distantly he was aware of Ran's breathing, slow and even in the bed behind him; when it had become all too apparent that he had no intentions whatsoever of sleeping, she'd insisted on at least remaining for the night. It'd been too late for her to head back to her place, after all—_and besides,_ she'd told him briskly and with a glint of laughter in her eye after he'd read the note out loud to her for the fifth time, _I'm still responsible for you. Until you grow up, I mean._ Watching her fall asleep, he'd resolved privately to show her that weekend justhow grown up he could be when properly motivated.

Her and Kid both, actually. That heist note… Shinichi swore under his breath, scanning the lines. Small body or not, he was (mentally, at least) having a very inappropriate reaction to the damned thing. Maybe it was because it was so unbelievably _personal_ in some respects… The first line, for instance; '_3653 days since a lifetime'_ had to refer to the decade since Kuroba Toichi's death, and he wondered just what the authorities would make of it. And there were the references to black, and to a party… _Come out and play with me, show your faces if you dare._Shinichi could almost see the other's sharp, lunatic grin and the dangerous glow of a single deep blue eye. He-

Shinichi had never considered carrying a weapon before, but now he wondered if, just in case the gauntlet that was being thrown down was actually taken up, it might be a good idea. Haibara had a gun, didn't she? Sometimes anesthetic darts weren't enough. And much as the thought appalled him, if he found himself watching some sniper lining up his sights on a certain white-caped fugitive, Shinichi knew in the silence places of his soul that he could—would—shoot them down without compunction. It felt wrong even thinkingabout arming himself, because this was a heist and no-one got hurt at heists, right?

But Shinichi'd be **damned** if he'd let anybody take his and Ran's thief down. Kid was _theirs._

"…..."

Smoothing the heist note's vellum between his small fingers, the detective swallowed back the sudden surge of possessiveness, a little surprised at himself. A little amused as well; he wondered what the two brothers that he'd be going up against so soon would've thought of it. _Kid'd probably just consider it his due, and Kaito'd make me jump through hoops to justify it. Flaming, razor-edged hoops that kept changing size, with live tigers prowling underneath them. Or something like that._Shinichi'd found himself developing a certain sense of wary caution and respect regarding the magician; underestimating him, he suspected, would be as stupid as underestimating the thief himself.

_Especially right now._ The thought lit something hot and bright, set a tiny coal burning deep inside him and causing a slow grin of very unchildlike anticipation to curve his lips. _Right now, underestimating those two is the last thing I plan on doing._

This… is going to be

_good__. It's been too long. And oh god, I'm going to be ME this time and it'll be my birthday. I'm going to be ME-_ It really WAS an inappropriate reaction, wasn't it, and maybe it was a good thing he was still small at the moment because Ran needed her sleep. And if he'd been his adult self, then he'd've had to wake her and read the heist note just one more time to her, in bed, in celebration and anticipation and excitement and a thousand other emotions, and _then_ they'd've had to see how it sounded when Ran read it aloud _stark naked_after they'd caught their breath-

_Uh. Right. This is getting out of hand._

There was a quiet tap at the door; vaguely aware that the windows had gone light, he looked up to see his mother's blonde, tousled head poke through the doorway. She took in Ran's somnolent form and, finger to her lips, edged through carrying an armload of very breakfasty items. The three empty bowls went onto the desk alongside the box of cereal and carton of milk she'd been juggling; a spoon was passed over, and mother and son sat cross-legged on Shinichi's rag-rug carpet to munch together in companionable silence.

"So. He left you a new toy to play with, did he, darling?" One eye on the bowl balanced on her knee but most of her attention directed towards the piece of white cardstock still clutched in Shinichi's fingers like a talisman. "-oh, _give_that here, I'm not going to get milk on it." A little reluctantly he passed it over and watched just a trifle covetuously as blue eyes a shade lighter than his own scanned the neat kana. "Mmmm... mhmm... hm."

"Hmmm?"

His mother passed the heist note back with a finished air. "Well! Absolutely perfectly clear..." Yukiko said brightly, and then relented with a snicker at her son's appalled expression. "...as mud. Particularly taunting, deep, mucky, _incredibly illegal_mud. But just imagine the fun you're going to have figuring it out, ne?" From the bed behind them both came a sleepy giggle, and the actress shot a triumphant smile over one shoulder. "How late was he up talking about it, Ran-chan?"

"-never- (yawn) -went to bed at all," answered Shinichi's traitorous girlfriend, rolling over in bed and regarding them both with one drowsy eye through her tangled hair. The eye tracked the movements of the boy's spoon. "Cereal?" she asked hopefully, and then looked at Shinichi. "Breakfast in bed?"

With this accomplished, three heads ended up bent over the notice amidst a chorus of crunching sounds. "The first line's obvious," said Ran thoughtfully, "but what about the rest?"

* * *

The rest, as it turned out, had indeed gone to a number of sources. And two days later, those sources pooled their various intellects and skills in something that _might_have been called 'brainstorming' if it hadn't been quite so loud... or so large. The participants were varied and plentiful: Megure and Division One, Nakamori Ginzo in all his pejorative glory, representatives from several police precincts, Hakuba Saguru...

...and Kudo Shinichi.

Chiba had handled the technological end of things, setting up a one-way audio stream and a verysecure chatlink; Megure-keibu'd simply informed the necessary parties that he'd brought in an expert, a consultant, one who'd worked on Phantom Thief heists in the past. Nakamori'd had to be told, of course, but very few others had been enlightened to the fact that rumors of Kudo Shinichi's death were highly exaggerated. In the meantime, however, Megure sat with his laptop open in front of him, somewhat uncomfortably pinned between the head of the Kaitou Kid Taskforce's irritated glare and Hakuba's thoughtful gaze.

Shinichi had spent some time congratulating himself on actually being called in as a 'consulting detective.' Holmes, he thought, would have approved

Hakuba'd reported receiving his notice folded up in the shape of an expertly-made white origami pegasus; it had simply fallen from the sky just after noon on Tuesday the 30th, landing quite perfectly on his fair hair. Nakamori's notice had arrived by means unknown on his own personal desk in his own private, well-locked office, a fresh pink rose pinned jauntily to one corner, while Megure's had been delivered inside the departmental copy of _Yomiuri Shimbun,_taped to the first page of the Sports section where it was bound to be noticed. The other heist notes had for the most part arrived via perfectly innocent-looking interoffice mail at every major precinct in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka... all at noon on Tuesday, more or less, which was actually much more impressive than it sounded when you considered the logistics.

Sitting in his family's library on the other side of the screen, Shinichi chafed at his enforced inactivity but listened intently as the group hashed their way through the notice. They'd already worked out the date- 'Six nights late' had been spotted as a reference to the '6th moon day', the sixth linear day past the full moon when portents pointed towards success in locating missing property, general excellent health and both spiritual and intellectual fitness. That made the heist-date Saturday, the 4th of May, not-so-coincidentally one Kudo Shinichi's birthday...

_Happy birthday to me,_ the detective thought with a mixture of trepidation and pulse-speeding anticipation as he typed out: _'I think we should shelve the question of the 'buried stone' until we have more data,'_and heard Megure read his suggestion aloud.

"I must concur," said Hakuba-san from across the city, his voice tinny and thin through the voicecam. "Without more knowledge we are reduced to guesswork," (he said the word as if it were distasteful) "and incorrect conclusions will only skew what clues we have obtained. Nakamori-keibu, did lab analysis obtain anything from their examination of the notes themselves?"

Even distance and technological expertise could not blunt Nakamori's surly tone, but the man's answer was clear enough. "Just the same as usual: no fingerprints, no fibers, no hairs or skin flakes. What does the bastard do, write them in a vacuum?" A growl. "I have four different opinions from my handwriting analysts as to the age of the writer or writer_s,_ seventeen possible sources for the paper, and the envelopes seem to have been sealed with a mixture of laboratory-pure distilled water and slime from-" (there was a pause before he read from his notes in a disbelieving tone) "-from theCalifornia Banana Slug."

"...ah."

Shinichi squinted at the screen. "'Eighteen slash nine,'" he murmured aloud, and then frowned. "No, it's not a slash. But it _is_a separator. Nine goes into eighteen twice; nine, eighteen... twenty-seven?" He typed rapidly into the chat-window and was rewarded by a burst of conversation from the group as a list of all buildings with a minimum of twenty-seven stories in the cities which had received notices began to be compiled by several someones in the taskforce. Nakamori apparently didn't strictly limit his officers' requirements to brawn alone.

"What about this 'Inoue' person?" demanded the Fukuoka chief of police, Tanaka Machiko; a wiry graying woman in her late fifties, she sounded tired and irate. "Unless he's talking about Tanabata... Didn't 1412 use stars in his last heist? Vega-"

Takagi cleared his throat deferentially, and Shinichi smiled to himself. "I, ah, doubt he'd repeat a set of clues twice in a row," said the young officer, his tenor nearly blending into the background murmur. "It has to be some other Inoue. It's a common name, though... are there any gemstones named 'Inoue'? Or owners of gems? Or buildings housing-" He stopped at another growl from Nakamori and could be heard muttering something quietly to Sato.

"With respect," Hakuba cut in, his tone just this side of impolitely dry, "I believe we've just skipped past the clue we needed. In 1809, the last year that the Dutch allowed the Americans to use their flag to trade with Japan through Nagasaki, the political climate and the evident nature of the oncoming closure of that arrangement meant that the value of traded goods rose to well above 50,000,000¥ per cargo. Among the goods traded were the works of a jeweler by the surname Inoue, who had traveled down from his home in Fukuoka to market his jewelry to the Westerners at Nagasaki port."

Silence on the other end of the conference line gave Shinichi a pretty good idea of the expressions that the others were wearing. _'And Inoue brought his masterwork that summer, didn't he?'_

"Exactly," Hakuba agreed, sounding satisfied. "Your analyst seems to have discovered similar information to my own in his research, Megure-keibu.

"Inoue was a jeweler out of his era. The pieces that he produced were unappreciated and often outright mocked for their strange styling; it wasn't until the 1920's that American socialites began to appreciate the pieces he had produced during the beginning of his career. He did not live a public or well-documented life, however, so with the better part of a century between his work and his audience, Inoue himself and his family's name were never tightly associated with his works.

"His most prized piece, the one which he believed expressed best the 'song of his heart,' was the Lotus Flower, a complex and multi-hued piece composed entirely of sapphires."

"You said summer." Sato sounded hesitant at first, then more sure, and Shinchi's fingers tapped anxiously on the edge of the laptop as he listened in excitement. "The line in 1809 - could it have indicated summer, or mid-year? The shipping manifests from Nagasaki at that time..."

"If it was 'never delivered,' then that means it had a specific recipient. Hakuba-san, do you know anything about who Inoue meant it for?"

"I wasn't able to uncover that," he answered.

"But that's easy," Takagi countered. "What Kid says here about the wearing grey and letting 'her' shine - the Lotus Flower was meant for a woman."

"His wife?"

"Daughter?"

_'We'll get furthest by determining who owns - or knows of the existence - of the Lotus Flower,'_ Shinichi typed, his hands shaking on the keys. _'I would suggest we narrow our examination of 27-story buildings to those with art galleries or display spaces on that floor, which may be planning an event within the next few days. Sponsor parties, wine tastings, etcetera...I think Kid plans to crash the Lotus Flower's first unveiling.'_

* * *

During the short break that followed this, Shinichi took a few minutes for some coffee; as the kitchen stool scraped across the floor, he listened to the buzz of conversation filtering through the bluetooth he'd slipped on. The overlarge earpiece slipped as he hiked his short form up against the counter, scooting the Krups to where he could reach it without pulling things over. As LEDs blinked into life, he caught Takagi's voice on a single word:

_"-black?-"_

Small fingers froze on the bag of grounds he'd taken from the fridge. Of _course_Takagi'd pick up on that; hopefully he'd think it was a coincidence.

_And if he doesn't? Kid never puts anything pointless in his notes; I can see the reference clearly enough, but... this is one time I almost wish that Takagi'd overlook a clue... or wait. Wait. I'm thinking about this all wrong, aren't I? Think about the note like you didn't have any inside knowledge, Kudo. Think about it like a __detective_.

If I were, say, Takagi, and I knew there was a criminal organization which used black as an identifying mark, and I saw the bit about 'the heroes never wear black', I might wonder. Or I might pass it off as mere coincidence. Or, and this is more like Takagi, I might hedge my bets by cautioning everyone to NOT wear black, just in case. Which, considering that probably at least sixty percent of the adult population of Japan owns at least one black trenchcoat, really isn't much of a help. And that's not even going into Nakamori's brute squad's body-armor, also black.

Grounds rattled into a filter; water ran, steam rose. The boy sat down on the stool, knees hiked up, chin planted on one palm. _I- could help things along, if I wanted to. I could actually admit to knowing that there's a connection between Kid's heists and the Black Organization. But if I do, even if it's just to Division One, there needs to be a better reason than just a single line in a heist note; so far, no-one on the side of the angels is aware that the Organization is after Kid at all._

...are they? I wonder what files the FBI have on him? How strong is the chance that someone's figured out that this is the second generation, not the first? Something to think about.

The coffee scalded his tongue with the first sip as he moved back towards his place at the laptop, but Shinichi barely felt it.

* * *

Three pots, some profanity and a _tremendous _amount of online research later...

They'd managed to narrow down the likely target to a 31-story building smack in the middle of the busiest part of Fukuoka, based quite specifically on the Lotus Flower's location. The Hinata Center was less than a decade old and ranged from shops and cafés on its lower floors, upscale apartments around it's central area, conference rooms and higher-priced restaurants closer to the sky. A fairly massive structure of the most modern design, it had two major towers resting diagonal to each other on its square base with open plazas taking up the opposing corners every few floors, frequently full of glassed-in gardens or the popular Japanese 'green' rooftops. The plazas grew smaller as the floors rose, giving the building a somewhat zigguratish effect; it was a nice place to live, shop or just spend a little time soaking up the spring sunlight.

It was going to be very, very busy very soon.

The Lotus Flower was a brooch, a large one; any one of the focal stones in it would have made a very respectable brooch on its own, and the Lotus was packed with five of them, diamond chips and silver flaring out around them. Because their research had told them it was entirely composed of sapphires and silver, the team scanned past the Lotus _twice_before finally identifying it. Sapphire yes, blue…no. Instead of resting quietly in a rich person's vault like a good little piece of priceless art, it was instead being presented in a private showing of Meiji-era adornment specializing in the unique and little-known. Nakamori-keibu had had a few choice words to say about the showing and the fact that the producers in charge had bought their security from a reputable rent-a-guard source rather than notifying the city's law enforcement; Fukuoka's chief of police had also been less than enthralled, and the showing had been derailed to a private audience consisting of uniformed policemen and their associates.

So now they had the what and the where as well as the when (the showing had been scheduled to began at seven p.m. sharp.) There were, however, still quite a few oddities left in the heist note to work through...

Shinichi kept quiet during the group's discussion regarding 'heroes never wear black', enough so that Megure checked in with him privately to make certain that their link was still patent. The 'heart's pocket' reference had them one and all puzzled until a Taskforce member who'd been around a bit longer than the others speculated on the Kaitou Kid's drawing his card-gun with his right hand (and thus from the leftmost interior of his jacket.) It wasn't a satisfying answer and felt less than likely- for 1412 to warn others that he was armed felt utterly out of character.

All there agreed, however, that the Phantom Thief's invitation for everyone to 'throw a party' was merely his usual grandiose style and love of the limelight. On the other side of his laptop, Shinichi merely grinned a small grin to himself as he typed in his agreement. They had _no_idea.

"Well, what is there left to sort out?" Shiratori sounded exasperated as the team read through the heist note for possibly the hundredth time. "We know where he's going to be, and when - he always goes for midnight when it's not stated, right?"

"The exhibit opens at seven, so it could be any time after that, theoretically," a Task Force member countered. "And he used nine's and eighteens in his notice. The time could correlate to those."

"Well, we'll be there from the start anyway," Nakamori said, quelling both sides. His voice sounded strained as well, but he was working to hold a strong patience over the combination of eagerness, anticipation, and frustration that filled the whole team. "We'll work on the specific hour later. There's still lines we haven't even touched yet, though. 'The stone buried'? Anyone, ideas? There's absolutely no leading clues for this one."

On his end of the conference call, Shinichi frowned, trying to consider all the angles. _Kid could be hinting at a number of things. Is it a clue for me? For everyone? For the Organization? 'Since that time' is a very vague referent - Toichi's murder? The disappearance of the Lotus Flower? 'The healing that it will bring' is...troubling. Obviously, the entire thing could be solved either by determining whose healing is referenced, then working backwards to determine what sort of stone is associated with that malady; but if it's a general 'resolution' sort of healing, then the more important clue is 'that time,' which would imply a crime or tragedy which was hidden or concealed along with the stone. 'Buried' implies a death, but 'healing' implies recovery. There's always the consideration that Kid is using conflicting metaphor on purpose, or that the two halves of the line use two different contextual ciphers, because he __**is**__that much of a shit to be difficult on purpose, especially when he gave me the notice a day early._

He gave _**me**__ the notice a day early. Hm._

Shinichi typed quickly into the chat window with Megure, listening as his words were dictated.

"The consultant wants each of you to state the time that you received your copies of Kid's notice, as precisely as possible." There was some muttering, and Shinichi watched the chat's status feed inform him that Megure was typing to record each statement as the officers went around the table. Most of the officers could only offer "noon" or "five minutes past, maybe?"; Hakuba was able to inform the group that his watch had clicked over to 12:00 PM several seconds after he looked down at it upon removing his copy of the notice from his hair, which meant that Kid - or Kid's agent - had released it to fall on him sometime within the latter half of the minute 11:59.

"That's...very enlightening, Hakuba-san," Megure said, and Shinichi could all but see the man's nervous smile as he tried to look encouraging instead of unnerved.

"Well, Consulting Detective-san? You did ask for precision; what have you deduced?" Hakuba turned his archness on the faceless, nameless mind behind Megure's computer screen, rather than the inspector himself, and Shinichi allowed himself a brief distraction of smugness as he began to type back. _Now now, Hakuba, no sour grapes. Somebody's been the Heisei Holmes for a while now, and it's not you._

_All, I believe that Kid has included ciphers in this note which are intended for disparate audiences. Some of us understood various parts more clearly than others - I believe that's why there were so many copies sent this time. Without Hakuba-san or myself on the team, certain conclusions would not have been met. But without the Fukuoka team receiving notices too, we wouldn't have known to include that district in our search for the heist location. I therefore believe that Kid is planning to reveal - or provide further clues for the deduction of - the meaning of the still-shrouded parts of this heist note. I personally believe that there is a connection to his sudden trend in dual-stone heists and his sudden omyrtrdy om yjr [trdrmvr pg ,ptr frsf;u gptv-_

Shinichi pulled up short as his screen flashed red for a split second before fading through pink and back to the proper black-on-white text. A bouncing little text box informed him that he had a new incoming chat message. Glancing with apprehension at the garbled text in his window to Megure, Shinichi pulled up the second window, hoping it was something harmless and innocent, like a randomly distributed full system virus...and not something more deliberate.

_HI, TANTEI. I HOPE YOU WEREN'T ABOUT TO START MENTIONING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SHADOW ORGANIZATIONS AND YOUR FAVORITE TEAM OF PROFESSIONALLY MAGICAL LARCENISTS OF WHICH YOU HAVE EXCLUSIVE KNOWLEDGE. JUST IN CASE THOSE MENTIONS INSPIRED FURTHER QUESTIONING. WHICH THEY WOULD. WHICH WOULD PUT YOU IN MORE OF A PICKLE THAN I SPECIFICALLY WANTED TO PUT YOU IN._

YOU'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO BE WINDED AND FRUSTRATED AND LOOKING AT ME WITH FUCK-ME EYES AT THE END OF THESE HEISTS, YOU KNOW, NOT BEING CHARGED WITH CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT GRAND LARCENY. THE QUESTIONING AND BOOKING WOULD TIE UP A NUMBER OF HOURS, AND WE'RE ONLY WORKING WITH SIXTY, AREN'T WE?

THE PROPERTY DAMAGE PRICE TAG ON THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE PRETTY HEFTY, TOO. YOU MAY WANT TO INVEST STOCK IN THE CONSTRUCTION LABOR UNION WHICH SERVICES THE HINATA CENTER. JUST SAYING.

SO, ARE YOU BUSY TONIGHT? HOPE I'M NOT INTERRUPTING. I'M SURE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO FOR THE LAST THREE HOURS. ALSO, YOUR COFFEE IS HORRIBLE, PLEASE BUY A MORE EXPENSIVE BRAND.

Shinichi blinked. Several times. Then thumped his head on his laptop's edge, ignoring Megure's bouncing chat window full of concerned questions that the connection was in danger or had been scrambled.

"Urgh. Why couldn't it have been a random virus?"

_What, you didn't think you'd finished off three whole pots on your own, did you? And no, I can't currently hear you - I am not within shouting range - but I know you well enough to know you're either already, or about to be, busy cussing me out._

I love you, Tantei~ Work harder, think harder, fight harder. And wear a hard plastic _cup__ once you're fullsize again. Getting into a wood comparison with Nakamori-keibu during the heist would be rather unprofessional._

Before Shinichi had time to respond, the chat window disappeared and his keyboard unscrambled, and all was as it had been before the interruption. But he had plenty of time to methodically work his way through his entire collection of particularly foul names in emphatically loud German, English, Chinese and (courtesy of an exchange student in his sophomore year) Greek. And to bang his head on the laptop's edge several more times, just in case he'd missed a spot. And, finally, resignedly, to type:

_'Sorry. Cat on keyboard.'_

The disbelieving silence that followed this rather lame explanation was only broken when Megure cleared his throat. "'Cat... on keyboard...' Erm. Yes. You were saying, K- ah, you were saying?" Flushing and still muttering epithets under his breath, Shinichi continued to type, hearing his own words echoed in the senior officer's voice as the man read them aloud to the room.

_'To continue, I believe there is a possible connection between his recent multiple-stone theft in Kyoto and'_ (he temporized, thinking fast) _'and the clues which we are as as yet unable to untangle. Also, considering the nature of the Hinata center, I would suggest that we keep a larger number of emergency crews standing by- this is not a place which can be fully evacuated, even if the upper levels are blocked off. A wider-than-normal crowd cordon might be advisable as well.'_

Sitting back (and refusing to glance around despite the prickling feeling at the back of his neck- he knew Kid was gone and he was NOT going to pander to his paranoia), Shinichi sighed. _There,_ he thought, _that's safe enough and logical as well. And if there WILL be more than the usual damage-_

Sixty hours.

Shinichi blinked. Had that been a generalization or a specific, deliberate clue regarding time? Sixty hours was exactly two and one half days; the time was- he checked- just a few moments past noon. That meant that, as it was now Wednesday, sixty hours later would be precisely- midnight, yes. But on _Friday_evening, which... made no sense. He winced; whether it was a red herring or not, that was one clue he could rule out.

...probably. Possibly. Damn.

_'I never guess. It is a shocking habit- destructive to the logical faculty.'_ The Holmes quote from _The Sign Of the Four_ drawled laconically across Shinichi's brain in a voice that sounded more like Kid's than the Original Consulting Detective's might have. "At least all Holmes had to deal with was Moriarty," he muttered, "and _he_wasn't sleeping with him."

Across the city, the group in conference were discussing safety preparations and mobilization of emergency vehicles; Shinichi spared a rather wryly amused thought towards the amount of pure chaos his thief was managing to cause with a mere handful of ink and paper before Hakuba's voice cut across the chatter, speaking quietly to Megure but close enough to his laptop microphone to be quite clear and distinct. "Megure-keibu? And... ah, consultant-san? If I may interject a private comment?" There was a dismayed murmur from Megure, but after a moment text began to scroll across the small chatwindow before Shinichi's eyes.

_'Good afternoon. Pardon the intrusion, but am I speaking to Kudo Shinichi?'_

The detective scowled; he'd halfway expected this, but... Shrugging mentally, he typed: _'Anything is possible, Hakuba-san. Would you mind explaining how you came to that conclusion?'_

_'Simply put, you are a known associate of Megure-keibu; you have past experience with 1412's heists. You are intelligent, familiar with our quarry's methodology, and unless my logic has failed me, you have also received a heist notice. If you had not, I doubt you would have asked about their time of arrival. If my deduction is correct, then I would like to request that we meet prior to the anticipated event.'_

Shinichi eyed the line of text in mixed amusement and alarm. "Oh, really?" he murmured out loud before replying. _'To what end?'_

The answer was swift. _'Combining our resources. Neither of us are inclined to think within the box, so to speak, and I believe our chances of capturing 1412 would be increased by mutual cooperation.'_ There was a pause. _'I am, of course, aware that your past extended absence indicates a probable disguise on your part during the heist; if you actually wish to be believed missing/presumed dead, I should consider manufacturing evidence which supports this belief among the general public if I were you- current speculation regarding your whereabouts has died down over the last year, but in general you are thought to have simply vanished. Considering the pains taken today to conceal your identity, I'm certain you must have a good reason for remaining incognito.'_

Scooting forward in his chair and tucking one foot beneath his small frame, the Detective of the East smiled wryly. _'And what makes you think I'll show up at all, Hakuba-san?'_

He could almost read the dry amusement in the other's answer: _'Because, as I've pointed out, you have an invitation. And because you are, as am I, a detective... Detective. Aren't you?'_

"..."

_'I'm sure we'll run across one another at some point, Hakuba-san. And now, if I might speak to Megure-keibu?'_

The shuffling noises and scrapes from the microphone plus the diminishing background noises made it fairly clear that Megure had scooped the laptop up and moved to a more secure corner of the room; his voice was harried as he spoke, booming across their connection in a crackle of static. "Kudo-kun? That-"

Shinichi cut across whatever exclamations the senior officer of Division One had begun to make. "Megure-keibu? I need to ask a favor of you. Could you please requisition a full set of gear from Nakamori-keibu? Helmet, suit, everything, whatever's needed to make me just one more Task Force squadmember. I'm going to need," (and he fought back a tremor of something that might be excitement, might be laughter, might be a thousand and one things) "camouflage."

"Erhm? I... suppose so, Kudo-kun, but will you be, ah, _able_to attend the heist? Your condition-"

A shark-like grin split Shinichi's childish face, turning it very unchildish indeed. "Megure-keibu," he said, meaning every word, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

.

...and if you think _that_ was fun, wait'll you see next week's episode, **Book Six, Chapter Eight: **_**"Showtime, ladies and gentlemen..." **_We'll see you in seven days. ^_^


	73. Showtime, Ladies and Gentlemen

_Soooooooo... We could talk with great length about all sorts of things... or we could get to the heist. Which __would y'all prefer?_

_No, don't answer that. **griiiiiiiin**_

_We do ask one thing, though: even if you have nothing to say, DO check in with us and leave a comment, okay? Last time we heard from very few of our readers and we're a little worried... you ARE out there, aren't you? Ask us questions! We'll answer! We're not looking for heaps of praise or anything, but we __do__ want to know what you think._

_...and anyway... the __**real **__fun's about to begin._

This chapter is presented with especial and tremendous thanks due to the work of

_**yumetakato**__, without whom it would have been incomplete. Please go take a look at her artwork here: __http colon slash slash pics dot livejournal dot com slash ysabet slash pic slash 00059e35 slash g141__ (sorry about the weirdness, but that's fanfiction dot net for you.)_

_Enjoy... The Management_

_._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Eight**__**: "Showtime, ladies and gentlemen..."**_  
(Music: 'Rooftops', by The Urgency)

Since Wednesday night, they'd barely been able to sleep. Since lunch on Thursday, they hadn't been able to sit still. And Friday morning, Kid and Kaito had decided that, while it would raise some suspicions if they failed to attend school on the day of a Kid heist, it would raise more eyebrows if they did the same to every light switch in the school what they'd inadvertently done to their own.

Their mother Chikage, one hand on her hip, calmly observed the boys' sparking, half-slagged light switch. There was an asymmetrical burst of char across its surface, made uneven by the way the sudden burst of heat had warped the plastic. The char extended onto the wall paint, and that was what Chikage eventually reached out to tap with a critical fingertip.

"This is coming out of your pay, boys."

Behind and to her left, Kid and Kaito scrunched their shoulders, sheepish. "Just wanted to turn it on," Kid muttered. Chikage turned around with a smile, reassuring them both with a gentle touch.

"You're excited. That's good." One eyebrow went up, and the corner of her mouth barely - just barely - quirked. "But if you haven't gotten yourselves under control by now, you're not working hard enough. You're grounded – go spend the day in the practice room, and get yourselves ready for tonight."

Kid flickered forward, rubbing his thumb across the corner of his mother's eye. "I haven't seen you use these wrinkles in a long time, Kaasan," he said, and immediately ducked away from the swat. Smiling, he bobbed back up, teeth bright and bared wide in his grin. "They're your happy smile wrinkles."

Chikage raised her hand, softly tracing the creases with her own fingers. "I'm just glad to see you two doing well, that's all.

"And, well...maybe it's a better year as of today, don't you think? Because ten years came, and the gods haven't come down to claim all our souls yet, have they?"

The brothers smiled; Kaito full of hope, Kid piqued by regret. "Nope, Kaasan. World isn't over yet. Still more days, still more gems to steal."

"Go to your room, you magpies." Their mother turned brusquely away, scrubbing at the light switch before walking to the door of the bedroom. She turned, one brow lowered in a critical Mom Voice kind of expression, and with a single pointed finger, silenced the quip her sons had opened their mouth to offer.

"Your _other_room, the practice room, you hopeless things. Go. Get!"

Grinning, Kid snapped their jaw shut; Kaito lifted his foot and tipped the toe up, kicking the heel against a very specific section of their bedframe; and Kid dropped a small smoke pellet as they stepped half a pace back into the trap door Kaito had opened. Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Chikage marched out of the room with one more parting shot ("Grounded!"). As she proceeded across the house toward her own rooms, the sight of her own expression in a hallway mirror made her stop to look more closely.

She'd been smiling; that had been what had caught her eye, the broad, bright crescent of her own teeth in the mirror. She really needed to pluck her eyebrows today; they were getting out of control. And it served her right for being lazy with her evening skin cream for two days; just look at those red marks! Thank God that she wasn't going to be expected anywhere public tonight.

Other successful mothers had to deal with all sorts of strangers staring at them and criticising their clothes and hair and skin, like that was the reason their children had become famous, to shame their parents for being old. What a relief that her sons' work wasn't the sort that would involve promotions and visits to the temple on New Year's with reporters and photographers there. It was so nice to not have to worry about anyone belittling her sons for what she looked like, or belittling her! She was only forty-seven, after all, and already so many creases. And her throat, it looked like a chicken neck! So horrible. It was better for Kaito and Kid that she stay home, of course. As always. She would see in the paper the next morning. Chikage pulled her house jacket tighter across her chest, crossing one panel over the other, edges snug up to her throat. It was getting a little chilly. She would have to see about that. Jii should be in the library; she would be able to ring him from her room. He could turn the heat up, make it a little bit more cosy, so she didn't have to wrap this robe around her neck like she was trying to noose herself...

_'Chi~kage.'_

'Chi-ka~ge.'

'Chi-ka-ge~.'

'Dear. I can

_hear__ you. Since you're whispering in my __ear.__'_

'Rhyming? My shadow spider pulls me tighter with every knot she squee-eeeh, Chikage, that's too tight.'

'I know.'

'Aghm. Ahem. Hmm. There.'

'You squished the knot, now. I'll have to retie it entirely.'

'Well, maybe I just don't like nooses around my neck.'

'You

_love__nooses around your neck, you Houdini otaku.'_

'Hush now!

_Thurston__otaku. Get it right.'_

'I'd rather get it wrong.'

'You're contrary.'

'You're grabby.'

'You like it.'

'Mm-hmmm. Toichi, you're going to be...l-late...'

'I'm never late. Shhh...'

Pulling her jacket tighter, Chikage reached up with one hand to her hair, tugging at the clipped-back lock which had gotten mussed. When had that happened? And her eyes, so red and puffy. She couldn't possibly go out in public like this. What had she been thinking? Never. She'd never want to go out and watch her sons' heist; that would be a security risk, a dangerous thing for them. A distraction like looking out for your toddering old mother while you were trying to work wouldn't be...

It wouldn't be...

_'When I stand on the lamppost. That's when I'll tell you.'_

'Tell me

_what?__ Toichi, you can't do that during the middle of a __heist__, for God's sake! Do you want to get-mmmph.'_

'Finger on your lips or between them, which would you prefer, my shadow spider? Your saliva on my gloves might be more telling than anything I announce. Which will it be, mmm?'

'Y're ridicul's.'

'I love you, ketsueki kumo. The lamppost! Remember that!'

'...Once in your life, you ridiculous idiot. Just

_once__, stand still long enough for me to say it back. Augh. Saliva, nothing. He's such a bluffer. He got my lipstick all over his thumb, too. And I let him._

'Yes I did, Kaito. Kaasan lets Tousan dance all around like a crazy thing. Do you know why?'

'T'san! Tassa. Taisa! Taisa taisa taisa taisa!'

'...Well, maybe one day, dear. I'll need to give you some brothers before your Tousan can call you a proper troop. Oh, God, what am I even thinking! The two of you are bad enough!'

Chikage was standing at the top of the grand staircase before she'd finished forming the thought. "_JII!_I'm going to go watch them! I'm going to the heist! And you can drag me out of this house in my dressing gown if I change my mind!"

* * *

It's a simple progression of logic. Where you find jewels, you are likely to find thieves. Where you find thieves, you just might possibly find 1412, the Gentleman Thief, the Moonlight Magician (if you're lucky, that is.) Where you find 1412, you find (preemptively, at least) heist notes. Where you find heist notes, you find policemen. And where you find jewels, 1412 and policemen, you find screaming crowds behind barricades.

And oh, there were a _lot_of them. Police, crowds and barricades, that is.

Red and blue lights spangled off the wet glass of the surrounding buildings, off the windshields of squadcars and the lenses of TV cameras; they illuminated white placards spelling out _KID DAISUKE DA YO!_in blurred (or unblurred, if the sign's maker had sufficient forethought to laminate), bright characters, and the excited faces of poncho-clad schoolgirls, businessmen, gleeful shop-owners, harried taxi-drivers and confused tourists who'd gotten stuck in all the chaos and were wondering if there was a matsuri going on or what. And in the middle of all this, quite a number of various flavors of law enforcement looked drippily at each other and wondered, "When did they think he was going to arrive, again?"

It was 6:45 p.m. on the dot, it was pouring rain, and everyone, _everyone,_was ready for showtime.

Fukuoka's cops were nervous and edgy; Kid had never targeted them before. Division One was watchful, spread out throughout the crowd and keeping close contact on their radios, which didn't like getting wet. Nakamori's squad had taken point throughout the Hinata Center, stationing themselves at his orders in strategic posts and making certain that all civilians within the building had reason to be there _and_that they were staying indoors- Megure's 'consultant' had been correct in that a full evacuation had been resisted strongly by the residents.

Nakamori's squad were equipped with less temperamental (aka, newer) radios than Megure's, so the teams of officers, most of whom had only met perfunctorily, amused themselves as they waited by identifying each person's affiliation by the crackle of his handset as he or she called in to report perimeter and presence checks. When one set of checks was finished, the next started, without rest. Nobody had a spare thumb to twiddle, or the idiocy to think they could afford to.

They were as prepared as possible, with helicopter support loud in the cloudy sky overhead and night-goggled officers in full waterproofing stationed on every nearby roof. All that was needed was for the star of the show to arrive.

_-bzzt! crackle- "Haven't seen him sir, he- oh, wait, he's- Nakamori-keibu? I have Hakuba-san here, front left of the entrance. Megure-keibu is-uh-"_

"Megure here-"

-zzzztcracklezzzt!-"Nakamori here. Where's that consultant of yours? Damned civilians getting in the way- I want him with Hakuba, the boy at least knows how to stay out of the way during an investigation. Has he arrived yet?"

"Ahrm. No, should be along shortly, he's- dependable. I'll contact him, Megure out." -bzzt-

Beep-beepdeedeeDEEPbeep- Bzzzzzzt-beeeeep! "Moshi moshi, sorry I can't come to the phone, please leave a message, Jaa."

"Kudo? Kudo-kun, pick up-"

Flipping his cell closed with enough force to crack the plastic, Megure swore into his moustache. Takagi sighed, shaking his head. "Sir, he'll be here as soon as he can, you _know_that." He turned his head to watch as his partner discussed something pointed and brief with a reporter who'd tried to cross the cordons; the man edged back into the crowd with his tail between his legs. "When he, ahm, you know... last time... it was in the early evening; it may take a little while for things to, uh, settle down."

The head of Division One looked blackly up at the Hinata Center, heavy brows beetled. "I know." He sighed, visibly restraining his temper. "Let me know when he shows up, hrm? No matter what shape he happens to be in."

"Inspector!" Splashing footfalls behind him made Megure turn around and assess the Task Force grunt jogging up to him. The man seemed very rushed.

"News? Has Kid shown yet?"

"No, Inspector," the grunt answered, bending forward somewhat to catch his breath. Megure raised one brow. A Task Force member who couldn't sprint? Before he could critique his professionalism, the man stood straight again, his head tipped on an amused angle. The grunt's visor was down, so Megure could barely see his features, but his body language was cocky - outright disrespectful to be showing around a superior officer of a collaborating force. Megure glanced to the man's chest, looking for his name patch so he knew who Nakamori would need to write up – and stopped, staring at a blank space where the characters should have been.

"No, Inspector, Kid's not here yet," the grunt said, lifting his visor just enough for Megure to clearly see his bright, laughing blue gaze. "He wouldn't start the show without waiting for me to arrive."

* * *

The first thing that arrived had been sparks - and when Hakuba was writing up his account of the heist report afterwards, he found himself frustrated that no phrase in English or Japanese could properly convey the manner in which everyone in the room was suddenly, belatedly aware that it was filled with sparks, and had been becoming moreso for a while. Immediately subsequent was the second discovery; that any movement, by any person within the room, set off static electric shocks all across any conductive material or clothing which had a point of contact with human skin. There was a lot of cursing at that point.

And then...the voice had arrived before he had. Smooth and charming, silky and warm, amused and confiding, Kid's voice had floated out of the air _right. above._the Lotus Flower in its bulletproof, (probably) explosion-proof glass pedestal case.

"Good evening, Mesdames, Messieurs. Tonight...I am pleased to lavish attention upon the pink lotus of the Great Buddha himself, the sapphire brooch without any blue, the silver and glittering masterwork of Inoue - the 41,675,000 ¥ brooch, _Lotus Flower!_"

A flashbomb went off – no, four of them. Arranged around the base of the pedestal, which had been checked _twelve times_ for any planted traps, the bombs blinded most of the room's occupants and released a thick, nearly opaque gas. Unlike Kid's normal gases, though, this one wasn't making anyone sleepy - and it wasn't straight pink, either. Through the downbeams of the artistically-arranged lamps focused on each of the exhibits in the room – which ranged from fine jewelry, to sculpture, enamel cuffs and lacquer boxes, filigree gold wall hangings and illuminated parchments older than many living family houses of Japan – a thick, roiling _orange_smoke mixed with the pink, marbling together - and just as suddenly, flowing quickly away, pushed to the floor by the force of three yards of high quality white silk.

As vision cleared and obscenities and growling filled the air, the thief perched archly on top of Lotus Flower's glass enclosure, his back to the wall of glass windows which divided this 27th-floor gallery from the equally cultured and forbiddingly elite topiary and bonsai garden located on the suspended patio outside. His cape, the fabric of which was light, and lightly transclucent, floated forward, wrapping white 'wings' around the case of the Lotus Flower and concealing her from view. The lights within the case shone through the delicate fabric, spangling orange and pink points of light all through the white silk. With his hat on a jaunty tip, Kid licked his lips with insouciant slowness to wet them, beaming with lunatic diffidence at his gathered foes.

"Showtime, Ladies and Gentlemen," the Kaitou Kid purred.

* * *

_Twenty-four hours earlier:_

Travel plans had begun to grow complicated when Shinichi had been pouring over a map of Fukuoka, examining the city's aerial layout. It had been Ran who had pointed out the inescapable fact that Fukuoka was more than 800 kilometers distant (nearly fourteen hours of driving across bridges and toll-roads, or nearly four if you went by plane and bullet-train.) It had stopped the detective in his very dismayed tracks, and a hurried phone call with Megure had produced plans for Division One to leave via helicopter (still quite a lengthy trip) at nine a.m. the following day. A ride was somewhat dubiously offered and declined, Shinichi and Ran choosing to travel via Shinkansen and aircraft following his change.

And he'd just made a request to Haibara Ai that was not being taken well at all.

"You must be joking, Kudo-kun; next, you'll be requesting steroids. You're going to feel horrible enough as it is, you know." Arms still folded, Haibara glared at her sole patient and guinea-pig in annoyance. "_And_you're going to have to travel in as much of a disguise as possible. Why is this case so very important to you? Why-" (her glare intensified) "—WHY do you need 'extra stamina' simply to chase down a wanted criminal who, outside of his… extracurricular pursuits… has managed to avoid your grasp every time you've crossed paths?"

Shinichi turned away, walking over to stare through one of Agasa's windows into the darkening night below. The scientist himself was already over at the Kudo residence, both Shinichi's and Ai's own destination as well (Yukiko had gotten inventive with dinner again and required an audience) and the sprawling house was empty. He sighed, one hand on the windowsill. "Haibara, I'm..." Shinichi hesitated. "...needed," he concluded reluctantly. "This heist would've happened whether or not Kid and I had ever become involved, but- it's not exactly ordinary; it's not my place to explain why, or why the timing's so crucial, but I have to be there, and I will be there." He gave her a half smile, turning away and allowing the blinds to feather closed. "Yeah, I'm very much aware that I'll 'feel horrible' afterwards, and I expect to earn every joint pain and muscle ache twice over... but being there is important to me, Haibara. The _case_is important."

She studied him, blue-grey eyes unreadable. They were her least childish feature by far; Ai was a past master at controlling her expression, but her eyes showed the grown woman she should have been. Watching her, Shinichi realized that if things had turned out differently Haibara would be- what? Twenty, twenty-one? She'd been eighteen when she'd changed, physically at least; inside, he was certain, she'd been much older.

"When will you be leaving?" she asked him abruptly.

"-uh. Tomorrow morning? I need to be at the heist by seven p.m. at the latest, so... by nine a.m., I suppose. Why?"

Now she was the one who turned away, stalking towards her lab in Agasa's cellar. "There is something that we can try, I suppose; not only will you gain a good deal of adrenaline-fueled energy, you'll begin your change early. But you'll pay for it," she said quietly over her shoulder. "It won't be easy and it won't be painless, but I do have something that might give you a little more energy." She paused, a small hand on the doorway; her nails were faintly pink, and in the back of his mind Shinichi wondered at the contradictions inherent in that tiny detail- those hands had created Apotoxin, those hands had held a gun, those hands were manicured and delicately adorned in rose-colored nail-polish. "It's highly experimental, derived from the healing ointment; it may work, or it may set you back." Haibara paused. "It _will_cause you to change back a day early, I can guarantee that. You'll use up your body's resources at a ridiculous rate."

He closed his eyes. "Then if it does, it does; I'm going to need all the strength I can manage, Haibara, and not just for chasing Kid. He—Haibara, Kid's trying to draw out the Organization on this one, baiting them. We have _help_this time; it isn't just us against them any more." Her silence told him that this was the right tactic to take; when Shinichi opened his eyes again, it was to see a furrow creasing the girl's forehead and the dawning of understanding and fear in her eyes.

"…it's…" She drew a breath. "I—alright. Yes, it can be done; yes, I will do it." Her stare, now devoid of calm, bore into him. "I'll need to make preparations, and _you'll_need to see me for adjustments to the Apotoxin unit in about an hour. And… expect an uncomfortable night, Kudo-kun; your body has been coerced into a steady schedule of changes for more than two months now, and the accelerated growth this serum will induce will begin before you actually transform. The cells have to be conditioned to accept their new instructions. Be certain to warn your parents, Mouri-chan and your pet bad decision that you'll be changing back a day early; they'll need to know." Ai opened the basement door, turning her back on Shinichi.

"Ah—aren't you coming to dinner with Agasa-hakase and I?"

"No. Working." The door began to close behind her slight form.

"Ai?"

She paused, turning to regard Shinichi warily. "I… thanks. It's not chasing Kid that made me ask for this, it's the uninvited guests that may show up because of it." The detective shook his head. "I can't be a liability; if the Organization _does_come after Kid, and he's practically rolled out the red carpet for them… then I need to be at my best." He paused, adding quietly, "It's the only edge I'll have."

The girl stood still, her head tilted slightly. When she spoke at last, her voice was quiet and tinged with the tiniest shred of what might be humor. "You're welcome, Kudo-kun. Think of it as a birthday present." The door closed firmly behind her.

* * *

_Eleven hours earlier:_

"Well, of **course** we're going. Why shouldn't we? We're already packed, and your father bought tickets for everyone online late last night. Why on earth did you think we wouldn't be there to cheer you on, darling? And besides which, do you know how _long_it's been since either of us attended a Kaitou Kid heist?"

"KAAsaaaaaaan, it- oh, for crying out loud, it's NOT some sort of, of- social event!"

"Certainly it is. Screaming crowds, bright lights, fireworks, excitement... I understand they even sell t-shirts at these things now; that makes it official."

_Groan._"...I should've taken Megure-keibu up on his offer. I should've had my head examined."

"Didn't Ai-chan do that already this morning, dearest? Never mind. Why don't you go help your father with our bags? You can carry the light ones, you're still recovering. Go on, now... There, that should keep him busy for a few minutes. Ran-chan? How did he sleep?"

"Not well; he said he felt like- like his skin was too tight, even after he finished changing. It... wasn't too bad this time, was it? Faster, and I think he's feeling a lot better now, but he can't keep _still._He told you both about his changing back a day early, didn't he?"

"He did. And as for not keeping still, well, not much of a change since his original childhood, ne? Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, always getting himself into deep water every time you turned around. But he was very good at getting himself out, too, you know; we'll just have to trust that he keeps wiggling tonight, won't we? Ah, now, I've made you smile; _that's_my future daughter-in-law! Go give him a birthday kiss and we'll be on our way; can't keep your other darling waiting, now can we?"

* * *

_Less than an hour earlier:_

"You'll be careful, right?"

Shinichi tugged at a zipper, making sure everything was latched, stowed, snapped, buckled, velcroed and otherwise secured. "Jeeze, how does Nakamori's squad _wear_these all the time? If you move wrong, things fall off-" He stopped, fingers fastening one last closure before he reached up and smoothed his girlfriend's hair back from her face. "I will. I promise, Ran; I promise." He gave her a quirk of a grin that had a large cockiness-to-confidence ratio, allowing his hand to fall to her shoulder. "Aren't you worried about Kid too?" her detective asked teasingly.

Ran bit her lip, her own fingers automatically straightening his collar; around the rental car that had been waiting at their hotel traffic squalled and roared. "I wish I had him here; I'd knock_both_your heads together until you got over this- this-"

"Competition? Game?" Rain drummed on the car's roof.

_"Pissing_ match," she growled under her breath, cheeks reddening at her own words; Shinichi made tsking sounds and she smacked him on the back of the head. "Well, it IS," she said heatedly at his yelp. "There's got to be a better way to find his gem and draw the bad guys out, Shinichi! I know you both enjoy this, and I know he's doing this big production as a kind of present to you, but what if he... what if he gets caught? Or hurt? Or YOU get hurt? Or the- those people- show up and hurt or kidnap you both, or-"

From the front passenger seat, Yukiko shook her head and made soothing sounds; Ran stopped, taking a deep breath. "-or-"

"Ran. _RAN."_ The disguised detective cupped his hands around her face, cradling her jaw in careful fingers before he stopped her words with a gentle, lingering kiss. "I'll be careful, he'll be... well, he'll be Kid... which isn't _careful,_exactly, but he's got Kaito on board too, and probably the worst thing that'll happen is a lot of cursing, some bruises, and some property damage." He kissed her again, deeper this time, tasting traces of salt on her lips before he drew back. "Hey, now, what's this? No tears, Ran," Shinichi half-scolded her. "Neither of us are amateurs at this, you know; it's not like the sky's falling or anything. We'll be okay, and no matter who wins, we'll tell you everything later on." A third kiss, this one designed to thoroughly distract and drive away any remaining fears; she curved against him, one hand fisting in his short hair.

"Just stay here," he murmured against her throat, "keep your eyes open for anything out of place, and give us both something to come back to afterwards. You're my eyes and ears out here, Ran; stay safe and stay strong."

"You too," she whispered. "Don't forget who he is, behind the uniform and the tricks and, and everything."

Shinichi looked at her, blue eyes shining. "How could I?" he asked simply, buckling on his helmet. "I won't; and he won't forget who I am either, underneath _my_uniform." The black faceplate came down as Yuusaku pulled to the curb in front of the Hinata Center. "I'll see you all after the heist," the detective murmured to his parents and his lover, and behind the faceplate she could tell he was smiling.

As he turned, breaking into a lope and vanishing into the crowd, Ran swallowed hard, listened to the rain, and waited for the sky to fall.

* * *

The bass beat of a long-memorized song thrummed strong in Kid's ears, a drumming like a heartbeat that spanned over the other noises in the room, connecting them; the guarded shouts of the Task Force and the Fukuoka police force; the crackle of radios, the hum of electronic devices, fans, spotlights; the _thp thp thp thp_of helicopter rotors as they circled the towers, floodlights streaming in the gallery windows; and lowest but most tangible, the buzz of his brother's magic thick in his veins. The rest of the noise was actual; it was made of sound waves and came from actions in the now, actions already over by the time that the sound's meaning was conveyed.

But the magic, the magic buzzed with _potential_. There was nothing actual - or actualized - about it. Yet. It was energy in Kid's blood, twitches in his muscles, a booster shot for his adrenaline. It was common for Kid and Kaito to act and move as one, sharing the presence and the decisions of a heist; as they had both told Tantei before, it took two to compose the Kaitou Kid. But much less common was for them to be so overlaid while Kaito was so hyper-charged. The eagerness to _do_, to _change,_ to _affect_something in the world around them was an almost physical lust; their whole body sang with that buzz, that power in their blood, that awareness of the massive, hydraulic pressure of the magic inside them.

The magic wanted to be used. It _needed_ to be used. And if they weren't quick enough about it, the magic would use _them_. Anything, so long as it could find release, and the ability to rejoin the ki of the world from which it had been siphoned. Thus the sparks that filled the air.

Rain poured down, thundering on the patio outside, flung against the windows of the gallery by the helicopters' blades. The air should have been far too humid for any significant amount of static electricity to have collected, and if it'd been plain old static electricity, it would have been.

The officers moved, flinching as they did; golden sparks zapped between them, like miniaturized displays of arc lightning. Their skin burned, like from mosquito bites, where the arcs touched; they slapped hands to cover the pain and set off more arcs. The whole room hovered in uneasy stillness, afraid to move, too eager not to. Nakamori, Tanaka the Fukuoka chief, and Megure stood unflinching as the arcs hit them; Nakamori in particular narrowed his eyes in furious disbelief at the thief he had chased through a career, the thief whom he _always_ thought he'd figured out, and who _always_proved him wrong.

Slowly, Kid rose into a crouch, white-gloved hands spreading away from his body as his cape sussurantly slid off the Lotus Flower's case, uncovering her. Light from the copters flared off of her, sending solar-orange spangles across the inspectors' faces. In backlit semi-shadow, Kid's grin was pearly white as a Cheshire's.

"Ah, now." He smiled at the room, turning his head to address them all, footsoldier and commanders alike. Crooking just two fingers of his right hand, he beckoned them, the smooth sole of his white loafer shifting on the glass case as he adjusted his footing. "Come."

Behind faceplates, eyes narrowed; Nakamori growled audibly, flinching as sparks arced off his bristling hair when his shoulder brushed Megure's. "No glider," he snapped at his white-clad adversary even as he advanced a step at a time. "Even if you take the Lotus, _when_you take it, you can't get out." A tremor passed through his cheek as tiny lightnings grounded themselves on his skin. Behind him, Tanaka-keibu twitched violently and stepped forward even with Megure, both officers steeling themselves against the stings.

"You're trapped this time. 'Come'?" Nakamori showed all his teeth, motioning to the quivering men massed behind the three officers. _**"Take him down."**_

It was a credit to the Taskforce leader that his squad, to a man, ducked their heads and charged forward through the growing shimmer and crackle. Only, for once, they didn't all dive at the thief headlong; acting on prearranged orders they split three ways, several heading for the floorlength windows, others for the wall containing the room's sole entrance. The rest, though, headed for the thief in the best approved Dogpile-On-The-Bandit style, wincing all the way. Cursing and golden flashes mixed with the eddying smoke, and Megure tore off his hat for the first time in living memory when the brim began to smolder.

-to a man-?

No. Back behind and by the entrance, two figures remained, backs pressed hard against the corner left of the door: one anonymous figure in a Task Force uniform, one very _un_anonymous and annoyed Hakuba Saguru. Each had flattened themselves to the wall upon entering, heels, posteriors and shoulders as solidly attached to the paneling as possible; the sparks and crackles seemed to lose interest in them and went to find other bodies to play on, i.e., _moving, ungrounded_bodies.

"Kudo Shinichi, I presume?" asked the blond in the camel-colored trenchcoat with remarkable composure, watching the crowd move forward. His eyes flicked from his companion's unlabeled uniform to the closed faceplace, features behind it a blackened blur. "Pleased to make your acquaintance face-to-face at last, as it were."

The curved expanse of plastic turned and regarded him briefly. "Likewise." The voice was dry and just a little absentminded; it was hard to tear even a second of attention away from the grinning white figure crouched atop the display case across the room.

Hakuba followed his gaze; eyes nearly as clinical as Haibara Ai's assessed the mob moving forward, the epithets that Nakamori was spitting out, the instructions that both Megure and Tanaka were snapping into their respective radios. "The exits to all floors have been blocked by now," the half-Brit remarked, "the elevators have been disabled, the emergency staircases are under surveilance and all main electrical control boxes have been staffed to prevent unexpected outages. Have you a plan?"

"Not in the slightest," answered the other cheerfully, watching chaos erupt across the room; "I'm winging it, though I do have a few tricks up my own sleeve. You don't honestly think Nakamori _still_believes brute force'll save the day, do you?" There were shouts, screams, and a multitude of crackling noises.

"Oh no; that's just... it's a bit of a habit," answered Hakuba, one corner of his mouth curving. "A bit like the opening ceremonies at Wimbledon, you know."

Behind his faceplace, Shinichi bit back a laugh and concentrated on the activity ahead. Whatever Haibara had done to him, whatever chemical she had given him, it was singing in every muscle and echoing in the spaces within his bones. Details seemed sharper, fatigue and the ever-present ache following transformation was a passing gnatbite, easily ignored; all that mattered was Kid, the Lotus, and the chase.

Conscious of the two weights secured within each sleeve above his wrists, Shinichi licked away a line of sweat from his upper lip and watched the skirmish with bated breath. It surprised neither him nor Hakuba that Kid was able to easily outmaneuver the charging wave of Task Force members; the thief dodged and bobbed away from each grasping hand or fist, sometimes balancing with one hand on the glass of the Lotus's case, sometimes bounding off the shoulders of one Task Force officer onto the back of the next. His movement was quick, but not too quick to track; regardless, there was an unearthly quality about it that demanded a second look, just to see what was going on.

_It's like he's weightless,_ Shinichi realized, watching intently as Kid's spread palms came down onto the shoulders of one of his opponents, gloved hands strong, wrists straight, elbows locked, as he pushed off to complete his backflip. _He's leaping - and landing with __just his hands__on the shoulders of a man not more than his weight and half again - and the officer doesn't even feel it. None of them do. Look - that one doesn't have his footing set, there's no time-_

That man should have a twisted ankle. Why didn't I realize it before? Why didn't

_any__ of us? It's physically impossible to play leapfrog in a melee like this without hurting someone. But Kid does it every single heist. The sparks aren't hitting him, no matter how much he's moving - and he's not grounded, he's only touching the officers and their rubber combat boots are preventing them from grounding. The sparks aren't bothering him - they're dissolving as soon as they get near him. Should have seen..._

The thief was done with the Task Force within the next few seconds. Most of them were flattened; those who weren't were wobbling where they stood, gold sparks eating at their bodies like tiny teeth. The officers pushed to the ground by Kid shouted at those who hadn't been; in a few minutes, all the officers had followed their companions' instruction, and each had grounded themselves, finally escaping the gold sparks by pressing their bare palms - or most of their body - to the marble floor.

Having used his last leap off a Task Force member to regain the summit of the Lotus Flower's display case, Kid smiled sheepishly at Nakamori-keibu, spreading his hands helplessly. "I'm sorry, Keibu," he said, shrugging with what passed for the Kaitou Kid version of bashfulness. "I tried to go easy on them."

The growl that rose from Nakamori's throat was barely human. _"Easy?"_ He clenched his fists, a vein throbbing visibly in his forehead. Sparks danced across his black hair, damp from the rain; he took another step forward and then another. "You call flattening my men to the fl-_aargh!"_ The energy that now ignored his men was dancing around his pantslegs like excited children, crackling and leaping, tiny holes appearing in the cloth. "I-have-had-ENOUGH," he snarled, "and I-am-_going_to-" He abandoned language and lunged forward with hands outstretched, intent clear.

Behind him, Megure and Tanaka looked at each other and held their ground; around their ankles, fallen men groaned and swore.

With one of those grins that makes everyone - even people of compromised opinion, such as Shinichi or Ran - consider punching him in the kisser, Kid hopped off of the Lotus's pedestal case and hunkered down behind it, peeking out to one side in farcical intimidation. "Now now, Keibu," he said, eyes wide and wounded, "Let's talk this over like civilised men. We wouldn't want to do anything rash-"

'Rash' was, apparently, perfectly fine with Nakamori; 'civilized' was not on the agenda. His rush forward took him to the pedestal, where he glowered at the thief down through two layers of glass; the Lotus threw peach-colored sparks up onto his flushed face. "YOU." The rage in the word rattled the case between them. "You set this up, you-" He waved a hand that was already peppered with tiny red dots at the rest of the room. "Do you _KNOW_ what'll happen if we fight it out in here? All this crap-" The gesture took in the displays around him, the delicate works of calligraphy, fine metalwork, intricate sculpture and ancient porcelain. "If we damage any of it, ANY of it, we're all screwed. And youand your goddamn dancing around-"

Behind them, men were slowly, angrily beginning to rise to their feet. Megure and Tanaka pushed forward; the sparks began to shimmer and crackle around them again, easily as thick as before. Nakamori's hands clenched on the top of the case and he glared at the thief at close range. "You don't get this one," he growled through his teeth. "And you don't get away this time."

"...and there's the ultimatum," muttered Hakuba from a dozen meters back. "Next we'll have another attack, and if he's still thinking he'll try and block off access-"

"YOU FOUR, HANG ONTO THE GODDAMN THING! THE REST OF YOU-"

"-ah, there we go."

Shinichi smothered a laugh, eyes fixed on the figure just beyond the handful of peach fire. "Want to make any bets on what 1412'll do now?"

The blond shot him a sideways glance. "...you _have_been to heists before, haven't you?"

Hakuba's prediction - and Shinichi's, for that matter - was dead on. As four Task Force members locked their elbows together, forming a human chain around the pedestal, and Nakamori cut right, moving with the rest of his team in a well-rehearsed pincher move, Kid hopped lithely back from their reach, pressing his back against the glass of the window wall with a slightly unsteady grin.

"Now now, Nakamori-keibu, I think you've an excellent point...why don't we calm down and take this... outside?"

Glass, when vibrated for long enough and at a high enough frequency, will sometimes spontaneously shatter, breaking along the tiny fault lines and flaws invisibly hidden within its surface. The necessary frequency has some range of permissible variation in it, and several of these frequencies lie surprisingly close to the insistent buzz of the magic-saturated air of the gallery. With sufficient exposure, the magic spilling off of Kid might have proved enough to fracture the windows without a single touch. It would have taken a long time, but it was possible.

In this case, pressure - both physical and in frequency - did the job much quicker. Gold traceries of static energy flared off of Kid's shoulders where they touched the glass, spreading quickly away from him along the lines of potential weakness in the sturdy glass. The panes shuddered, then blew outward, spraying the wet patio with glittering shards and the gallery room with a sudden blast of warm rain. Water cascaded down the airtight, watertight display cases full of treasures and antiquities, obscuring them from view with its transparent instability.

The static in the room had disippated as soon as the glass blew; like a zap from a wool sweater, the bursting windows had spent the accumulated static of magic in the room, and it would need to build up around Kid again before its spillover would begin zapping everyone else in the vicinity, too. Suddenly free to move without pain, Nakamori's men shielded their eyes against the rain and squinted at Kid.

The thief was walking backwards, away from his adversaries and onto the rain-soaked patio - and toward the sheer drop at its edge. The patio's furthest rail was still a good distance back from the thief's position, but its significance was throwing up huge, neon question marks in Nakamori's eyes as Kid's flimsy, dressy cape became laminated to his body with rain. Yet the thief didn't seem concerned in the least.

"Look, we found a forest," he quipped, grinning at the others as he drew level with one of the taller topiaries arranged in columns across the triangular space. "Pretend I'm a wild hart and you're the Queen's hunter, sworn to bring her my head for her favors." A brief moment, in which the wind and chopper blades roared in everyone's ears and Kid's audience stood still, wondering if there was an insult hidden in there somehow.

Then it broke, and Kid displayed his right hand, the brilliant sunburst of the Lotus Flower glimmering against his white glove.

"Or just pretend I'm stealing half a billion yen's worth of sapphires. Either way!" And with a jaunty and offcentered grin, the thief tipped his hat and bounded away, backflipping into the midst of the topiaries and flashing the soles of his shoes like a deer's white tail as he disappeared.

Nakamori said something incrediblyfoul over the downpour before he turned his head, a bare flick of the jaw, to look over his shoulder directly at Megure. The other officer crammed his damaged hat back on and brought his radio to his lips:

"He's out. On my mark- _NOW,_Shiratori!"

...and on the top floor, Shiratori Ninzaburo of Division One clicked a control on a transmitter, which reached out in the way of machinery to find its technological offspring and other relatives...

To the tiny chip secreted between and behind the Lotus' delicate petals with a very, very strong adhesive. As tracers went, it was quite a stupid bit of machinery, scarcely the size of a grain of rice and bright silver to match its setting; all it did was yell out a signal, piping its idenfication endlessly and silently to anything that could hear it. Every squadmember in the room flinched as the small cuffs latched around their right wrists began throbbing against the skin in a steady heartbeat, tracking the tracer's location by distance.

The modified chip wouldn't tell where 1412 was, but it _would_ tell if tracer and tracker were close together, the beats increasing in speed as distance decreased. It had been Shiratori's idea- keeping the thief from his prize had been pretty much impossible so far, and capturing him, the officer had reasoned, had also proven ridiculously unsuccessful. Locking down the items hadn't worked all that well either; so, he'd suggested, making it less than worthwhile _keeping_ his prize might actually work. This had been passed along to Tanaka-keibu, who'd pulled in help from some fairly improbably sources to supply an answer to this question. Shiratori admitted that he had in fact gotten the idea from pet microchipping;it was a credit to the man's dedication to his job (if not, sadly, his sense of humor) that he hadn't laughed even once when he'd described the concept to Tanaka-keibu's technicians over the phone.

Out into the rain stumbled the herd of Taskforce, angry and determined, crushing glass beneath their heavy boots. Behind them came the two senior officers (Nakamori had pounded out at the head of the pack) and Hakuba, who paused to examine the unbroken and, above all, _empty_glass case with a frown. He looked at the officers' backs, muttered something uncomplimentary regarding security procedures, and turned towards the sole remaining person in the room. "Kudo-san? Aren't you joining the-"

"-chase?"

The room was empty.

* * *

_He'll go for somewhere where he can perch, preferably behind a light. He's not ready for this to be over yet, he still wants to play with his toys- and he needs to put in a very, very public appearance if he's going to draw out the Organization. So- high, visible place._Shinichi pounded down the narrow access corridor that paralleled the display room and which came out at the edge of the railing over by one of the maintenance doors; if he remembered the map of the Hinata Center right, there should be a-

_Yes!_-a narrow pathway winding behind the trees, giving him a straight shot along the railing to the opening at the mid-point, a scattering of metal café tables and chairs surrounded by tall cedars. The tracker-beat was steady and strong against his wrist, increasing in speed by tiny increments as his boots crunched on the graveled path; from his earpiece he could hear a confused jangle of voices and from overhead the thunderous roar of helicopters, but the detective ignored it all and ran.

His blood was singing in his veins, and it wasn't alone; there was the awareness, _the_ awareness, _KID!HERE! KID!HERE!_ dancing in time to his pulse. And energy- maybe Kid and Kaito had their magic, but he had necessity and the driving will to seek and find and oh, _just this once..._

He wanted his hands on Kid, wanted to win this one, and in that moment Shinichi honestly couldn't separate the absolute necessity of the chase from his personal knowledge of **why** there had to be a theft at all; it was as if the chase enabled the theft to happen, not the other way around, which made no sense but which somehow felt right in his mind. _You know what Heiji'd say to you if you told him that?_ reflected the detective wryly as he skidded on the wet path. _'Therapy, Kudo, lots and lots of therapy,' not like he doesn't think you need it anyway-_

Never mind. Shinichi slowed, breathing hard as the tracker-beat picked up, allowing the cylinder in his other sleeve to slip down into his glove; it was heavy, several inches long, and very cold. He was, admittedly, a little uncertain about using _that_particular little gadget, despite Agasa-hakase's assurances, but- well. He didn't have magic; he had his intellect and whatever tools he could devise, and that would have to do, wouldn't it?

The trees rose all around him to his left; the city fell away from him to his right, lights undimmed by the weather. There were shouts and crackles of static from beyond the foliage and, above all, the pounding of the rain on his helmet; shoving back the faceplate and baring his face to the night, Shinichi sucked in a deep breath of cool, moisture-laden air and paused just where the trees began to thin out.

In the pouring rain, soaked to the point that his good wool suit coat was beginning to lose definition and cling to his body like a very awkward second skin, Kid stood waiting for his Tantei. The copter lights were at his back, sweeping randomly; their arcs began to narrow and coordinate, surely following guidance from the officers advancing through the trees. The rain was coming down at an angle, into Shinichi's face and against Kid's back; the thief stood on the narrow cement railing's edge of the balcony, one foot ahead of the other. The railing was soaking wet, and Kid wobbled - just slightly - as he shifted his balance, hands tucked calmly into his pockets. On his chest, the Lotus Flower was securely pinned to his lapel, like the world's most arrogant boutonnière.

"Tantei." His voice was pitched loud, to carry over the distance between them, but carried a warm familiarity to it. "Glad you could make it."

Water sheeted down Shinichi's skin, trickled between collar and collarbone in cool rivulets. "With such a polite invitation, how could I stay home?" he asked calmly, abandoning any pretense at stealth and walking forward as casually as if this was an everyday meeting in a park or a coffeeshop or a library. "Think you forgot something tonight, though. Or were you planning on flapping your arms to get down?" The detective raised an eyebrow. "It's a long drop."

The tracker was thrumming against his wrist, but Shinichi's pulse was giving matching the tempo a good shot. _He'll expect darts; don't give him what he expects. Just a little closer-_

Kid looked right, peering past his shoulder down twenty-seven dizzying stories to the rain-soaked pavement below. Throngs of diehard fans, undeterred by the rain, craned their necks up for any sign of their idol; the roars of the officers and helicopters encouraged them, as well as the reports from the news crews stationed in higher floors of the Hinata Center's towers, cameras pointed down at the topiary maze in hopes that some white flash would break the rain-dark gloom. Kid reached one hand out, waving cheerily; a crescent of gold sparks arced away from his hand, dazzling and gone in a moment. The thief smiled to himself, seemingly unconcerned with Shinichi's steady advance, watching the crowd go wild as the sparks showed them where he was. The helicopters were next, swinging their beams around. The ones on the other side of the buildings rose from their holding patterns, swarming toward the balcony.

Kid looked up, moving so dreamily slowly that the sheer incontinuity of it was enough to demand attention. With a small smile, he lifted one hand to his chest, caressing the Lotus.

"Forget something? Oh, you mean the glider. Yes, it is a long way down, isn't it? But you know," the thief continued, stepping forward with care along the rain-slick balance beam of the balcony railing, "It doesn't fly all that well in the-"

The sentence was never finished. Kid's left foot came down on the railing, slipped, and skidded out from under him; his whole body keeled right, and the sight of the thief's startled expression, eyes wide and mouth open for his next word, hand partially extended and open wide, as though reaching for something beyond his grasp, burned against Shinichi's retinas after the white-clad thief was already gone from sight.

Later on, Shinichi'd remember lunging just as the thief slipped; he'd recall the second or so of startlement and his own leap forward as if in slow motion, as hackneyed and clichéd as that sounded. But there was the glimpse of Kid's white flutter of soaked cape and then nothing, and then the scrape and painful impact of the balcony's rail under his body, and then nothing but open air and the lights of the street below.

But no Kid. No white figure, no flutter of silk, nothing and nowhere.

Falling from a great height always seems to take forever in the movies; few people get to experience it and refute or agree to this. As he fell, Shinichi's hands moved automatically, the cylinder in his right hand gripped tight, triggered, jolting hard-

The adhesive line that shot out had been designed to stick to practically anything: skin, clothing, weaponry. It wasn't meant to support a human weight, it was meant to immobilize a violent attacker with the thick, gooey glue that covered its surface. It shot from the cannister like a snake towards the building, fell, snagged- went taut-

_"AAAAAAAHHHHH!"_

-and swung its human freight around and towards the tree-laden balcony in a wild arc that ended in a yell of pure terror, a crash of greenery and the sound of breaking branches two long stories below where the fall had begun.

Silence... followed by a groan. "-nnh. K-" A cough, as leaves were spat back out and Shinichi sat up groggily. "Kid? Wh- oh god, _**Kid?"**_Staggering to his feet, Shinichi hauled himself up to the edge of the balcony and looked wildly around.

No Kid. Up, down, sideways - no Kid. Shinichi pushed himself out of the tangle of two saplings he'd crushed upon landing - and which, consequently, had prevented him from crushing any of his own bones - and dug out his Task Force radio. The channel was chaotic, full of questions and no answers. Division One's channel was the same, as was the copters' and Fukuoka's. In the streets below, the crowd had gone **completely**bonkers, screaming shrill. Everyone wanted to know where Kid had gone.

Shinichi scanned the building again, looking for something - anything - that could be a clue. Nothing white, no crushed sections of vine or flowers to indicate a possible landing, no movement, and nothing out of the ordinary. And - very unsettlingly - the tracker on his wrist had gone silent; the Lotus Flower's signal was gone. Kid and his prize had simply...disappeared.

But (and this was the important thing), he wasn't currently taking up a portion of the Hinata Center's white concrete plaza far below, either; there was no ring of officers and hysterical fans around a fallen body, and _that_was what allowed Shinichi to take a deep, steadying breath and consider his options.

_Brain engaged? right. THINK, Kudo. First, Kid's not dead. Of course he's not, that'd be the __predictable__effect of falling off the twenty-seventh story of a building. Second, Kid's not HERE, or... no; no assumptions. You fell; unless he vanished right away, he saw you go over too. Therefore, the chances of his being here are really pretty good. He's either removed the Lotus from range (Shiratori said it would cover the building's extreme radius but no further, thirty-one stories at roughly nine meters each, factor in angle- never mind. If he and Kaito can transport a goddamn amethyst all that distance, then this is child's play. Kid's play, heh._

So- it's gone. Shit.)

-or he's disabled the damn tracker, which IS possible but not as likely. Or he's come up with another option entirely, which IS probably what happened.

Eyes automatically assessing and cataloging the shapes and shadows of the balcony-garden that had saved his fall- he seemed to have half-destroyed someone's very expensive boardroom view- Shinichi absentmindedly wiped blood from a scratch running down his cheek. His radio was going absolutely insane at this point, and equally absentmindedly he clicked back to Division One's channel and assured a frantic Megure that a) he wasn't dead and b) he hadn't caught Kid. That taken care of, he leaned on the railing again and watched the helicopters zoom past through the rain, deep in thought.

_Okay; unless we actually __see__the Lotus again, it's a write-off at this point. But there's no way he's finished playing with us for the night, and just because it's gone doesn't mean it won't LOOK like it's still here... Never mind Law Enforcement's goals; what are Kid's? What ones are left?_

To be conspicuous. To draw out his father's killers. Leaving now that he's got his prize... won't get that done. Therefore-

Shinichi drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes and doing his best to quiet his thoughts. _Logic says he has to be here. Fine, now let's try instinct._He'd felt Kid's presence earlier, never mind how the hell that worked; where was he now? Close by?

_Close by-_

* * *

_._

_._

_NO SHOOTING US, OKAY? We had to stop somewhere. Don't worry, though, the next chapter'll pick up right where this one leaves off. Have a good week, all, and don't forget to write! We'll see you again in seven days with __**Book Six, Chapter Nine: "Don't get killed, okay?" **__Jaa!_


	74. Don't get killed, okay?

_Hello hello everyone! Hope you've been enjoying the heist so far, I know I have! I LOVE writing Kid's heists - he and I get equal pleasure out of startling people. XD Continuing where we left off last week, I have quite a big chapter for you - it's juuuust too large for a single entry, but definitely not big enough to split into two chapters._

_And besides, if I'd split these 11,500 words into two 5,800 word chapters, that would have made for two very short chapters and two rather evil cliffhangers. Since you all disliked the evil cliffhanger last time, we thought we'd make sure not to give you two more._

_I'm posting this week - and at a funny time, too - for two reasons. One, if I wait to post until tonight, I will almost certainly forget to do so and you will all place my head on a pike. Two, Ysabet is very ill, and as such has been drugged up with The Good Drugs. As a result, if she'd posted tonight, it would have been very amusing - and very much not English._

_So! Onwards we go. I want to thank you all IMMENSELY - no, wait, that's not big enough..._

_**IMMENSELY.**_

_-for all the lovely, lovely comments and fanart and squee and death threats we got last week! We love every one of them. The number of squeeful phone calls that Ysa and I had last week would have amused you guys greatly, I think. "OMG ANOTHER AWESOME LURKER JUST SHOWED UP DID YOU SEE THE COMMENT OMG" & etcetera._

_I want to try to convey to you how precious your comments & feedback are to us, even if you only say "Omg I'm gonna kill you guys! " It may not seem believable, but we really, really depend on your feedback (good or bad or deaththreaty) for inspiration to continue! So please - all you regulars, and all you lurkers, and all you recently-unlurked-lurkers - please keep commenting! We love you for it, and for reading. (But we can't know that you ARE reading till you comment! Seeeee?)_

_Also! The contest prizes from TT's first birthday are nearly complete. Our grand prize winner will get an omake of her own, and the other winners will all feature in an especially special omake which we think will please you all a lot. The winner of a Letter from Kaito will be receiving her correspondence at the same time! So - though it's taken us a long time to get the prizes written since we've been so busy - they're almost ready! =D_

_Now, I think that's enough introduction. If you read the whole thing, include the word 'frog' in your comment. And now, to the chapter!_

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Nine, Part One**__**: "Don't get killed, okay?"**_  
Warnings for...warnings. :D

.

_'Phone call from your husband.'_

"What?" Kid closed his eyes, opening them mentally, where he could stare askance at his brother. "Sorry?"

'Phone call from your husband,' Kaito repeated, tone dry and mouth smirking. 'He's pinging us again. Catches on fast, that one.'

"S'why I like him," Kid muttered, blinking again; like switching lenses in the optometrist's office, the brothers' mental world clicked out of focus and the world around them clicked back into focus.

The sounds from the outside world were muffled, clamorous but distant for the moment, safely at bay. Kid was more than used to working calmly while crowds screamed and sirens blared, so the chop of copter blades swooping right past the brothers' hidden enclosure was as immaterial as the sound of the breeze on a calm spring day.

With a penlight between his teeth to give light, Kid wriggled and twisted within his narrow concealment, shimmying out of his clothes as quickly as he could. Once he had stripped, bare skin shivering against the cold metal of the box he lay in, he shoved the pile of wet clothes away, dragged the spare uniform he'd stashed closer, and began to redress himself, trying to keep his feet or elbows from hitting the walls and clanging.

'There's an American film I'm thinking of at the moment,' Kaito commented, his tone idle and offhand. No-one other than Kid would have believed the amount of sheer energy and magical concentration that he was manipulating, and Kid only because he could feel it within their shared body. Kaito made 'blasé' into an art form, really. 'This is kind of like that scenefrom it.'

"Except that we're not bound, this box is slightly bigger than a coffin, and we're seventy metersabove the ground, rather than two meters under it."

'We're also not as hot as Uma Thurman,' Kaito added, spreading his hands out to his sides. While Kid's worked on fastening buttons and pulling on sleeves, Kaito's hands spread out, palms facing the walls to either side of them - not the walls of their small enclosure, but the walls of the skyscrapers to either side of them.

"No," Kid agreed, cinching a new silk tie, smooth and free of rain damage, in a perfect double Windsor around his neck. "We're hotter."

When they were dressed, Kid reassembled his kit, transferring all his equipment from the wet uniform to the new, dry one. While he worked, he switched on his radio, clicking through the major frequencies which his opponents were using. He discerned that it had been four minutes since he'd disappeared from sight, that they _were_indeed using heat-sensing equipment to try to cut through the gloom of the rainy night and find him, and that -

"WHAT?" Kid's head clanged painfully off of the ceiling of their small enclosure; he quickly grabbed the wet uniform and smooshed it against the metal, dampening the reverberations as much as he could; meanwhile, he turned his full attention to the chatter on the radio.

"You stupid, idiotic, harebrained, moronic-"

Kaito was unimpressed. 'You realize you're complimenting him, in a way?'

"_He jumped after me!_ The idiot Tantei _**jumped after us!**_ If _we_ didn't have a glider, what did he think _he'd_do?"

'Expected you to catch him, probably, like always.'

Kid restrained the urge to thump his head against their box wall again, instead growling under his breath as he stowed the wet uniform into a compartment of its own and continued briskly preparing himself.

"That utter _moron._ I was just trying to give him a little scare, with the face I made - he should know better! I _don't fall!_"

'Yes, dear,' Kaito sighed.

Still grumbling, Kid extracted his cufflinks from his wet uniform and clipped them expertly into his new cuffs, moving next to the arrangement of his gems - both the Lotus and the others he'd brought - back into the specially made pockets in his uniform. One displeased growl from Nakamori on the radio caught his ear, and he clicked back over to the Task Force frequency to listen to the whole conversation.

"Huh, they put a tracker on her?" In the unstable light from their penlight, Kid examined the Lotus; she was unscathed by the heist, and there were no noticeable mechanisms anywhere on her. Still, Kid knew better than to question a gift of chance eavesdropping - they'd always served him well.

'Probably a very dumb proximity tracker,' Kaito offered, peering at the brooch as well. 'Safer to leave her here.'

"And by complete dumb luck, we planned in synch, Tantei," Kid murmured with quiet pride, pushing open the small compartment built into his enclosure specifically for the possibility that the Lotus, once he captured her, would either be contaminated or too fragile to attend the remainder of the heist. Lined with jewelry-quality low-dust anti-static vibration-minimizing cushioning, the compartment looked from the outside rather like a very small glove compartment, hinged door and all. When closed, it would be completely flush with the surface it was set into, and the cushioning within would hold its cargo immobile, dry, and perfectly preserved. It would keep the Lotus safe - safer than if she'd been on Kid's person - and, equally importantly now, she'd remain within the influence of the blackout box which was currently hiding Kid and Kaito from any and all forms of detection.

It hadn't been an easy setup, and had cost them a lot in terms of magic and physical exertion. But the payoff would be excellent. Having grown tired of using the same trick over and over, Kid had decided upon seeing the Hinata Center that an escape via air would be so predictable as to be utterly dull. Something else would have to be devised. Thus the silk cape, the box, the evening heist. The rain had been a probable and beneficial bonus; the weather reports had, for once, provided rain when Kid _needed_it rather than when he didn't.

Kid unplugged his radio from its external antenna amplifier; the wire ran from inside the box, through a small silicone-lined opening to the outside, where it could actually receive the radio waves which Kid's prepared enclosure completely killed. The opening was waterproofed, as was the rest of the box, and its location had been carefully chosen after Kid and Kaito spent a night or two in working blacks, testing the air currents around the Hinata Center. It had to be a location where rain wouldn't be easily blown toward, with sufficient clearance to launch the glider. Their own plans for the theatrical elements of the heist limited their choice of locations to a very narrow set.

And so, having picked the single perfect hiding place, Kid and Kaito had built a bunker, of sorts. It was big enough to conceal themselves, a spare kit and uniform set, the glider, collapsed and packed into its harness, and one or two other absolute necessities. It was shielded from x-rays, heat-sensing equipment, sonar, radio, and a host of other detection methods. It was colored dark, to match the surface it was attached to, and a thin, sheer material, screen-printed with the exact pattern and color of the surface its attachment covered, had been stretched over it in a smooth arc, covering it entirely and obscuring even its sharp corners from examination by the naked, unconcerned eye.

So when the residents and customers on the 20th story balcony patio looked up to the underside of the balcony of the 27th, they wouldn't have seen anything out of the ordinary. And when Nakamori and his men had been examining the location, scanning and critiquing every possible advantage that Kid might use, the expectation that the underside of the declared heist stage should be examined as closely as the top side would have been met with cursory attention at best.

Grinning, Kid clicked off his penlight, stowing it and the radio within his jacket, and slid open a panel in the bottom of the container. By this time, ten minutes had passed since he disappeared, and the stage was ripe for his next trick. He peered through the open panel, using a small mirror to see all the angles; below, the 20th story balcony patio was completely dark and empty. A smaller boardroom balcony, built out from the windows of the south tower on the 25th floor, was lit up and clamoring; Kid held the mirror still, looking closer. Several of the plantings had been crushed, and there was at least one officer in the boardroom within.

_That's probably where Tantei is,_ Kid surmised, smiling. _Just so long as he isn't below. Ready?_

Kaito looked over his shoulder at Kid, flexing his hands; crouched and ready, the Magician grinned at his brother. _'Ready.'_

Together they depressed two large latches, using a considerable amount of force to engage the stiff mechanisms. The latches released, and the walls and bottom of the container they had hidden within - that is, the entire container save for the ceiling which was affixed firmly to the underside of the 27th floor patio - swung away from them, released at its head end, tearing free the flimsy cloth camouflage screen as it went. The hooks at the foot end, not buckles but simply hook and loops held in place by the tension from the head end being locked in position, were now free to slip loose, and the entire container, weighing well over one hundred kilos, fell free, crashing to the balcony seven stories below with a huge, resonant boom and the explosive noise of crushing cement and terra-cotta planters.

As the copters' beams swung madly around, trying to track the sudden, unexpected movement and noise, Kid cleared his throat and clicked on the audio amplifier pinned to his collar, just behind the knot of his necktie. It picked up the sound from his voice and amplified it twelvefold, and his laughing, unbearably smug voice boomed over the crowd assembled below, commanding instant, stunned silence.

"_LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!_ I'm so sorry for making you wait! An excellently dedicated member of Nakamori-_dono's_Task Force reminded me that I had forgotten a crucial bit of equipment, and so I had to rush home to get it! Please forgive me for my absence, but I wanted to be at my most charming for you all. You are all precious fans to me!"

Halfway through this speech, the copter searchlights found Kid, and in a matter of seconds he had six of them fixed on his position. Standing with feet apart, a strong but casual stance, Kid leaned back almost as far as his lithe spine could bend, his outspread arms joyful and well-framed for the cameras, beaming up with absolute adoration at the crowd thronging around the base of the Hinata Center.

Yes, _up._As casually as anything - as casually as he performed any of his impossible acts - Kid had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, standing on the underside of the 27th floor patio, as though gravity was a sort of optional thing, something to play with on weekends.

The cameras zoomed in, focusing on the impossible, gleeful thief. On the billboard-sized screens set up for the crowd, his image was displayed: standing completely upside down, calm as anything, and absolutely bone-dry. His cape hung down toward his feet, flapping slightly in the wind from the copters. His hair, what was visible of it, and his necktie were similarly unaffected by his position. Only the charm of his monocle, which flashed blindingly silver in the concentrated beams of the copters, seemed to have noticed that gravity was going the opposite way today; it hung "up," its delicate chain angled around the brim of his top hat. While the rest of the world around him huddled in ponchos and rain gear, cold and wet and squinting against the rain, the thief stood spotless, his suit gleamingly white and perfectly apported, his tie immaculate, his top hat un-wilted by the downpour. Ten minutes before, he'd been sopping wet as anyone else, a drooping and wounded white bird who'd fallen from view. It was impossible, improbable, and fantastic; it was the Kaitou Kid, and by the disgustingly smug grin on his face, he _knew_it.

Kid turned in place, smiling and blowing kisses at every camera he could see, and at the crowd below in general. Another was aimed toward the south tower, only a few floors below his position.

* * *

"-underside of the plaza, sir," reported the Task Force squad member breathlessly into his radio, dripping as he straightened up from where he'd leaned out of a sixteenth floor stairwell balcony far below 1412's current position. "He's just _standing_there, waving... Ah- sir, I just got a request to cut the alarm in the twenty-fifth floor south quad, from... 'D-1 Adjunct'? We have adjuncts?" The squad member winced back at the crackling roar that heated his radio's circuits. "Yessir, I'll take care of it sir. 619 out." He flipped to another channel, snapping a few commands at two officers stationed at electrical breaker-boxes; after a moment, the horrific wailing from the twenty-fifth floor's alarm systems died out. "I need a transfer," 619 muttered, wondering if there were any openings in Violent Crimes.

* * *

Situated halfway between heaven and earth, as it were, Shinichi shook his head hard to settle the ringing in his ears as the alarm-blare finally died away. The overhead lights had stopped flashing as well, and while the boardroom's glass door had proven relatively simplistic to open (he'd gone for the tried-and-true method of bludgeoning the damn thing with a rock from the garden outside until it gave), there wasn't anything to keep him there once Kid had shown himself again.

_Hanging from the underside of the plaza... What was that Ran said about him __not__ being __the Batman?_ The thief had found himself a secure hiding place, tucked away somewhere on the underside like a cliff swallow; chances were good that this explained his disappearing act- the radio had _exploded_on all frequencies as soon as he'd reappeared, and the crash of a very heavy something on the next plaza down hadn't settled any of the ground-level officers' nerves.

The detective paused before reaching the boardroom door, frowning as he listened to the chatter. One thing in particular had him puzzled... Hakuba. Where WAS the detective hiding through all this? He flipped through the channels, listening intently for the distinctive sound of British-accented Japanese among the other voices; nothing. Still turned towards the damaged garden visible through the rain-streaked glass, he tapped a key. "This is D-1 Adjunct- Hakuba-san, what is your status, please?"

There was a squeal of feedback, and then the other's calm monotone. _"Hakuba here. Monitoring, twenty-fourth floor, south side, access hatch. I believe it's used for window-washing. 1412 is clearly visible-"_

* * *

"-and I will continue to monitor until otherwise advised. Hakuba out." Without removing the night-vision goggles from his eyes, Hakuba Saguru kept his gaze trained on the white figure perched upside down on the plaza's underside several stories up. His own perch was scarcely more secure, being suspended on pulleys and ropes, but as half of his body still remained inside the open maintenance hatch he had little fear of falling. Besides which, heights had never been a problem for him; just as well, he supposed ironically, considering how often he found himself a considerable distance above ground.

The past succession of heists and his admittedly profound lack of success in catching his preferred quarry had caused Hakuba to reconsider just what he intended to accomplish in regards to the Phantom Thief. Gems were stolen, gems were returned; security was breached no matter how technically challenging it was. The law was broken- no, that wasn't quite correct; actually, it was lured into an alley, mugged, stripped naked and then graffitti'd in indelible paint-marker, more like... and so far, Hakuba hadn't had the least bit of success in keeping _any_of this from occurring, unless you counted that blasted statue early on, and he wasn't.

Physical attempts at tackling the thief headlong had proved futile; traps were very probably the only thing that would ever do any good, and while he was quite talented at setting them up he was _not_necessarily good at the hand-to-hand that would follow. Hence the surveillance; there were a number of little surprises in the building just waiting for an unwarranted footfall, and unless they knew where 1412 was, they couldn't spring them, could they?

He steadied the goggles, eyes intent, watching for the thief's next move. On the radio, Nakamori's voice dissolved into a torrent of static.

* * *

"-goddamned rain is _NOT_fucking helping," snarled the head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force, wishing he had his pipe. Or something else to bite, at the very least. "526, 910, 783, secure the points of this plaza. The rest of you, down through the floors- I want two men on each security partition, fan out through the floors until you hit the twentieth. Stay in contact!" He turned to Megure and Tanaka, all three as soaked through as drowned rats by now. "Feedback?" he demanded.

Megure cleared his throat; he was breathing hard, winded from his own race through the trees and from an injudicious stumble over a fallen café chair. "Ground floor and entrance report no signs of activity. And the signal's still active, there's no technical failure- no contact either; it's either jammed or..." The heavyset man shook his head, blackened hat-brim dripping. No-one needed to say it; their best bet for keeping track of the Phantom Thief's prize had failed.

Tanaka wiped at her own lined face. "My people are reporting no stairwell activity other than officer movement," she said, disgruntled. "No injuries from the impact on Plaza Two, thankfully, but we've got a real mess down there, we can't figure out what fell but it took out a good chunk of masonry."

"Street-side injuries?" asked Megure sharply. "My men reported nothing-"

"No, just debris." The Fukuoka chief shrugged, her greying hair trailing soggily out from beneath her hat. "I think somebody's car got hit, but that's all."

* * *

"I _told _you not to park there."

"'Kiko, where else could I park? It was the last place left, and it _was_outside the cordon-"

"I suppose... At least we weren't in the car, and oh well, it's a rental. Ran-chan, you didn't get scratched, did you?"

"N-no, just- is that Kid? It IS! Ooooh, wait'll I get my hands on him-!"

* * *

Twenty-seven stories up, Kid smiled for his adoring public. The electromagnetic bonds which held his shoes - and thus himself - to the bottom of the building were strong, and meant that he couldn't have moved his feet if he'd _wanted_to, but that his body wasn't going anywhere - namely, down - either. His cape reached for the building's surface too, too short to touch, drawn by the lodestones sewn into its corners toward the rare-earth magnets embedded in the ceiling plate of what had been his hiding place and was now the 'platform' upon which he was held against the pull of gravity by electromagnets so strong that they made him lightheaded, dragging his blood toward his feet by way of the iron contained in it. His tie was simply pinned in place, and his hair crazy enough that gravity's influence, no matter which direction it was pulling, was rarely noticeable anyway. So, proud and smug, he stood in complete control of his audience, completely unable to move.

Well. Only for the moment.

Flexing his hands, Kaito shivered head to toe as he dipped deep into the magic he'd stored inside of their body during the meditation with their mother; he dipped deep into the resonance with the magic of the world around him, the alignment of which he had also intensely reinforced and strengthened during that session. In their setup, Kid and Kaito had done more than affix an incomprehensibly heavy enclosure to the bottom of a skyscraper balcony without anyone noticing; while Kid had done the grunt work, and Kaito had worked to keep them from falling, the Magician had been busy in other ways, too. And since they burst through the window of the display gallery, he had been concentrating on little else.

It was Kid's to provide the showmanship, the drama and theatrics. It was Kaito's job to create something to be theatrical _about_.

With a similar recording as they'd used in the mid-air walk, hooked up to the same amplifying circuit that Kid's voice was run through, Kaito and Kid projected the sound of a foot tapping, as though for attention. The screams of the crowd died out slowly, then more attentively as Kid gestured for quiet.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm too far from you! I can't see your smiling faces. Don't worry - I'll come closer."

_'Now,'_Kaito murmured, abandoning even enough self-awareness to remember his own name, as he dove deep into the magic within and around them, becoming the conduit which connected and unified the magics together, until there was no seam between them.

Kid turned off the electromagnet.

His cape fluttered free, driven backwards now by the force of the copters and the wind whipping around the building. It waved behind him as he began to move, walking forward across the underside of the plaza, moving away from the smooth, unmarked dark rectangle which the cameras and police could now identify as the attachment point for whatever concealment he'd been hiding within. Kid walked, a tap sounding on each stride, unhurried and grinning, waving down at his audience as though to say, 'I'll be right there!'

He headed toward the north tower, glancing over his shoulder to smile at the balcony where he knew Shinichi had been (or possibly still was), and the alcove where Hakuba had secreted himself. The Brit needed anti-reflective coating on his goggle lenses. When Kid reached the wall of the skyscraper, at the extent of the plaza underside, he examined it with a frown, looking from it, back over his shoulder, and around, as though puzzled about where to proceed next. Then, just as the crowd's screamed suggestions and advice began to reach a fever pitch, he shrugged - the charming gesture magnified fifty-fold on the huge display screen at street level - and hopped in place.

If you'd blinked, you would have missed it, and many of the audience did. They had to ask their friends, some of whom were hyperventilating with disbelief and glee, how the thief had moved from one plane of balance to a perpendicular one - upon which he was now standing, just as calmly as before, without apparent anchor or attachment - as though by magic. And the truth was little more comprehensible than that - Kid had simply jumped, far enough that his union with the underside of the balcony was severed, and his attachment to the side of the Hinata Center's north tower side had taken over.

_You've got us, Magician?_

_'Of course I do, Fool, can't you see that you're not a splat on the ground yet? Keep moving, it's easier when it's kinetic.'_

_Yessir!_

Cape draped over his shoulder and tucked under his elbow to keep it out of the way, Kid tucked his hands into his pockets and began to stroll down the building, heading for the ground.

* * *

If 'close by' was a flash of lightning, then 'moving away now' was a firefly. Shinichi's eyes popped open as he became abruptly aware that he needed to be hauling ass _RIGHT AWAY_ or his window of opportunity was going to slip past. Or, according to the insane yammering on his radio, stroll past right over to the north tower, doubtless with the usual savoir faire and casual showmanship that was Kid's hallmark. And Shinichi was in the south tower and there was something very important that he wanted, _needed_ to do to quiet the bits of him that were still frantically insisting _if we didn't see him then he fell we know he did he fell and he's just one more chalk outline_despite all his logic and self-control.

_But I did it. That's the first time I've ever deliberately __looked__ for him. And it __worked__._A slow, delighted grin spread across the detective's scratched, wet face.

_"-like a fly on the wall, Nakamori-keibu, I can see him from here-"_yapped an unknown Task Force member; without hesitation Shinichi took off at a dead run across the boardroom, past the polished table that now glittered with raindrops and a fine scattering of glass, out the ornate double doors and down a broad hallway lined with function rooms. He received startled looks and a couple of abortive attempts at capture before he gasped out "D-1 Adjunct, remain at your posts" at a few officers as he passed; Megure's little delaying-action blockages made him curse and have to take side-tunnels, but by the time his bruises had caught up with him and slowed his progress to a limp, Shinichi had crossed into the north tower.

Gasping for breath, he staggered to another pair of double doors, right at the corner where Kid was likely to pass; this floor was mostly function rooms of one kind or another, some private, some for rent; the keycard he and all the other uniformed agents had been given worked for all locks (well, almost all) and he slipped into the dark room just as a large number of Task Force members thundered past behind him, apparently heading for another vantage point.

The room was large, furnished as the other one had been with a sleek conference table and many chairs; it was otherwise quite empty, and long windows allowed Fukuoka's orangish skyglow to cast a pall of light over everything. The windows were, with the exception of the one on the very end, all of the usual modern-building type, double-paned and quite unopenable; the end-window, however, had a keypad and lock just as the outer door had.

...and there were feetpassing by, one slow step at a time, bare centimeters away from the window-edge. Feet, legs, flutter of white cloth-

The detective _stared._And really, who could blame him for what he did next? He couldn't help himself.

Without thought, without even anything more complex than the clamor in his brain that was shouting _KID!NOW!KID!NOW!_ registering, he slammed the keycard through the reader, yanked the window open, and pulled **hard**on a double handful of sturdy white cape fabric.

* * *

And from far below...

"I can see them. I can _see_ them, Jii! Oh, look at that!" Chikage turned a face that was wet with rain and other things towards her old friend. "Their father'd be so _proud_of them, wouldn't he?"

"Indeed he would, madam." The old man's voice was hushed, as was that of the woman beside him; they stood together beneath a black umbrella, clasped tightly in Jii's hand, marveling at the scene displayed on the street-level screen and at the tiny white figure which they could just make out, many stories up through the downpour. Chikage pulled her raincoat tighter around her thin form against the wind and the damp, her face more animated than it had been in a very long time.

Jintarou craned his head, watching the monitor critically as his young master sauntered downwards, hands in pockets. The display really didn't due his attitude justice, focusing on the blur that was the thief's face instead of his entire performance; _however,_ the old man thought to himself smugly, _there are literally hundreds of people recording tonight's every action from this crowd alone, not to mention the news networks. He'll certainly get his due attention, every nuance will be critiqued and appreciated as it should be._It was enough to bring tears of joy to his eyes, truly it was; but beside him, Chikage was still talking, and he turned back to her as she made a sudden exclamation. "Madam? What-"

She was staring across the crowd, eyes wide, at... several people standing by a car, all three staring upwards. The elderly retainer could see their profiles clearly even through the rain, and he squinted hard to make certain. _Ah; Master Toichi's friends. The young master's daifu. Should I-?_ Before recent events (which he, as he considered such to be entirely his duty, was fairly well aware of) alerting others to Madam's presence would have been unthinkable. But now- things were different, things were at last _changing_after so long, and...

"Madam? Do you wish me to call to them?"

Chikage looked stricken, face visibly paling. "I- I don't-"

It was then that Jintarou saw the blonde woman (Kudo... Yukiko, wasn't it? he remembered) turn to say something to her husband; her gaze traveled past his shoulder, froze, and even from where he stood he could see her jaw drop. She said something excited and hurried, involving much handwaving; a moment later, the dark-haired girl whom had accompanied young Kudo-san on his visit nearly two weeks prior was making her way through the crowd towards them. Chikage wavered in place, indecision twisting her drawn features into something akin to the weary, haunted expression she usually wore at the end of April; but before she could draw away, the girl (quite soaked through, Jintarou was distressed to see) was bowing politely before them in the rain, a hesitant smile on her face.

"Kuroba-san? Kudo-san asked me to pass along her greetings, and- well, we were wondering if you'd join us for tea? Both of you? We brought a thermos, and it's awfully chilly." The girl-_young woman, really, quite pretty,_thought Jintarou- glanced up at the sky. "And I think, um, we still have quite a while to wait before... things are finished." She glanced over her shoulder; the two persons by the car were smiling encouragingly, and the man held up a large container of some sort. "Please?" added the young woman shyly. "I think they'd both really like to say hello; it might keep their minds off their worries." Her eyes flickered towards the sky.

Glancing back skywards as well, Chikage bit her lip and remained silent... one second, two, three... before the tension seemed to drain out of her shoulders, and she looked the young woman in the face again. "I'd- like that, I think," she answered back quietly, the bare beginnings of a smile creeping out of hiding before she allowed the young woman to escort her towards the pair beside the car, with Jintarou bringing up the rear.

_Yes, quite a lovely young woman._ Jintarou glanced at the monitor one more time before hurrying to keep the umbrella over his mistress' head. _Quite persuasive, too._

* * *

Inside the north tower, twenty-fifth floor, random function room, crashed ingloriously across the floor and one of the stylishly uncomfortable boardroom chairs and two feet of the wall's baseboard, with a socket block for ethernet connection jabbing into his kidney, Kid took stock of his situation.

Point A. Not staring into spotlights, being yelled at, being cuffed, being tazered, or otherwise under the power of any party of law enforcement. This was good.

Point B. Laying on top - mostly - of someone else. Identity unknown at the moment; before Kid sat up to assess their identity, he'd have to make sure of protecting his own, and it might be worthwhile to apply a fifteen-second nose prosthetic before they could untangle themselves, seeing as the city's ambient light was bright enough to make the room navigable even with none of its own lights on.

Point C. His radio was chattering away, tuned to Megure's team's frequency now, which meant that there was probably_**mmmmmfph!**_

Blinking hard, Kid stared hard at the person he'd landed on, who had in turn squirmed out from under him, tackled him (he was wearing Task Force riot gear, Kid knew the jab and shove of those body armor panels too well to ever mistake them), and then _kissed_him, even while still wearing the Task Force riot helmet! Then his brain caught up with the situation and pointed out helpfully that the flavor and touch of the other man's lips and kiss were sensations he'd committed to the indelible record of his heart.

"_Tan-tnnnngh,_" he mumbled, arching up against Shinichi. The detective pulled back for a harsh gasp of air, ripping his Task Force helmet off before diving back down, his kiss hard and messy and so, so heady; his fingers knotted in Kid's hair and the thief twined his body around his detective's, long slim legs tangling possessively with Shinichi's, white against black. Shinichi's helmet and Kid's top hat were both off to the side somewhere, barely important; one or both had clattered against the wheels of the office chairs neatly pulled up to the boardroom table which was, theoretically, somewhere still in the room, which was still (theoretically) within the Hinata Center, which was (still theoretically) packed to the gills with law enforcement officers and members of the press, since (theoretically) there was still a Kaitou Kid heist going on at the moment. Theoretically, Kid was supposed to be participating in that heist. Probably.

Eh, he'd get back to it in a minute.

They had to breathe eventually, and even the best kiss (read that as 'first time during a heist' and 'fueled by chemistry, tension and things which mankind is not meant to dabble in') had to end. They ended up nose-to-nose, breathing hard; at some point Shinichi's collar had come undone, and Kid's Windsor knot had lost all semblance of neatness. "Um," said the detective, eyes very large in his flushed face as something vaguely resembling reason began creeping back into them. "...truce?" His hands, which were still cradling Kid's head, loosened their tight clench and gentled into more of a caress. "What I mean is, ahh- no tricks? No attempts to catch, arrest, keep, deduce, extract information, tr_mmm-"_The speech turned into another kind of communication, and in the process Shinichi found himself rolled sideways, over, and was quite suddenly and comfortably covered by a cape and and an armful of very enthusiastic thief.

Who he was supposed to be involving in catching, but there was that 'truce' thing, right? And apparently said thief agreed. He buried his hands in the other's hair again and pulled him back down.

Through the kiss, Shinichi was aware that there were _things_ pressing against him here and there- no, not the kind that came first to mind, but sharp metallic bits and what felt like a sizable lump somewhere around the chest and something heavy in a lower pocket that slipped and slid against his thigh as the warm body in his arms shifted, lips seeking the spot below his left ear. He didn't want to know; that is, he didn't want to know just _then,_not at all, because... The detective lost his train of thought just at that point, hissing through clenched teeth as his thief decided to sign his work with his teeth; vaguely, Shinichi wondered if Kid was attempting to do what he had once accused him of and leave a 1412-caricature on his skin.

A thunder of feet and voices went by past the door, and the other went, quite suddenly, very still, lips still pressed against his lover's throat.

"You jumped after me," Kid snapped once the footsteps were past, hissing the accusation against Shinichi's skin. "You _jumped off the twenty-seventh floor_and you weren't wearing a parachute!"

"You jumped first," Shinichi snapped back, pushing Kid back so he could see - and glare - at his thief. Kid's eyes were blue, so blue, and the monocle glass was clear in the dim light, revealing everything. "I thought you'd fallen!"

"I'm a _professional!_" Kid was clearly very put out. "I heard you'd jumped while I was in the _box_for crissake! I couldn't even see if you were okay!"

"Same to you," Shinichi growled back, his hands fisting in Kid's hair. "You idiotic, impulsive, moronic-"

"Harebrained, pernicious, dogged-"

"Pernicious?"

"Moronic?"

Rolling over and over again, they nipped, kissed, shoved, and in general settled their differences by way of erotic fistfight. A minute or two later found them both much more flushed and much twined together, their kisses no less passionate but definitely less desperate and scared, reassured of the other's safety with their warmth and touch.

"I can't say I've ever quite had this particular fantasy," Kid murmured, nibbling on the crest of Shinichi's ear, his tongue tickling the inner whorl. "I've never found the Task Force gear particularly erotic." He paused, snickering a little, his breath puffing against Shinichi's throat and ear. His leg flexed, wrapped around the detective's, and the smooth line of his leg pressed lumps against Shinichi's, various bits of the kit strapped to various bits of himself, concealed with the normal drape of his suit, revealed as Shinichi and he rocked their bodies together.

"But... Tantei..." The frame of his monocle pressed against Shinichi's cheekbone as Kid nibbled his ear, cold but lightweight metal pressed between their skins. "You have, I think? Perhaps not a boardroom. Too sterile. The rooftop, maybe?" He rolled his body against his lover's, opening his mouth to accept Shinichi's tongue. The detective stole a fierce kiss that dragged hungry, pliant whimpers from Kid, and the thief's mouth was slick and plush and slack when Shinichi finally pulled back.

"I can understand," Kid panted, his grin and his babble conveying his pleasure as much as his flushed skin and dark eyes did. "It's very easy to fall for a man in uniform, after all."

Shinichi raised one eyebrow slowly, and then the other. "I'm flattered you think so," he drawled. "I mean, _I_think I look pretty good in Task Force gear myself, but it's nice to have it confirmed." A moment later he added an "OW!" as punctuation when Kid bit his ear a bit harder than necessary. He propped himself up on an elbow, their last contortion having put them more or less on their sides. "We'll have to get Ran's opinion sometime, hm?" He smiled, nosing the other's hair and breathing deep the familiar/unfamiliar scent of Kid, in full uniform, engaged in highly illegal activities. "She's down in the crowd, you know. So's Kaasan and Tousan, and if you think they're just here to watch me you're out of your mind."

Kid chuckled softly; the sound reached deep into the more primitive parts of the detective's brain and now the Task Force coverall, flattering or not, was proving more than a little uncomfortable. Shinichi shifted, sliding his thigh against Kid's and inadvertently doing something that only made the discomfort that much _less_bearable. "Ah-" He swallowed hard, considered the fact that it would be disastrous beyond all comprehension if they were, say, walked in on at just that moment by practically anybody else at all in the entire building, and made an effort to get control of himself.

-in just a minute. He'd do that, right, in just one minute more...

Kid had on a contemplative look as Shinichi pulled back from yet another hungry kiss. The thief's hands walked down Shinichi's body, and if he'd been wearing less layers it would have tickled as Kid's fingers traipsed from his ribs down to his hips.

"Mmm, I've found _one_bit of you that isn't all armored up," Kid chuckled happily, strong fingers splayed across the detective's ass, squeezing hard. Shinichi choked back a little hungry noise and instinctively arched against Kid, following the encouragement of the thief's forceful grip.

_Clunk._

"...And another part of you which is," Kid continued, wry. "You were a good little Tantei and wore your cup like I told you to, mmm?"

"You're wearing one too," Shinichi stated, somewhat self-evidently. Kid smiled, the laugh in his eyes directed back at himself.

"It's part of my standard gear," the thief explained, tracking one hand up Shinichi's back to grip the short hair at the base of his neck and hold on tight. "But it's usually supposed to protect me...never had to use it as a chastity item before."

Shinichi chuckled, eyes shading half-shut as Kid tugged him over for another kiss. So of course it was at that very moment, with perfect dramatic timing, that both their radios crackled into life - Shinichi's, tuned to Megure's frequency, and Kid's, tuned to the Task Force's. The voices carried across the airwaves were whispering, but they seemed loud as shouts in the relative silence of the dark, isolated room of truce.

_"Dagger squad in place. Hallway is empty. No sign of him."_

_"Beta squad here. No sound from inside the room. We've got our dishes pointed straight at the open window, but there's-wait, I'm hearing an echo."_

_"Beta squad, confirm!"_That was Megure's voice, and two wide pairs of blue eyes stared at each other in cranky, alarmed silence as the radios continued to squawk.

_"Confirmed, Megure-keibu, we are picking up an echo of our radio channel from the room."_

_"Fukuoka Calico squad says there's no movement, but they're picking up an infrared reading from the floor. We may have a downed officer, or it might be a trap. Proceed with caution!"_

Nakamori's growl roared through both channels, making Kid and Shinichi (and probably every other officer holding a radio of either channel) flinch. _"Dagger, get in there and __**get him!**__"_

Footsteps sounded from down the hall, charging the door. Without a thought, Kid rolled Shinichi to the side, drawing and firing the cardgun in one smooth motion. The card struck the passcode panel just above the doorknob, which spit a spark or two while its display flashed error codes; the thief holstered his gun again, his other hand tucking into his cuff for just a moment as he twisted back to face Shinichi.

"That'll give us five seconds. Sorry, Tantei, but unless you've got a better idea-" He held up the pink sleeping gas capsule for Shinichi's view. His right hand had already readjusted the knot of his tie and even as he waited for Shinichi's permission, holding his detective's gaze, the thief was rolling to his feet, recovering his top hat, shifting and smoothing his uniform back into place.

The detective groaned, head falling back against a chair-leg in frustration. "Aaagh. But- you got your hands on the Lotus and kept it despite everything we tried, and _I'm_the one who called truce, so-" He sighed, hands rapidly fastening his collar and hoping no hickeys were visible. "Do it. Don't get killed, okay?"

There was a small _phfft!_of impact; and the last thing Shinichi saw before all-encompassing pink fog filled his brain was the lunar gleam of Kid's monocle as he moved towards the open window, a second full moon to replace the one that the rain-clouds had hidden. Sliding down into darkness, he took one very satisfying thought along to keep him company:

_...at least I caught him. For a few minutes. Even if it was only because he wanted to stay._

* * *

Glaring light, too-loud voices; Shinichi winced back, head thumping something hard enough to jar his teeth. "NNGH-"

"-san? Kudo-san, can you hear me?" That was… Shiratori? The fallen detective cracked an eye open again and tried to shade it against the harsh fluorescent glare haloing the officer's head. "Kudo-san, can you understand me?"

"Halogen," said Shinichi faintly. "Turn 'em down…" He cursed as the officer helped him to sit up, head pounding. "What… wait." He looked up. "Kid? KID. He—did you get him?" he asked, stomach sinking.

Shiratori sat back on his heels, still half-crouched beside Shinichi. "We did not; regrettably, he was out the window and away before we could do more than catch a glimpse of him, and now he's back on the move downwards." He studied the younger man's disheveled state. "You, it seems, at least managed to lay hands on him-?"

Cradling his throbbing head in his hands and simultaneously fighting back nausea (the goddamn pink gas always made him sick, no matter what size he was), Shinichi nodded slowly. "I caught the description of his position on the Task Force channel and decided to take a chance that he'd follow the path of the nearest steel construction-beam if he was using electromagnets to adhere to the building," he prevaricated; actually, he'd just listened to the voices in his head. "Office buildings frequently have secondary support-girders alongside a series of windows; these were the nearest windows to his path." _And that's entirely true, but it's __also__ a steaming pile of-_

"Excellent deduction, Kudo-san," said an accented voice from the doorway; Hakuba stood there, night-vision goggles hanging around his neck and wrinkling his otherwise impeccable attire. "I take it you were the one to pull him in? I was able to track his movements right up to the moment when he vanished." The fair-haired teenager studied Shinichi, a faint hint of chagrin mixed with extreme impatience. "And he's still moving… Ah; you actually grappled with 1412?"

_You could say that..._ "I—gave a good accounting of myself." _I left him with at least two marks on his neck he'll be needing makeup to cover._"I doubt I did anything that could incapacitate him, though; he's better at hand-to-hand than I thought."

_And you should see what he can do with those hands, Hakuba-san, you'd be amazed._

Something very akin to envy (and perhaps a grudging portion of respect) flickered in the other's eyes, and the blond shrugged. "It's very rare for anyone to actually catch him that off-guard," he murmured; "I've managed it only twice in all my time studying the thief, and both incidences were very early in this phase of his career… if this is indeed the same thief as ten years ago at all." Hakuba watched as Shiratori helped Shinichi to his feet, one hand fidgeting with the goggles; he seemed in an agony to be on his way, and only manners kept him from abandoning the other two.

His last comment, however, had been enough to drive the smug, slightly regretful thoughts from Shinichi's mind. He paused, steadying himself with one hand as he picked up his helmet from where it had rolled beneath the boardroom table; a surprising flood of anger and what could only be called possessiveness washed through him, but when he looked at the other detective his face held nothing but curiosity and no more than the reasonable trace of pride in taking down a very cagy felon, even temporarily. "Really? That's… extremely interesting, Hakuba-san. What evidence do you have?"

Shiratori looked from one to the other as the blond half-Brit opened his mouth to begin what looked to be a lengthy diatribe. "Ah—gentlemen? If I might remind you, this investigation is still underway-?" Both looked at him. "Megure-keibu has asked that we continue with all speed to the twentieth-floor plaza as s-" His face changed as the radio in his jacket pocket chattered hysterically. "...as soon as you are able," he continued smoothly. "Are you able to walk, Kudo-san? Time is of the essence."

A little wobbly on his feet but recovering quickly, Shinichi straightened and buckled his helmet in place; he had bruises from his impact with the balcony garden that were only now making themselves felt through the high of adrenaline, and he suspected he'd find a lot more as soon as he had the leisure to look. It would have to wait, however. "I'm fine; let's hurry. And let's continue this discussion later, okay?" he nodded to Hakuba as they moved towards the doors. "I'd like to hear more, but afterwards; we still have a thief to catch."

Glass fell away beneath Kid's feet as he continued down the building. His initial descent, meant for showmanship and to inspire awe in the throng below, had been slow, measured, playful. Now, once he'd leapt free of Shinichi's window - as he was amused to find he was already thinking of it - Kid barely paused to let Kaito get a grip on the vertical glass of the building before they took off.

Nothing but magic held him to the wet glass, nothing but magic gave his shoes a grip as he pushed faster - and he did. The floors blurred past as he charged down the building, and his vision narrowed as he focused his attention and his energy on what was to come next. Though he was staring straight down, eyes opened to the crowd below, he wasn't performing for them any longer, and he wasn't even paying them attention either, not really. Kid knew where the innocent onlookers stood, where he couldn't go or turn because it would put them in range of the overspray from aggression aimed at him. But at the moment, that was all the significance they had to him. The Lotus heist was over; now, with stones yet to display concealed in his breast pocket, Kid was focused on inciting a battlefield.

The thief's attention was focused out and around, not down; a flash of movement on his right let him know that there were people on the 20th balcony as he zipped past it. _Megure or Hakuba perhaps? Can't __see__ if Tantei's there,_he thought, a small smile on his lips.

_Of course, I don't need to see him to know he's watching me._

He tracked the movements of the copters, which had pulled back in wary anticipation of his movements, as he cut his path to the side, angling as he reached the tenth floor. At the tenth floor, on the inner corner of the north tower, he would push off hard, opening the glider to catch the power of the wind that was channeled through the columns of the building, strengthened by the currents created by the choppers trying to catch him. The tenth floor, as well as the twentieth and the twenty-fifth, had proven the most successful in Kid's research and practice runs; the combined effort of the police and his Tantei's crazy had now driven him down to the lowest of those three levels. Kid narrowed his eyes, squaring and tensing his shoulders and torso in preparation for the hard punch they'd take when the glider harness opened above him.

* * *

Talk had given way to hard breathing and the slap of shoe-soles on tiles as the three men raced towards the twentieth floor, heading for the nearest stairwell. Hakuba was in the lead, and for all his meticulous appearance the man had quite a turn for speed.

_Must- be the- long- legs-_thought Shinichi disjointedly as he jolted down through seven floors' worth of landings. Nakamori's men had gone on ahead, leaving the stairwell empty; their footfalls rang hollowly as they doubled their steps, first Hakuba and then Shinichi with Shiratori bringing up the rear. By the time they reached the landing they needed, an officer (one of Tanaka's? Shinichi didn't recognize the man) was waiting for them, holding the door open and waving them through.

The plaza (no forest here, Shinichi noted absently, registering fountains/benches/flowerbeds) was awash with uniforms and rain; overhead, thunder rolled in dark counterpart to the heavy drumbeats of the helicopters. Puddles splashed underfoot as the three pounded out into the downpour, heading for the largest knot of activity.

That turned out to be next to a fairly impressive scene of damage- Kid's whatever-it-was had taken out a balcony fountain in spectacular fashion, sending large chunks of concrete to the asphalt below. But while Shiratori paused, looking quickly around for Megure, neither Hakuba nor Shinichi had eyes for anything else but a clear place at the edge of the railing. Surrounded by shouting, pointing men, the two detectives clung to the cold metal edge and saw:

_White figure, running impossibly horizontal, moving from concrete to glass to metal and putting the lie to magnetism or any other natural method of movement, cape streaming out behind him like a flag-_

He was below their level, cutting across at an angle; rain sheeting down the windows splattered bizarrely from beneath his feet in sideways splashes. His movements were unerring and sharp, and as Shinichi leaned as far out as the railing would allow he saw Kid, still sprinting full-tilt across the glass, shift his balance and gather himself, shoulders rolling forward-

-he _knew _that pose, remembered it from a gut-clenching moment high atop the Ghibli Museum and from other moments when he'd watched from above or below. He knew it, and-

"He's going to fly," he heard Hakuba say right beside his ear. "We've lost him!" And there were shouts and Nakamori was yelling into his radio and the copters were circling closer...

* * *

Time moved differently, a collection of still moments threaded together like pearls, when you did what Kid was doing now. His theory, one he'd batted back and forth with Kaito for a while, was that time just didn't know _how_ to put into continuous sequence things that didn't go together. Like the human mind blocking out what makes no sense, the brothers Kuroba supposed that Father Time just left out the parts inbetween, unsure how to make the puzzle pieces connect to each other. The advantage for them, on the _doing_side of the impossible, was that it made it even more possible to be impossible, since even you didn't have to pay attention to how you got from point A to point C, and nobody would be distracting you with reminders that you'd skipped B.

He didn't try to quantify or name the sudden, breath-stealing certainty that he needed to dive, immediately, now, now _now_. He - they - just did it, Kid punching the glass below their feet with his right foot, which had been _supposed_to rise up, knee tucked, as he launched himself off the building. Instead his left leg, already thrusting down for the push that would rocket them five feet away from the building's wall in a single stride, reversed direction abruptly. His thighs screamed as they paid for rejecting the momentum the thief had built; Kaito punched an overdose of adrenaline into the whole system, pulling a large amount of his magic out of the skyscraper above them, preparing to reallocate it. It was kind of like reeling in a pet's leash only to let it play back out, stretching away from you in a new direction; Kaito and the magic seemed to Kid to be a noisy, clamoring tangle, a scent that surrounded him and wouldn't be blown away by the wind.

The next pearl came into focus in Kid's senses now; they were three meters further down the building, arms folded back, legs out straight behind them, falling like a stone. The hat had gone flying somewhere, finally carted off by the wind as it whipped past them.

_Your turn_|_My turn,_ the brothers thought together, and Kaito tied the magic to the nose of Kid's glider as Kid popped it out, cape going taut, gut and ribs punched with the sudden bruising yank of the harness. Their wings took the air and their fall was now a fall with _style._Kid banked up and to the side, burning some of their overwhelming momentum by spiraling up as far as the force could take him; when it ran out, he nosed down into a thermal coming off the crowd below and coasted over their heads, losing altitude as he headed for the giant video display parked in the street just outside the police cordon. The thing was massive, nine meters across at the least.

The display was composed of a huge array of LED's, arranged in clusters of three bulbs, mounted on a lumbering steel frame. It could be constructed modularly, using single panels that were approximately one meter square and more than a hand's reach thick. Buckled together and linked up, all the arrays could act as one large screen, and complex television-quality images could be presented in startlingly clear and beautiful detail thanks to the sheer amount - numbered in the hundred thousands - of LED clusters on it, each of which acted like a single computer pixel, able to produce any nuance of color necessary.

The thickness of the display frame made a great target; the thermal coming up from its immense heat spill made it possible for Kid to come down into a delicate, slow spiral, almost as if he were levitating. He closed the glider while he was still half a meter up from the edge of the display; the cape collapsed, still carrying enough air, that all Kaito had to do was give a little shove against the frame from the soles of their feet, and they landed effortlessly, with only the tiniest of thumps. The display below him was spilling heat and light like crazy, even moreso now that all the camera crews had followed him all the way down and the whole screen was flushed with the white of his uniform. Now so close to their subject, the news crews were in heaven, doing their best to zoom in and catch sight of the phantom thief's real face. But their own display defeated them; it was too bright, and they'd set all their equipment for night shooting. By the time that the collective press had adjusted their meters and counteracted the brilliant white glare from shooting straight into their own display, it was too late - Kid had seated himself casually on the edge of the display, feet hanging in front of the screen itself with his ankles crossed, and now the glare was worse than ever.

As though the media's frantic efforts to record his face were beyond his notice, much less his concern, Kid grinned happily at his gathered audience, reaching up to doff his hat at them. And, to the surprise of everyone except himself and the detectives watching him, he managed to find a hat somewhere between his hand and head, which he tipped for his audience, then settled onto his head with a grin, hiding his face in a combination of shadow and light, his monocle an opaque mirror which strongly reflected back every bit of the floodlights turned onto him.

Clearing his throat with a little cough, Kid directed the crowd's attention back toward the building he'd come from, gesturing with a broad swoop of his arm toward the vicinity of the second decade of floors. Cameras zoomed in, and the light shining up across the thief's face flickered, going blueish and dark as the news crews located what the thief was talking about. Between the tenth and twelfth floors, on the north tower of the Hinata Center, the corner office windows were blown completely out. The missing glass made the rooms into hollow black caves, eating up the light from the copters and spotlights around; shards of glass stabbed into empty air from the twisted metal frame which had connected the adjoining glass walls of the corner office off of which Kid had launched himself. The cameras spread their attention, looking and finding further material: a cameraman on the ground, meant to take reaction shots of the crowd, found a large crystalline spray of glass on the pavement at the base of the towers. The crowd drew a hard breath in, then exploded into chatter.

"_Ladies and Gentlemen,_" Kid interrupted, commanding attention with his technologically-amplified voice. "If I didn't know better, my dears, I would say someone is cranky with me. Have I upset any of you?" He put on a pouting attitude, smiling and vamping at the crowd as various fangirls and boys screamed varyingly intense statements of affection. With an eye turned to the Task Force and police members closing in on the display screen - though, at eight meters off the ground, he was safely out of their immediate range - Kid spread his hands imploringly for the crowd.

"If someone wants to be cross, I just might have to end this show early," he continued. "And that would be a shame; I'd wanted to play with you for a while longer. I hadn't even gotten to show you all _this!_"

He flicked his hand at the wrist, in and then out. A bright red, glittering gem stood suspended between his immaculately white gloved fingers, about the size and shape of a robin's egg, faceted so it caught and threw back the light in extraordinary ways. Kid smiled at his rapt audience, letting his right hand settle on the frame of the display beside him. His fingers flexed, gripping the metal tightly.

"The Lotus Flower is an extraordinary brooch, you know," he explained, turning the gem slowly. Spangles of light reflected off his white suit, magnified two hundredfold on the screen just below him. "Its central stone, a darker red-orange than any of the other padparadscha sapphires which the jeweler Inoue-san used to make it, has a particularly special quality to it. Watch, everyone. I'm going to let you see this special thing, this thing that will make sure that I will always, _always_, live to entertain you."

Left hand extended, holding the gem, Kid shifted his grip on the stone slowly. Three of his fingers fanned out to frame it, held far away from the gem to give a clear view. Between his thumb and forefinger, Kid arched his gloved fingers, pinching the gem strongly, and squeezed. A red ichor slipped from that spot, slicking down the sides of the crystalline gem and muting its shine. The thumb of Kid's glove went red at the tip, stained by the blood of the stone. And as one thick, viscous drop formed at the bottom-most curve of the stone, clinging on tenuously, that single still moment seemed to pause, holding still, as though it would patiently wait for the vision to make sense to its observers before continuing onward.

* * *

_That's- not the real- that's not from the-_Shinichi's thoughts stuttered and tripped over themselves. He was barely aware of another voice directly beside him, echoing his thoughts in a distinctly offended tone:

"That is NOT the Lotus' center stone. The cut's entirely different."

And then, quieter:

"...why is he DOING this? And for whose benefit?"

The words were scarcely out of the blond detective's mouth when he received what might have been an answer, if he'd had more knowledge: gunshots, echoingly loud even above the noise of the crowd. The LED screen was set at a slight angle to the Hinata Center, making visibility from the twentieth floor poor; but when the shots took out the upper central panels and sent a shower of debris and sparks flying, it was easy enough to see what had just happened. Shinichi was conscious of shouting, screaming all around him; it wasn't until afterwards that he realized that his voice had been part of the noise.

The white figure more than fifty meters below moved as if, having already broken the law of gravity, Kid was now attempting to circumvent relative velocity as well. The backflip off of the monitor was immediate- up, over, down- _gone._

Hakuba was pounding his fist on the metal railing edge, shouting something in English; all around Shinichi there was chaos, except for one still figure: Nakamori, gripping the railing so tightly that the man was certain to have bruises on his hands the next day. He stared, white-faced, at the screaming crowd (which was in the process of stampeding away from the monitor) and at the damage below; his head tilted as he surveyed the blown out windows between, and his lips moved as he said something that was, for once, almost certainly not a pejorative.

After that, though, Shinichi was running back towards the stairwell, and there wasn't any time left for anything but speed and the utter, absolute knowledge that he had to move _now._

* * *

When Kid had taken off down the side of the building, the small party beside the damaged car had watched, enthralled; Yuusaku and Yukiko had hugged each other, watching with uplifted, entranced faces. Ran had been aware of the older woman by her side saying _so much better like this, I should have done this long ago_- but she had been staring as well, her arms hugging the tea thermos so tightly that the plastic made tiny protesting creaks against her body.

When he'd performed before the audience from atop the enormous monitor, she'd watched with all the rest, gasped and stared at the glittering thing in his fingers. And yet, all the time, there'd been a kind of second Ran in her head, attention transfixed by the blown-out windows above. They'd all seen the rain of glass, they'd all seen the violent explosion as he'd passed; the flat snaps of gunfire hadn't registered somehow, they'd just been part of the show, special effects for the edification of the masses far below.

But then Chikage had frozen, breath catching in her lungs so hard that Ran had felt her body jerk taught beside her own; and _then_ the sound had made sense as more shots, louder and closer, had shattered image and color and performance, and Kid had gone straight up into the air like a rabbit, and the crowd was pushing back and there was nothing but panic and so much_screaming-_

_**Oh god oh god KID no**_

-and she was being pushed into the car by old, wrinkled hands (never mind that the roof was half caved in) as the crowd around the car struggled and shoved. She was dimly aware of frantic, frightened voices as she crammed herself into the back seat between Chikage and the elderly manservant; Yukiko and Yuusaku were in the front, both wedged into the passenger's side. The vehicle vibrated as the crowd slammed into it like a tsunami, rocking it on its tires; and the noise, even muffled by glass and metal, was unbelievable.

_Shinichi, Shinichi, where are you?_

* * *

Stairs and more stairs and more stairs and more-

Crackle of static, an officer on a landing shouting into his radio: _"Elevator from Fourteenth on down's working, sirs, you can-"_

A hallway then, more running. Shinichi was marginally aware of fatigue burning through him, pain in places that promised to be agony when he had time to notice; but that didn't matter, he had to _run_and he

-slammed into catching arms, a crush of bodies in the close confines of an elevator just as the doors were starting to close. A second impact jolted them all as Hakuba skidded inside. For a handful of seconds there was nothing but harsh breathing and muted channel noise, too many sweating bodies crammed into a tiny metal room, too much adrenalin. On the LED readout beside the elevator panel, the floors zipped past- thirteenth, twelfth, eleventh. Then:

"You know."

Shinichi wiped sweat away from his face, keeping his head down; that had come from behind him, Hakuba's voice. What was he- _Oh. Shit._

"I saw your face, K- Adjunct-san. You knowwhat 1412's up to. Don't you?"

Heavy breathing, silence all around them as the elevator dropped: seventh floor, sixth, fifth...

"We'll talk about this later. But we _will_talk, Adjunct-san, I promise you."

_**Ping.**_

The doors slid open, and they were running again.

* * *

.

.

_Annnd that concludes our two-part chapter for tonight! There's a number of torture devices on the table by the exit - please apply your weapon of choice in the comment boxes!_

Have an excellent weekend! We'll see you in 7 days for Book Six, Chapter Ten: "Watch your backs." =D


	75. Watch your backs

_Okay, boys and girls: straight into the chapter tonight. This one's ____important____,__ so I hope you've all been taking notes. Please, for the love of all the gods, let us know what you think afterwards, okay? Whether they've been praise or blame, you have no idea how much the plethora of comments we've gotten in the last two weeks has encouraged us and helped. We read every one of them, believe me. We really do. And we thank you each and every one for writing them._

_Thank you; truly, thank you._

And so- on with the show. **bows**...___The Management_

___._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Ten**__**: "Watch your backs."**_

_Warnings: Blood and gore. Nakamori cussing, Shinichi cussing, Ran cussing._

Kid found himself startled when he heard the first sirens. He wasn't used to hearing them at heists, obviously, not _these_ kind of sirens. Ambulances.

_We knew. We knew what we were starting._Gritting his teeth, Kid kept his breathing steady and concentrated on rejecting the urge to move. Everything around him was noise and screaming and clamor; the video screen's audio setup was booming out police voices, trying to command and calm the crowd. It was useless, though - the animal hindbrain was in control of every single one of them, every schoolgirl or salaryman or taiyaki vendor who had come to watch him, in complete trust that he'd keep them all safe.

_I'm sorry,_ Kid murmured silently, allowing himself one brief moment of abject sorrow for all the faiths and dreams he'd shattered that night - those of his fans, those of his hounds, and his own. _But I had to bring the war into the open. Nobody else would have, or wanted to. Nobody else wanted to risk that much._

_I made their decision for them. They **have **to act now. All of them do._

_No more silently stolen children. No more drifting, anonymous bodies in the water. If the Org will be ugly, they'll be ugly while every uniform in the city is looking for their footprints._

Kid stood with his back to the display screen, body pressed as flat against it as he could manage, and went over the situation again. The original shooters - the long range ones - had both shot from the same angle. They were either a single person or a team, but they were planted high up and certainly under careful cover, and if they moved position to get a better aim on him, they'd be seen. Both the shots to the building and the shots to the screen had come from high up, so Nakamori would surely have assigned a portion of the copters to scan the rooftops. And while he'd heard another shot - just one, quietly, which made him very darkly certain of its purpose - he hadn't heard the back-and-forth exchanges he'd feared. More importantly, he was still alive.

Kid looked up toward the Hinata Center, its balconies flooded with light and activity. The shot out windows on the 10th floor were illuminated from inside, and it appeared that building security was working to preserve the scene.

_Good, I guess,_ Kid reflected. _The glass blew outward, so there's probably not any reason to worry._The thief twisted to his left, aligning his eye with a crack in the display and peering through. From the dark back toward the lit front, the scene was crystal clear and vivid; the crowd had mostly gone, though there were two people, women, prone on the pavement where the heart of the crowd had stood just previous. The crowd was dispersed, hopelessly spread out, most of them probably running home or to the nearest internet cafe to watch the news on the television. The police - Fukuoka's, Megure's, and Nakamori's Task Force - were working in collaboration to secure the area. Cordon tape was going up, and guns were out.

_A regular crime scene,_ Kid thought bitterly. _And me in the middle of it._

He would have left - if he could have. As observed earlier, he was still alive. This wasn't something he had taken for granted; it took a few minutes of hiding behind the screen, listening to the mass panic immediately following the shot, for that fact to sink in. In the noise and clamor, a single shooter could have picked him off easily from their apartment in the Hinata Center, like shooting ducks in a barrel. He couldn't move out from behind the screen; the sniper would have gotten him, given a second chance; or, more worryingly, they would have started knocking off bystanders until he stopped being difficult and stood still for them. Either way, Kid had been hoping to get further in his presentation of the fake Pandora before the shooting began; the sniper was trigger-happy, obviously.

So he was stuck behind the screen. In more than one way, this was a good thing. Kid sank down to the ground, finally unable to support his own weight, both hands clamped tightly around his thigh right above his knee. Ahead of him, the lobby of the Hinata Center spit out a cluster of very quick-running shapes, most of which were dressed in Task Force black. At the fore of the small group was one more figure in black, matched stride for stride by a tiresomely famiilar figure in tan.

_Here comes the freaking cavalry,_ he sighed. _I think I've smeared enough DNA material across the pavement here for a conviction, don't you, Magician?_

_I think you picked a shitty way to pay the magic cost,_Kaito griped. He could have helped to stem the bleeding from their wound, a clean bullet hole right through the meat on the medial side of their right thigh, just above the knee joint, but it wouldn't have served any good in the long run. They were about to receive real medical care, so burning up their resources on protracting the bleeding out of their resources was redundant. Besides, in a perverse way, the less Kaito mitigated their injuries, the more they could use the bloodloss to pay off the substantial magic costs Kaito had incurred.

There was an upside to everything, when you looked at it sideways enough.

Kid tipped his head completely to one side, peering owlishly at Hakuba and Shinichi as they drew near. The charm of his monocle hung across his nose, and the shadow of his hatbrim was only going to be marginally useful at close range - his masks had never been meant for close range effectiveness.

_Well, Tantei would have brought Hakuba in on his secrets after tonight,_ Kaito shrugged, making a safe assumption based on what they both knew about Shinichi's impulses. _And he __**did**__ tell me that I could talk to him if I needed a friend._

While Kid blinked at Kaito, mildly perturbed, Kaito turned his attention to the outside.

"Evening, officers," he greeted the detectives and their small squad of supporting men. Both Hakuba and Shinichi had their guns out (not pointed at him), both were rather wide-eyed, and both had their mouths open to scream at him. The thief raised one finger for attention, effectively startling both detectives into temporary silence, and smiled a little sheepishly.

"Could we get me a tourniquet now, and a scolding later?"

* * *

Later (much later), when the furor had settled and he actually had time to think over the events of the three minutes and forty-two seconds following the notorious (and, much to his resounding _lack_of surprise, familiar) felon 1412, the Kaitou Kid, the Moonlight Magician—

_(Kuroba, it actually __**is**__ Kuroba)_

-he would wonder why Kudo-san's actions had not surprised him more. Or why he himself had acted as he did. Perhaps, he'd think sardonically, the thief's madness was contagious. Or perhaps it pointed towards some previously-unrecognized mania of his own. After all, hadn't he spent untold hours attempting to capture 1412? He'd _dreamed_of it, plotted how he'd write up his calculations and conclusions, studied every record, read every report…

It wasn't pity; the white figure, despite the copious amounts of blood that was currently pooling around its leg, was anything but pitiable. The thief's all-too-recognizable face was bright and alert, the shockingly blue eyes barely shadowed, barely hidden at all despite the heavy gloom cast by the enormous screen. The narrow space holding the wounded felon wasn't wide enough for more than two people to fit into, and even as 1412- _Kuroba, it's certain now, why don't I feel any triumph?_- opened his mouth to make another quip, the other detective had shoved past Hakuba and was kneeling beside the fallen figure, hands busy.

"Hakuba-san, please secure the entrance," he said over his shoulder; Kudo's voice was remote, oddly abstract. "Please don't allow anyone past; that includes all police personnel aside from Nakamori-keibu and Megure-keibu. Use deadly force if necessary; at the moment, just wearing a uniform doesn't necessarily equal trustworthy." There was a ripping sound; so far as Hakuba could see, the other was busy demolishing part of the shirt he was wearing beneath his Taskforce gear for bandages. Kudo's face was turned away, directly towards the thief, and above the drumming of the rain which was still doing its best to drench them all, the British detective caught a whispered scrap of sound:

"—_pid! Fucking! IDIOT! Were you __trying__ to get yourself killed? What good would that—"_

"Why?" Hakuba asked.

"Because," (Kudo tore off another piece of his shirt) "there are still snipers out there. Because if he leaves without being able to move under his own power, he won't make ten meters without a bullet being put through his head." The answer was plain and unadorned, perfectly flat; Hakuba blinked.

"Ah."

And without knowing why, did precisely as asked; the three squadmembers that had accompanied them looked at each other in confusion and then at the pistol that he still held as he turned his back on the other two, blocking the entrance. The thief wasn't going anywhere, not in his current condition, not without help; the space behind the screen was crowded with equipment and the only exit was either straight up or straight through him. As the sounds of bandaging and muttering went on, Hakuba nodded at the men in front of him. "Please move out three meters and guard our position," he ordered briskly, "and notify us of anyone approaching. Thank you," he murmured as the three shrugged at one another and did as he asked. "Now, to continue- Kudo-san? Is K-" He hesitated. Why was it so damned hard to just say the name? He _knew_it now, beyond all question of doubt. Still- "Is... there need of more medical attention than you can supply?"

There were scraping sounds; apparently Kudo-san was helping the thief to sit up. "I don't believe so. He-" The other detective paused to mutter something to the thief; he got back an answer that sounded remarkably smug, and sighed. "No. Hakuba-san? Can you see Nakamori-keibu anywhere nearby?"

"I- yes. Approaching rapidly. You have perhaps sixty seconds."

There was a long silence; the Brit automatically counted off in his mind: fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven...

"Ask him... ask him to give us five minutes. When he asks why, tell him- because of Inazuma Aki, Matsuhiro Shido, Ito Noboru and Sasaki Ryo." More rustling sounds, something unclipping, the slide of a zipper. "If he says that they don't matter, ask him if they'dthink so."

The names were familiar- _Ah. The fire at the convention hall last year; those are the four men 1412 saved, I remember._ Hakuba glanced at one of the guards; the man's profile was to him, and he knew that if he read the officer's nametag it would read _MATSUHIRO_. But he merely nodded and stepped away, moving level with their three guards and meeting Nakamori as he came stomping through the rain.

* * *

Whatever he said to Nakamori- and even Hakuba'd be hard pressed to recall it later- it didn't quite buy five minutes; no more than three minutes into the head of the Kaitou Kid Taskforce's rant, the officer abruptly shut up and shoved past the detective, stomping past his men and to the narrow opening behind the screen. Kudo's body was blocking most of the thief's, from the shoulders up, from clear view, but 1412's blood-drenched right leg wasn't obscured at all. Even seeing the thief's wound didn't give Nakamori a moment's pause. "Give me _**one good reason**_why I'm not putting cuffs on your wrists right now," he growled, fury making the words ragged. "One. Just _ONE._ There are two bodies out there, did you know that? Two of your _adoring fans."_The venom in his voice was scalding.

"Two?" Kid's voice - very clearly the thief's, just like they had all heard on countless evenings past - sounded surprised. Happily surprised. "Two? Excellent! One of them was wearing black. Wasn't she? I couldn't quite see, but I was almost sure. It had to be black."

Nakamori lunged forward, growling in incoherent rage; Hakuba, of bulkier frame than the others but still little match to the Inspector, wobbled backwards as he caught and tried to restrain the infuriated man. "Just let me get my hands on you, you filthy-"

"Now now, Inspector," Kid chastised, reaching one blood-spattered white glove out to the side, past Shinichi's body and into view. He waved it coyly. "I think it's too early in our relationship for you to see me in just my underthings."

Past language now, Nakamori growled and snarled, searching for leverage off of the equipment towers that blocked access to the small enclosure. Hakuba continued to try to restrain him, visibly having trouble. Past the both of them, Shinichi's voice was just as furious, but not the same.

"_Kid! _Shut up."

"Oh, but Tantei~"

Shinichi growled, shoving Kid's shoulders back against the video wall behind him. "Seriously, Kid, _shut up._Keibu, please, listen to me – he's being an ass again, he's very good at that, but he knows who did this. He knows who fired the shots."

Nakamori leaned back, giving Hakuba some breathing room, and spit derisively on the pavement. "And were they working with you, you rat-bastard excuse for a thief? Are you working with_him,_you crooked detective?"

"No," Kid answered plainly. "Was the second girl, the second casualty - was she wearing black?"

Three other voices clamored, tangling with each other for attention; even as Shinichi and Kid exchanged understanding and action, the detective was still muttering curses and chastisements under his breath, drowned out by the much louder voices of Hakuba and, of course, Nakamori, whose profanity was reaching new heights with every clause.

"You looking to ship her straight off for her _funeral_, you cuss-sucking mother whore of a-"

The thief's voice cut across the others' with icy, alarming authority; his hand, bare and pale, snapped out to the side, visible in the shadows and an effective illustration of his demand for attention. "_Was she wearing __**black?**_" Silence, for one long second.

"Y-yes sir," offered a hesitant but clear voice. Hakuba swung around to see its source - it was Matsuhiro, his back to them, his eyes on their surroundings, still standing guard. "She was wearing all black, and a trenchcoat too."

"_Excellent,_" Kid said again, a bloody satisfaction in his voice. "Thank you, officer. We got one of them, then." A tangle of bloodstained white fabric was chucked to the side, carelessly, and the distinctive sound of a zipper provided confusing punctuation to the statement. "Or the poor girl did, before they got her. The shot was quiet - probably one of those little purse pistols." He snapped out of his reminiscences abruptly, and his tone made Hakuba's spine stiffen, but the thief continued talking without leaving room for interruption.

"There will be more here. At least two. They tend to work in pairs. One on the roof we know about, probably with a second to guard their position. One on the ground - make _sure_that one's dead. And a fourth. They'll be well-defended, and the information relay. Probably near-"

"_Thief,_" Nakamori interrupted, something approaching true hate in his voice, "Are you _seriously_still under the illusion that this is all a game? Is this funny to you, a dead civilian out there, people discharging rifles at your heist like they're at the duck hunt?"

"It has never been a game to me, Keibu," Kid said then, and he stood up from behind Kudo-kun, settling the detective's Task Force helmet onto his head as he did. The visor was down, and the thief's face was obscured, hidden behind just that one layer of plastic. The irony of it all made Nakamori's vision go crimson at the corners. 1412 was still talking, and with his arm around Kudo-kun's shoulders, and Kudo supporting him with arms around his waist, took one gimped step forward. Nakamori could see then that Kudo had given the thief his body armor, relying on his own jeans and shirts beneath, camouflaging them both. The presumptiveness of it made his blood boil.

"I have made it a game for security and for entertainment," the thief continued, his voice calm and plain, as though he was explaining the way a thunderstorm was made. "I have made it a game for _you_because the cat and mouse game that I have been playing with them is too grand a scale to have been played in secret. Better to hide a chase in the open than constantly duck and dodge, yes?

"And yes, I have enjoyed myself. I have had fun. I have spent no small amount of resources to ensure that it _has_been fun."

The two limped a step or two, testing their mobility; Kudo Shinichi glanced up from the thief towards Nakamori, face pale in the fitful bars of light leaking through the gaps in the LED screen. "I might add, Nakamori-keibu, that neither one of us would last very long in a cell. We both have reason to stay out of the authorities' hands." He wiped streaming rain out of his face and looked past the inspector's shoulder, toward the open, glass-strewn ground between the screen and the Hinata Center. "Just a suggestion, but you might want to clean your own house; if I were trying to take someone down, I'd do my best to get assigned to the only group dedicated to finding and catching him. Wouldn't you?" Without waiting for an answer the pair moved haltingly forward.

Hakuba watched silently as they stopped just out of arm's reach of the head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force... just an arm's length away, easily within reach of a grab. The officer's hands clenched and opened, clenched and opened; a full-body shudder went through him as if he were having to forcibly restrain himself from lunging. "Why the _**fuck**_should I believe you? Why should I believe any of this?"

Kudo stared the man down, eyes hard and icy cold. "Because no-one gets hurt at a Kid heist. And this stopped being anything like a heist the second it became a homicide, the second that they believed he had what they wanted." He stepped forward, the thief moving with him; almost as if he couldn't believe what he was doing, Nakamori moved a step backwards... and then another. "We'll be in touch, Nakamori-keibu, Hakuba-san. Please watch your backs."

Moving slowly, they walked away, vanishing into the rain and the chaos of the night.

* * *

They kept not to the shadows, but to the brighter confusions of lights and emergency vehicles. Halfway through the jumble of cordons, squadcars and ambulances that the plaza in front of the Hinata Center had become, Shinichi quietly and without hesitation stole a black umbrella from where it lay up-ended and full of rain on the pavement. That gave them a little extra cover and, more to the point, made them just one more anonymous blob from any nearby rooftops, if there were any lurkers still around. It was a possibility.

Kid said very little during their trek through the rain; from the way his hands were gripping Shinichi's arms for support, it was clear that he was quite literally on his last leg. The thought caused Shinichi to swallow an unwelcome and unexpected snort of laughter; _hysteria,_he thought distantly, and held onto Kid tighter as he tucked the umbrella low between them. It didn't do much good against the rain at that angle, but at least it blocked their faces somewhat.

The job he'd done on his boyfriend's leg wouldn't last forever; the entrance-wound had been fairly clean, but the exit-wound would require more care than the rough field-dressing he'd applied- they needed running water, a first aid kit, cover- Shinichi squinted through the rain as they both stumbled over a curb; against him, he heard his thief hiss through his teeth and swear.

There was a _crunch!_of impact nearby, and they both flinched, instinctively ducking low; another dull thud sent rainwater splashing up at them, and Shinichi blinked rain out of his eyes as a chunk of broken concrete found a new home in the gutter. Carefully he looked up past the umbrella's edge.

"...Tousan?"

* * *

After the last of the debris had been removed from the roof (hence the concrete; Yuusaku had been doing a little cleaning), they ended up in the back seat with Kid stretched out lengthwise, bleeding onto Yuusaku's windbreaker so he didn't stain the seat. Chikage had clung to her sons' arm, shocked into silence; but Jintarou had gently loosened her fingers, speaking quietly and firmly as he walked his mistress back to their own vehicle. Yukiko had gone with her; they would be meeting back at the Kudos' hotel. Thankfully, the heavy downpour drenching everything made subterfuge unnecessary; traffic was backed up but moving, and it was hard enough to see through the windows as it was.

Exhausted silence filled the car, broken only by the constant low-volume chatter from Shinichi's radio, which he'd turned off during their trek through the rain. Kid's helmet was off now, and his tired, white face shone starkly against his boyfriend's jeans, dark hair straggling across cheek and eyes. He'd bled through both bandages and clothing by the time the two cars pulled into the hotel's multi-level parking deck, and as Ran and Shinichi helped him towards the back entrance he staggered, unsure of his footing this one very rare time.

Ran's own face was set; she had a stretched, strained look around the eyes, and she'd said hardly a word from the moment they'd come into view. Her hand had been shaking, though, as she had brushed the wet hair back from first one forehead and then the other. Now, carrying almost half of Kid's weight, she kept her tight-lipped silence as she gently allowed him to sag down onto the bed. The thief groaned involuntarily in relief, and she closed her eyes for a moment as she tucked a folded towel beneath his leg to elevate it and catch the bleeding.

The hotel was quiet but very well appointed; their suite had two bedrooms, and as Shinichi eased off Kid's borrowed armor all three paused as a door in the other room opened and closed. Yuusaku's voice filtered through, followed by Yukiko's and a quiet murmur that had to be the older man that Ran had met earlier. "Jii-san. Jintaro," muttered Kid, eyes closed, mothwing shadows lying heavy below his eyes. "Tell him to stay with Kaasan, okay?"

"Shhh." Ran eased off the thief's soggy underarmor; Shinichi's improvised bandages came with it, and she made a strangled little sound in the back of her throat at the sight of the double bleeding wounds. "Shinichi, could you get me more towels? And there's a first-aid kit in my bag, get it out." Her eyes suddenly widened enormously, and she looked towards the door again. "Do—are we—Shinichi, are the police coming…?" Ran's hands tightened involuntarily on Kid's leg, causing his own to pop open.

Her other boyfriend shook his head tiredly, retrieving the towels and kit before slumping down onto the room's nearest chair. "They'd've stopped us in traffic if they were looking for us. Megure's probably going to tear strips off my hide, though; better call him before he sends out a search party." Eyes lidding in exhaustion, Shinichi fumbled for his cellphone; the call was picked up almost immediately, and he winced as the head of Division One's voice boomed through the receiver.

Kid sighed. "Did it ever occur to you, Tantei, that you know _entirely_too many policemen?" he asked the air. His boyfriend raised his free hand in a rude but oddly affectionate gesture, finger extended, and the thief laughed a little to himself.

Shinichi kept his voice down, and he kept the conversation brief; at one point, though, he interrupted the rather distraught-sounding torrent of words on the other end of the line. "Megure-keibu," he said with iron control, "do you honestly think I would do anything- _anything-_ that would help the Organization escape or achieve any of their aims?" The detective took a deep breath. "By now you should also know that there's very little I wouldn't do to stop them. And yes, that includes aiding and abetting a wanted criminal; there's a lot you don't know yet. Can you trust me just a little longer, Megure-keibu?" The answer he got after a short pause must have been satisfactory; Shinichi let his breath out slowly, a few of the lines in his face relaxing. "I'll be in touch tomorrow- yes, I promise. Yes. Goodnight, Megure-keibu." Clicking the phone off, Shinichi dropped it onto the floor with a _clunk!_and collapsed back into his chair, eyes closed.

The call had taken long enough that by now Kid's leg was neatly bandaged. "It's still bleeding, but I think it'll stop soon," Ran reported, wringing out a washcloth into the ice-bucket she'd drafted into commission as a basin. "It's messy, but I don't think anything major was hit; it'd bleed a lot more if there had been. Tousan got shot a couple of times when he was still a cop, but I never had to bandage him." In contrast to her reaction in the car, her hands were steady as she eased up a loose pair of Shinichi's sleep-pants over the bandage; sometimes her practicality was unnerving. "Does it hurt?" she asked almost calmly.

"Do you want the nice answer, or the honest answer?" Kid smiled, fond regret in his eyes, as Ran glowered at that proposal, and he reached up to stroke her hair back from her face with stiff movements. "Of course.

"It hurts, as much as a non-critical gunshot ever does. The adrenaline is wearing off, so it's actually getting worse. It's been a while since I was shot. Here, give me your shoulder." One hand braced on the bed, one on Ran's shoulder, Kid put all his weight on his good leg and pushed his hips off the bed; he only managed a centimeter or so, but it was enough for Ran to slip the pajama pants all the way up. "Thank you, Ran." The thief kissed her cheek gently, falling back into his pillows with a sigh.

"I'm out of immediate danger, the bleeding has been staunched, I have no broken bones or other wounds which require attention, all our loved ones are safe and most of them are with us, the police have been cowed into acquiescence by Tantei's formidable rawr, and we are in what amounts to a safe, anonymous location." He summoned a grin, cracking one bright eye open.

"You may commence with the screaming and lecturing."

There was a pregnant pause. "Ladies first," offered Shinichi to Ran, showing truly commendable self-preservation; he slid a hand over his closed eyes and settled back to listen.

She did her best, it had to be said, and managed to keep the volume down in order not to alarm the next room's occupants; words like 'brainless' and 'ego' and 'unbelievably stupid' were mixed in with threats of dire retribution if Kid caused himself to bleed so much as one more drop. He was compared to members of the equine, canine and porcine communities; the validity of his parent's marriage prior to his birth was called into question and predictions were made regarding his eventual fate and destination in the Afterlife, as well as just where his head was currently placed in regards to his posterior. Ran's father would have wondered where some of her more inventive phrases stemmed from; Shinichi could have told him- it wasn't like the private detective's daughter hadn't been around numerous crime scenes, and cops don't always restrain themselves in the presence of civilians- but she actually stooped to very little invective. She didn't need to.

It was worth noting, though, that she never once mentioned the two body-bagged corpses that the ambulance had carried off. They had no place in this.

_"-deserve_ any bruises you've got on your head _OR_ your ass if you can even tell them apart by now, and if you think I'mgoing to kiss them you can go find somebody else to do it!" she snapped as a closing remark, took a deep breath, and turned to Shinichi. "Your turn," she added politely, smoothing her hair down.

He considered for a moment. "If you ever do that thing you did on the twenty-seventh floor to me again, I'll aim for your nuts the next time I use my dart-watch," he informed the thief with a grave, perfectly straight face. "But other than getting yourself shot..." Shinichi shook his head. "I can't exactly blame you. In fact, you used _exactly_the right bait at exactly the right time, and you got exactly the right results- definite presence, visible intent and public media coverage." His eyes darkened and he was silent for a few seconds, one hand absently rubbing at the place where his Apotoxin pack was secured to his hip; it had dug in during his impact on the balcony garden.

"The repercussions, though... wonder how many public figures will vanish over the next few days? Cops, politicians, trade officials- if I were them I'd come down with a sudden surprise illness or a bad case of dead relative," Shinichi added thoughtfully; his eyes were tired, but they glimmered with fire past the fatigue. "Tomorrow we can look into just who doesn't show up for work. Tomorrow we-"

"Tomorrow we may be _running for our lives,"_ said Ran sharply from where she'd curled up on the foot of the bed; one hand clutched Kid's socked foot, fingers tightening on his toes. "Shinichi, they _**shot **_him! They're going to try to shoot him again! And when they find out you're still alive, they'll shoot at you too! They-" She swallowed, and now the specter of two crumpled forms on wet asphalt rose in her eyes. "They shot other people," she whispered. "I don't want anybody else to die."

Shinichi's eyes were sad, the blue muted. "People've been dying because of the Organization for a long time, Ran; these were just the newest casualties in a war... and now at least the bullets are visible." He looked at Kid, leaning out to brush fingertips against the lump of bandage beneath his clothing. "Was this worth it?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Worth it?" Kid watched Shinichi's fingers brush his leg, resisting the urge to flinch even though he knew the detective wouldn't press down. "I didn't intend to get shot, so I wasn't expecting that part. The civilians..." He closed his eyes, shaking his head softly. His hair covered his eyes a little, drying in clumped, wild arcs after the soaking from the rain and his own sweat.

"They were a cost I anticipated. I knew it was a risk, and I willingly took that risk. I made that call, and I know that that girl died because of me."

He met Ran's gaze steadily. "It's not a pretty truth, and I know you may not be able to accept it, Ran. I understand that."

Her face was still for a moment; then it crumpled. "I'm n-not-" She wiped at her eyes almost angrily. "You- you're as bad as Shinichi, you're _both_ just-" Ran reached out, snatching at Shinichi's hand where it touched Kid's leg; blindly she grabbed at Kid's foot again with her free hand. "I know. I know." Her eyes were still wet, and she stared at them both, one after the other. "I'm... _you're_not dead, and when you, wh-when you came out of the rain that was all I could think of." She swallowed hard, wretchedly. "I c-couldn't even feel bad about that poor girl, I was... God. I was so relieved that you were both all right. Mostly all right." Her fingers knotted tightly, unwilling to let go.

It hadn't been grief that had made her voice sharp; it had been guilt.

Kid's eyes crinkled at the corners, sad but smiling, and he lifted one hand to cup her cheek, thumb stroking the tears from her skin. "Sorry we scared you, Ran." Her lips were hard and laced with salt from her tears when she surged forward to kiss him, crying once more while her very strong grip on a fistful of his hair held Kid's head right where she wanted it; his were cool and soft in comparison, and he managed to keep his smile tamed so their teeth didn't clack, when he kissed back gently, willingly battered by her fierce, guilty relief.

Shinichi's yelp when he was yanked forward as well owed itself as much to bruised knees smacking onto the floor as to his girlfriend's strength; but he crouched there, one arm across Ran's shoulders and the other half wrapped around Kid's head, his own fingers meeting Ran's. "I'm sorry too," he muttered into Kid's shoulder, breathing in the other's scent: cordite and rain, copper and the chemical tang of the betadyne Ran had used to cleanse his wounds. "I wish this could've gone down without blood being shed, anyone's blood." He turned his head, resting one cheekbone against Ran's damp tangle of hair. "I'm sorry." His voice was muffled and unsteady, and his hand slid down to Kid's collar.

When Ran turned her head to kiss Shinichi, her cheeks were streaked with tears; so were Kid's, though they were Ran's. "I know," she said against his lips, and her hand tightened painfully hard where it still gripped his.

"_Don't,_" Kid said, pressing his brow against the point where Shinichi's and Ran's touched as they kissed. He stroked them gently, petting, calming; when they turned their faces toward his, eyes closed and cheeks wet and breath rough, Kid nuzzled them gently, kissing their closed eyes. "Please don't.

"We didn't do this. You didn't, I didn't. Tousan did not create the Org, or encourage it, or feed it. When he discovered its true nature, he cut his ties and fought it. And they killed him for that. And they'll try to do the same to us."

He drew in a long breath, sucking the air in through his clenched teeth, and it hissed a bit. His grip was firm on his lovers' napes and his voice was firm, murmured between them. "Don't make their job easier by believing for a single moment that we are deserving of anything they do to us, or that we're the cause of it."

A silent moment followed that, stretching with the tired, depressed certainty that though Kid's words were true, they didn't _feel_true in the face of a murdered civilian, or the enormity of the Organization not yet fully revealed to their sight. As he'd made it, the thief broke it, and his soft, small chuckle pushed warm air across Ran and Shinichi's faces, breath that smelled like their thief's adrenaline- and fear-bittered evening, and like his kiss.

"I do have one regret, though. I know what I did was necessary...and I know that greater good will come of it than the sacrifices that were made to accomplish it." He sighed, pulling his head and shoulders just far enough free to look down at his leg, frowning at the thickly-bandaged source of the pain that laced his whole body. "I really _didn't_ want to get shot, though. Especially not _there._ Especially not on our Tantei's birthday, especially not when we have this lovely king bed and all this spare time and I've just finished being so _very_ dashing and dramatic and gorgeous and death-defying, emphasis on the defying bit, and there've been so _many_ comments as to my sexual prowess throughout the night from all sorts of fangirls who haven't the foggiest exactly how right they are, or how very little chance they have of personally finding out, and our Tantei was looking so _very_subversive in his borrowed police equipment, and Ran doesn't need to wear a single special thing to look beautiful, especially when she so very patiently stands and watches both of us crazy menfolk accomplish all sorts of ridiculous and extraordinarily thrilling and acrobatic feats, all the while in beautifully tailored pants and such dashing headgear, and-"

There was a knock at the door. "Young master?" came a worried voice; Kid abruptly shut up, not due to any efforts of self-restraint but rather to the two hands which had clapped themselves over his mouth one after the other.

Shinichi cleared his throat. "Uh. Jintarou-san? Could you give us just a minute? We'll be- he's a little- We'll be right with you, okay?" There was a deferential cough, and footsteps could be heard receding. Both Shinichi and Ran sighed in relief and then looked back at the figure on the bed. "You," muttered Shinichi, "just... hold that thought. First, your kaasan needs to know you're not bleeding to death in here; second, _my_parents need to know it too. Third," (he grimaced, shifting a little) "I need to get out of these clothes and take care of a few bruises. And fourth..." He sighed. "I've got one more person to call. If you don't want Hattori tracking us down, that is."

He sat back on his heels, hand slipping from where he'd placed it on top of Ran's. "You're right, though," the detective said softly. "We didn't do any of this." He leaned forward, leaning against both of his lovers, smiling a little despite the long, harsh night. "And tomorrow... we start making them pay for what they did. But tonight..." He kissed Kid, just a brief brush of lips, and then turned and gave the same to Ran. "Now, we'd better open the door before somebody picks the lock."

Chikage threw herself on her sons when the door was opened; Yuusaku and Yukiko stood aside to let her through, her face raw from crying and her arms opened wide. Shinichi and Ran had moved away from their thief to open the door and while Shinichi was just about tackled by his own mother, Yuusaku slipped one arm gently around Ran's shoulders and stood quietly with her, off to the side, while the others got their lectures.

"Nothing I can say to him that she wouldn't, or hasn't already," Yuusaku smiled down at Ran. His arm around her shoulders was firm but gentle, a comfort without imposition. Ran gratefully returned it, neither leaning into nor away from his offered support, and offering some back of her own. "Besides, she's so much more dramatic about it."

Ran smiled too, watching Yukiko be histrionic at Shinichi, Shinichi being appropriately cowed and abashed back; Kid, Kaito, and Chikage were executing a similar combination of scolding and demonstrative, though in their case, Kid was the one being histrionic while Chikage lectured and scolded. At one point, with one ear twisted between the thumb and forefinger of each of her hands, Chikage commanded both her sons' attention and, for a brief moment, near silence; all the whimpering they dared to utter was kept minimal, and mostly instinctual.

Chikage ran out of steam far before Yukiko; since Yukiko's histrionics _were_her form of relief, nobody was concerned as she continued to natter on, seemingly endless. "Is she my mother or yours?" Shinichi muttered, grinning wryly at the Kuroba brothers; they shook their head, stroking their mother's hair where her head was pillowed against their chest.

"We're this one's sons," they murmured, smiling. "We're not nearly high-maintenance enough to be Kudo-san's sons."

Yukiko waved a finger at them. "You're plenty high-maintenance enough! Just because you managed to do a two-for-the-price-of-one-!" Ran covered her mouth, fighting back what might have been a slightly hysterical giggle if she had allowed it to emerge. "Oh, go take care of each other," sighed the actress, abruptly deflating. "We can't do anything until morning anyway. Shin-chan?" She pushed her son back a little and frowned at him, a hand on either shoulder. "You. Need a bath. You smell like an entire _squadron_of policemen."

Shinichi blinked, fighting an urge to commit the very teenage gesture of sniffing at himself. "I do?"

"You do," Kid offered airily, wrinkling up his nose. "It's kind of like a whole pack of dogs sniffing each others' butts, plus cheap polyester. Ow."

Chikage settled her hand back on her son's chest again, and Kaito rolled his eyes and rubbed at his shoulder, stinging from her sharp, strong slap. "I hate how when he does something stupid, I get smacked."

His mother smiled vaguely, eyes closed and face pressed to Kaito's sternum. "I smack him for your stupid things."

"I don't _do _stupid things."

"_You _do," inserted Yukiko, poking her son's ribs. "Go relax and keep each other out of trouble for a few hours," she said firmly. "We'll wake you for breakfast." She looked at Chikage and her eyes softened; "I think we have some talking of our own to do before morning anyway. Jintarou-san, I think there's extra bedding in the closet; Yuusaku, could you go down and see about appropriating a couple of futons or cots or... whatever. Make yourself useful, shoo!" Having arranged the universe to her satisfaction, Yukiko let her son go and tugged gently at Chikage's shoulder. "'Kage-chan? You need to rest, and so do they. Come sit down with me, please?" The diminutive belonged to a time ten years past, but it didn't sound out of place in that moment.

Chikage lifted her head, looking over her shoulder at Yukiko with a conflicted expression; her hands lingered on her sons' body, palms pressed flat and holding against his warm ribcage. "Yukiko, I..."

With an effort, Kid and Kaito pushed themself up, leaning away from their pillows, and with one hand, guided their mother's, holding it over their heart. She turned back to them, biting her lip.

"Kaasan, I promise. This will stay right here. It's beating, and it's going to keep beating all night. We know that's what you've been listening to, and we promise. We won't ever let it stop." Their dark blue eyes were intent, shifting to slightly confused as their mother choked back what might have been a laugh, might have been a sob, and shook her head, struck momentarily wordless. Behind her, Yukiko leaned in, letting Chikage lean against her hip.

"You idiots, you stubborn idiots," Chikage was muttering, trying to close her eyes and grit her teeth in frustration, but unable to keep her gaze away from her sons for longer than a second or two at a time. The net result was a determined, brave, and desperate expression which, by their baffled expressions, neither Kid nor Kaito knew how to parse.

"He said the same thing," she explained, answering the confused silence with which the rest of the room was waiting, intentionally or no, for her explanation. "He said the very same thing."

_They all expect me to break,_ she realized distantly, an intellectual sort of awareness in the background of the rest of her thoughts. _They know each other better than they know me, all of them, even my sons. I haven't been myself for so long that I think even Yukiko has forgotten who I used to be. __**I**__ forgot, too. And I know that we all don't think I can do this all over again._

Quietly, Chikage lifted her hand from her sons' body and placed it over her own breast, taking a deep breath and listening to her own heartbeat with eyes closed. _I can feel it speeding up; it wants to panic. I'm going to have another panic attack, I can feel it. My own body doesn't think I can do anything but be afraid of losing them. I've practiced being afraid for so long. I was afraid even before Toichi passed. I couldn't have ever imagined this, back then. I never could have imagined it. I never tried to._

She opened her eyes, looking around the room deliberately; Yukiko's son stood to the side of the bed, remaining at a distance from her sons for the moment. _He's a good boy,_ Chikage smiled, looking from the young man's face to her own son's, so similar. Her gaze moved to meet Yuusaku's, then, and the brief pang went through her, as it always did, heart tripping over itself faster. Her vision was too bright. _Toichi, darling, Yuusaku has looked after our sons. Not quite how we'd hoped or thought, but... _Shinichi was moving now, standing by his father and his girlfriend Mouri.

_Their girlfriend,_ Chikage corrected herself, turning back to her sons, and seeing Kid's face and Kid's focus looking out of those bright eyes. _He's thinking of them. He loves them._She remembered another pair of blue eyes, darker and nuanced, so gentle, so gentlemanly; she remembered how he had looked at her, how the love in his gaze carried a physical jolt with it, how the touch of his gaze had made her blood race and her throat dry.

She was feeling light-headed, her heart pounding fast now; the vision of Toichi's dark eyes, love and lust and sacrifice meant all for her, flashed in her mind's eye, then died, overlaid by the memory of his stiff, closed eyelids, the grey pallor of his skin, just before they slid his body into the crematorium.

His smile, the twist of his lips against her throat that meant he was going to do something ridiculous and silly and the way her whole body used to bloom open, gleeful anticipation of that mischief -

His cold lips, cold cold cold despite the blast of dry, hot air coming from the furnace, the last time she kissed him, pushing past the attendants and her family's arms to embrace his corpse, in the last seconds before it was brought to ash.

His hands, the skin of his fingertips, the prickle of hair on his thighs, as they would twine together, as he would shower her with rubies and sapphires and diamonds and the danger was only make-believe, it was a big, glorious game, intrigue and secrets and the bracelets of kings, the necklaces of queens, cold silver laid gently across her naked skin, goosepebbles shivering across her skin, moonlight and his warmth, oh, so warm, so warm-

The stone, leaden acid, in her stomach, the rock that had once been her heart, the numb wooden block that replaced her brain. The platitudes, the condolences from his family, from her own, and the three cards - two from his night-professional rivals, one from the Kudos - the only three which knew the truth, the only three which could have begun to understand.

The weave of his fingers through her own, his fingers knobby and broad compared to her tiny, girlish hands, his ring gleaming bright and new between their fingers, the happy tears in her eyes as they kissed, carefully, mindful of her wedding kimono because it was a rental-

The bone of his ring finger between her chopsticks, during the bone-picking ceremony, the slow, wide-eyed lurch that her whole body made and the way the whole world had twisted, all the straight lines going wavy, and the ash, the ash, _his ash_, all over her mourning kimono after she'd fallen, and the shouts and chatter from the other mourners, and the way they'd clawed at her when she pushed up her kimono sleeves, trying to stop her from rubbing the ash into her own skin-

_Toichi, my love, our son is just as incorrigible as you ever were. And it terrifies me, my love, it paralyzes me, but..._

I'm so glad he is. I'm so glad that they both are like you, and not me.

Chikage stood then, steady on her feet. Her slight body seemed small and frail, even in comparison to Yukiko's slim figure, but she stood under the weight of expectant attention from the rest of the room, all of whom clearly had, in watching her sudden silence and deliberation, come to wonder if she was alright. Chikage turned to Yukiko, smiling softly, and clasped her hand like the girlish friends they had once been; with her other, she smoothed back Kid and Kaito's hair from their sweat-damp brow and touched their cheek gently.

"Your father said the very same thing. You've both become so like him. And I've become so unlike." Looking to Yuusaku, Chikage's expression shifted, tinted with angry regret. "I think he would be disappointed in me, these long years." She exhaled slowly, drew another breath slowly in, and counted her heartbeats. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One... two... three... four.

Chikage smiled, barely believing it herself, as she successfully quashed her rising panic attack by force of will alone.

"Enjoy your evening, my sons. You might not recognize your little tired Kaasan tomorrow morning...but that's alright."

Chikage turned to Yukiko, squeezing her friend's hand, and then included Yuusaku in her smile, which broadened to a beaming grin as tears washed thick across her cheeks, falling unbidden onto her clothes. "Yuusaku-kun, will you get us some sake, please? I want sake and good food and the touch of my friends. I have missed you." Her voice broke, the tears washing against it like a storm against a dam, but her smile didn't falter. "I have missed you so, so much, and my Toichi would be so sad to see what his Kagemushi has become. I have dishonored him, but we'll change that.

"Jii, my dear, please stay with us, as well? Just Jii and Chikage tonight, no Mistress, alright? We have planning to do."

The old man smiled, tears in the corners of his own eyes, and he moved to the door, holding it open with a very, very slight bow - a friend's bow, not a servant's. "Yes, Chikage-san."

* * *

Their rooms in the quiet, discreet hotel that Yuusaku had chosen were a suite, and as such had a bathroom all their own with a shared foyer for changing. Voices outside the door rose and fell while Shinichi carefully sluiced himself off- there was no other word for it, his kaasan and Kid had been right, he _did_ smell- on the tiles before climbing into the angular, traditional-style bathtub. The hot water embraced him like loving arms, and he sank into its hold as if he'd never come out.

His _bruises_ had bruises. There were aches in places that he not only didn't remember damaging, he wasn't sure HOW he'd hit them- when, for instance, had he managed to put a four-inch gash down the back of his knee? The places on his ribs and backside were undoubtedly from the crash onto the balcony, but how had he acquired a lump the size of a dango on his skull?_You'd think I would've noticed, wouldn't you?_Ruefully Shinichi splashed a handful of water over the side of his throat, wincing as he encountered a tenderness there -and then pausing as the explanation for that particular mark presented itself.

_...Kid signed his work. I feel like a heist-note._

He chuckled at the thought, warmer inside than the heat of the bath could be given credit for, and settled back to soak in blissful exhaustion.

When he emerged (now sporting a few bandaids and strips of gauze where bruises had graduated to scrapes) food had not only come but had also gone, at least partially; both Kid and Ran had made inroads on the tray that had appeared during Shinichi's absence and were curled up together on the bed. The thief had been carefully propped with pillows, a large quantity of them; his borrowed sleep-pants showed no trace of blood, so Shinichi assumed that things were more or less well with him.

"Tousan?" he asked, gesturing at both tray and pillows; the towel he had wrapped around himself bunched a little as he sat down.

Ran nodded. "Your kaasan had him running while you were busy." Her eyes were sleepy, heavy-lidded; spooned against their thief and wrapped in a fluffy white robe, she rested her head on Kid's shoulder and regarded Shinichi across the thief's chest, a little smile curving her lips. The lines of stress weren't entirely gone from her face, but she looked warm and comfortable and very, very much like the best part of a long day.

Come to think of it, her pillow didn't look too bad either.

Kid was playing with her hair: braiding and rebraiding a long section over and over, clever fingers plaiting the strands in patterns of threes, fours, sixes... He wound one narrow braid around another, twining them together and then letting them go, allowing the soft still-damp strands to slide through his hands and lie like ribbons across his bare chest. A towel hung on the back of the chair; Ran had apparently taken advantage of the time to wash up in the bathroom down the hall, the one that all the rooms had access to.

"You could've joined me, you know," observed Shinichi, settling deeper into his chair beside the bed; "Then you wouldn't've had to hurry."

Their girlfriend wrinkled her nose but didn't move. "Cheap polyester. Dog's butts." He made a rude noise back and she stuck out her tongue.

"Oh well, if you're going to do _that_at me-"

He made to come up onto the bed, but Kid shook his head; his blue eyes were fixed on Shinichi's, calm and just a little wicked, with a smile hiding inside them that had the detective's name written all over it. "Eat first, Tantei. _Then_come to bed. Don't worry, we'll keep it warm for you." The thief stroked Ran's hair; she craned her head back just enough to kiss his jawline and then settled back down, a fingertip drawing little circular patterns on his ribcage. Her eyes, too, watched Shinichi as he ate, and he wondered with a slight twinge of trepidation just what they'd been talking about while he was occupied.

It was late; the heist itself hadn't taken all that long- barely a couple of hours and change, though the aftermath had felt endless. Midnight was scarcely half an hour away, and Shinichi wondered uneasily as he devoured the remaining yakitori and steamed pork-buns how much time he had before the first twinges of his change back made themselves known. _Maybe... a few hours at least? I don't feel anything yet, not at all; actually I'm kind of surprised just how good I feel, even with the bruises. That stuff of Ai's is amazing; I'll have to remember to tell her._He was tired but not totally exhausted; he ached, but not to distraction. And beneath the paired gazes of the two on the bed, he was warm. And growing warmer; their regard lay upon his skin like pure sunlight.

Kid yawned; Shinichi could see a pulse beating in his throat, and for a moment it was difficult to hear what the thief was saying. "-you able to reach your fellow tantei, Tantei-san?" he was asking.

"Uh? Oh- yeah. Good thing, too, Hattori was looking up plane-fares on the JALwebsite when I called," he answered, distracted. "If I don't get in touch again by sunset tomorrow he's going to be pounding the door down before midnight." The last of the pork-buns went the way of the others, and Shinichi sighed in satisfaction as he sat it aside. He smiled at the other two, watching Kid's hand slide through Ran's hair; "There. I'm bandaged, fed, and no longer stink. Can I please come to bed now?"

Kid raised a slow eyebrow. "Hmm, I don't know, Tantei. Are you QUITE certain you washed behind your ears? Perhaps you should let us check." As Shinichi stood, the towel around his waist slithered negligently towards the floor; the thief blinked. "Those aren't your ears."

"Well, no, but you're wearing my sleep-pants and I only brought one pair," the detective pointed out.

"True."

Ran, rather pink in the face by now, solved the problem by flopping back onto the bed next to Kid. "ShinIIIII~chiii," she growled, "will you _please_ get your- your ears up here with us and stop being silly?" She scooted over a little, leaving a very small space in the middle. "Now, please?"

* * *

.

.

(to be continued...)

_Ahem. Yes, well... sorry, but once again, we had to stop somewhere. Next week's chapter will be, we fear, non-worksafe (as we're sure you've gathered by this point) and there's not a chance in the world that we can bowdlerize it. But, well, it's his birthday and all... um, right. Please join us once more in seven days for __**Book Six, Chapter Eleven: "Then I'll keep saying it."**__ Take care, all, and stay healthy!_


	76. Then I'll keep saying it

_Hello, everyone! Guess what time it is? It's time to siiiiiiing! Join in, all:_

**_Happy birthday to yoooooooouuuuuu~  
Happy birthday TO YOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!  
Haaaaappy BIRTHday, dear Shinichiiiiii...  
Haaaappy birthday! To! Yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu!_**

_Yes, it's time for a little celebrating. And guess what he gets for his birthday? **grins** Tonight, dear friends, I fear I have nothing for you but what can only be called a very indelicate chapter. It is, very nearly, entirely R-rated (though I suspect this is more advertising than a warning.) So we hope you all enjoy yourselves; we certainly did. It does have other redeeming values beyond mere naughty bits, however, or at least we'd like to think so._

_So sit back, put your feet up, relax and enjoy... ____The Management_

___._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Eleven**__**: "Then I'll keep saying it."**_  
_Warnings: Graphic nudity and sexuality_

They were both very warm, especially since the towel had been damp and slightly chilly; the detective carefully maneuvered himself into place, doing his best not to jar the wounded member of their party. "Much better," he murmured, pulling the covers up over all three and sinking down against the sheets, still toasty with his girlfriend's body-heat. He sighed, feeling a hand slide along his thigh; it tickled, fingers walking carefully across his skin. _Fingernails,_ Shinichi thought, and then _Ran's_as the hand stepped its way from his thigh to Kid's; the thief peered down at the moving lump.

"Ah- just to let you both know, I'm feeling much better now; invigorated, in fact, and if not entirely up to par I'm certain I can make up by my lack of mobility byyyeee_eep!"_

Resting her head in the crook of Shinichi's arm, Ran's eyes twinkled; "What was that?" she asked; her hand had continued south and now had paused its progress, though not its activity. Shinichi chuckled, sending his own hand to follow hers. Their skin brushed against each others in the warming cavern beneath the covers, and Kid bit his lip.

"As I was- oh! As I was saying, I... Ran, Tantei, you- _AS_I was saying, I can make up f-for that by..." (he paused to breathe deeply; Ran and Shinichi's hands moved in counterpoint to each other, slow and easy) "...by..." The thief blinked again. "...I've forgotten what I was going to... offer..." The sentence ended in a heartfelt groan, and without stopping what he was doing Shinichi dipped his head and took Ran's mouth in a kiss.

Tasting of teriyaki sauce and still just a little like tears she kissed him back almost delicately, nibbling his lower lip in tiny bites. Beside them, their thief was struggling with the ill-advised urge to push up against both their hands; and when Ran drew away it was only to lean across Shinichi's own body and press her mouth to Kid's just before he lost the battle. They paused to allow him time to subside; this was only the beginning, not the finale, and Ran's kiss was deep but gentle. She propped herself on one elbow afterwards, her robe still demurely closed, and smiled down at both their faces.

Kid made tragic eyes at his two lovers. "You're not going to stop there, are you?" he demanded.

"We could," Ran considered; "It's _Shinichi_whose birthday it is, after all, isn't it? There ought to be cake and presents and candles..." Whether it was in reaction to the stress earlier or not, she was very clearly in a mood; it was more than a little startling. Her face was flushed and her lips were very red from all the kissing; Shinichi decided right then and there that they needed to stay that way and pulled her down against him. Elbow sliding, she collapsed with a muffled squeak that began outside his mouth and finished inside it. Somehow in the process the tie of her robe came undone- more than undone, the tie vanished entirely; as the terrycloth gaped open and Ran squeaked again, Kid displayed innocent, empty hands and beamed at them both.

"Now, what was that about not finishing what you started?" he asked.

"Mmm, I think that's a very bad idea," Ran answered, her robe hanging loose from her body as she braced herself over Shinichi. One shoulder was bare, smooth skin draped loosely with thick fabric that gathered at her elbow and fell from there. Kid had an excellent side view of her breasts and the delicate stretched skin curving across her ribs as Ran lowered herself down, sinking against Shinichi with exquisite slowness. First her nipples brushed his skin, making them both hiss, and Kid too, as he watched Ran's soft curves blooming sideways, breasts flattening between her own chest and Shinichi's. She held her hair aside, bracing herself with her other hand on the pillow, and licked her way up Shinichi's throat and jaw. "We should _definitely_finish what we started. We'd started to kiss, hadn't we, Shinichi?"

The detective threw a brief glance to his left. He chanced a brief expression of apology for his boyfriend's sake, but it was gone just as quickly, and he brought his eyes front again, giving their girlfriend his full attention while she worked her way up to his earlobe and began to nibble it. The _rest_of her was grinding against him, groin to groin, and despite the fact that she was scaring him a good bit, in the way that had everything to do with his absolute respect for her power when angered, Shinichi wasn't a fool.

Yeah, he felt bad for Kid, who not only couldn't move but was apparently still going to have to pay for scaring the everliving shit out of their girlfriend; but on that same line, that girlfriend was in a _Mood,_ and Shinichi's own delicate bits weren't exactly out of her range of retribution either, so though he felt badly for the thief, he couldn't help him. Ran ground her body against him, a long pulse of strong thighs and toned stomach and soft, rolling breasts dragging across his skin, and her teeth dug in to his collar bone, nipping and scraping a rough hickey onto that spot. Cool droplets of water on his skin told him that she was still crying, but probably in relief by now, and the angle and twist of her mouth and cheek as she turned her head, teeth dragging on his skin _oh god_, meant that she was making sure Kid could see _everything_she was doing.

Shinichi let his head roll back, gritting his teeth and trying not to thrust against Ran's belly; he didn't know what she had planned, but he knew enough to let her stay in control for now. She deserved to get what she wanted, after all, he and Kid had- had- they'd had their fun already, and it was only fair, and it would be an excellent way for her to reassure herself that they were okay and alive, and-

And all of that was bullshit, really, because what mattered was that Ran was playing him like a cheap fiddle, and Kid too, and she was barely even trying, and oh, _**God**_, it was possibly the hottest thing ever, except for the last time he had made love to her, except- oh, God.

Groaning, Shinichi braced his feet against the sheets, toes curled, and pushed up against Ran; he was hard, and she made an absolutely beautiful sound as his heat traced a stuttering line up her belly. His tip caught in her belly button, and they both paused, shivering against each other; she spread her thighs and pressed down against him again, and his sack was soaked with her juice in seconds. Ran buried her face beside Shinichi's neck, nuzzling against his pulse point and murmuring three words to him, again and again; he felt a lurch go through him, he could barely smell anything but her, and his brain started losing the ability to think about anything other than being inside her, now now _now_.

Beside them, Kid's hard breathing turned to whimpering moans. "Tantei, Ran, by the Goddess -"

Ran raised her head, eyes narrowed and pupils blown wide. By itself, the effect was disconcerting, but coupled with the tight nipples and tangled waterfall of dark hair which shifted with each of her harsh breaths, breasts swaying gently in the small amount of space between her chest and Shinichi's, the picture she presented to Kid's eye was less that of a human woman and more similar to some wanton deity of power and free will and balance, meting out beautiful cruelty to him for scaring her, while she lavished unbearable pleasure on Shinichi for the same reason.

Or maybe he was just getting light-headed.

"No, it's not your _turn,_" Ran was saying, doing her best to look fiercely at him despite the way her gaze obviously lingered on his flushed skin, his parted lips, or his dark eyes. Her hands were busy, one thumb brushing Shinichi's ear and throat while her other moved, fast and busy, between her own thighs. The sound of her, wet and messy and ungraceful, made Kid's throat dry from wanting to enter her, or taste her, or both.

"I wasn't going to ask for mercy," Kid smiled, his words choppy. He glanced to meet Shinichi's gaze; the detective was lying passive beneath Ran, overloaded and coasting in bliss, as she rubbed her body against him again. His cock traced sticky lines on her belly, raising goosepimples to either side of the skin it touched. Ran's breath caught as Kid inhaled sharply, squeezing his fist tighter at his base; his vision went funny for a moment, and rather than dissuade his erection he found he'd only managed to make it even more unbearable, as his imagination eagerly filled in visions of Ran roughly stroking him off, angry and loving and lustful all at once.

"I." He swallowed, throat bobbing, and sent a memo to his body to keep his wounded leg _still_, dammit, before giving in and stroking himself hard and fast, holding Ran's gaze the whole time.

"You're beautiful. I just want to watch you. You're so beautiful."

In answer, Ran leaned toward him, eyes hooded and lips licked slick. Still straddling Shinichi, she squirmed against him as she leaned down to kiss Kid. "Don't you _ever_do that again, Kid," she told him when she pulled back, scant centimeters separating their faces, hers lustful and intense, his just as lusting and so willingly out of control. He began to nod, reaching one hand up to stroke her hair, but Ran batted it away and pinned Kid's wrist to the mattress as she looked further down his body.

"R-Ran," Shinichi gasped, drawing Kid's attention; he was watching her actions, and though he seemed determined not to relieve himself, waiting for Ran, it was straining him. "What are you...Oh, _gods._"

Kid seemed to agree, arching off the bed in complete instinct as Ran wrapped her mouth around the tip of his cock, suckling gently. His bad leg, tense despite his best efforts, spotted through its bandage just a bit, bright red pinpoints on white, as the thief bit his lip and braced all his weight on his good leg, hips held off the bed and motionless in taut, fraying self-control.

Ran pulled off of Kid's cock with a pop, pushing her hair aside impatiently and levelling a glare on both her boys which they couldn't have thoroughly described in a whole paragraph. Shinichi reached toward Kid, burying his fingers in the thief's hair, gasping as Ran cranked her body against his again, her motions smooth and seemingly effortless. Her strong thighs, peeking out from beneath the pooled fabric of her robe, flexed smoothly as she rocked against Shinichi and nuzzled Kid's cock, burying her face in the soft curve of his belly above his groin.

"I thought I'd lost you," she murmured, her lips pressed against Kid's skin. "When you both jumped - fell - off the balcony. I saw you both go and then I couldn't see either of you, the white was gone and I couldn't see the black outside of the spotlight beams. You were there and then gone and there was no glider, there was no parachute, I had no idea..."

Rather than fall into maundering drama, however, Ran clearly knew what she wanted and knew how to get it; she shook her head, briskly dismissing weak-hearted fears, and bucked her hips against Shinichi's, pressing his sack between her lips and his own groin, tugging a raw noise out of him. With her right hand she squeezed Kid's package, running her lips and teeth gently around the edges of his cockhead and humming happily as he whimpered. Both moaned as she continued, and their voices were so similar and so subtly different as she released the pressure briefly, listening to them panting for breath, before squeezing again and smiling as Shinichi hit a falsetto note.

"I promise you I will torture the _crap_ out of you stupid boys for scaring me so badly," she told them then, after releasing Kid's cock with another wet pop and another accompanying whimper from the thief. "I will torture you and tease you and use every little advantage I have over you guys and your - your stupid bullheaded moronic _boy-ness._ Because if you're gonna be _men_about stupid heists like this, then- then-" Swallowing, Ran rallied herself and glared at her men, humor and embarrassment twinkling at the very far back corners of her eyes.

"Then I can be a _girl_about this, too, and jerk you two around like you did to me earlier."

Shinichi and Kid exchanged worried, wide-eyed glances, and both swallowed nervously - Kid more theatrically than Shinichi - as they turned back to look at their girlfriend.

Straddling Shinichi, one hand firmly gripping Kid's cock at the base, Ran glared at them both...and then the glare faded, breaking to reveal a loving, sheepish smile behind it.

"And then we'll see what happens. The, um, condoms are in the nightstand drawer."

Kid was nearest; he reached, scrabbled in the drawer, and came up with a handful of silver-wrapped square packages that he spilled across the sheet beside his pillow like coins. Ran's smile turned into something less sheepish and more intent, and she hooked one up between her two fingers. "Shinichi," she said softly, and gave it to him. He swallowed, feeling his Adam's Apple bob, and then gasped as she slid off him slowly, making room for his hands. Kid's eyes were deepest indigo as he watched, and when Shinichi began to roll the thin membrane down his cock the thief stretched out a hand.

"Let me, Tantei."

Thin fingers wrapped themselves around, sleeved Shinichi's flesh in latex in one slow stroke of steady pressure. He drew a shuddering breath, rocking up involuntarily against the circle of Kid's hand; Ran settled back against her detective's thighs, arching her body and stroking cock and hand with the skin of her belly. Kid splayed his fingers between them both, palm flat against Ran's skin, knuckles sliding in a sheer, hard line from base to crown.

Staring down into her own lap, Ran swallowed hard. Without a word, she reached down and caught Kid's wrist in her hand. "Stop," she said softly. "Lie back, Kid." Shinichi made a strained, almost agonized noise, and she looked him full in the face. "Trust me?" Ran asked. He nodded, swallowing.

Moving carefully, she slid off, leaving Shinichi painfully aroused and ready; the covers were tugged down and the gray sleep-pants joined them, rolled carefully the rest of the way down over the bandages and off, banished to the floor. Still grasping Kid's wrist, Ran rolled over and crouched above Kid, his knees resting to either side of her own, her free hand coming down on his other wrist and pressing both hard into the mattress-

Shinichi _stared,_so fascinated by what he was seeing that his own arousal almost seemed secondary. Kid seemed hypnotized, eyes fixed on the woman hovering over him, her long hair falling down over his thighs like the mane of a lion-

Her mouth slid over the head of Kid's cock, enveloped it, took it in deeply. He shuddered, body fighting against itself, trying not to thrust up; behind the veil of her hair Ran made a low noise in her throat, and Kid's entire face spasmed. For a few long moments, he panted rhythmically as her head rose and fell, arms straining not to move but to _keep_ from moving. Ran's back bowed; she made little sounds, soft wet sounds, _sounds that were driving Shinichi crazy._The white robe had fallen down to the bed, pooled around the smooth curve of her buttocks; her pale skin gleamed in the overhead lights, and she threw her head back with a gasp, hair whipping as Kid gave a strangled cry.

"Sh-Shinichi. Shinichi, now."

He was moving before he realized it, rolling over, his hands on her back, her ribs, her hips, hands trailing down as he slid behind her. Ran fell forward, "Yes, _yes now yes-"_Her head dropped back down and Kid bucked once beneath her just as Shinichi, breathing hard, wrapped his arms and his body around the woman he loved and slid inside her in one slow, smooth thrust.

And then they were moving, rocking forward, rocking back, Ran's hands gripping white-knucked now on Kid's forearms as he moaned beneath them. She groaned deep in her throat around his cock, her body sweat-sheened, and the angle of how her body sheathed his, clamped down on his and took him in over and over, wet and hot and so very wonderful. The bed creaked beneath them; this would be fast, none of them would be able to last very long, it was too good-

The end for all three of them came in succession: Kid, losing the fight to hold still, twisting within Ran's hold, bent like a bow; Ran, crouched low and shuddering, every muscle taut; and Shinichi, eyes closed, biting down on her shoulder as he came so hard the world behind his eyes blurred. Everything went bright and dark; through the pleasure roaring through his veins he was conscious of fighting to stay upright, keep from collapsing onto Ran and down onto their wounded lover. He gulped in breath; it was scented with salt and sweat, and beneath his heaving chest he could feel Ran's heart slamming inside her body just as fast and hard as his own.

She swayed up and back, bringing them both onto their knees; involuntarily his arms went around her waist, and she braced herself against him for a moment before she straightened. Kid was still trembling, eyes unfocused and half-lidded; his lashes trembled along with the rest of his body as shocks ran through him. Shinichi draped himself over his girlfriend's shoulders, his body limp; she held them both up and turned her head to kiss his hand, breathing heat across his skin.

Silence and stillness above him proved sufficient inspiration for Kid to force his eyes open, checking on his lovers. He tried to raise one hand to shield his gaze, as even the low light of the bedroom seemed too strong for him, but couldn't summon the strength to get it higher than his own chest; squinting instead, Kid focused on Shinichi's face as the world came back into slow focus for him. The detective was draped limp over Ran's shoulder, clearly weak as water; kneeling, her thighs spread to either side of Shinichi's, Ran sat tall in the detective's lap. Kid could see from the tension in Ran's thighs that she was holding them both up, providing a brace for Shinichi's afterglow to keep both of their weight off of their thief. As she kissed Shinichi's hand, rolling her hips up to let his length slide wetly out of her while she held his base to keep the condom from inverting, Kid could see a thick white cream at the corner of her mouth, a cream which smeared onto Shinichi's knuckles as Ran's lips touched them.

"Oh Benten," Kid managed, rolling his tongue around in his mouth to make it work right. "Ran, did you-?"

She slid her gaze across to meet his, narrowed and amused, while she tied off the condom and dropped it into the wastebasket beside the bed. "I'm going to make you eat more apples, mister. What do you eat all day, ramen?"

"Oh goddess," Kid groaned, pushing off the bed with intent to tackle his shocking, amazing, wanton girlfriend right then and there. Pain brought him up short, and he jerked as it hit him, falling ungracefully back to the bed. Between his knees, close but not touching him, Ran watched wide-eyed, then looked to his knee. The broad red splotch working its way through his bandages made her growl low in her throat, and when her gaze whipped back around to Kid, the thief instinctively held up both hands in surrender.

"Before we murder me for not taking care of myself, I would just like to submit that you were, ah, an active influence in raising my blood pressure and heart rate and other such things that tend to encourage harmless, small-volume bleedthrough of otherwise stable wounds, and you- ah- Ran, you, ah, are wearing a Tantei, please remember that..."

"I know," Ran smiled, continuing to crouch forward despite Kid's alarm. Hands braced on the bed to either side of the thief, with Shinichi now truly coming back to himself as Ran's movements draped him across her back like a warm cape, Ran smiled down at Kid charmingly. "We'll have a little intermission to fix your bandage. And then we'll keep playing. I am _so_not done with you idiots. And stop playing possum, Shinichi, I can hear your heartbeat getting scared."

Chin hooked over their girlfriend's shoulder, Shinichi opened his eyes and smiled sheepishly. "It was worth a try? You're scary when you're mad, Ran."

"_You're_scary when you're being stupid," Ran countered, addressing them both. "Besides, it feels nicer than me taking you to the karate dojo, right?"

Shinichi pushed himself off of Ran, carefully navigating Kid's wounded knee as he collapsed to the bed beside the thief (and then winced as his thud made the thief wince too), looking up at Ran with wide-eyed sincerity. "And I know you'd _do_that, too..."

"I'm sure Ai could do something about your bruises," Ran said airily, grinning, as she pushed herself up to her knees, gazing down on her boys with a soft smile of satisfaction. "And you don't go to school anymore, so we wouldn't have to explain who's been beating Conan-kun."

Kid rolled his head to the right, meeting Shinichi's wide eyes with a very alarmed expression of his own. "She's serious, isn't she?"

"Don't ever take the chance that she's not," Shinichi affirmed, nodding slightly. "It is not worth the bet."

"Well!" Ran brushed her hands off, then climbed carefully off of the bed, reaching for her discarded white robe and turning her back on the others. "Close your eyes or don't look or something, I have to clean up before I can fix up Kid's knee. Come on, stop staring, Shinichi."

With an effort, Shinichi dragged his gaze off of Ran's thighs, the slick shine that ran down their insides and the soft delta where the slick converged. He closed his eyes, but peeked a few seconds later, watching the curve and pull of Ran's shoulderblades and waist as she bent to wipe herself dry. Kid's hand in his own startled him; the detective looked left, meeting his thief's eyes as Kid laced their fingers together, his thumb rubbing circles across Shinichi's, and the quiet understanding they both shared was equal in warmth and intensity.

_I am the luckiest man alive._

Their girlfriend slipped from the room to find a wet washcloth, bare feet silent on the carpet; Shinichi sighed, rolling onto his side and pressing his forehead against the other's shoulder. There was a little bedside clock on the nightstand, small blue numerals spelling out the time and telling him that his birthday had come and gone in the sense of calendars and timepieces. It didn't feel like it had; and what did a clock know, anyway?

There was one thing though… "Kid?"

"Mmmm?" The thief's voice was sleepy with contentment.

"I don't know how many hours I've got left, so…" He breathed out, the wash of warm air returning back to him from Kid's skin, carrying salt and the other's unforgettable scent. "I don't want to do more than you're capable of, but—"

Shinichi tilted his head back to meet his thief's eyes; the blue caught the light from the bedside lamp, glinting cobalt back at him. His lips quirked in a little smile. "Tantei, so long as none of your plans involve my bleeding all over the mattress or either of us receiving bodily harm from our Ran, I have no qualms about our attempting to break the bed." The grin grew wider. "Should we do so, I'll pay for the damages myself."

The detective laughed softly, fingers tightening in the other's grip. "Nice to know, though _not_ what I was talking about." Maybe it was the post-coital endorphins or the lingering stress of the heist or the timing or just _all of it,_he didn't know; but Shinichi felt his heart turn over in his chest, warmth flooding his veins with something shivery and just a shade away from pain. It felt like the adrenaline surge you got that saved your life, like the hot jolt when the bullet passed you by or the speeding car; but it carried no threat, and the sweetness was overwhelming. "I wanted… I need to tell you and Ran both…"

Kid's gaze was warm. "Yes, Tantei?"

Heat in his face at the very thought of the words— _Why's it so hard to say things like this? It should be easy-_ Shinichi pushed past the surge of feeling and out the other side, love and lust and the sheer awareness that that night they had been so close (too close) to being anywhere but together still trying to choke the words off. "Love you," he said haltingly, "love you both._So much._Tonight, every night… I don't say it enough." He gave the words away like he was paying a debt; even though Shinichi had said them before they came hard, and in the back of his mind there was the certainty that the one he was paying was himself. "You, Ran—"

"Ran heard you," said their lover, her voice soft; she was at the foot of the bed, a wrung-out washcloth in her hands and the first-aid kit tucked beneath her arm. "Shinichi, you baka. Don't you think we knowthat?" She sat down by Kid's feet, reaching out to stroke Shinichi's ankle with one warm hand. Her own gaze held them both captive, fire banked in her eyes. "Though telling us doesn't hurt." A fingernail trailed down, and she tickled the sole of his foot. "I like hearing it," she added softly, and the fire flared just a little.

He smiled back at her, loving her, loving them both. "Then I'll keep saying it." He felt Kid's chuckle all through his body.

"Good." She opened the kit and took out a pair of scissors, settling the washcloth on the thief's bare thigh below the bandage. "Now keep your fellow baka distracted for me, okay? This is probably going to hurt."

_Oh, I think I can manage that._Letting go of Kid's hand, Shinichi raised himself up onto an elbow and grinned down at the thief, the emotional rush settling deep inside him somewhere safe, fueling everything else. It was a relief to let it go and take refuge in touch and taste; he needed it too, more than he would've thought. "Want to be distracted?" Shinichi half whispered, leaning down into a very thorough kiss.

The thief's tongue stroked his, drew him in even as he hummed into the kiss; heart beginning to race in his chest again, Shinichi tangled his free hand in the wild dark hair and drank his lover's breath in, his taste, even the hint of blood where Kid had bitten his lip at some point. It was all so good, _all_ of it, he tasted rich and amazing and so like and utterly unlike Ran, musky and addictive and _god I just want to-_A surge of possessiveness swelled up inside, balancing the tenderness with something that was anything but soft.

He wanted to wrap himself around their thief, devour him, swallow him whole and never let him go; the intensity of the feeling was almost frightening, compounded of relief and terror and pure unashamed lust. It wasn't civilized at all and it took him over, and when Kid bit him on the corner of the jaw and squirmed beneath him, Shinichi growled low in his throat and bit him back. Dimly he was aware of two hands fisting in his own hair; breathing hard, he slid his teeth along the other's throat and latched onto the point where the pulse centered between both collarbones like a jewel.

Hands were stroking his back. "Shinichi. _Shinichi._Leave some for me, please?"

He pulled abruptly up and away, aware that the chest he'd begun to trace with his tongue was heaving beneath him. "I- Kid. Kid, did I- I didn't mean to hurt you." Shinichi's own breath caught in his throat. "God, are you okay?" Kid's dark, glazed eyes and still-rapid breath gave him answer, and he swallowed hard; the other's lips were reddened, and small crescents were blooming on his skin where Shinichi had bitten down. "I don't know why I did that," the detective whispered.

Ran leaned against him; her hands were damp, and the kit lay along with the discarded bandages on the bedside chair. "You were scared, Shinichi," she answered him quietly. "That's all." She reached past him, running her knuckles along Kid's forearm. "But I don't think he minded very much. That was," she added with a smile in her voice, "very, um, hot. Very."

"Vehhh-, ngh, very," Kid concurred, drawing his lovers' attention. They'd been studying each others' faces, lost in the blue of their eyes; now they turned to study Kid's, and Ran's fingernails came out as she stroked her way back up the thief's arm. Shuddering against Shinichi, who was still twined around as much of Kid's body as he could reach without pressuring the knee, Kid licked his lips but didn't even try to drag his mouth shut, jaw slack and eyes blown wide, pulse beating hard and fast.

"Tantei. Tantei, please, don't stop."

"Kid, I-" Shinchi glanced to the thief's throat, then back up, cradling Kid's face in both his hands. "Nearly bit you to bleeding, Kid," he said, chagrined. "I didn't mean to."

"Wouldn't've cared if you did," the other panted, rolling one cheek against his boyfriend's palm. "Tantei, I want to taste you. Can I-?"

Shinichi glanced at Ran, busy with bandages further down the length of their thief's body, and back to Kid's face. "You can't move, Kid. Won't let you, your knee-"

The thief winced, and Ran cursed under her breath. "Sorry, sorry," she muttered.

"Tighter, Ran," Kid gritted, his pulse and pupils calming as he reeled himself in from his high to address their girlfriend. "You have to have enough pressure or it'll bleed right through."

"It'll hurt you," Ran warned, clenching her jaw.

"Gunshot wound," Kid laughed, lifting one hand toward Ran; both hands busy, she leaned her shoulder into his touch. "It does that."

"Shut the idiot up, Shinichi," Ran ordered, in a tone of voice that didn't sound very impressed by either of the boys. "And if you don't think you can manage to keep yourself kneeling long enough, then just keep him still long enough for me to finish up, and I promise you that I _can_."

She went back to her work, and Kid looked back to meet Shinichi's eyes with a wide gaze of his own.

"..._Woah,_" he mouthed silently, a mad grin tugging the corners of his mouth.

* * *

It was, Ran thought, almost a relief to have a job to do, something to keep her hands busy and her brain caught up in more than just her own emotions and reactions. She needed a stillness, a stepping-back- like climbing out of the water at the beach, getting a little chilly... but knowing how good it would feel when you dropped down out of the wind and back into the depths again.

And after all, she could _watch,_couldn't she?

_Though from this viewpoint I can't see a lot. Or not the, um, interesting bits._ Her hands were steady on Kid's leg, pressing the top of the wound together with thumb and forefinger while she cleansed the area with Betadyne and sterile gauze. _I can see Shinichi, though. And I can imagine._

He was being very, very careful, was Shinichi- straddling Kid's body, keeping his weight off the other even as he shifted forward and level with the thief's chest. It was a little awkward, and he reached over Kid's head to grip the headboard with both hands, breath coming fast. Ran winced a little even as she butterfly-bandaged the entrance wound shut- Shinichi's back was patterned with blue splotches here and there, especially around the shoulderblades; he had a wide mark slanting across the top of one buttock as big as her hand, and that hadto hurt when he moved, no matter how much reason he had to ignore it.

And he had good reason now; she saw Kid's hand fasten on one hip, slender fingers gripping tight- and Shinichi started like he'd been bitten by a snake, breath sucked deep into his chest in a huge rush. His whole body jerked in place, the muscles of his back and hips tensing as they were told _don't move don't move don't move;_and she heard, quite clearly, the soft sounds that Kid made as he did exactly what he'd wanted to: tasted their lover, their detective.

Her hands worked on automatically: wiping clean the clots of blood and the excess oozing out from the larger exit wound, pressing a pad soaked in antiseptic in place, sealing it on with tape and packing it with gauze. All the while, Kid's body was strangely ambivalent in his reactions- it was clear just how much he liked what he was doing (really, _really_clear, and Ran felt herself blushing despite... well, EVERYTHING) but at the same time he wasn't tensing, he was relaxing, everything was going less rigid and easier, slack and...

...well; _almost _everything.

Shinichi's knuckles were white on the headboard; his head was bowed and his shoulders were pearled with sweat by the time Ran got the first winding of bandage over the thick pads. He was panting, words mixed in with his breath: Kid's name, Ran's, nonsense words and _Oh_ and _Please_ and Yes. She was breathing faster herself, settling back down into the sea again... Methodically she taped the gauze in place, clipped it short and secured it again before gathering the medical detritus and stuffing it all into one of the plastic packs the rolls had come in. _I ought to get up and wash my hands,_she thought distantly, but instead reached to pull herself alongside the two who shared her bed, moving up to watch the end.

There was sweat running down Shinichi's chest and belly; his face was almost agonized, teeth clenched as he simultaneously fought for control and allowed himself to abandon it. The thief beneath him was watching, indigo eyes staring up through those absurdly long lashes even as he pushed forward in the only movement he had, lips stretched wide. His cheeks were hollowed, his color high; he closed his eyes at the last second, and his jaw seemed to lock in place as Shinichi made the headboard groan, hands pulling on it so hard that surely the wood cracked.

He threw his head back and gasped, air choking off into a long, long silence that was more emphatic than any shout; and his body shook.

Ran saw the moment when he was going to fall forward; her hands caught both of Shinichi's shoulders and she held him upright again, only this time from the front. He leaned over Kid, sweat dripping down onto his thighs and the other's collarbone; and Ran saw a drop splash right onto Kid's chin as he allowed his head to fall back onto the pillow, the smuggest, most satisfied expression in the _world_on his face.

Applause, she supposed, would be kind of out of place at that point, but she almost gave it anyway.

Kid left his mouth hanging open and slack as Ran helped to stabilize Shinichi, and slowly folded him off of the thief and into a limp, collapsed lump on the sheets beside him. Part of it was a true need for breath - he'd been gasping at the end, and as Shinichi had thrust deep, pushing past all Kid's comfort and all Shinichi's ideas of politeness, it had been _gorgeous._Totally worth a bit of lightheadedness.

Not that that was the only cause; Kid fought the urge to shift his hips, his cock hard and angled high, drooling somewhat as the thief worked his tongue around his own mouth, swallowing again and again to get the gummed-up sensation out of his teeth and gums. Again, not that he minded - the taste was Shinichi, through and through, and Ran might complain about a guy's taste, but that was girls for you; guys had an innate appreciation for the pleasant unpleasantness of each others' cocks.

Or at least, this guy did.

Kid rolled his head to the side with an effort, feeling the soreness just under his ears, at the hinge of his jaw, and found a completely zoned-out and blissed-out Tantei spilled ingracefully between himself and Ran, gangly legs draped over her, arm and shoulder splayed across him, eyes half-lidded and completely unfocused. Kid could hear the pounding of Shinichi's heart through his pillow.

He swallowed, licking his lips with deliberation and also to savor the feel; once you started talking after a blowjob, he'd learned, the feeling of it - the locked-open way your jaw felt, and the memory of his weight on your tongue - well, that all faded fast. Kid was kind of reluctant, but Ran's eyes were glittering and his head was dizzy from lack of blood.

"Mmm?" Kid asked, unable to form clear words quite yet. He made eyes at his cock, then Ran. "Wanna?"

"Smooth-talker," she said dryly, but there was nothing dry about the way she looked at him. "Lie still." She brushed her hair back, crawling carefully over the slack body of their boyfriend. "There's... well, there's something I read about, and I want to try it." He raised one eyebrow, but Ran, blushing furiously, only shook her head.

The explanation lay not in the telling but in the doing; she moved down, shifted one of Shinichi's skinny legs over to give her room... and when she settled her own leg over Kid she was facing towards his feet. The crackle of a packet being torn open gave proof that Ran had been planning on this, and Kid sighed as she smoothed the condom into place. She stroked him softly for a few minutes, teasing him and resting very lightly against his stomach; he could feel her thighs quiver as she steadied herself, and where her body pressed itself against his skin it was jeweled with its own moisture.

For Ran herself, it was just a little intimidating; or it would've been if it hadn't been so strangely reassuring, feeling Kid quiver in her hands, raising up, settling down slowly, slowly, slowly-_Ooohh,_ her mind remarked to itself, and the sound made it out into the air of the bedroom in a long moan as he slid in deeply, stroking her inside like hands. She wasn't sure- it was almost too much- and then it was _good,_and it wasn't enough and she raised up and descended again, breath driven out-

The ride was short; it was intense and she could feel Kid straining not to thrust up beneath her. At least, Ran thought dimly at some point, she could see if he started bleeding again; but that was a long ways away and there was the slide and push and the tremendous shudder that wracked her every time Kid slid across that spot deep inside, _that place,_and when she felt the shout building in her throat she clapped her own hands across her mouth to keep it from escaping.

Behind her, Kid was still trying to move; and she kept going, the aftershocks building inside into a second crescendo even as he bucked upwards, and right before Ran fell forward onto her hands she had the additional satisfaction of seeing clean white where the gauze wrapped his thigh, just beyond her own.

Ran shuddered to a stop, finally, folded across Kid's left leg and waist. Her own legs were scissored up, folded awkwardly beneath her, and Kid gently tugged on one foot as she exhaustedly pillowed her cheek against his shin. Ran let her leg stretch out, thigh sliding against the thief's waist, and her boyfriend stroked the tendons of her ankle and the sole of her foot as she laid it carefully on his bicep.

"'ll move. Jus' one second longer," Ran murmured, smushing her nose against Kid's skin as she nuzzled him; the thief chuckled faintly, voice dry, and his quick fingers massaged the sole of her foot, making her groan aloud.

"Doesn't hurt," he murmured, stroking her skin gently. "Only got the other leg."

"Gonna... Mmmh. Gonna take...care..." Though her focus was intent, her body was languid and dreamy, soaring on endorphins, and her words came out slurred. Kid smiled, kissing the sole of his girlfriend's foot, and petted her gently.

"When you can move, Ran, c'mere so I can kiss you. But you're fine. No rush," he soothed her. Bright blue numbers on the clock on the bedside surely read some sort of important time, but importance was relative and right now, Kid had bigger priorities. Beside him, Shinichi was well and truly passed out, coasting on adrenaline and serotonin; the thief turned his head, breathing warm across the detective's face, and watched in pleasure as the other's whole body shivered, that attuned to even the simplest proof of his lovers' presence.

If he'd thought about it, Kid would have remembered the timer on their time together, the limitation that made impractical the broad library of desires rushing to the fore of his mind as Ran tugged their Tantei against his side, then curled up on Kid's other side, minding his knee and stroking his body so sweetly, love-drunk and grabby. So many things he wanted to do and to be done to him, with and by these two people. So little time to do them all.

The thief closed his eyes, kissing his Tantei's forehead sleepily, and dreamed.

* * *

_Eurgh._With effort, Ran detangled one hand from the intricate lacings of her two lovers' grasps and shielded her eyes; the hotel room curtains were a bit ajar on one end and the sunlight streaming through had hit her eyes just at the right angle to painfully wake her. Squinting against the light, Ran pulled the covers higher over her head and burrowed against the warm, sturdy chest before her; whichever one he was, she loved him. Normally Shinchi and Kid carried different scents, but after a night like the previous, there was no distinguishing one from the other. They were all too thoroughly marked as each others' territory to keep track, with your eyes closed, of whose body started where.

She could hear a heatbeat, though, slow and steady. He was sleeping. Ran pressed her lips to his collarbone, smiling. Good.

* * *

When she woke again, it was her bladder to blame. _Don't wanna move,_ she grumbled. _Don't know if I __**can**__ move. God, that was intense._ Her body shivered, remembering the strange intensity of riding Kid backwards, of Shinichi driving into her while she swallowed Kid deep. Everything was sore, in a general sense, and certain muscles were most definitely sore in more specific senses, too. _Running about, getting scared half to death, amazing sex... busy night,_Ran congratulated herself.

_I wonder if I could...I wonder. That would feel amazing. ...I think. I should ask them about that. Maybe once Kid's better, and once Shinichi is..._

Ran bolted upright in bed, all other concerns forgotten, as she slammed into full wakefulness. "Shinichi!" she shouted, somewhat unnecessarily. "Shinichi, you're going to-"

Well that was unhelpful, her voice had just gone running off somewhere. Abstractly, Ran figured she needed it, and tried to summon it back. "Going to- to- You're going...to..."

Sitting up in bed beside her, dark hair an unruly, untameable mess, deep blue eyes studying her soberly, and with a disobediently giddy grin tickling around the corners of his mouth, her lover studied her wide-eyed panic with quiet, patient sobriety.

Ran's gaze whipped down, fixing on the lover she'd been cuddling up til two minutes prior. He was awake now, thanks to her shout and abrupt awakening; sleep was falling out of his cobalt eyes quickly, paranoia and the habits of secrets bringing his faculties online in a matter of seconds. He raked his hair, dark and wild, out of his eyes, staring first at Ran and then looking right, seeking the source of her panic. What he saw forced him upright, grimacing as his body complained. One hand reflexively gripped his knee, but its pain was of little importance as he stared, just as wide-eyed as his girlfriend, at the boyfriend they both loved.

"To answer the obvious question, no, I don't know," Shinichi said, smiling quietly. "I woke up around dawn, like this. I've just been watching you sleep, and being thankful."

Ran's sight began to blur; she wiped away the rising tears with rough knuckles, not daring to even blink; one hand, extended hesitantly, with the fear that comes from confronting an impossibility, reached slowly forward. Her spread fingertips touched him first, five points of pressure against her lover's chest. Beside her, Kid had one arm around Ran's waist and was staring at Shinichi as though he was a stranger.

Shinichi brought one hand up, moving slowly, and curled it over Ran's hand, easily enclosing her whole hand and palm within his own. He looked across at her - straight across, all nineteen years and one day of his life placing him on a level with Ran's - and the corners of his eyes were wet as Ran's began to overflow, silent and fiercely rushing tears streaming down her face. There was nothing to do but embrace her; embrace her, and scoot into the space between Ran and Kid's pillow, moving into range for both his lovers to touch and hold tightly every inch of his body. His real, grown, Teenage-Detective-of-the-East body.

The morning sun warmed their shoulders as they sat together, Ran crying freely and burying her tears in Shinichi's shoulder. The black angles of his Apotoxin pump, still adhered to his hip, dug into her waist, but she barely even noticed. Over her shoulder, Kid tucked one knuckle under Shinichi's chin and coaxed it up, meeting and holding his Tantei's gaze with a confused, terrified, elated gaze of his own, one too afraid of hoping to admit to indulging the activity.

"I don't know," Shinichi whispered. "I thought...when I realized it...I thought maybe that you and Ran had done this to me. I don't know how, I know it doesn't make any sense. I can't make any sense of it. It doesn't even feel real," he continued, barely audible. Kid had to read his lips to understand, but the thief barely noticed, fingers gently mapping the contours of his Tantei's face.

"It's not coming, Kid. I can't feel it at all. There _is_no change coming for me this time. I don't know why. I don't know.

"I'm sure I'll wake up any second now. This can't be real. But...there's..."

The thief leaned in silently, his eyes so complex, trusting everything to his gestures, not his words. And when Shinichi closed his eyes to meet Kid's kiss, and the thief tipped his head and Shinichi's tongue slipped against his own, and the thunder of his heart went through Ran and through Kid and he was _there,_really there -

Not Conan, not Shinichi in Conan's body -

_really_him-

Kid pressed closer, making a confused, happy, whimpering sound, all sorts of things rolled into it, and Ran kissed Shinichi's neck and her arms were like iron bands around him, holding on for dear life, and around then was when Yukiko and Chikage popped the door open to see what all the sobbing was about.

* * *

.

.

.._.and there we go. Don't say we don't deliver. **smile**_

_Join us next week for __**Book Six, Chapter Twelve**__**: "...did you help a wanted felon to escape capture?" **__We'll see you then. Have a good week, all!_


	77. Did you help a wanted felon to escape?

_Evening, all!_

Well, last week was fun; now it's time to get back to the serious business of survival for our heroes and their

_loyal sidekicks__friends and family. Not that that won't be fun too... though perhaps at the expense of certain badged professionals. **halo** We shall see, won't we? Because tonight they begin to pay the piper, and to see the results of their work._

Let's just hope it's worth it.

Please enjoy...

___The Management_

___._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Twelve**__**: "...did you help a wanted felon to escape capture?"**_

When you are a parent, there are things you either do not want or do not expect to want to see. While it's nice to think of your offspring having a consensual and affectionate relationship with their chosen beloved/s _in an abstract sense,_ it's entirely another thing to burst in on them and find them stark naked in a rather emotional embrace. It tends to put one off (unless you're Yukiko, of course.) As it was, it took a moment for the shock value to wear off and for understanding to dawn among the Kudos; after that, _everybody_started talking all at once.

Midway through the jumble of conversation/exclamation/explanation, Ran suddenly pulled back with an uncomfortable look on her face; she looked rather desperately at everyone else. "Um—I need to—could someone pass me my bathrobe? It's—I think it's on the floor…?" Backs were hastily turned while she fled urgently to the bathroom, and when she had gone Shinichi looked up at his parents, Chikage and Jintarou, who was hovering behind his mistress' back.

"I don't know how long this'll last, you know," he said quietly, Kid's arm tight around his waist; the thief seemed somewhat unwilling to let him go, and Shinichi was acutely aware of their skin pressing against each other's beneath the covers. Not in an overtly sexual way, though; instead, he felt as if every bit of him was awake, alive, stretching itself and coming online with all LEDs lit and every screen up. It felt… weird; not-normal but not-bad as well, a bit like the thin-skinned feeling he'd had in the past after a fever broke. Shinichi swallowed. "It might just last a few hours or even less—who knows? But it…" He ran a hand through his hair distractedly; "I don't know; I don't…_think_I'm changing back any time soon, unless things've gone really haywire this time." He sighed, and Kid's arm tightened. "I need to call Haibara."

"Darling, not to rain on your parade, but don't you think maybe there're a few other calls you might want to take care of first?" His mother held up his phone, and Shinichi blinked. "Five voicemails and seven texts, really? It would be nice to know whether we have to flee the police beforebreakfast or after, so…" She considered. "Or I could take care of it, I suppose; shall I?"

Every other person in the room (even Jintarou) blanched, and Shinichi hurriedly retrieved his property from his mother's hand—only to have it plucked from his fingers by Ran as she returned to the room. "I can't leave you alone for even a minute, can I?" she half-scolded him, seating herself on the bed beside Kid with her feet tucked up demurely. "Megure-keibu doesn't know where we are, does he? And even if he finds out, and yes, I _know_he can and everything, he said last night he'd talk to you today, didn't he?"

"Emphasis on the 'today'," said the detective rather grimly; his fingers were twined with Kid's, resting on top of the covers. "He'll only wait so long, and I want certain people securely out of his reach before he does locate us. _All_ of you," he added, looking at the Kuroba brothers' mother and beyond her to Jintarou; the elderly man's face stiffened and he nodded back, wariness in his old eyes. "I don't want to lie to him; I don't want to haveto lie to him, and the less I know about how you leave and where you go, the better." He sighed, and Ran slid her own arm around Kid, fingertips brushing Shinichi's hip. "Whatever's going on with me, it—seems stable; Kaasan's right, we need to secure the situation before we do anything else… even though," Shinichi added more softly, wonder in his voice, "I want nothing more than to just… lie back and be myself for a while. Be myself." He lifted up his and Kid's conjoined hands, staring at his own knobby, long-fingered digits; Ran reached across, brushing both hands with her fingertips softly.

"I can call Megure-keibu," she volunteered in a voice that only quavered slightly at the thought. "He's not as likely to arrest me, is he? He never even saw me last night; he doesn't even know I was there."

"Ran, he knows," said Yuusaku gently. "That's where Shinichi was, after all- give him some credit. But I do think we have a little time." He leaned against the doorjamb, looking slightly sheepish. "So I called Room Service fifteen minutes ago and ordered breakfast for everyone; it should be up any time now." Yukiko gave him an accusing look. "You were in the shower, 'Kiko. Don't worry, I ordered plenty."

"Sweet buns too?"

"Of course."

"...So," Ran ventured, after a silence that wasn't comforted much by the promise of sweet buns, "Does that mean we're fugitives now?"

"Not quite," Kid smiled, brushing her hair back from her forehead gently. "Takes a little more effort than that, usually." The thief frowned, gaze going distant for a moment. "Yeah, usually it does take more than that."

It was Chikage who crossed to the bed then; as good as oblivious to her sons' state of dress, she perched on the bed beside their hip and clasped his forearm, her thin hands strong. "Ten years since they've been this trigger-happy," she said tightly. Nobody else in the room dared breathe; they all knew, some more intimately than others, what she meant. Kid broke the silence nobody else wanted to.

"And that's what's bothering me now, Kaasan. They were so fast on the trigger that they _got_ me." He looked up at Yuusaku, across to Jintarou and over to his lovers. "They _shot_me."

"We'd _noticed,_" Ran growled, her spare hand clenching a fistful of the sheets.

"No, no, that's not what I mean," Kid hastened to explain, scooting back from his lovers. A casual, almost unintentional corner of blankets covered his pertinent bits as he dragged himself toward his mother with effort, one leg limp, until there was distance between his body and the others'. One hard blink later, and Kaito fixed Shinichi with an intent, sober stare.

"They _shot_ us. You know how good we are, Tantei. We don't get shot. Especially when we're _asking them to try_and we know where the shooter is."

Shinichi rose up from the bed, almost forgetting to bring the sheet with him, and fixed the Kuroba brothers with an expression of horror that threatened to very quickly spark over into fury.

"You knew there was a sniper. You _knew_, not just suspected, you actually knew there _was_ a sniper and _where_ he was and you- Ohh, Kaito, bring your brother back here so I can _**throttle**_him-"

"Wounded, you're both wounded," Yukiko reminded Shinichi, gripping his shoulders just in case he decided to lunge for the magician after all. Meanwhile, Kaito was rolling his eyes, exasperated with the detective's theatrics.

"Of course we knew where the shooter was, you idiot Tantei. We were planning the entire heist around that moment, do you think we wouldn't have planned out the stage so that all the players would take the right seats? He was _supposed_ to hit the display, not our _leg._"

With a frown, Kaito turned his attention to the more sane persons in the room - specifically, his mother, Jintarou, and Yuusaku. "What bothers me is how fast they shot. I'd barely displayed the gem; I didn't even get a word out before they were shooting. It makes me think of impatience. That they're impatient to get it."

"Thought they generally were," Yuusaku said quietly, lips pressed together. Kaito's glance flicked to the writer with sympathy, and then away; he knew what was bothering his godfather, and offering useless sympathy wouldn't get any of them anywhere. And Yuusaku wasn't the only one with ghosts in his eyes, given the topic of conversation.

"They are, though," Chikage countered, her voice gentle, but somehow cool - not cold with aggression, but the coolness of distance. Or patience.

"It's been ten years since they killed Toichi. Not a peep since. And when Kaito and Kid took the cape, there were a few scuffles, but...nothing like this.

"The most noise the Organization has made in _ages_has been because of you, Kudo-kun," she continued, turning her sober gaze on Shinichi. Already at a clothing disadvantage, the detective felt his pulse rise just a little as Chikage observed him coolly. "They seem to enjoy going after you when you're in tall buildings. I think once you three settle down, it'd better be a traditional home, two stories only."

Shinichi gulped. "Ahh, Kuroba-san..."

"The Organization hasn't been..." Chikage searched for the word.

"Splashy?" Kid offered, grinning. Ran and Shinichi glanced back, the latter frowning - was Kid teaming up with the rest of his family? The thief gave Shinichi a shameless grin and the detective just rolled his eyes.

"Splashy works," Chikage nodded. "Haven't been splashy about the stone in a very long time. Something has happened that means it's no longer their Quixote cause - they have to push it forward. If they were so quick to shoot at you, Kaito," she continued, frowning at her sons, "Then-"

"Then they don't have it themselves," murmured several voices together, most of the room speaking the conclusion in soft surprised union.

"Exactly." Chikage smiled at her son - which one it was hardly mattered at the moment, and it was getting increasingly hard to tell besides, given the tone of the conversation dampening everyone's spirits - and squeezed his hand. "You did well, you idiot boys. I will murder you later, after we're all done with this."

Kid grinned back, his broad lunatic smile a familiar sight to everyone in the room. "They don't have Pandora. Or, they don't have enough of her to dismiss out of hand that I was holding six hundred carats of her in my hand last night." There was a gasp.

"That many?" Yukiko asked, wide-eyed. "...Do you need that stone when you're done with all this? I don't care if it's just an opalite, it was still quite-"

"_**KAASAN,**_" Shinichi sighed. "Focus?"

"I am, dear," Yukiko smiled, beaming ear to ear and silently raising one hand, finger extended. Just a few centimeters from her lap, hidden behind the curve of Chikage's back where she perched on the opposite side of their childrens' bed, Yukiko indicated the doorway of the suite with one well-manicured finger. The doorway, and beyond that the parents' room...and the doorway of _that_room, which led to the hall.

_Tap ta-tap. Tap ta-tap._

"That's a policeman's knock," Ran mouthed silently, eyes wide.

It was; discrete, firm without being absolutely insolent about it; in short, a knock full of confidence that the door would be opened. For a moment the room was as full of dismay as it was of people; Shinichi's face went through a number of expressions, finally settling on iron determination flavored with just a hint of graveyard humor. "I wasn't planning on spending my first day 'back' in the lock-up," he muttered, "but I'll be damned if I let anybody besides me get arrested. And I _will_push things if I have to." He took a deep breath, glancing over at the window beside the bed. "We're on the third floor. What does that open out onto? A fire escape? Kid, Kaito, if Ran went with you-"

"I think," said Jintarou deliberately, "that perhaps the worst thing one might do to a policeman... is keep him waiting." He cleared his throat. "And as I doubt the local or visiting constabulary have any knowledge of myself, I, ah, could provide something of a diversion while escapes are being made." The elderly man blinked at the response that this received, which was basically silence. "No? Then perhaps...?" He frowned, bushy gray eyebrows knotting together.

_Tap ta-tap._From outside the door came a faint, muffled voice: "Kudo-san? Kudo-kun? It's me."

_**Takagi.**_"Oh. Hell," said Shinichi with feeling.

There was a distant cough. "Kudo-kun?" And, very carefully: "Kudo-kun, I'm taking off my badge. You understand what I'm saying, correct? I am _taking off my badge,_Kudo-kun. And," added the Division One officer with a hint of humor in his voice, "I have your breakfast here. May I please come in?"

A quick consultation of glances (Shinichi had once heard it referred to as an 'eyeball meeting') brought cautious approval, though Ran's held equal parts of glower and reluctant understanding and Chikage's were both apprehensive and surprisingly antagonistic; she seemed to have somehow shed a great deal of her sorrow during the night. -No, not her sorrow; that was still there, a palpable weight; what she seemed to have lost was the smothering depression and wretched unmovingness that had drowned her for so long. Right now, watching Yuusaku move towards the hallway door, her eyes were as sharp and wary as a mother fox's.

Yukiko followed her husband into the suite's main room, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her; at the last second, she whispered, "Get dressed, Shin-chan; we'll stall him as long as we can, but do come out when you can, hmm? It's not nice to keep your friends waiting."

"If he still _is_ my friend after this," muttered her son, beginning to slide gingerly from the bed; he winced as bits of his anatomy complained. "Hope he'll let me get some pants on before the interrogation begins, at least." The door closed; Ran picked up the towel that Shinichi had dropped the night before, offering it, and with a murmured apology the detective slipped out of bed, grabbed a rather random handful of clothing and stumbled towards the bathroom.

* * *

"Why, Takagi-keiji! To what do we owe this pleasure? And you actually brought our breakfast up with you?" Yukiko beamed at the young officer as if his presence was the most delightful sun in her sky. "That was so _kind!_ And oh, look, they sent up both tea AND coffee, tsk tsk, we could never drink all of this ourselves, and Yuusaku ordered SO much food! Please sit down, here, let me pour you a cup. Tea or coffee? Coffee? You policemen all drink coffee, don't you? And cream and sugar, of course, I remember, two creams and one sugar for you-" The actress steered Takagi towards a chair, a stream of babble flowing effortlessly from her lips. "Sato-keiji, now, she likes it with one sugar and black, doesn't she? And Megure-keibu, oh, I'm sure he drinks it black, such a terribly stereotypically thing but then policemen tend to create their own stereotypes, don't they? It makes it so much easier for those of us in the acting industry, you know, and stereotypes perpetuate themselves at an amazing rate. -Oh, but please do eat up, Takagi-keiji! It'll get cold, and then where'll we be? And you look so _dreadfully_tired! I-"

Takagi, who did indeed look tired and rumpled and who by now had been oh-so-cheerfully bullied into a chair and supplied with a cup and a plateful of varied breakfast foods, opened his mouth. "Ah- K-"

"-don't know what's keeping that son of mine, he's in the shower I suppose and after all the fuss last night I'm sure he needs it, he smelled _just_like he'd found an entire locker of sweaty gymclothes and rolled in them last night, boys these days-"

"Kudo-san, I really-"

"-one never knows what to do with them, especially when they keep getting themselves into SO much trouble all the time. Yuusaku, darling, why don't you go see what's keeping Shin-chan, hmmmmm?" Yukiko took a deep breath in preparation to unleashing another word-filled avalanche upon the hapless policeman; Takagi, however, wasn't quite as overwhelmed as he seemed, and pushed past his instinctual politeness by holding a hand up.

"If-" (he spaced the words out with deliberate ponderousness) "If you would, Kudo-san? Tell your son... that he need have no, ah, _immediate_concerns for his safety. Or," Takagi added heavily, "anyone else's who might be here. No matter who they might be, and no matter what I might be inclined to do in an official capacity." He took a deep breath, sat his cup down precariously on the chair-arm, and fumbled in his pocket before pulling out the small leather wallet his badge lived in. With some trepidation he handed it over to Yukiko; she took it and tilted her head at him quizzically.

"I'm off-duty," he explained. "I'm not official right now; Megure-keibu's orders." The contradiction in these words was clearly evident to Takagi as well, but he looked the actress gravely in the eye. "You'll keep that safe for me, won't you please, Kudo-san? I'll need it back later on... _after_I leave. I don't need it right now, because I'm, ah, just here to discuss last night's events. In a very unofficial sense. With, errr..." He seemed at a loss, picking up his cup again.

Yukiko obliged. "...with my husband, who has aided the police before in the area of profiling?" she suggested brightly and with the air of someone quoting her lines. "And with your friend Shin-chan, who obviously had a marvelous view of the proceedings and could certainly use a friendly word after all that horrible shooting?"

Takagi blinked. "Well. Yes. That would be-" He drank about a quarter of his cup in one preoccupied swallow, his eyes straying towards the bedroom's third door. "If you think it wouldn't disturb anyone. I, ah, certainly wouldn't want to bother Mouri-kun or... anyone else... if they're sleeping late. Or anything."

Yukiko beamed. "Have a sweet bun," she offered.

The bun, a portion of eggs and a good deal of rice had joined the coffee in Breakfast Afterlife by the time Shinichi and his father came through the bathroom foyer's door. Hair damp and smoothed into something approaching neatness, Shinichi's face was composed as he greeted Takagi. His clothing hung somewhat on him, loose on the cuffs, but despite the bruises and scrapes showing on his face his eyes were calm and almost detached in their matter-of-fact stare. _Go ahead and ask,_ they seemed to say. _We have a lot to discuss._

Takagi, plate balanced on one knee and cup in hand, looked him over with excruciating thoroughness as he filled his own place and took a seat on the bed. "I'm glad to see you moving so easily this morning, Kudo-kun," he said carefully. "I understand you took a bit of a, ahh, fall last night?"

"More of a flight than a fall," answered the detective ruefully, accepting a cup of coffee as well; he kept his gaze from the other bedroom's door, though the four empty plates sitting aside in mute reproach made it difficult. "But it was nothing much, just a few bruises. I've had worse on the playground." His father chuckled, stirring his own cup with a clink of china. "Second-graders," Shinichi explained. "Normally I'm on the small side even for an eight-year-old, and if you think they don't take advantage of that during recess, believe me, I could tell you different."

"Not an eight-year-old any more, sweetheart," said his mother merrily, and only the warning glint in her son's eyes made her change what she had been going to say. "You're, oh! A nine-year-old now, aren't you?" She twinkled at the room. "Though this morning that'd be a nineteen-year-old, wouldn't it?" Shinichi snorted.

Takagi took another swallow of the hotel's coffee, eyes thoughtful; there were smudges beneath them. "That's right; you did have a birthday yesterday, didn't you? Tanjoubi omedetou," he said with a small smile; and then, without the smile changing one iota: "Last night, Kudo-kun, did you help a wanted felon to escape capture?"

Silence.

Shinichi added more cream to his own coffee. "I did," he said evenly. "And I'd like to tell you why... but what I'll be saying rather depends on just who I'm telling, Takagi-keiji or Takagi-kun. Which is it?" From her seat beside her husband, Yukiko held up the officer's badge helpfully. "A policeman is still a policeman even when he's off-duty, Takagi... kun; I'm very aware of that fact." Shinichi leveled a blue stare over his cup at the other man's face. "I'm also aware that where you are, Sato-keiji probably isn't far away. You've told me that I haven't anything_personally_to be afraid of, not from you; who else do I need to worry about?"

Leaning one one elbow, Takagi rubbed at his eyes with one hand; he looked tired. "Sato-san's downstairs in the lobby and Chiba's keeping watch outside, yes," he said with a sigh. "And neither one of them will come up here unless I call them, Kudo-kun, I promise you that. Megure-keibu's at the Fukuoka headquarters with Shiratori-kun, Nakamori-keibu's canvassing the crime scene with his squad and- you're safe. As safe as 'safe' is right now, I suppose." He rubbed his eyes again, and when he looked up there was a disarming little quirk of a smile on his face still, more honest than the one from a moment before. "Megure-keibu, he- well. He would rather you were 'officially' out of his sight than under his thumb; he seems to think that we have the best chance of figuring out last night that way. And, ah, that the less I know about just who your friends might be and where they are, the better. Officially again; unofficially?" He ducked his head, the wry little smile directed at his coffee. "I'm willing to listen unofficially to anything you might want to tell me." His gaze strayed sideways again towards the door behind which practically _anyone_might be lurking, listening... understanding...

That idle gaze snagged abruptly, and Takagi's eyes widened as a bare shoulder preceded a bare back - no, wait, just bare arms and a tank top - and the rest of a person, walking backwards out of the second bedroom carrying a tray.

_Male. Teenage. Mixed blood, but strong Japanese ancestry. 170 cm? 173? Weight sixty to sixty-four kilos, eye-_

Stop it, Wataru.

Takagi tugged his policeman's measuring gaze off the newcomer, stomach knotting, as the teen (_Kid it's Kid it's-_) yawned and set his tray full of empty breakfast dishes on the bed corner.

"That's a shame, Takagi-san." The young man's voice was clear and strong, but not one Takagi could remember hearing before. He looked up reflexively, attending to the direct address, and his heart stopped just about cold.

The young man had turned around. He wore a white tank top and dark jeans, shoulders defined with whipcord muscles through his biceps, and an had element of wildness to his hair that couldn't be simply explained by bedhead or towel-rough from the shower. He had one hand in front of his mouth to cover his yawn and the other curled in a fist, obscuring one of his brilliant, dark, wild blue eyes as he scrubbed at it with a knuckle. Only a wedge of his face was visible - only that corner, one eye and the edges of the rest - and his hand fell away from his mouth, yawn changing to a grin, as Takagi's jaw went _just_slightly slack.

A frustrated, muffled curse from Shinichi's direction wasn't enough to make Takagi turn to look, but it was enough to make the newcomer drop both hands and pout at the teenage detective, sighing dramatically.

"Oh, fine." To Takagi, he offered a polite bow, then a Western handshake and a smile. "I was _going_to offer to introduce you to some interesting personalities. As I'm being scolded, I suppose the best introduction I can offer is the supple young consort of your favorite detective here; I'm at your service - well, technically, at his." He smiled, dazzling blue eyes, and Takagi felt something in him thrill for no explicable reason except contagion of insanity.

Releasing Takagi's hand, the young man seated himself on the corner of the bed, nudging aside the breakfast tray. "The name... for today... is Kuroba. Kuroba Kaito. But they usually all treat me like a kid."

There was silence for a moment. Then an indignant, horrified, furious shout.

"YOU!" Shinichi was out of his seat in a second, cup clattering down as he bodily shoved his boyfriend further onto the bed, hoisting where he had to, avoiding the thief's right knee at all costs. "_Why are you standing._"

As he was manhandled by the clearly much stronger-than-him detective, Kid peeked over his boyfriend's arm to grin cheerily at Takagi. "See? Bustle me about, order me arou-AACK, that hurt, Tantei!"

"You shut up." Shoving a pillow across Kid's face in what was very clearly an earnest desire to smother the menace, Shinichi turned, straightened his shirt, and walked back to his seat with complete decorum.

"Sorry about that, Takagi-kun. It's a circus around here these days."

Yukiko and Yuusaku had watched all this in stunned silence; it was with a somewhat abstracted, slightly regretful air that the writer turned to his wife and murmured: "It was all going so well up to that point, don't you think?"

Yukiko hmm'd. "It still could," she pointed out. "If everyone, not to mention NAMES, Shin-chan, keeps from flying off the handle and loosing their temper." She filled another cup and handed it to the half-prone figure on the bed. "Cream and sugar?" She passed them over as well and began to fill another plate.

Shinichi's hands twitched with the clear urge to throttle his boyfriend (or quite possibly his parents); he shoved them into his pockets to quell the impulse and sighed. "WHY is his being willing to listen unofficially a shame, K-" He hesitated. "Kaito-kun? And why couldn't you have waited just a _few goddamn more minutes_before- before-" He ground his teeth.

"No, no, that's not it," Kid interrupted, waving a dismissive hand at Shinichi; the detective's teeth squeaked as Kid turned his attention back to Takagi.

"You said it's better if you know the least about Tantei's friends, and our locations, as possible. And I said that's it's a shame about that, because I just had to come out here and talk to you myself before Tantei went and said something silly or inaccurate. Which, you know, presents a bit more information than would have been ideal, so I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

"Obviously, I'm just a cute little narcissistic piece of ass," Kid continued, beaming as everyone in the room seemed to experience an increase in their headache intensity due to that phrase. "I'm a civilian passerby, and I don't know a thing about any of this crazy situation, or have any information for you at all, officially or unofficially; but if I did, I might tell you something silly, like the fact that lives were saved last night because several people with shiny badges took a huge leap of faith. I might get all shmoopy and say that I'm grateful beyond words, which is ridiculous because if I'm _saying_it I obviously have words; or that I respect the shiny badges listening to Tantei when it mattered, or that I would appreciate it if somebody failed to shred the information about the young lady who was shot last night when they throw her sheet in the recycling bin- not the girl carrying a small personal arsenal under her clothes, the other one. Because maybe I'm a fan of incense on tombstones as a useless but sweet reward for fatal bravery."

The thief shrugged, and turned to his coffee with relish; it wasn't excellent coffee, but it wasn't horrid, either. He closed his eyes and sipped it, heartily enjoying the flavor and the scent; for a moment, it seemed that he'd checked out. Then, over the rim of the mug, he opened one eye to peek at Takagi.

"Oh, and I might say that my Tantei really does have the most amazing friends," he added, with enough blatant implication in his tone to make his meaning crystal clear. Takagi blushed on top of his existant blush, not sure what to do with personal compliments and gratitude from a wanted felon, and Shinichi closed his eyes and started counting backwards from ten. Again.

"I," the detective growled, "was _not_about to say anything silly or inaccurate. I was going to do my absolute best to tap-dance around special little words like 'illegal', 'alias' and above all 'wanted by the police'!"

Kid opened his other eye, beaming in brain-destroying affection at Shinichi over the rim of his cup. "That's more than one word, you know, T—" His boyfriend made a noise more appropriate to a Doberman Pinscher than to a human being and the thief mimed a zipping motion across his lips.

"_Thank_you." Shinichi tilted his head back, thumping it once against the wall. "And just so we're all on the same page," he added with considerably less force, "I'd like to say- totally at random, you know, not addressing anybody in particular- that I appreciate any decisions made last night for the greater good as well. Even I tend to forget sometimes that the police know the difference between 'legal' and 'right'." He shrugged, then winced as the bruises on his shoulders poked him back. "Ow. So- how'd you find us, anyway?"

Takagi, who had regained most of his original color by now except for a lingering trace of red on his cheekbones, looked embarrassed. "I was, ah, looking for my umbrella," he explained. "I'd dropped it, it blew along the pavement, I went to pick it up, and... there you two were, limping through the rain and... borrowing my umbrella. So I followed you." Kid gave a delighted snort of laughter and the Division One officer eyed him with a mixture of fascination and the kind of wariness you generally afford a ticking timebomb. "Sato-san was directing the emergency vehicles; I radioed her, said I was looking into a lead and when I saw you join your parents I flagged down a cab." Eyes still on the thief, Takagi let just a trace of satisfaction enter his voice. "The rain made it a little difficult to keep you in sight, but traffic was moving very slowly; after that- it wasn't really hard, Kudo-kun. Sato-san was a little upset that I'd left her behind, but..."

"I imagine she was more than a 'little' upset," said Shinichi dryly, rolling his shoulders to ease the muscles there. "Did I really steal your umbrella?"

Takagi gave him a hint of a smile. "It's not a problem, Kudo-kun; please keep it, I'll just shareSato-san's." That set Kid off again, and without even looking in his direction Shinichi pulled out a small chair-cushion from behind him and lobbed it at the thief. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder and was fielded by Yukiko, who tucked it behind her. "Ah- just so you know, it's a good thing that Sato-san remained in the lobby with Chiba," added Takagi, carefully avoiding any and every gaze in the room. "Since it seems that she's something of a Kaito Kid fan."

"Isn't everybody?" inquired the felon in question of the air, momentarily ignoring his self-imposed gag order.

"She does like Lupin, doesn't she?" mused Shinichi before wrenching his attention back to the topic. "...never mind that. I guess the immediate question here is- when we leave this hotel, and by we I mean anybody who might be here... what's going to be waiting for us? Police cars on the road, security at the train stations and airport terminals?" The look in the young detective's eyes belonged to someone much older than his features as he added, "I don't mind telling you, Takagi-kun, that the surest way to make certain that none of us survive more than a few hours is to put us in a holding-cell. And speaking of which, _were_there any arrests?" He seemed to hold his breath, and Takagi found himself the target of two pairs of impossibly blue eyes.

He quailed internally under the regard of thief and detective, but only internally; "Yes," he said quite steadily, and was rewarded by seeing Shinichi very nearly drop his cup. "One- a rooftop sniper; he was taken down just after his partner was killed in an exchange of fire. You would've missed that; it happened during the cleanup sweep after you had left."

Kid made a strangled noise; Shinichi closed his eyes. There was a faint shine and prickle along the lashes, and when he spoke again his voice was hoarse. "Takagi-kun... Takagi-kun, I would be _very, very careful_with just who has access to that prisoner. Where is he now?"

The young officer nodded as if confirming something in his own mind. "On the way back to Beika-cho under armed guard, with constant remote video surveillance transmitted out to three separate locations. If anything happens, it won't be unwitnessed." Takagi's brow furrowed as he watched the other two. "You truly believe that law enforcement's been that badly compromised, even in Beika? Do you have any specific suspects in mind?"

Shinichi shook his head, eyes unreadable; placing his plate and cup on the nearest flat surface, he rose restlessly, moving about the room not for any particular reason so much as simply to defuse the excitement and anxiety that filled every cell of his body. "Not yet, no, but- god. My _god,_ you've actually got a prisoner. I-" His voice shook, and he turned towards Kid. "They won't be a high-echelon agent, but-! Finally. _**Finally.**_"

With a huge, shaky exhale, eyes wide, Kid opened his arms; Shinichi needed no more invitation, and clasped the thief close, both of them burying their faces in each others' necks. A few moments later and they'd both steadied their breathing, and the thief released the detective, raising his head to meet Takagi's eyes with an inscrutable gaze of his own.

"You are going to have to work _very hard_to keep that man alive," Kid stated plainly, his brow drawn down. "They favor cyanide capsules and plain old guns. Don't let his hands near his mouth, don't let him clench his teeth until you see if there's a capsule, don't let him palm a capsule into his food, don't... Oh, Benten's sake, it's like trying to wrestle a snake."

"...Your advice has been noted," Takagi said, looking from Kid to Shinichi with an alarmed, uncertain expression. "Is it really that-"

_"Yes,"_both responded, intense, and for a moment Takagi clearly had no idea how to handle the sheer intensity coming off of the pair.

"Boys, let's try to remember to breathe." Yukiko's calm, amused voice broke the moment, and as both Kid and Shinichi turned off the 'predator eyes', Takagi, feeling somewhat out of his depth (_again_), turned to the actress with a smile.

"Wise advice, Kudo-san," he said. "I have to remind you, we don't have any guarantee that our prisoner will have useful information, or that we will be able to get it out of him. We're pretty sure that he holds no hostage value. We can at least press charges for attempted murder, illegal gun use and possession, and anything else we can think of, and we'll be doing that immediately while we work on finding a way to get the more slippery bits to stick to him.

"He's headed back to Beika because that's the Kaitou Kid's center of activity, and the primary crimes were committed against the Kid." Takagi was careful to keep his tone neutral, and the thief on the bed smiled, recognizing Takagi's deliberate effort to avoid any use of "you" or other tricky words that would verbally confirm what they all were carefully talking around.

"Noted," muttered Shinichi, trying to regain his composure. He could feel his pulse thrumming just under the skin, though, and it was difficult. But he smoothed his hair down, settling on the corner of the bed; pressed against his hip, Kid was a reassuring presence. "You're going to have to watch for attacks during transport, too; that's when attacks of any kind are most likely to occur. How many times have we run across murders that happened while the victim was driving, for instance? Or flying…" The detective sat up a little straighter. "How's he being transported?"

"Department-secured helicopter." Takagi looked somewhat vindicated, waving his empty cup. "We—Megure-keibu and Sato-san and I—we thought of the same thing, though truthfully we were considering escape, not assassination. The more personnel are involved, the higher the chances something'll go wrong; so he's under guard from two Beika-cho officers and two of Nakamori's squad, all personally picked. I know the two from Beika," he added, "and Nakamori-keibu vouched for his officers. The pilot's the same one we usually use for transport. The prisoner had to be mildly sedated, he—"

"Why?" asked Shinichi sharply.

Takagi blinked. "Ah, well, he was knocked around a little during his capture. Nothing too severe, mostly just bruising, but he became highly agitated and violent upon removal from the scene and was unable to be subdued short of chemical restraints." He frowned. "I didn't see him; I had already gone after you when he was captured. Shiratori called it in to me last night while I was…" He paused, looking (for Takagi, at least) somewhat guilty.

"…while you were haunting our hotel-lobby," Kid filled in, one eyebrow slowly rising. "Did you sleep there, Keiji? Or no, from the looks of you there's been no sleep at all, has there? And here I always thought the saying was 'no rest for the wicked.'" His boyfriend elbowed him in the side.

The officer shrugged uncomfortably. "Sato-san arrived around midnight; she kept watch while I dozed a little." Embarrassed again, he rubbed his hand across the back of his head but continued doggedly on. "The bodies of the ground-level gunman, her victim, and the dead sniper are all being sent back by air as well, also under guard. We're treating this like a high-priority homicide case, not a conspiracy; not yet."

Yuusaku, who had been listening with a frown on his face, stirred his cup again; it seemed to be his version of drumming his fingers. "Not yet, no; that doesn't usually happen until halfway through the plotline, when the mole makes a failed attempt at concealing or destroying evidence..." He cleared his throat, pinking slightly. "Sorry; I keep thinking of this like fiction. I mean- secret organizations, code-names, mysterious jewels..."

Takagi darted a nervous look at the thief lounging beside Shinichi. "I won't ask what _that_was all about," he muttered, fiddling with his cup; Yukiko filled it again for him. "Not yet. Since I doubt anyone's ready to tell me, that is."

Kid smirked at him. "I didsay that Tantei had amazing friends, didn't I? Isn't that thief amazing?" he asked Yukiko, who nodded vigorously. "Intelligent, loyal to a fault, attentive to detail, oh-so-protective, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound-" His voice altered as he reached the last phrase, coming out in a newsreel-style announcer's tones; when Shinichi elbowed him this time, he yelped and fell over onto the bed. "Have patience, Keiji," Kid went on in his normal voice, flat on his back and waving a dramatic finger at the ceiling; "all things will be revealed in time."

"That's...kind of what I'm afraid of," Takagi muttered, not looking at Kid. "Anyway," he continued, clearing his throat with some measure of discomfort, "I really don't know to whom you're speaking. There's no officers in the room right now...just a concerned friend of the Kudos."

Kid lifted a brow at the reminder, returning to a comfortable lean against his pillows as something that might have been chagrin, twice removed, crossed his face. He let Takagi continue, though, lips pressed together.

"If I were-ah, aware of the presence of an officer right now, it would be my duty to report any persons suspected or accused of aiding wanted felons, that's all," Takagi said, his tone careful. With his attention on Takagi, Shinichi lifted one hand, and his knuckles touched Kid's lips just as the thief began to open them, considering a response. He subsided, not needing to be asked twice, and Shinichi met Takagi's cautious regard with his own.

"I appreciate you coming here as a friend, Takagi-kun, but...I want you to tell us when you, ah, have to leave. Before anything might be said that would..." The detective trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. Frowning, he tried a different tack.

"Don't harm yourself by trying to help us," he requested.

Takagi smiled, watching Kudo-kun's expression. (How long had it been since he'd thought of the detective with the 'kun' attached? The fragility of the boys on the bed was just too fresh in his mind to not think it now.) "One might say the same about a certain high school detective who's just put himself in a rather difficult to explain position with several broad sectors of law enforcement whose trust he holds," Takagi offered in counterpoint.

Yukiko was looking back and forth between the three with all the fascination of a cat watching a ping-pong match and wondering whether trying to catch the ball might be worth the effort. "You should assign a code-word," she advised them all cheerfully. "Like... 'swordfish' or something." Her husband shot her an incredulous look, as did her son, though his held as much amusement as anything.

"I'm- ah, the detective you mentioned- isn't very good at staying out of trouble," Shinichi said, ignoring his mother's comment (or at least pretending to.) "So he might as well make it count, ne? And anyway," he added wryly, "I can use all the friends I can get right now. Just how upset _is_Megure-keibu?" He scooted back a little further on the bed, unconsciously matching himself hip-to-hip with Kid.

The young Division One officer hesitated. "On a scale of 'Blind Fury' being a ten and 'Total Acceptance' being a one, he's at about... a six, I guess. But the longer he waits to hear from you, the higher the count's going to be," Takagi warned. "Shiratori's even higher- I think he feels a little... um, betrayed." The officer looked rather embarrassed at the admittance. "Sato-san's hovering somewhere around a four, maybe a three."

Shinichi blinked. "Really?"

"Well... I _did_say she was kind of a fan."

Kid tilted his head slightly to one side. "And where does Takagi-keiji fall in this scale, I wonder?"

Takagi thought about it for a moment, giving the question due consideration. "I- he's with Sato-san," he answered at last, and his tone carried conviction. "If he has doubts, he also believes somebody'll be able to answer them. Though," he added, "he _also_ thinks that this same somebody needs to talk to Megure-keibu as soon as possible. Shiratori-kun won't tell tales outside the department, but people're going to be asking questions. They _saw_where y- where Kid fell to, and even though the information on the arrest of the gunman's been locked down pretty tight, there's been a lot of speculation already. And a lot of film footage; that, too."

Shinichi sighed, hitching himself back against the pillow; his bruises were stiffening now that he was out from under the pounding of the hot shower, and he could feel every one of them ganging up on him. "Not exactly surprising. You can tell Megure-keibu that he'll be contacted later today by phone." The detective hesitated. "Did- was there footage that suggested that Kid might've been injured?" Takagi's face gave him an unwanted affirmative, and Shinichi sighed again. "Great."

"Promise I didn't-ah, he didn't mean to be," Kid interjected, sheepish. Yuusaku shot him a fond look and Shinichi rolled his eyes.

"Have the pitchforks come out for release of the blood DNA tests yet?" Shinichi asked wearily. "And what'll we tell them if they do?"

The officer gave him and his companion a slightly startled look. "So that wasn't your doing, then?" At the detective's blink he shook his head. "Ah; well- after you- that is, erm, afterwards, the equipment behind the screen shorted out for some reason- I believe the video company's explanation was 'rain in the wiring'- and caught on fire. Considering all the chemical extinguisher, footprints and water-spray that eventually covered the area, a viable blood-sample was pretty much out of the question." Still eying Shinichi (and Kid, definitely Kid) uncertainly, Takagi frowned. "Whether it was an accident or not, it's serendipity for... someone, at least."

Kid shook his head, chuckling softly. "Benten looks out for me," he murmured. "I think I'm one of her favorite lockpicks."

The officer's eyes widened and he stared at the thief in fascination for a moment before recovering and looking away. "I just wish She kept her tools in better working order," muttered Shinichi darkly, trying to cover the enormous wash of relief that was currently flooding through him. It had been preying on his mind just a little- no, more than a little; he knew what it was like to have to give up your life, your friends, your very existence, and he didn't want it to happen to the Kuroba brothers if there was any way possible for them to avoid it. Maybe they'd considered the trade equitable and appropriate, two lives for the truth regarding one death; _Shinichi_did not.

It was hypocritical of him and he knew it- somehow it was much, much harder to let other people pay the harsh price justice extracted than it was to pay for it himself. _Fine, then, I'll be a hypocrite. I can live with that._

It's better than living without _them__._

He became aware that Takagi was still speaking. "-thought that Hakuba-san would put up more of a fuss, but he seems to have withdrawn from the investigation almost entirely. Shiratori saw him talking with Nakamori-keibu for a while, but after that he just- left. I don't know him well; we've only run across each other a few times before, but that was, ah, kind of unusual for him, wasn't it?"

Shinichi opened his mouth and then closed it before turning towards the thief beside him. _"You_ get to make _that_phone call," he said flatly. "Or however you want to handle it. But you'll need to do damage control, and pretty quick, too. I don't know Hakuba-san well either, but he didn't exactly strike me as the most patient person in the world. And he- aaagh," he muttered. "He wants to talk to me as well, he made that pretty clear in the elevator last night. Pushy, irritating- oh, shut it," Shinichi commanded the snickering thief beside him in an aggrieved tone of voice.

"Temper, temper, Tantei." Kid's deep blue eyes glinted above his smile. "I'd lay ¥10000 he's waiting at your house when you get back to Beika. Hmmm?"

_...he's probably right. Wonderful._ "I plan on being veryhard to find over the next few days," the detective informed him, fighting back a desire to hide his head under the nearest pillow. "He'll have to corner me first- and don't tell me how good at cornering people he is, he hasn't caught YOU yet, has he?"

"Well, no," the thief granted, regarding his boyfriend with a raised eyebrow. "But he hasn't been _trying_, either." At Shinichi's wide-eyed look, the Kuroba brothers smiled together.

"Still secrets to tell, Tantei."

Across from them, Takagi cleared his throat nervously. "And, ah, those might be better told at a later time, ah, when there's not-ahm-"

Yukiko stretched forward to pat the officer on the knee, rather severely startling him. "Very true, Takagi-kun. Now, was there anything else? We're very much enjoying your company, but you have other very good friends who'll want to chat with you, and they might be _jealous_of us if we keep you for too long."

With a slow nod, Takagi looked down to his watch. The slow nod turned into quick alarm, and he extricated himself from his chair with some rapidity.

"I didn't realize the time. It's been, ah, I should-"

"We'll be in touch, Takagi-kun," Kid offered, giving the officer his gaze full and clear, a soft smile beneath it. "You have seen a lot. Know that there's power in your hands, as well as in mine and ours." Fingers laced tight with Shinichi's, the thief held Takagi's eyes.

The officer's gaze was caught; he stared at the thief for a long, long moment- later on he'd remember it and try to describe it to Sato: _like being under a heat-lamp or the sun, you could almost __feel__ him looking back. And you knew he was thinking about you, and you knew you couldn't keep up... and Miwako, you knew he knew it too. But it was only important if you were trying to chase him; I don't think he minded much otherwise, so long as you tried._

"This is going to take me a little while to, to process," Takagi said under his breath, dropping his gaze. "I- Sato-san-"

"She'll want to know what happened, I realize that," said Shinichi quietly; his grip tightened. "Whatever you say to her, Takagi-kun, weigh it carefully first... because the more she knows, the more valuable she is to our enemies. Remember, we don't know who's been approached, who's a leak, or who's a mole; we _can't_know until they make a mistake."

Takagi looked back up at that; he studied Shinichi with dark eyes that hardened a little. "Kudo-kun, you don't believe there's a leak in Division One, surely?"

"No; I'd be dead by now if there were. But we've already gone outside the department with Chirokawa-san, and his office has already been compromised." Shinichi's eyes met Takagi's with a direct, flat stare that did nothing to soften his words. "Don't assume that there _might_ be a mole; assume that there _is_one, and try to figure out how you can catch them." He drew a deep breath. "I promise you, that prisoner'll give you your best chance to do it... so long as you can keep him alive."

There wasn't much he could say to that, not really. Rising to his feet, Takagi gave the room's occupants a respectful bow and turned to leave; he paused at the door, however, and gave Yukiko an apologetic look. "Err- Kudo-san? My badge, please? I promise not to put it back on until I'm in the lobby."

The actress produced a dazzling smile and the leather wallet, passing it over; Takagi slipped it into his pocket, moved to open the door...

...and paused, sliding his hand into his pocket again. With a face made comical by dismay, he turned back to Yukiko. _"Kudo-_san," Takagi said reproachfully. "I _DID_give it to you to keep safe. But I'd very much like the actual badge back along with the wallet, if you don't mind?"

Angels could not have looked more innocent; Yukiko beamed at her newest plaything. "Oh! Silly me; I just thought I'd try it on... you were all so busy talking, I didn't think you'd mind!" Delicately she unfastened the shining bit of official presence from her nightgown, exposing a little well-filmed cleavage as she did so. "I polished it up a titch on my robe, too," she added helpfully; on the bed, Shinichi covered his eyes with one hand. "Have a lovely day, Takagi-keiji! See you back in Beika!"

The door closed with an extremely decisive click.

"How fortunate you have a husband who enjoys your lovely pranks, Kudo-san," Kid murmured, after some time of silence had gone past, enough that they could be reasonably assured that Takagi had left. "I aspire to one day be so lucky."

While Yukiko tittered and Yuusaku smiled, deeply and quietly amused and quite happy with his coffee, his wife, and his world, their son rolled his eyes, glared at his thief, and reached across to grip Kid's chin firmly. Thumb and knuckles held him still, and the thief's eyes slid blissfully shut as his detective yanked his head around to the side and kissed him firmly. Thief and detective melted into the kiss, Shinichi gradually leaning closer to his lover, Kid cradled lax between the soft support of his pillows and the firm, warm planes of his detective curling up against him. For them, the rest of the world and its frustrations melted away. There was a tittering, smothered laugh from Yukiko, but they both ignored it, she was probably just perving out aga-

"AGPH." Tongue sticking out - and red where Shinichi'd bit it - Kid jerked away and looked around, searching for the source of the blunt impact that had hit them both. Shinichi, equally startled and sputtering, twisted around also, and as imperfect mirror images of each other, they both observed, with widening eyes, the furiously glaring Valkyrie looming above them. In each fist, angrily propped on her hips, was clenched the corner of a large, fluffy hotel pillow.

_"Boooooooys."_

"...Eep."

"Kudo-san," Ran continued, turning a pouting face on Yukiko, "We've been waiting in there for _ages_. And we're _hungry._"

The second bedroom's door stood ajar, and Chikage and Jintarou came through now, Jintarou immediately crossing to examine his young masters' wound and bandages. Chikage moved to the Kudos' chairs, taking the seat Takagi had vacated.

"Thank you for not bringing the officers' attention to us, Yukiko," she said. Her voice was some combination of dark and smooth, refined and quiet. _Like raw black silk,_Yuusaku thought to himself, watching Chikage settle in her seat and neatly pour herself coffee. "My sons have more to gain from being candid than they do from being secretive at this point; myself and Jintarou will do better to remain in the shadows."

The smile that crossed Jintarou's face at that, as he bent to the task of rewrapping the brothers' knee, didn't escape Yuusaku's notice. _There's a code in that,_ he surmised, turning his attention back to Chikage and her contented, patient demeanor with a soft smile of his own. _Seems that my theories were true. I do believe Toichi's little 'Kagemushi' is known to the world as the Phantom Lady. A First Couple of illusion and trickery...quite the pedigree their sons have to live up to._

The writer smiled, watching his wife and Chikage talk of departure plans. Jintarou joined the conversation after being chided by Chikage to 'do away with formality already, we've come far enough'. On the bed, Ran was busy lecturing her boyfriends, grilling them for information on Division One's 'who knows what' status, and bludgeoning them both about the head with feather pillows at intervals. It was obvious to Yuusaku that his future daughter-in-law was using pillow attack as a distraction from the urge to lavish them both with affection.

He knew she'd been listening through the door, worried and silent. She was wise enough to keep the pair in line when they needed it, and firm enough to stay hidden within the second room of the suite despite her own desires, knowing that keeping Chikage and Jintarou concealed was more important than her yen to stand beside her boys. Yuusaku smiled, not with his lips but with his eyes and in his heart, seeing a long and complex and rich plotline rolling out in front of Ran, a ribbon of personal strength for her to chase.

And, probably, to drag Kid and Shinichi along as well. Anyone with an eye for decoding body language could tell: Neither the detective nor the thief would be the head of the trio's someday household. Yuusaku glanced over to his beautiful wife, grinning and chattering on with Chikage and Jintarou even as they discussed such serious topics as the process of transporting their group, temporary recluses from the law and fugitives from the shadows, across half the country for safe return to Beika. Her hair was only barely frizzed on one side, despite the hour and the events of the previous night; his 'Kiko was beautiful no matter what, and all the more so while she was showing her true nature: analytical, incisive, creative, and direct.

_Eri and Kogoro raised their daughter well,_ Yuusaku mused, turning from Yukiko and Chikage to the third strong woman in the room. _We've got a dynasty of lady warriors growing here, a second generation even more tightly knit than their parents were. I wonder what sort of heiress our families will produce? The Mouris don't yet know it, but their daughter is already enwrapped in the same momentum that has held Shinichi and Kaitou-kun from birth._

_Too bad I can't write books about them. They would make the Night Baron look so very petty, in the end._

* * *

_._

_**satisfied sigh** Ahhh, Takagi, I do love playing with you. Not as much as Sato-san does, I imagine, but still. ^_^ We hope you all enjoyed tonight's presentation as much as we did; it's going to take our heroes places they've never been, and it lays the foundation for a great deal of their future. (And it also gives Kid a lot of chances to play with his new toys.) We'll see you all in seven days with ____**Book Six, Chapter Thirteen**____**: "Wait, what? 'Assumed name'?"**____ Take care, all, and be kind to any law enforcement officers you might run across; gods know they deserve it._


	78. Wait, what? 'Assumed name?

___Straight into the story now - though I don't think any of you would appreciate dithering anyway! Onward we go...  
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___**Book Six, Chapter Thirteen**____**: "Wait, what? 'Assumed name'?"**_

* * *

The dark-haired young man was moving fast when he exited the elevator, heading unerringly for a petite woman on the other side of the lobby who sat drinking coffee. She watched him approach, tired eyes scanning for signs of trouble. Whatever it was that she saw, it caused her to relax slightly—not so much a drop in even the least bit of her concentration, but a lowering of her expectations of trouble. Still, she said nothing as he walked up, nodded briefly at her, and she rose to leave as if at a prearranged signal.

The concierge at the front desk bowed respectfully towards them both as they passed through to the outside; "He thinks we've been guarding a key witness from that drug-ring court case that's made all the papers here lately," murmured Sato beneath her breath, shaking out her umbrella; the previous evening's rain was still falling, though ghosting down in a drizzle rather than the downpour that had slicked the pavement only a few hours earlier.

"Let him," answered her partner briefly. He turned up his collar against the damp, moving beneath the umbrella with far less self-consciousness than he would have shown six months earlier. "It's as good an explanation as any, I guess."

They walked casually along the sidewalk, never glancing at the nondescript car halfway down the block where Chiba slouched, to all appearances reading a newspaper. "Did Megure-keibu call?" asked Takagi quietly, checking the time on his watch and glancing at his companion; they might have been any young couple out shopping on a rainy Sunday morning. "And- am I-"

"On leave," said Sato with satisfaction... and perhaps a trace of envy.

___"Conditional_ leave, in that you can put yourself back on active duty with a phonecall... retroactively, if necessary." She stole a slightly incredulous look at Takagi. "Was... ___he _there? -Takagi, tell me!"

A hint of a smile curved the corner of her partner's mouth as he shook his head. "Takagi Wataru, private citizen, can't tell Sato-keiji anything much; all Wataru-kun did was eat breakfast with... ah, friends." His eyes crinkled and he ducked a swat. "But he might want to talk to Miwako-chan, if she happened to be around." The name and its endearment were spoken softly, almost daringly. "Is she?"

"Not for two more hours," Sato answered with utter reluctance. "I have to report to Keibu, let him know that everything was quiet, and- Takagi. ___TAKAGI._ You _will _tell me, won't you?" she demanded, hooking one hand on his sleeve.

It was hard to say no to anything she asked, impossible when those beautiful eyes were shining at him through the rain. But he remembered Kudo-kun's warnings and told her the truth: "I'll tell you what I can, the best that I can. One of us," Takagi added very gently, "has to be able to claim plausible deniability... and I'm no longer able to do that." He watched the words sink in, saw the incredulity bloom into dismayed understanding, and watched his partner swallow an entire world's worth of questions all in one huge gulp.

It had to hurt; leaps of faith usually did. But she trusted him.

They walked on in silence for a while, rain-wet buildings glimmering when the clouds overhead parted just enough to allow a thin wash of sunlight through. Fukuoka was a sizable city, and already the traffic was picking up as the day advanced. "I take it Chiba's staying on surveillance?" asked Takagi as a large delivery-van honked at a smaller truck, the noise screening his words. It wasn't that he suspected that ___they _were being watched so much as ingrained caution that made him careful.

"Yes." Sato's gaze flickered around the street, cataloging passers-by and parked cars; what Takagi missed, she would catch- that was how they worked. "One've us'll have to relieve him sooner or later if it's necessary, but... what?"

"I doubt we'll need to watch much longer," murmured her partner.

"You think they'll head back to Beika this quickly?"

Takagi Wataru, currently off duty and wishing that the next two hours could speed by in the blink of an eye, watched the rain drip from Sato's umbrella and sighed. "Sato-san, I've given up on predicting ___anything _regarding a certain young detective anymore. Or," he added, remembering vivid blue eyes with what was almost a shiver, "his friends."

Silence. They walked on a little further, stopping at a corner to wait for the light. "What was he like?" asked Sato very softly.

"...even stranger than Kudo-kun, Miwako. If that's at all possible."

* * *

Midmorning passed into noon. Sato Miwako went off-shift, and Kaitou Kid went on.

"___KID,__" _Shinichi tried again, true exasperation in his voice. "Day after the heist. Gunfire. Heist site cordoned off. Major police presence. Broad daylight. Are you even **listening** to me?"

"Nope," Kid trilled, tipping his head back over his shoulder to steal a kiss. The thief had begun limping about the hotel suite as soon as Ran had finished with him, and after borrowing a number of cosmetic products and a pair of hosiery from Yukiko, had plunked himself down in front of the broad vanity mirror and went to work. The whole while, Shinichi hovered at his shoulder, supporting him when necessary, nagging the whole way.

"He really is a terrier," Ran murmured at one point, addressing her comment to the nearest convenient parent. That turned out to be Chikage; with a smile, the thief's mother agreed.

"I'm sure he hopes he's driving my boys batty," she murmured back. "But the trouble is, they ___like_ that."

With a well-timed yelp of absolute frustration, Shinichi stomped away from Kid, muttering dire curses under his breath. Just out of his view, around the corner of the doorway leading to the vanity, Yuusaku put down his book and counted off the seconds on his fingers.

___One...two...three..._

"And ___another _thing-!" Shinichi wheeled about, striding right back toward his thief to continue the lecture, and his family hid their giggles behind their hands.

* * *

It was easy to find relaxation and levity in the haven of their protected hotel suite. But when Kid and Chikage, assisted by Jii, headed out on their own, it didn't matter that the thief had made himself thoroughly unrecognizable and that Chikage and Jii would be watching out for him. Bags were packed, belongings gathered and prints were carefully wiped; tension stretched across all in the room, muffling the inhabitants and dampening their conversations. Nothing but the Kurobas' return would lift it, and, two and a half hours later, it finally did.

"Bed. ___Now.__"_

"Maa, maa, I'm going, I'm-ack, careful there!" Skirt and all, Kid found himself deposited on the bed in the second bedroom, and as Ran and Jii immediately turned to address his knee, Shinichi and Yukiko stood at the foot of the bed, expectant.

"Shin-chan might not have the most grace with his words, dear, and he might be rather inclined to shouting, but I do think his questions before you left were important. Can't you answer them now?" Yukiko's smile was earnest, none of her balls-busting sweetness present, but nevertheless there was the clear impression that she was about through with prevarication, thank you very much, so can't you give us a straight answer already?

Smiling, Kid complied, reaching into his cleavage. The brooch he withdrew from beneath his false breasts shone like fire in the sunlight from the suite windows, orange and rose and gleaming silver.

"Kaasan?" Kid requested, and Chikage moved to his side, receiving the Lotus Flower with carefully cupped hands draped in a jeweler's handling cloth. She wore white cotton gloves, museum quality, and with a mysterious small spray and saucer of distilled water, set about cleaning and polishing the gem. "Is she alright?"

"She'll be fine," Chikage answered, glancing up to smile lightly at her son. "She wasn't touching your skin long, and the cold night hasn't damaged her either, as far as I can tell. The lack of filigree surely helped."

"That's a relief," Kid sighed, sinking back against his pillows. "I lost my whole kit last night when I changed. Of course there was nothing identifying in it, but all my carrying equipment and soforth... But I had to retrieve her, so I worked with what I had."

There was a silence, in which Kid smiled winningly up at the faces around him, blinking innocently. "Hmm?"

Shinichi rubbed his temples with a quiet growl. "She was on the site the whole time? Care to tell us where?"

"In a blackout box," Kid grinned. "Same one I was hiding in, attached to the underside of the 27th floor balcony. I built a cushioned storage case for her into the base plaque of the case, from which the rest of it was anchored. Couldn't risk leaving her there for much longer, or the cleanup crews would have found her when they started trying to uninstall it."

"That's brilliant," Shinichi sighed. "Brilliant, and I'm going to be kicking myself for a week for not thinking of- ___the tracer!__" _With sudden alarm, Shinchi spun toward Chikage, eyes wide. "If you didn't disable it, it's still on her, which means-"

"Ah-ah-ah, Tantei; you didn't think I'd be that clumsy, did you? Once I knew about the tracker, all I needed were a few tiny bits of solvent; I couldn't see it in last night's dim lighting but it was easy enough to spot today." Brandishing one of the navy wedge-heeled pumps that he had removed on entering the room, Kid displayed a glittery smear on the bottom. "I'll need to clean these before I can wear them again, though. I seem to have stepped on a bug."

Ran took the shoes from him, balancing on one foot as she measured them against her own soles. "Nice... a little too big for me, but nice. It's a good thing my skirt matched; and the color makes your feet look smaller too, doesn't it?" At Shinichi's and Yuusaku's puzzled blinks, she explained. "It's an old trick for women with big feet; you choose dark-colored shoes, especially ones with openings close to the toes. Light-colored shoes make your feet look larger."

Kid accepted the shoes back, running a fingertip up Ran's arch and making her squeak. "We need to go shopping together again sometime," he laughed, eyes sliding mischievously towards their boyfriend. Blushing at the memory of their date (and the hours following it), Ran sat down on the end of the bed as Shinichi picked a bit of the tracker's silvery casing from the shoe's sole. Kid watched him, and when he cursed and jerked back slightly with a drop of blood beading at the tip of his finger, he reached out and caught his wrist.

"You have to watch it with bugs," the thief grinned. "Sometimes they can still bite." He raised Shinichi's finger to his lips, sucking briefly on the blooded spot to clear it. Shinichi fussed at the unnecessary attention while on Kid's other side, Ran swallowed and settled her chin on Kid's shoulder, watching.

Jintaro and Chikage looked at each other, eyes amused, and slipped through the door into the second bedroom; Yukiko peered past them as they closed it before her eyes were caught by the blaze and glitter in Chikage's hands. The door closed on her exclamation.

"You'll see it later," Kid chuckled, chiding his boyfriend's mother with impudent familiarity. Yukiko, all for show, pouted her way back over to Yuusaku while Kid handed Shinichi's hand over to Ran, entirely without asking the detective himself. "Here, Ran," he beamed. She slid her hand beneath Kid's own and cradled Shinichi's in hers, kissing both sets of fingers as they entwined. Her mouth was warm and wet, and her breath warmed their palms. Kid curled one finger against her cheek, stroking it.

"Love you," Ran whispered. "Love you both." Shinichi dropped his head, leaning into their mingled hands, whispering words against their skin. His arm slid around Kid's waist and slid up between his shoulderblades, gripping his shirt tightly; he met Ran's hand there and for a long moment all three heads leaned together, not even kissing- just touching. Just being close, breathing the same air.

Being together.

Few words were spoken between them in those few moments; not many were needed, and when they drew back from one another, their breathing had calmed rather than speeding up. "We need to head back," said Shinichi quietly. He brushed his lips across all three of their hands, even his own. "It's time to go."

Ran pressed her face against their thief's chest, amused by the softness she encountered there; Kid had yet to remove his disguise. "I suppose."

Kid's hand slid out of Shinichi's hair, carding it through his fingers, and stroked Ran's temple soothingly. "We really do have to, though. But - Tantei? There was one other thing."

"Hm?"

The thief smiled, settled and satisfied. "Happy birthday."

* * *

They left separately; Shinichi, Ran and the Kudos in another rental obtained by Yuusaku, the Kurobas and Jintarou by their own mysterious means. Their goodbyes were brief; they'd already been said, and if Ran's and Shinichi's hands were reluctant to let go of their thief's, they at last surrendered to common sense and the two parties divided.

"Won't the rental car company be upset about the other car's roof?" asked Ran worriedly as she slid in the side door of the nondescript sedan after Shinichi. "It'll draw attention to us—"

"And when I'm on the set next week I'll be sure to tell everyone about how terrified I was when our car got smashed in by falling rubble," said Yukiko cheerfully. "Why hide it? It's probably up on YouTube by now already. The good thing is, the rain'll have blurred our faces and most of the pictures'll be of the damage anyway."

Yuusaku buckled himself in. "The other good thing is that ___this _particular car is from a different rental company, under different insurance—" he turned on the ignition, "—and rented under an assumed name. So the chances of our being followed to Beika are lessened, and—"

Shinichi (who was currently masquerading as a blanket-covered lump in the backseat) popped his head out beneath the cover. "Wait, what? 'Assumed name'?"

His father gave him an amused, slightly embarrassed glance from over his shoulder and continued blithely on. "-we should get back just in time for a very early breakfast. Yes, 'assumed name', Shinichi. I took the liberty of calling your father, Ran-chan," he added in mild tones to his son's girlfriend, who froze in apprehension. "Just as a precaution, you know- in case he tried to reach you." The writer cleared his throat. "I told him that since we had, ahem, personally escorted little Conan-kun to his anxious parents' custody, you were all alone; and what with kidnapping attempts and so forth, Yukiko and I simply couldn't sit by and leave you at Agasa's. So-"

Yukiko pressed her finger across her husband's lips. "Honestly, Yuusaku, you could turn a haiku into a twenty-minute monologue! We're in charge of you for a little while, that's all," she explained cheerfully, "with your father's blessings, not that he wasn't concerned or anything, but he was glad to know that you were in such good hands." She smiled seraphically as they pulled out into traffic. "Friends of the family and everything. It makes everything much simpler, doesn't it?"

"'Assumed name'?" tried Shinichi again, a little plaintively.

"Shush." His mother reached between the seats and pulled a fold of blanket over his face. "You're baggage right now, Shin-chan, and baggage should be seen and not heard. ANYway- Ran-chan, what's your class schedule this semester?"

The fold of blanket shifted as Shinichi blew at it from beneath. "'ASSUMED NAME'?" he said, sounding put out. "Tousan, ___what _have you been up to? Rental companies need ID, credit cards, insurance cards-"

"-all of which I have," said his father serenely, "under the name of one Yamamoto Aki, a bookseller who lives in a little suburb south of Tokyo. Yamamoto-san's come in very handy on occasion, so I've kept all his registrations current. He doesn't own a car, but he does like to travel; so his passport and so forth are ready if he needs them."

"If ___you_ need them, you mean," said Ran, fascinated, while her boyfriend sputtered. "Kudo-san, where on ___earth _did you...?"

Yuusaku spent a few moments guiding their small car onto the main highway; one in the stream of traffic, he turned on the windshield wipers against the increasingly heavy rain. "Mmmm, let me see. It was back between books sixteen and seventeen- the fifteenth one in the Night Baron series had just been published, sixteen was in production- that'd be... eleven years ago? Yes. It was for the plot, you see; I needed to know the details of how one obtained a complete false identity, and one thing just- led to another. It's amazing who you meet at writer's conferences," he mused. "Sometimes the most innocuous contacts can lead you to the most interesting people... I remember, the gentleman who provided me with Yamamoto-san's ID allowed me to use his workshop as the pivot-point of book seventeen's plot. That one was ___A Plague of Masks, _do you remember?"

Ran stroked Shinichi's hair beneath the blanket; it was quivering. When he spoke, his voice was strained. "So. You've kept up a false identification for ___eleven years? _What about tax records? Census reports? Utility bills for that address?"

They drove on a little further before his father replied. "Oh, I wouldn't say they'd stand up under truly intense investigation," he said mildly. "But since I hardly ever use them-"

"-except for when we want to travel incognito-" put in Yukiko helpfully.

"-or when I want to buy something online without anyone knowing it's me-" added her husband.

"-or when we're trying to avoid the press and we want to make reservations at a nice restaurant-"

"-or avoid my editors at the airport-"

"-or-"

"'Kiko, I think he gets the idea. I pay the credit card bills, I keep my passport updated and as for utility bills, well... there ___is_ a Yamamoto Aki living in a little suburb south of Tokyo, you see; so the address is valid. It's not Yamamoto-san's fault that the records have him mixed up with this _other _Yamamoto Aki, is it?" Yuusaku chuckled. "Don't worry, he's never come to one shred of harm from my little charade. ...And, since the subject's been breeched... 'Kiko? Why don't we give Shinichi his birthday present?"

They had passed the main burden of traffic by now; the rain was keeping the roadway fairly clear, which was just as well given the fourteen-hour trip that lay ahead. Wondering if he would be better off remaining beneath his blanket, Shinichi propped himself up on his elbows and twisted to watch his mother rummage around in the glove compartment. "Kaasan?" he asked with more than a little apprehension. "You didn't have to get me anything, you know that."

"Don't be silly, Shin-chan; we missed last year's and I felt just _a__wful _about it. But you were still shrunk and everything-"

"I'm still shrunk now," he pointed out. "Okay, not right at this moment, but we still don't know how long I'll be this way, do we?"

Ran stroked Shinichi's hair again. "How do you feel?" she asked anxiously. "Do you... I mean, does anything hurt? Do you, um, feel..."

"...like I'm about to spontaneously shrivel up into a nine-year-old again?" her boyfriend asked, scooting his head further up into Ran's lap. "Not at the moment; I feel kind of achy and tired, but that's all." He'd been aware of a heavy lethargy that seemed to be looming in the distance, not quite close enough to descend upon him in a weighty blanket but not quite far enough away to ignore. "I think I'm going to spend a lot of the trip back asleep, though. Haibara did say I'd pay for the extra energy she supplied; I guess I shouldn't be surprised." A thick manila envelope topped by a cheery red bow landed on Shinichi's chest with a ___thwap! _and he poked at it with one finger. "Urk? What's this?"

"Well, ___open_ it, silly, and find out!" His mother's eyes twinkled. "It's for the two of you, really; we went for the package deal."

Apprehension growing, Shinichi carefully undid the simple metal tab on the envelope; two packets of paperwork- drivers licences, passports, what looked like immunization records, birth certificates, even a credit card- were fanned out slowly onto his lap as he sat up, leaning against Ran. 'Hayashi Norio', he read out loud incredulously, tracing the birth certificate's calligraphy with his fingertips. "And my birthdate plus two years. Tousan, Kaasan? Explanations now, please? Not that I'm not grateful that- that my parents have apparently ___committed identity theft _as a birthday treat for me-" Shinichi allowed his eyes to close briefly.

___"SHIN-_chan, you don't sound very happy. Don't they fit?" sulked Yukiko. "Ran, take a look at yours."

His father cleared his throat. "We haven't stolen anyone's identities, Shinichi- or at least not with those," he said, and there was a serious note to his voice now. "Those personae were made up out of whole cloth and inserted into the appropriate national databases with the best skill money can buy. 'Hayashi Norio' and 'Hayashi Kiku' were both born in a small village in Hokkaido that was lost to a forest fire more than a decade ago; any inconsistencies with their records can easily be explained by the tragedy that wiped out all the originals... which, in their case at least, never existed." Shinichi's father flicked a small grin over one shoulder at his son. "But try proving that and you'll have quite a lot of difficulty; your mother and I purchased your 'identity' nearly two years ago for you, son, and added Ran-chan's on last year."

"...you did?"

"We did. Just in case." Yuusaku's gaze had returned to his driving, but his eyes in the mirror were very gentle. "We want you both to ___survive, _Shinichi; and it never hurts to have an edge, don't you think?" He smiled, and Yukiko hugged her husband's shoulder. "Some of my best plots have been based on just that thought."

Ran was turning 'Hayashi Kiku''s identification card over in her fingers, marveling at the photo; it was recent, but her- Kiku's- age was listed as 21. "We have the same last name," she murmured, barely audible.

Yukiko chuckled low in her throat. "So you do," was all she said, but Ran flushed deeply anyway.

"Um... Kudo-san? Do your characters usually survive your plots?"

Yuusaku smiled at his future daughter-in-law in the car mirror as his son settled, head in her lap, to examine his gift with growing enthusiasm. "My favorites _always _survive," he answered.

"They do? No matter what?"

"Always, Ran-chan. Always."

* * *

___Just want you to know i am so proud of your tousan right now,_ came the text, after Shinichi decided, several hours into the trip back toward Beika, that he couldn't go much longer without updating the Kuroba sector on their progress. They had to be vague, of course, but Shinichi would be a liar of exceptional degree if he tried to pretend that he hadn't thrilled a bit as Kid's answering text buzzed his phone.

___also, tell your mother that i want a shopping trip with just her- ran, no offense, but i can't pick out surprise lingerie if you're shopping with me._

Ran blinked rapidly several times after the last text was read aloud. "I- um-" she flailed, and at last settled for trying to snatch the phone from her more law-abiding boyfriend's fingers. He hid it beneath the covers and displayed empty hands. "Kudo-san, make them stop!" Ran wailed.

"Not on your life," her future mother-in-law gloated. "And if you want me to pick anything up for either of the boys, you can tell me; I have ___excellent _taste." Shinichi's face at this comment bore levels of shock and horror that had, quite possibly, never graced a human countenance before; he fumbled for the phone again and typed hurriedly:

___if you & kaasan buy me anything that has the word 'thong' attached, you're sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future._

___well that's no fun,_ came the prompt reply. ___i'm not going to listen to you. you don't know what's good for you, or me. dressing up for only 1 of you is so much less fun, & i was going to buy a new bra you'd like. but if you really want to be a stick in the mud about it, i guess i'll just wear it for ran & kiko-chan_

Less than thirty seconds later, not quite enough time for Shinichi to finish stuttering out a mostly-properly-typed response and hit Send, another text came in, popup interrupting his quiet flail.

___heart rate, tantei, we don't know how long you are for that underwear size. anyway, try to find out if ran would wear anything that your kaasan and i picked out for her, or if we should just stick to shopping for ourselves._

"If Takagi's little visit and your trip back to the crime-scene didn't send me back to Conan-sized, I doubt anything else right now would," Shinichi informed the cellphone heatedly... and realized that he'd used his Outside Speaking Voice after the attentive silence in the car deepened.

___Oops. _"Aagh. Ignore me, please," he muttered.

Ran tilted her head, peering down at the phone's screen. "Tell him I'll... at least try things on," she murmured, bright pink. "But I'm not promising I'll let anybody see me!"

Yukiko made a disappointed sound. "Then what's the point?" she asked practically; Shinichi hurriedly typed in a ___yes, but with veto powers _and left it at that.

"Back to a slightly less speculative topic," Yuusaku put in, rejoining the conversation for the first time since it had veered lacy, "What ___do _you think about that, Shinichi? How many hours are you over by now?"

There was another silence, attentive as well, but tense where the preceding had been playful. "You normally go back on Sunday evenings," Ran put in hesitantly, "Ai-chan says the change is supposed to be sixty hours, but it hasn't really kept to that number very exactly... She's been keeping a chart," she added "I saw it; she asked me questions about when you started fading out last time."

They had been on the road for perhaps an hour, no more; but the morning had been well advanced when they'd left. "It's hard to say," Shinichi said slowly. "The first time I changed 'on schedule', so to speak, began at about seven in the evening and ended... I guess in the early morning hours two days later; almost a full sixty hours. Since then, it's depended upon, um, activity and... expenditures of energy, I guess. It's never been quite as exact." He sat up a little, scooting back along the seat so that he could rest his elbows against the cushions to either side of his girlfriend's lap and raise his head up slightly. "I don't know what kind of standard deviation Haibara's plotted for the sixty-hour period- Ran, did she ever say?"

She shook her head, stroking his hair back and curling Shinichi's ever-present cowlick in her fingers. "Not that I heard, no. Shouldn't you call her?"

The detective nodded. "And I will, once we're closer to home." He settled back, half closing his eyes for a moment, taking stock. "I'm... really tired; but that's all. I still don't feel any of the usual symptoms." He yawned; there was a strained feel to everything just at that moment, as if he'd stretched himself too thin. Shinichi could feel weariness wanting to drag him under, and he could only hope it wasn't the sort that would end with his suffering an abrupt declination in height and age.

He shifted; Ran's arms closed around him and she arranged herself so that her chin was pillowed on the top of his head. "Maybe a nap'd be a good idea," she murmured. "It's not like we got a lot of sleep last night, after all." Shinichi could feel her smile as she tilted her head, pressing a kiss against his hair; he stroked her arm, tugging the blanket up and closing his eyes.

"Maybe," he murmured. "Kaasan, Tousan? Can you wake us in a couple of hours?"

___That should give Megure-keibu enough time to be well enroute; a police helicopter's probably about the most private place I could call him at today. And I can call Haibara, too; wonder what she'll make of this? _He heard his mother's agreement, felt Ran's soft breath feathering his hair...

...and as sleep began to wash across Shinichi's mind, he realized that he was still clutching his cellphone close.

___I hope Kid gets some rest too,_ he thought drowsily, the thought soft-edged and tenuous. If anybody needs it, he does.

* * *

___sources say you were seen leaving the site of the heist last night in a hurry. care to comment?_

___For the fifteenth time, Kuroba-kun, I am not in the mood to discuss this. Good *day*._

___but you keep answering my mails._

___...now you're just being difficult.  
____i bet i know why you don't want to talk to me.  
____do you think i guessed right?  
____i think i did, of course, but the thing is, do you think so. i really hope you do, since you know how much of a good guesser i am.  
____do you know what i want to do?_

___Is SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP in your plans anytime soon?_

___oh there you are! good. was beginning to think you turned your mobile off._

___I am currently on duty as a consulting detective to a case of larceny in which accidental fatalities occurred. However desperately I would like you to shove it, silencing my phone is not within my capabilities at the moment. So if you could PLEASE. Be. Quiet. I assure you I will talk with you at length when we have both returned to Ekoda.  
____...Please disregard that last mail, I am typing hurriedly and I misspoke._

___misspoke what? what part?_

___Nothing of any significance whatsoever. As I said, when I have returned to Ekoda I will speak with you at whatever length you desire, though I'm certain I will regret that promise soon enough given your ability to spout inanities at length._

___then why'dja promise it?_

___I have no earthly clue._

___still talkin' to me._

___Well yes, of course, why wouldn't I be?_

___said you were gonna turn your phone off._

___I stated that I wished I could, but it is currently an impossible desire. This does not mean that I will hesitate to do so once I am off shift._

___could just silence my ringer and leave the rest loud._

___Kuroba-kun, are you trying to suggest ways in which I might more easily dismiss you?_

___you seemed to be having trouble thinking of any on your own, i felt bad for you. must be some hangover._

___I have no idea what you are talking about. And I am below the legal drinking age._

___sure_

___...What is that supposed to mean?_

___ooh that one lasted ten minutes. the thing is, hakuba-san, you have to not ask me more questions if you want me to shut up. i answer questions posed to me._

___...Some would debate that claim._

___oh yeah? who?_

___Answer me this, Kuroba-kun. Do you intend to keep up conversation with me for the entire duration of my return from Fukuoka?_

___why not? phone's plugged in, i can mail you all i want without it dying. keep you from getting bored on the ride home._

___Well of course, it's only prudent to bring along a phone charger adapted for automobile use on long trips._

___i didn't say i was in a car._

___...Neither did I. *I* am in a car, and I brought along an appropriate charger for my mobile._

___well yeah, you just said that.  
____huh. silence. didja chuck me out the window yet?_

___The avoidability of comparably rash action is growing vanishingly thin, Kuroba-kun._

___whoop, aoko's mailing me, gotta go talk to her. guess i'll leave you alone, i was never good at juggling two conversations at once, i end up sending the romantic mails to the wrong person._

___That is a less than savory mental image, and far more information than I feel is my right or place to know._

___guess so. whoops again. so i should go, i guess?_

___If you feel it prudent._

___aw don't sound so worried, i'll mail you again when i'm done talking to her._

___I assure you, I was not intending to worry._

___funny how it gets under your skin even when you don't mean it to, huh?_

___I'm sorry, what? And aren't you supposed to be speaking with Nakamori-san now?_

___haha okay, okay, i'll be back soon._

___Please do not rush on my account. REALLY._

___haha ok ok._

* * *

He was running down the staircase again, rung after rung slamming beneath his feet with hollow clangs. Only the landings all had the same numbers on them and the exit-signs were all burned out and he could hear his name on the radio,

___Shinichi, Shin-chan, wake up-_

Shinichi flailed at a stairwell door; it turned into a fold of blanket, the fuzz tickling his nose.

___-Oh. _Groggy, his legs cramping from being bent for too long, he rubbed at his eyes and blinked blearily at the car ceiling above him. "Mmhf? 's wrong?" There was hair in his mouth, not his; he tugged it out, and Ran made an incoherent noise from where she was awkwardly curled up half behind him.

His mother reached back between the seats, brushing her knuckles against his cheek. "Nothing; we're going to stop for some snacks in a little bit, though, and I thought you might want to make those calls of yours. Hmm? You've been sleeping for more than three hours." The present flooded back in a rush of here and now, and Shinichi groaned faintly as recollection came with it: Megure-keibu, of course, and Haibara. "Better to take the initiative yourself than wait for it to happen, isn't it?" his mother advised him, and there was sympathy in her voice. "I know you don't want to, Shin-chan, but..."

"...but I'd better get it over with." Taking a deep breath, he sat up slowly, disentangling Ran's long strands of hair from around him as he did so. "Okay."

He waited a little longer, though, until they'd pulled into one of the ubiquitous roadside complexes found off most Japanese highways; stretched out on the seat beneath his blanket, Shinichi watched as the other three headed into the building to retrieve edibles and drinks. Ran had wanted to stay but he had sent her on with encouragements and, truthfully, a need for a little quiet to take care of at least the first call in; it was going to be difficult.

More than difficult...

The private number that he knew would ring through to Megure's cell only buzzed twice before pickup. On the other end, the head of Division One took a deep breath before speaking.

___"Kudo-kun,"_ he said heavily. ___"Are you in a secure location?" _Meaning, Shinichi supposed, 'Can we talk without compromising anyone's safety?'

"Secure enough," he answered quietly, tugging the blanket up; he could hear the white noise of the helicopter as a backdrop on the other end of the line. "Did Takagi tell you he'd seen me this morning?"

Megure was silent for a moment.

___"Takagi-kun is off-duty at the moment,"_ said the officer carefully, ___"and anything he might have told me was- very unofficial. And brief. I have three questions for you, Kudo-kun, and I will need you to answer them to the best of your knowledge."_ Shinichi closed his eyes briefly. ___"First,"_ (and he could hear the older man gritting his teeth even over the sounds of the engine-noise) ___"were you aware beforehand that there would be gunfire involved in last night's heist?"_

"No," said Shinichi, his voice steady. "I knew that 1412 intended to draw out- certain enemies of his- but I had no knowledge of either the manner or the intensity of their response before it happened." He swallowed, wondering what he could say that would help to keep the trust of this man who he had known for years, whose opinion he valued and who had believed in him in both his guises. "I wish I had known. If I had- but I didn't. And neither, I think, did he. But we both knew that any kind of response would be violent; I'm not making any excuses for myself, Megure-keibu; I can't." That last... Silently Shinichi swallowed the knot in his throat, the regrets that he knew would never quite go away. "Next question?"

Static crackled between them.

___"Kudo-kun, the riddle left by 1412 was quite definite about how 'the good guys don't wear black'. Am I correct in assuming that you believe his enemies to be similar to... certain ones that we've discussed in recent cases?" _ Even in the security of a moving helicopter Megure wouldn't say it, wouldn't take the risk; but the meaning of his question was pitilessly clear.

And so was Shinichi's answer. "...yes. Yes sir, that's correct. It's more than a belief; there's evidence enough that it's a certainty."

___And I hope you can understand why I didn't tell you before this, Megure; I really do. Secrecy's kept me alive, but I'm not the only one with secrets; I'm not the only one who'd die if they came to light, and I'm not the only one at risk here. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend...'_

The third question was almost anticlimatic, and it was one Shinichi'd been expecting in one form or another- though, later, he'd admit to surprise at just how carefully Megure had phrased it.

___"Kudo-kun. If I were to ask you how you learned what you know about... certain common enemies... would you be able to tell me the truth? The ____entire____ truth, Kudo-kun?"_

He swallowed again. "No, Megure-keibu, I would not." He could have followed this with so many things:

___Too many lives are at stake, there are promises I have to keep, I can't compromise the truth-__but the man he was speaking with was no idiot. None of those were necessary. _"Sir, I told you last night- I'd do almost anything to bring our- common enemies- to light; I meant that."

There was a sigh on the other end of the line.

___"Hrrrmm. I see. Then we'll just have to work with what we have."_ A little taken aback by this unexpected show of practicality, Shinichi swallowed his own surprise. ___"Hrm. What's your ETA for Beika, Kudo-kun? Around dawn? I'd appreciate it if you went straight to Division One headquarters rather than returning home- you recall the secure entrance you used when you were, ah, explaining your situation to us? The 'back door'?"_ Shinichi blinked, puzzled and more than a little apprehensive, but gave a wary affirmative. ___"Good. I'll see you then."_

"Err- Megure-keibu? We're not- that is, you're not intending to-"

___"-____arrest____ you, Kudo-kun? Not in the near future."_ Was that weary humor he could hear in the older man's voice? ___"I suspect it would do more harm than good." _The connection clicked off and Shinichi was left staring at the cellphone in his hand, wondering if he had just damned himself utterly in the authorities' eyes or won a very shaky reprieve.

* * *

Midafternoon. They stopped for food, and Ran and Shinichi chanced another phone call, reaching out to the Kuroba car.

"You ___are_ in a car, right?" Shinichi found himself asking, envisioning much wilder - but, knowing the Kurobas, equally plausible - options. On the other end, Kid laughed, his voice clear even over the relatively poor connection.

"Shame, Tantei. Prying." Shinichi rolled his eyes, but Ran beat him to the response. Heads tipped together, each wearing half of a single pair of earbuds plugged into Shinichi's cell phone, Ran clucked disapprovingly at Shinichi, mouth tipped toward the phone speaker so Kid could hear too.

"He can't help himself, you know," she said, laying on the exasperation thick. "Detectives. Always asking questions.

"But - is everyone alright on your end? Will we be able to see you and your brother later? He talked to the Keibu," Ran said, omitting all names even as she changed the subject. The necessity of not speaking any names - even if it ___seemed_ like paranoia - was something that they all agreed on, and had barely even needed to discuss.

"Did he?" Kid asked, humming noncommittally. "And did that go well?"

"Not arrested yet," Shinichi answered.

"That's a start," the thief chuckled. "Still think you're going about it backwards. You don't ask them if you can not be in trouble, please and thank you; you ought to ___tell _them you're not in trouble, and here's why."

"I think he's done enough loose-cannoning for now," Ran disagreed, frowning at Shinichi from as much distance as their earbud leash would let her. "He has a lot of trusting people who are important right now, and being good to them to show them that they're right to trust him is important."

Another laugh. "Eloquent," Kaito snickered. "And you're maybe the only person I know of who could say that and not seem to be dropping self-serving hints at the same time."

"Well of course not," Ran yelped. "I wasn't trying to do that at all."

"We know," Shinichi smiled, leaning in to kiss Ran's cheek. "Back to the topic, though, you should know that my pharmacist is going to be very confused when I get home, if my current situation is anything to go by."

There was a brief silence, in which Shinichi and Ran could easily imagine the thief working the surprise out of his eyebrows and voice. "Oh, is that so? She'll be cranky."

"Maybe," Shinichi answered hesitantly. "I didn't actually do anything ___wrong_ this time. Actually, if there's anything that changed, it was her doing."

"Did she try something new?"

"Kind of." Shinichi frowned. "I'll tell you later. If it's still pertinent. For all I know-"

"But you don't ___feel _like it's going to- um, well, like that," Ran protested, leaning against his shoulder while speaking carefully into the phone so that Kid could hear. She handed the handset back to Shinichi and wrapped her arms around his, hugging it tightly. Shinichi's smile was soft and distracted while he combed the fingers of one hand into Ran's hair, listening to Kid.

"As I said, I want to talk to you about it in person," he said again, and on the other end a verbal shrug let him know that Kid would drop the topic for now. "But believe me, there might be some...ah, testing, involved that you could help out with."

"___Oh!__" _Kid laughed, and the leer in his voice was nearly a physical thing, like a grenadine candy.

"Down, boy," Shinichi grinned. "We'd better go - there's so much more, but none of it over phones."

"You're taking to this better than I thought you might," Kaito put in, sounding bemused. "We thought we'd have to give you some pointers."

"Well, I've been doing this for two years already," Shinchi protested.

"Not that well, if I kept almost-guessing." Ran poked his side, grinning as he aimed a sulking face at her.

"Well, I'll be interested to hear the rest of it," Kid said. "And now you need to go."

"Huh?" Shinichi blinked, then squawked, as Yukiko successfully snuck up behind him and tickled him. "Ack! How did you ___do _that?" Pouting at his boyfriend and his mother both, but mostly his mother because she was easier to make disapproving eyebrows at, Shinichi let Ran swipe the phone out of his hands and say goodbye to Kid.

* * *

.

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___And that concludes our chapter for the week! Feel free to leave donations in the comment box if you have any sympathy for the damage Kid's mercilessly inflicting on Shinichi's and Ran's phone bills. =D __Til next time! :3_


	79. What's he so afraid of?

___Greetings and salutations!_

_Tonight... things take a turn for the dark. Not the easiest chapter to experience, but a very important one. We hope you'll enjoy it; much thought and work went into it; and a few explanations for some things we've been hinting at for quite some time..._

_ALSO: We'll be posting next Friday and then we'll be taking a brief hiatus to catch our writing up; not a long one, don't worry! We want to make sure to do our best for you, and therefore a brief break is needed to make sure quality matches quantity... The Management_

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* * *

___**Book Six, Chapter Fourteen**____**: "What's he so afraid of?"**_

The next long handful of hours were remarkable not because of what happened during them but because of what did ___NOT _happen: namely, violence, kidnapping attempts or criminal assault of any kind. The journey wound its way back to Beika like a bead traveling down an untangled cord, interrupted only by necessary stops and the occasional random outbreak of texts. Shinichi slept much of the way, edging over into a deeper, more profound unconsciousness as the end of his sixty hours approached... came... and went by, Sunday transforming into Monday without a ripple.

It wasn't until predawn was just beginning to filter through Beika-cho's orangish skyglow with a haze of its own that they pulled into the back bay of the city's precinct building; a uniformed officer waiting there let them in quietly, and as the rental pulled up to the entrance, Shinichi sat up just in time to see two familiar figures conversing beside the door.

Megure... and...

___Somehow I'm not even remotely surprised. He did say he'd show up if I didn't call, and I guess the message I left wasn't enough. I'd be lying if I said I was sorry to see him._

...Hattori Heiji, looming like a thundercloud. And by the look on his face, one from which all hell was about to break loose.

Megure spoke first, though; the older man looked tired, and there was a tight-stretched cast to his face that Shinichi couldn't recall seeing before- or no, come to think of it, he could: from back during the Tokyo bomber case, the one where he and Takagi had gotten stuck in the Tower elevator with a ticking bomb for hours. "Kudo-kun," said the officer wearily as Shinichi slid out of the vehicle, blanket crumpled on the seat beside him. "Did you have any difficulties during your trip?"

The young detective shook his head; he felt a little dizzy and his heart pounded heavily in his chest- more, he thought, attributable to stress than any imminent transformations. "No problems," he reported briefly. "Has your prisoner given you any trouble?"

The head of Division One hesitated, glancing at the smouldering figure beside him. "Ah- Hattori-kun has spoken to him the most recently; I'll let him bring you up to speed." He cleared his throat. "Let's find a more secure place to..." he gestured, turning an unreadable look on Ran and onto Shinichi's parents. Yukiko, quiet for once, gave him a reassuring smile and tucked her hand into her husband's as they followed Megure through the door and down the hall.

Heiji fell into step with Shinichi. "Kudo, you've got a lot of explaining to do," muttered the Osakajin beneath his breath, "an' not all of it's to me. That-" His fists tightened at his sides. "I ___knew _that goddamn thief'd be nothing but tr-"

"HATTORI." Heiji looked at him, eyes full of angry green sparks. "Save it til later, okay? There're things you don't know." The Detective of the West's glare did not lessen, and Shinichi sighed. "Look, let's take this a step at a time, please? You've trusted me so far- I need you to keep trusting me, Hattori."

The entreaty (and maybe the tone in which it was made) got through the other's anger; Heiji bit down on the reply he had been going to make and studied Shinichi sidelong. "People've ___died__,_ Kudo."

"I... know." He was silent for a long moment; a little ways ahead, his father was saying something polite and noncommittal to Megure about profiling techniques, and Ran was trailing behind them with a worried backwards look. "Don't think I've forgotten about that for a second, Hattori."

___After all, if the Apotoxin had done it's job right, I would've been one of the Organization's victims as well. I haven't forgotten about that either._

They walked on in silence for a few moments, lagging even further behind the others; the hall was brightly lit and utterly empty save for themselves. Heiji shot another sideways look at Shinichi, and he could almost see the moment that a certain thought popped up in his friend's quick mind. "Hey— ___why _aren't you…?" Heiji held out a hand briefly at waist-level; "You're overdue, right? You playin' hooky or what?" The Osakajin actually paused for a second, nearly tripping over his own feet. "CAN you play hooky?"

"Obviously I can," Shinichi pointed out, slowing as well. "But—Hattori, I don't know why. I just… didn't change back. I expected to, thought I'd even change early—all that exertion, and Haibara gave me something for extra energy during the heist; she even said it'd take a toll on my body, and—" He shrugged, dragging one hand through his hair. "I don't know why it didn't happen. I don't ___know, _Heiji. I just…" He shook his head, missing the blink of startlement at his use of the other detective's personal name. "I told Haibara; she clammed up, total lockdown on the phone; that usually means that she either just doesn't know and doesn't want to say so or she knows but it's bad news." Shinichi shrugged again. "Doesn't really matter, I guess, unless I die in the middle of the investigation from terminal shrinkage or whatever; that'd put a cramp in things, I guess."

Some of the anger bled out of the other's face as Heiji studied his friend. "Yeah, guess it would. So _don't__,_ okay?"

There was a lot of emphasis in that 'don't'. Shinichi half-smiled, watching Ran as she turned back to the others and answered a question of his mother's. "Doing my best."

They said little more while horrible police coffee ('Better than the roadside rest-stop stuff,' remarked Yuusaku philosophically) was fetched to the same small conference room they had used before for the travelers by both Sato and Takagi, who appeared quietly and without comment, quickly followed by Shigure, who looked uncharacteristically grey-faced and exhausted. From a few questions and answers traded between Megure and the taciturn officer, Shinichi gathered that he'd been acting as liaison/point-of-contact between the Fukuoka authorities, Nakamori's squad and the Beika-cho division. It was quite a responsibility; and while Shinichi doubted he'd ever warm up to the man as much as he had to Takagi and his partner, he respected Shiratori's competence and sense of duty. That was one thing that Megure-keibu had always had a knack for: playing to his officers' strengths. Takagi's flexibility, Sato's drive, Chiba's ability to fade into the background, Shiratori's attention to detail…

___And where do I fall into this?_ wondered Shinichi wryly as he dumped a great deal of cream and sugar into his cup, lightening the black surface to the shade of a wet paper bag. ___Right now he might consider me as much of a liability as anything; I need to change that. I need his trust too, or we won't get anywhere with this._

"So how _is _the prisoner doing?" he asked quietly. "Has he been identified? And what about the two from the crowd?"

Heiji shook his head. "No identification, no direct speech with me're anybody else—won't say anything intelligent, just paces his cell and looks agitated." He snorted. "He fought like hell to hang onto his belongings—they had to restrain him to put him into a pair of scrubs; nobody wanted to take a chance that he might have, I dunno, poisoned needles or whatever hidden in his clothes. Nothin's been found in them, though—looks like he changed into brand new funeral blacks for the show." At Shinichi's raised eyebrow, his friend elaborated: "No lint in the pockets, no laundry-marks; everything's been swept clean, even his shoes." Heiji raised an eyebrow of his own. "You think the Org's got a laundry service?"

"I think," said Shinichi grimly, "that they've had a lot of practice in being careful. How's his mental state?"

Megure took this one. "Aggressive; I'd say… hrm; actively afraid of something. That grab at his belongings—he did make one request, Hattori-kun, after you had left the room: he wanted his watch." At the twin intensely focused stares he received, the head of Division One blinked. "Does this relate to anything you're familiar with, Kudo-kun?"

Shinichi frowned, taking a swallow of his coffee without tasting it. "Not—exactly, no." The thought echoed oddly against his own concerns regarding time, and he shook his head briefly. "How long has he been in custody?"

"Roughly thirty, thirty-one hours. He's ignored all offers of food or water, hasn't slept; just… paced, and gotten increasingly agitated." Megure frowned, feathering a file from the small stack that he'd brought with him into the small debriefing room that they were using. "See for yourself." The series of photos in the file showed a heavy-browed man in anonymous dark blue scrubs, perhaps in his mid-thirties; not particularly tall, not particularly short, not particularly noticeable at all unless you were paying attention to the way his hands were fisted and the look on his face. Anger, desperation; naked fear, pure and simple. And something else, something in the set of his shoulders and the way he watched a guard pass in one of the shots: ___expectation._

"He's trying to see the guard's watch," said Heiji, tapping the photo. "He's waitin' for something to happen. What, though?"

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he's waiting for a specific time." Shinichi leaned back, a bit bemused, as his father leaned forward, gaining the attention of those gathered at the table. "I don't presume to know more about the prisonor than you do, Keibu," Yuusaku said, "but if I were writing this, I would only have a character looking at a watch if he could gather information from it. In his situation, knowing what time it is doesn't matter unless he knows about something going on outside of this precinct. Normal civilians might ask idly for the time from a stranger passing by; prisoners would, I think, be concerned with keeping track of what their associates are up to."

Shiratori and Shinichi leaned over the photo, studying the prisoner's photographed posture. "You're right, Tousan," Shinichi said, tapping the photo where the nameless operative's shoulders betrayed his intense interest in the guard's watch. "He either knows what the others are up to, or is wondering what's happened to them, as if it's been too long since..." Shinichi trailed off, and Heiji picked up.

"Either he's thinkin' something went wrong on the outside," Heiji put in, "like 'why haven't they rescued me yet?'"

"-or, more likely," Megure continued, "for an operative of this rank, rescue would not only contradict the action we've seen, that Kudo-kun has seen from them in the past, but it also would seem a bit excessive." The inspector traded level glances with his team. "We're not exactly dealing with a member of high rank; I think that's safe to assume."

"That's true," said Shinichi, peering at the photo closely. "So what's he waiting for?"

"Probably for them to get rid of him." While Shiratori seemed alarmed at the blunt, unconcerned tone in which Ran suggested this, the Kudos to either side of her didn't seem put off at all, and Shinichi nodded enthusiastically, the gears turning physically in his head.

"You're sure that your men got everything off of him, right? Checked his teeth? A cavity search?" Megure was a bit taken aback by the fervency of Shinichi's questions, but from the way that Hattori was expectantly waiting for an answer as well, it was obvious that both teen detectives were entirely earnest in their paranoia.

"He is entirely clean, Kudo-kun," Megure reassured the detective. "In fact, we did find a number of capsules on him. We haven't identified them yet, but we're expecting the lab will tell us they're cyanide or something similar. They were removed from him as soon as he was in custody."

From the end of the table, Takagi cleared his throat. "There's another possibility, Keibu," he said tentatively. The others looked at him, including Sato. "The Organization specializes in chemical modification, doesn't it? Would they- that is- I know we checked the prisoner in every conceivable way, but is it possible that he's waiting for something ___internal _to take place? He was very agitated, wasn't he? Not what I'd expect from someone who thought he was going to be rescued." This last question was to Heiji, who frowned.

"Yeeeeeahh... and no. When he was brought in, he was nervous but not- he didn't look so damn freaked out; the longer he's been here, the worse it's gotten." When he looked up, Heiji's green eyes were narrowed. "Think maybe you might be on t'something," he murmured. "No hollow teeth or poison needles, and I doubt he really thinks anybody here's gonna kill him- he ___knows _what kind of guard he's under." He scratched his head. "Y'know what I can't figure out?"

"What?"

"Why're they so damn ___loyal?_ I mean, this guy's probably not too high, we already worked that out. If he's lower-echelon, then what's keeping his mouth shut? If it was me and I was stuck in a cell, I'd sing like a goddamn canary if it'd save my a- uh, my bacon." He hiked one shoulder in a shrug, scowling. "It's been bothering me for a while. The big shots, they've got enough incentive t'keep their mouths shut. Guys like this, though... he hasn't said a word. ___**Why **_hasn't he tried to bargain his way out? What's he so afraid of?"

"Has anybody asked him?" Yuusaku narrowed his eyes, looking a great deal like his son. "Has anyone offered to bargain with him?"

Megure shook his head. "I don't have the authority to offer clemency in exchange for information, Kudo-kun," he said, sounding frustrated. "But we _have _hinted that bargains could possibly be made. The prisoner's response was- nothing. Not a word, nothing at all."

"Then..." Heiji blinked. "Then we don't-"

"-have anything we can offer that he wants," finished Shinichi.

"Or that he can use," added Heiji, shifting restlessly in his chair. He turned to Shinichi. "Ready to have a little chit-chat with our new friend?" He started to push his chair out.

"Ahrm. ___**JUST **_a moment, if you please."

The request was accompanied by Megure's beating Heiji to the draw and rising to his feet; the entire room looked at him as the head of Division One, not an especially imposing figure for the most part, managed to do a fairly impressive loom. "Kudo-kun? Before we go any further, I have something I would like to say to you."

Shinichi winced internally. ___Here it comes,_ he thought. ___Here's where I'm told how much I've betrayed their trust, how little I can be trusted from this point on, how I'm going to have to explain everything about my association with Kid or face the consequences. Well, the hell with that- consequences be damned. _He looked up at the older man, bracing his shoulders. "Yes, Keibu?"

Megure's eyes were steady. "I originally intended to say this to you in private, but I believe it'll have a greater impact with your family and friends as witness. Kudo-kun? You have, up until this point, cooperated admirably well with myself and my team. I'd like that to continue. And it ___will, _so long as you keep several words in mind." He planted his hands on the table and leaned forward, brows beetling.

___"Full. Disclosure."_

The teenager would have flinched if he'd allowed himself the luxury. "Your meaning, Keibu?"

"From this point on, the greater good is what matters." Megure stared him down. "I do not care, Kudo-kun, in what capacity you became involved with 1412 prior to tonight. I do not care what secrets you have between you now, and I do not care what you have planned between you for the future." His thick forefinger stabbed at the table, making them all jump. "ALL I care about is this investigation. Do you understand me, Kudo-kun?

___THIS__- _investigation. And," he added heavily, "it's consequences. I won't ask you about the past; you cooperate fully in the future."

His hands tightened into fists. "Agreed, Kudo-kun? Full cooperation, from both you AND your associates." His gaze was flat with warning, a brick wall. "I cannot and will not allow you to act without Division One's knowledge. Not any more."

Shinichi swallowed hard, nerves swimming in his stomach. "Megure-keibu, I-" He started again. "I'm willing to work with you in every way possible... with one exception."

The other man was as still as stone. "And that is?"

"I will not compromise the safety ___or freedom _of people who depend on me," said the detective quietly. "Especially when they put themselves into jeopardy every time we come into contact. Even," he added almost lightly, "if it's their own choice. I don't have that right."

"I put my men into jeopardy every day, Kudo-kun," said the head of Division One between his teeth. "It's called 'chain of command.'" His eyes flickered towards faces in the room: Shiratori, Sato, Takagi. "It's my job; it's my ___privilege,_ that they choose to be directed by me."

Shinichi nodded with a calm that he did not feel. "And I understand that, Keibu; that's your responsibility. But I have responsibilities too, and if I'm trusted to keep them, then I can't betray that trust." He swallowed again. "You're asking a lot of me, of my parents, Ran, and- others; I have to ask the same thing back- trust, Megure-keibu. Can we both keep our bargains?"

The question hung in the air.

Megure sighed, straightening up; he rubbed at his eyes. "Kudo-kun, sometimes you're almost more trouble than you're worth, do you know that?" The question was almost a groan, but there was a trace of humor there as well. "I- hrrm; I think we can. Just please, no more aiding and abetting wanted felons ___without warning, _ne? If we can keep to that to begin with, then I believe we have a start."

The thrill of relief was almost painful; Shinichi felt it in his bones, felt it in his slowly roiling stomach and in the way his heartbeat began to slow; his pulse had been hammering in his ears, and only now did he realize it. "I- believe we can, Megure-keibu." He allowed a very small smile to quirk his lips. "Clean page?"

The officer regarded him somewhat sardonically. "As you say, Kudo-kun. Clean page."

The room let out a collective breath, and Heiji rose to his feet with almost comical rapidity. "Okay, good to go, now that ___that's _all cleared up... one'a you want to escort us to see the prisoner?" Shiratori stood without a word, his own eyes less than trustful. "Cool. C'mon."

The officer led the way; and as the door closed behind them, Heiji elbowed Shinichi in the side. "What?" asked the Detective of the East, trying to get his breathing under control.

"Ohhh, nothin'. Just- smooth, Kudo, real smooth."

"What?"

Heiji stared at him. "...y'mean... you didn't ___mean_ to leave _me _outta that promise?"

"HATTORI-"

His friend fought back a grin. "'You're asking a lot of me, of my parents, Ran, et cetera,'" he misquoted under his breath. "Seems to me I didn't hear my name in there..."

"HEIJI..."

"Well, discretion's the better part of skirtin' promises, or however that saying goes." The Osakan detective grinned across at his friend - at a much shallower angle than he was used to, and the strangeness of it comforted him because it was a Monday and Kudo was still tallshaped. That was a good thing no matter how you cut it.

"Skirting promises?" Ahead of them, Shiratori paused to sling a very annoyed glare over his shoulder. "A bit early for truancy, don't you think?"

"Oh, common, Keiji, can't I tease him? Idiot forgets me all the time." Hattori shrugged roundly, looping his arm around Shinichi's neck and tugging. "Forgets t'call me when shit goes down, forgets t'call me to tell me not t'spend my whole month's cash on a shinkansen trip down here just in time t'see his stupid ass's fine without my help anyway, forgets t'tell me when he made out with his ___girlfr__-"_

"___THAT _is quite enough information," Shiratori squawked, looking very ruffled and very irritated, as he resumed progress down the corridor at a brisker pace. Hattori jogged to keep up easily, smiling confidently.

"All's I'm sayin' is, I've got plenty of reason to give Kudo a hard time about always leaving me outta things. You'd think he would think to mention me, I'm right there in the room too. Kinda irks ya, yanno? Pull a guy's ass outta the fire enough times, you'd think he'd start giving credit where credit's due, but no, guess he hasn't-"

With a growing headache, Shinichi trailed after Hattori and Shiratori, wisely staying completely silent while Hattori did enough talking for them both and then some.

___If I wasn't absolutely sure that I know where Kid is, I would wager someone a large chunk of cash that he's right here in front of me._

_Well, actually, I_ ___don't ____know where Kid is. Except, that's not him. That's definitely Hattori._

_And I definitely need to make sure Kid doesn't have any more influence on Hattori than he already has. Oi. One of them's bad enough. I'd like to have_ ___some____ dignity in the eyes of the police when this is all done._

The prisoner's holding room came up sooner than Shinichi had expected; his musings would have carried him straight into Hattori's back except for the changing light in the hallway as they reached the area nearest the holding rooms. Shiratori removed a key from his pocket, unlocking one of the doors between two halls; as they stepped into the next one, the atmosphere abruptly changed from 'office back hallway' to something more resembling 'prison corridor'.

"___I_ will do the talking," Shiratori reminded them both, giving Shinichi the benefit of an extra three seconds of chary stare. "Youtwo stay to the back wall. Observe only." Shinichi raised an eyebrow but gave a short nod of agreement...

...at least for the moment.

The officer led them down the short distance to the three doors that terminated the corridor, one to either side and one on the end; each had a small, wire-gridded window set in the thick metal frame and throwing back the peculiar flash that one-way glass always did. The two to either side were dark, their keypads green-lit and registering open; the end room, however, had light showing through its window and a small red LED glowing brightly on its own keypad; without further comment, Shiratori typed in a code and opened the door.

It led, not directly into a cell, but into a space just outside of one; surveillance cameras hummed at the ceiling to either side of the door and bars made narrow shadows across the figure who sat hunched on a cot built solidly into one wall. The prisoner tensed and glanced up involuntarily as the door opened but other than an unreadable stare showed no interest in his visitors. Dark eyes swept across Shinichi and Heiji's face with no discernible pause; if anything, the blank gaze withdrew even further into itself, and the man turned his face to the wall.

Shiratori watched him for a long, silent moment before beginning. "You have been in custody now," he said into the dead air of the cell, "in excess of thirty-two hours. Time seems to be preying on your mind; is there something you'd like to tell us?" The prisoner gave no sign he had heard, but a muscle twitched in the corner of his jaw. "Then perhaps I should tell you a few things," continued the officer calmly. "Your location has been kept entirely secure; no-one will be coming for you, there will be no rescue. Your only bargaining chip is whatever knowledge you have of your superiors, and unless you choose to use it-" Shiratori shrugged. "We are in no hurry."

He allowed a sardonic edge to enter his voice. "But _you _seem to be. I wonder why?"

Beside Heiji, Shinichi fought back an urge to twitch. He glanced a little sideways at his friend; Heiji was focused, tightly focused, eyes unblinking as he stared at what Shinichi realized was the first Black Organization operative he had ever met. It was a strange thing, but in all the time since their first meeting, Heiji had never once seen Vodka, Gin, Vermouth or any of the other agents- or not, at least, knowingly.

___Not once,_ he thought, and wondered at the other's trust... and at how much he'd taken it for granted. Most of Heiji's teasing in the hallway had been just that, but there had been enough truth there to make Shinichi flinch inside.

Shiratori talked a little longer, always calmly, always in the same vein: not quite threats, not quite promises... He was good at it, and on someone else it might have worked. But the prisoner kept his silence until at last Shinichi could no longer keep his; he stepped forward half a pace. The officer stiffened at the movement, glancing warningly over his shoulder; but after a moment his shoulders slumped and he shrugged, moving aside.

"Time."

The new voice made the prisoner look up despite himself; a flicker in his black eyes showed his interest, though he swerved his gaze quickly away.

"You're running out of it, aren't you? Not much time left for you, and you can't get what you need- not in there." Shinichi kept his voice low, speaking quietly. "They're good at making people need them, aren't they, your bosses? Good at keeping control. Yanking you on a chain, making you do what they want until all you ___can_ do is what they want... only they can't help you here." He raised the volume just a little, speaking deliberately, every word a little harsher than the one before: "Nobody can, and it's going to get worse. And worse. And you're going to just sit here behind bars, rotting away-"

The man had jerked, hard; his hands were knotted into fists.

"-and _nobody's _going to save you." Pause; the prisoner was breathing hard now. "And when your time's up, that'll be the end, won't it? Is it worth it?" He let his voice grow mocking, cold. "They'll think so. They're going to let you burn up like a scrap of paper, and-"

___**SLAM!**_

The man had pounded both fists on the wall; the cinderblocks gave back dull twin thumps. He did it again, his breath coming in harsh pants. Shinichi felt his own heart pounding, adrenaline fueling the pitiless edge that crept into the words. "Nothing'll save you, nothing'll help you, it's all where you can't reach it, there won't be anything left of you! Is it worth it? Is it? Is it? Is-" Both Shiratori and Heiji were staring at him now and Shinichi swallowed the end of his words, allowing ringing silence to follow before he began again, very softly.

"...I know what they can do. I know what they did to _me__. _ Tell me what they did to you."

___"Tell. Me."_

As Shinichi challenged the operative and Shiratori seemed to visibly consider whether he already had grounds to inspire an immediate second discussion with Megure-keibu, Heiji very carefully stayed silent and still. Nobody in the room was who they appeared to be; saying that about Shiratori or the operative was rather more self-evident than saying it about his best friend, but there you had it. Heiji already knew that Shinichi could get vicious; he knew, given the Eastern Detective's feelings not only for the idiot thief whose heist had been sullied, but also for the organization, the ideals, the methods- everything represented by the man in the cell in front of them. Something in the back of his brain wanted to rationalize what he was seeing, say that it was perfectly reasonable for Shinichi to be so angry and so merciless. Even as the operative began babbling, Heiji still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just seen something from Shinichi which he'd never been privy to before.

Meanwhile, Shiratori was busy pressing the advantage that Shinichi had created, but the detective's frustration was growing quickly as he realized that while Shinichi had gotten the captive to talk, what was coming out of his mouth wasn't necessarily helpful. "Drunk, y'know?" the captive was saying, shaking his head back and forth to emphasize the words. "Drunk, and they told me, they told me- they told me-"

"-didn't tell me anything, didn't tell me- they didn't, they didn't- nothing. Especially about the- blood. I got him, I didn't- I got him. The other guy, didn't actually know his name- I got him, got him, I got him- the other guy, he got got, he got got, I didn't, I didn't. And I don't know anything, I don't, especially, know anything... I don't... know anything, especially not- nothing, know anything, know nothing. About the Bartender. That's what they call him, the Bartender. 'Cause he picks them out, he picks them out, he mixes them up, puts them back, the shelf, the really full shelf... I was gonna be on that shelf. Was gonna! Y'know... first thing they do, they do, they give you a drink. They treat you right. Nice people, they're- nice people. I like 'em. Take 'em home to mom... Lovely people. She's in my Bridge club, y'know?"

The broken, disjointed diatribe wound to a stop on that bizarrely bright note; the man was swaying in place now, cradling his bruised hands against his knees and staring with glittering eyes straight at the three outside his cell. Beside him, Shinichi could hear Heiji breath the words ___Bridge club? _but his mind was reeling, staggering in circles around the name that the prisoner had given them:

___'Bartender'. Gin, Vodka, Vermouth, Pisco, Sherry... The Bartender mixes up the drinks. God, dear god- __'First thing they do, they give you a drink.' _His hand had risen and brushed the place on his head before he knew it, the place where he'd been hit from behind. For a moment he felt the capsule shoved between his teeth again, felt the choking mouthful of liquid forced on him, felt himself gag once and swallow the poison down...

But the man was rising to his feet now; Shiratori automatically stepped in front of the younger two. But the prisoner stared straight past him, gaze fixed on Shinichi's. "Know. You know. You know, don't you, don't you? 'Cause you're one of them, and, and, must've picked you too like he picked me, and he, right, he- You've got it, right? Right? You've got it?" The man shuddered, leaning against the bars and gripping them; his knuckles were bloody, and he seemed to dredge the remnants of sanity up from somewhere hidden. "I. I. I ___NEED_ it. I need it, give it to me. Give it to me, give it to me, give it give it___ GIVE IT-"_

He pounded his bleeding fists on the bars, heavy voice cracking, losing the fight.

___"Give it to me!__ You've __**GOT**__ to got to got to please please __**please God PLEASE!"**_

Still babbling, words sliding into thick incoherency, the man slid to his knees. His fists thudded again and again against the bars, leaving smears on the cold metal; appalled, Shinichi stared down at the wreck that the Organization operative had become, trying- and failing- not to feel pity. When the man's words muddled their way back into something understandable, they were nonsense, little more than sounds:

"-m-my, no, nonono ___mine,__ m-mine, can't can't can't, please, mine... _they said, promised, no, ___miiine..." _He choked, turned the sound into a ragged sob of air, and curled up on himself on the cell floor.

Silence, broken by harsh breathing that stilled, slowed, caught- and settled into shallow slowness. The prisoner was asleep- or its equivalent- just like that.

* * *

"Kudo-kun?" They were walking back down the hall towards the small conference room where the others waited, and Shiratori's tone was remarkably calm, all things considered.

"Yes?"

"There is-" he hesitated, walking slowly and seemingly groping for words; it was odd to see the man so uncertain. "In interrogation training," he began again, "we are taught that there is a fine line between intimidation... and psychological torture. You were perilously close to that line."

"I know."

At the detective's bleak tone, both Shiratori and Heiji (who had been slumping along, hands in his pockets and brows drawn down) paused and turned towards him. "I know," said Shinichi again tightly. "And I could have overstepped it. I ___did, _a little; what I did to that man was cruel, plain and simple. And I doubt it'll be the last time, either." He ducked his head a little, moving past the other two and walking quickly down the hall. "I'm... sorry," he said without turning around, "that I had to do it. But I'm not sorry that I did it." He continued on down the hall; the other two looked at each other wordlessly and followed.

* * *

The prisoner did not revive within a reasonable period of time. His pulse and breathing seemed normal, and guards had ensured, for the entire twenty minutes during which Shiratori and his pair of overenthusiastic escorts quit the room, that the prisoner's physical health came to no harm from anyone, most importantly including himself.

Yet, twenty minutes after they departed the operative's cell, Shinchi, Hattori, and an apprehensive Shiratori were back in front of his bars, studying the situation.

"And it's not possible he's just faking us out, or deliberately altering his breath and pulse?"

"No, keiji," the medical officer confirmed, frowning at his mystifying patient. "He's legitimately gone into some sort of light trance state; there was a moment there where he seemed to fluctuate too much, worrisomely, but it lasted merely three minutes. He's been stable - but utterly unresponsive - ever since."

A brief, thoughtful silence followed, broken by Hattori. "Three minutes, ya said? One eighty seconds exactly?"

Shinichi frowned, turning his gaze from the prisoner to his friend - and then froze. "...Oh."

"Go call the cranky genius," Hattori said, nodding; Shinichi already had his phone out and was holding up one finger for silence.

* * *

"Kudo-kun?" Haibara Ai frowned, shifting her phone handset to her shoulder, and picked up the micropipette which she had laid down to take Shinichi's call. "This is your secondary phone."

"Yeah, I know, and you can give me the security lecture later, okay, Haibara?" Her patient sounded imptient with her, which Haibara found utterly ironic; it was Kudo-kun whose behavior - shrugging off the use of 'Shinichi's' phone to discuss Black Org matters, for a start - was utterly frustrating.

"We might have a problem over here," Kudo continued, and Ai felt the squeeze of a fresh new headache. "I tell you symptoms and you diagnose what I describe, okay?"

"I am already disliking this," she muttered. "Alright, go ahead."

"The patient is acting erratic," Kudo began. "Twitching, babbling nonsensically when we can get him to talk, closemouthed the rest of the time. He's currently sleeping - or seems to be sleeping; he's not responsive enough for sleep and too responsive for a coma. He's been concerned with time, very concerned, and we're thinking he's waiting for some specified time, for something to happen then."

"These sound like basic symptoms of mental illness, Kudo-kun," Ai sighed, rolling her eyes. "I am not here to diagnose every paranoid schitzophrenic in Beika, so if you would-"

"-would wait a moment, Haibara, that's not all." Both had talked over each other, but Shinichi won out; Ai subsided, resolving to listen to Kudo until he was satisfied and then get back to the work she ___should _be doing, rather than babysitting the paranoias of her most disobedient patient.

"Fine then, continue."

"Thing is, we think whatever he was waiting for might just have happened. He's passed just about thirty-three hours since we've had him in custody. And the other thing- he got extremely upset when he found out I knew about them too. I was just trying to bait him, but when he figured it out - and even after it was pretty obvious ___I _wasn't going to hurt him - he was still totally frantic. Something about 'give it to me, you have it.' Can't figure out what that was, do you know?"

Eyes wide and unseeing, heart hammering, Ai clutched the phone tight to her ear and shouted into it, feeling the pressure of each millisecond that slipped away with her words.

_"__Kudo-kun, this is a prisoner__? _Does he know about the Organization? Tell me, does he know about ___us?__"_

On the other end, the idiot detective had the grace to sound sheepish. "Oh. Oops, I meant to mention that. I've just been so fixated on this guy since we took him in, I forgot I hadn't told you yet. Yes, he's an operative actually." Kudo's voice deepened to a territorial growl as he continued, Ai barely paying him heed. "He's the one who shot ___Kid, _actually, he was bragging about it, the slime- said his partner didn't get him, that he's the one who blooded him. I think I was-"

"___Shut up,__" _Ai interrupted, satisfied in a distant way to hear an Osakan chuckle in the background as Kudo bit off his words in mid-breath. "The Organization drugs its members into loyalty. They addict you to it. Full psychological collapse is a permanent effect of withdrawl beyond thirty-six hours, Kudo-kun."

"Oh. Oh, ___fuck__," _the detective breathed, horror in his voice.

"Good, you understand," Ai snapped, trying to calm her own breathing and heart rate enough to allow her brain the blood it needed to _t__hink__. "I _developed one of the addicting drugs. If they haven't changed their formula since I left, I can make him a dose of it.

"Otherwise, he's worse than dead."

"Haibara, you've got to. We finally - we ___have _one of them, Haibara! You have to save him, you have to!" Kudo's voice was definitely shriller than necessary, and it did nothing for Ai's own state of mild panic.

"Silence, Kudo. You are not helping. How long has he been in custody? Be generous with your estimate. It takes me an hour and a half to concoct one dose of the drug. The fastest we could have it in his system is within two hours. Is there any chance that he had a dose on his body?"

"Shit, that's too long, he'll be over by then for sure," Kudo cursed; hard tapping in the background told Ai he was probably pacing, pounding a table in a pointless show of frustration, or both. "He didn't have anything on him, just his clothes and a few cyanide pills, and they sent them down to the lab to be analysed before they destroy them-"

Ai felt her stomach drop. "___Operatives don't carry cyanide, Kudo-kun!__"_

Heiji, watching his friend's face as he cradled the phone close, knew the sound of shit when it hit the fan. He could see it in the other detective's eyes and in the way his shoulders tightened up defensively, in the way his knuckles stood out white through the thin skin of his hands.

___Wonder if Kudo realizes how he looks when he's hot on a trail? He does that predator thing- if I was the perp it'd scare the living shit out've me._

_And I bet he doesn't have a clue. Ironic much?_

The gist of the conversation had been clear enough. Kudo said something tense and direct to Haibara and hung up. They were in the small hallway outside the cell proper; Shiratori opened the door behind them. "The techs will continue to monitor the prisoner," he told them, frowning. "But if his condition changes for the worse, we'll need to transfer him to a medical facility better equipped to handle the psychiatrically impaired." He trailed off as he saw the other two's faces. "What is it?" Shinichi's explanation made the officer's eyes widen, and he shook his head sharply. "I understand, but- Kudo-kun, you do realize that without analysis we can't simply allow the prisoner to ingest a capsule simply because it ___might__ help? _It could as easily be poison of some sort; just because he _should _have the drug on him doesn't mean that he does." Shiratori spread his hands apart. "We don't even know that the capsules are all of a like kind, not without testing."

Shinichi drew in a deep breath, momentarily closing his eyes. "Shiratori-san, if we don't take this chance, he'll be irreparably damaged mentally within a horribly short time. It may be too late already!" His fists balled up again as he visibly strove for calm. "It's the only chance we have-"

"-HEY."

Startled, two pairs of eyes swung towards Heiji, who crossed his arms and scowled at detective and officer alike. "'Scuse me for buttin' in, but if I'm not mistaken it's ___not your call, _ne, Shiratori-han? It's yer boss' call, and Kudo, he's the one you need to be yelling at. Unless you two LIKE goin' round and round in circles." He raised an eyebrow as this bolt shot home, and Shinichi nodded shortly.

"Point." The detective turned on his heel and strode down the short hall, heading for the small conference room again. Tucking his hands in his pockets, Heiji nodded at the tall officer.

"Might as well give it up, Shiratori-han. Short or tall, Kudo's pretty much the most stubborn bastard I've ever known." The Osakajin followed in his fellow detective's wake, elbowing the door open. "An' this guy, this prisoner of yours... he's the first real lead he's had in more than ___two years. _Don't expect him to do anything but bite down and hold on; you really think he's gonna let the guy's brain crumble if there's a way to keep it intact?"

The officer followed moodily behind, and when he spoke his voice was tight with frustration. "We do _**not **_give untested substances to prisoners, Hattori-san. If he dies, we'll all pay for it."

"An' what happens if he goes batshit insane because you've withheld medication he needs?" Shiratori ground his teeth; as if he had answered, Heiji nodded and continued on. "See? Sometimes you gotta take a leap of faith. You got one prisoner, and you got one-" (still walking, Heiji turned half around and held up a finger) "-ONE- expert on the Org here, a pharmacist; so far Haibara-han's worked some pretty incredible miracles, so I'd say she knows her stuff." The Detective of the West turned away. "In the absence've any other experts, you have to go with what you've got, don't you?"

Shiratori gave the back of Heiji's head an unseen sour look. "The simplest solution would be to leave the prisoner to sleep the symptoms of his delirium off. He's showing no signs of drug withdrawal; and Occam's Razor says that the simplest solution is usually the best."

Heiji made a suggestion regarding Occam's Razor that was, if not quite physically impossible, would at least be very uncomfortable for the unlucky and unnamed person involved. "—besides which," he added, "looks like the decision's been made for you."

A technician in the uniform and blue plastic gloves of a lab-worker was hurrying down the hall towards them; on a small tray she carried a closed plastic container, and both Heiji and Shiratori could see the orange hazmat emblem. The door to the conference room swung open even as she approached; and as the Osakajin and the officer watched, a grim-faced Megure and a triumphant Kudo Shinichi bore the package past them back the way they had come.

* * *

It did little good.

Some, certainly; the prisoner had woken up a little and seemed, perhaps, slightly less disoriented. But his wild, uncomprehending gaze didn't produced much in the way of confidence in anyone who saw it. He'd lapsed back into unconsciousness afterwards; the lab had reported a resounding lack of success in their analysis of the medication, and Shinichi's request that Megure secure at least a small sample of the drug had netted him a total of two small red and white capsules.

___Better than nothing, I guess, _Shinichi thought, staring at the plastic envelope that he'd been handed; he shoved it deep into a pocket_._

"We'll keep him under watch and let you know of any changes," said Megure tiredly as the conference room's occupants depleted yet another pot of coffee; it was now mid-morning, and fatigue was beginning to be a problem. "In the meantime... Kudo-kun? I have a few questions about Saturday night's, ah, irregularities."

"I'll just bet you do," muttered the detective; he rubbed at his eyes tiredly, and Ran looked at him with concern. Shinichi's mother had curled up with her head on her arms some time earlier and Yuusaku looked close to doing the same, but Ran had managed to stay awake by dint of much caffeine. She was fraying around the edges, though, and so was her boyfriend.

Megure was showing the strain as well; he busied himself with a fresh cup of coffee as well before beginning. "Kudo-kun, in light of my promises earlier this morning, I won't ask just how you managed to get, ah, into such an… interesting working relationship with 1412." There was significant emphasis on the word 'working'; Megure officially Did Not Want To Know about anything else, apparently, and Shinichi wondered just what exactly Takagi had told him. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have considered embarrassment… but somehow, just then, it didn't seem important. "I will ask you, though—" and the senior officer pinned him with a particularly sharp stare—"just how useful your, ah, associate will be in the future. Is security going to be an issue?"

The young detective blinked. "An issue how?" Maybe if he just got a little rest, everything would make more sense…

Beside him, Heiji snorted. "Translation: cops don't usually trust known felons t'provide info, and they ___really _don't trust 'em not to fade into the woodwork at the first hint of a risk." The Osakajin shrugged. "Not unreasonable."

"Actually," put in Sato from the other end of the table, "we do work with civilian informants quite a lot. They're just not usually on Interpol's Top Ten Wanted list." Sato sighed. "… he's not going to talk to anybody but you two, is he?" She sounded a little wistful, and Takagi gave her a reproachful look.

Shaking encroaching fogs of sleep from his brain (why was he so tired? He'd slept for most of the trip back), Shinichi shook his head mutely. "If he decides to contact you, you might not recognize him at first. He loves to tease," put in Ran, a little smile crooking the corner of her lips despite her worries. "But… please don't arrest him if he does, Sato-keiji? He's very good at finding things out, and," she hesitated, "he has very, very good reasons for wanting to help." She cut herself off with an almost audible snap of teeth closing on her words, as if afraid the wrong thing would slip out.

"Be that as it may," said Megure dubiously, "how much use is he going to be? If he's wounded—"

Shinichi shook his head again. "Don't underestimate him," he answered wryly. "I promise you, a gunshot's not even going to slow him down. Not now, not with this. Err—Megure-keibu? Have you spoken to Nakamori-keibu?"

The expression Megure allowed to cross his face was fleeting, but calling it a grimace would have been correct. "I have. And he'll have to be factored in—no, I am _not_ saying that he needs to be brought into our confidence, but he'll—" The officer made a frustrated noise. "If he hears that we're even considering1412 as a material witness and civilian informant, we'll never hear the end of it." He sighed. "And then there's that Hakuba-san to deal with… Later. Later." He steepled his thick hands before him, frowning and staring into space. "Our current priorities are as follows: One, keep the prisoner safe; two, secure your own safety, Kudo-kun, Mouri-kun, Haibara-san also…" Megure looked at Shinichi's parents; Yukiko was still curled in sleep and Yuusaku was leaning on one elbow, clearly very close to following, and the officer nodded at them both. "You both as well. I believe we can put you both in a safehouse if necessary, but—"

Yuusaku shook his head. "Megure-keibu, we have any number of acquaintances who'd be willing to lend us their very secure suites at hotels or private buildings in the area," he said fairly steadily. "My wife is currently in rehearsals so she'll need to be out and about somewhat, but I can spend the time working on my writing; it won't be too much of a hardship. If you could make sure that Yukiko's under guard when she travels…?"

"Mrhm. I'll see to it. Now, Kudo-kun, Mouri-kun, as to the matter of your safety, do you have any thoughts?"

Shinichi stretched his legs out beneath the table, trying to work some feeling back into them. The leaden weariness that was flooding his limbs was also clouding his brain, and it was hard to concentrate, but there was something he'd been considering during the drive back. "I'm beginning to believe that we're not dealing with a single faction of the Organization here," he began slowly, "mostly because the one person that I can be absolutely certain of as aware of my dual identity—Vermouth- doesn't seem to have shared it with the rest. There would've been more attempts on me as Conan if she had, and there haven't been. That goes for Haibara as well; she definitely knows where to find us, so the first order of business is to make ourselves unavailable; I don't know what game she's playing, but I doubt falling into her hands would be healthy for any of us." He smiled a little crookedly. "I do actually have a few ideas on how to draw her and the rest of the Organization out, but safety first, I guess." The little noise Ran made beside him indicated her sincere agreement. "We need a location that's close by, one where our presence won't be noticed as anything unusual, with access to police personnel and within secure grounds." He slumped. "I suppose a safehouse might work for short-term, but—"

Shiratori cleared his throat; dry humor made his eyes a little warmer than usual, and his earlier animosity seemed to have been submerged in the needs of the moment. "I may have a solution, Keibu, Kudo-san. You're aware that my family owns a fairly large amount of property in and around Tokyo?"

Shinichi nodded cautiously; the officer, he'd learned, had grown up in a wealthy and influential family—they weren't exactly on Sonoko's zaibatsu-clan level, but they weren't all that far behind.

"Well. The location I'm thinking of in particular is an older estate southwest of Beika-cho out near Tama; its main buildings date back to the early Meiji era, and—" He caught Megure's eye and smoothly switched tracks. "—but my point is that the family tends to use it for guests; only the servants live there now. It has several individual buildings within a very solid wall, and I can assure you that the security system is quite up to date. You'd have privacy and above all safety; it wouldn't seem at all odd for myself and my coworkers to be seen visiting there now and again, and it's close enough to be convenient." He gave Shinichi and Ran a somewhat self-depreciating smile. "I spent much of my childhood there, though I haven't lived there for some time; but I visit it often enough and I certainly see no reason why I couldn't simply move back in."

"I do," said Yukiko unexpectedly; she had woken up at some point in the conversation and now had her chin propped on one palm. "Tsk; you don't want to do anything out of the norm, do you? Calling attention to Shin-chan and Ran-chan by changing your habits would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. A large…" (she yawned) "…criminal… bull. With a gun."

"Makes the job of matador a lot harder, doesn't it?" Heiji nodded at Shiratori. "You got room for one more? 'Cause I'm here for the duration." Shinichi opened his mouth to protest, but his fellow detective gave him a Look. "Don't even start, Kudo. I'm not goin' anywhere."

"..." Visibly, Shinichi considered protesting this, but chose to close his mouth with a frown. "Shiratori-san, while moving in to the estate would be too visibly derivative from your normal routine, there's always the possibility that you might, perhaps, discover that a quantity of family assets are being relocated to the property? You may feel the need to make personal surveys of the staff on a regular basis, since they'll be newly hired and perhaps need further training?"

"Plausible," Shiratori allowed, looking thoughtful. "There would, of course, have to be some level of subterfuge if we were to cast you as servants...obviously, you couldn't be legally employed by my family, since that would require registering your names and place of work."

Yukiko, still draped across her corner of the table, wore a smile that just grew and grew as Shiratori continued his musing. Ran and Yuusaku, while less manic, showed clear amusement too, and Megure muffled a snicker in a cough as Shinichi aimed an expression of polite disapproval at Shiratori.

"Keiji, I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood me. There would be no actual goods to be protected or cared for, so the establishment of actual working roles-"

"-will keep you busy and out of our hair," Shiratori interrupted snippily. Then, clearing his throat, he continued in a more professional tone. "And, my own personal feelings aside, it makes far more sense to allow you to be your own cover story. Bringing in excess personnel just to act out a fiction intended to disguise your presences would simply double the number of new presences in a previously vacant property, and attention would be attracted regardless. You shall simply work as the fiction dictates that you will, and the situation will be far more convincing."

A pause, in which Shinichi's metaphorical jaw dropped. Beside him, Heiji blinked, grinned, and elbowed his friend with a laugh. "I'm good with floors," he offered.

Ran yawned, reaching across the table to steal Yuusaku's half-finished coffee. "I can cook," she said. "Really well."

"I'll help you, dear," Yukiko reassured her, patting her hand and guiding Yuusaku's cup away from Ran's grasp. "Don't drink this, it will rot your throat."

Yuusaku grumbled.

"Ahm." Looking slightly uncomfortable, Megure cleared his throat for attention and leveled the group with an expression that was equal parts serious, bemused, and indefinable. "Leaving the more, ah, domestic assignments until later, I believe this is a very acceptable solution. It is immediately enactable and well set up for long-term extension should the need arise. Shiratori, good work. I'll leave it to you to get the group settled in their new lodgings as soon as is possible; please make sure to be subtle in collecting Haibara-san and Agasa-san."

He looked around the table, conceding enough to his own exhaustion to at least scrub one hand across his brow with a sigh. "We will all benefit from some good rest. Please take care. I'll expect to hear from you as soon as arrangements have been made, or in eight hours."

Eagerly, the group fled the meeting room, breaking into smaller groups. Yukiko and Yuusaku headed back to the house, with Ran in tow, leaving Shinichi to be brought back by a separate car. They would gather only the essential items and immediately leave for a hotel; it was decided that reaching Shiratori's family estate that evening would be both too linear and too challenging, given everyone's exhaustion. Anonymous hotel rooms and carefully intricate driving would have to protect them all for the evening. Sato and Takagi came along - no one, not even Shiratori, could deny that the bond that the pair of officers felt with the Kudo family, as friends and also as protectors, was something best left un-tampered with. Especially, Sato pointed out, because they knew Shinichi so well that even in their exhaustion they would be able to anticipate and intercept anything stupid he attempted.

"I resemble that remark," Hattori laughed, preparing to depart with Shiratori toward his family estate. A clear and uncomplicated route would be the only one that made sense for a son of the estate to visit it; Hattori would go ahead with him, distributing the visual weight of seven new people moving in.

___Well, they think it's only gonna be seven. _ Hattori frowned, tugging his cap low as Shiratori led him out toward the detective's car. ___Kudo might not've even realized it yet, but I know 'zactly what's going to happen as soon as the crazy thief gets wind of this. Even better I'm going out there first... I can learn the lay of the place before ____he____ shows up and starts setting traps in the hallways cause he's bored, or something._

Shiratori opened the driver's door and glanced at the detective; he paused, frowning for a moment as if weighing a problem in his mind. "Hattori-san? Not to be rude, but- if you will...?" He reached into the back seat of the car and retrieved a flat, dark blue cap with a narrow brim; it had a mon embroidered on it, some sort of stylized floral design; Heiji eyed the cap and the hand that held it with some wariness.

"-?"

"Your hat," the officer explained, "is too recognizable. It does you no good to conceal your face in its shadow when anyone seeing it in the company of a police officer is likely to recognize you; you've been in the news a few too many times." He held the cap out. "This was left in my car when I had it detailed two days ago. Now, if you don't mind-?" A little begrudgingly, Heiji swapped hats, stuffing his treasured favorite inside his jacket before trying on the blue cap; it made a poor substitute in his eyes, but Shiratori nodded, satisfied. "Please get used to it, Hattori-kun; you know as well as I do that witnesses who see a person in a uniform remember the uniform better than the face. As camouflage goes, one can do worse."

___Yeah,_ thought the Detective of the West to himself, ___and I wonder how many times Kudo's pet lunatic has capitalized on that?_ He settled the blue cap into place; it fit well enough, though he felt an irrational stab of irritability that it should. ___Never mind. If it works for him, it'll work for me an' Kudo too._

"So," Heiji said, making the best of a bad deal and tilting the cap to shade his face, "tell me 'bout this estate of yours, Shiratori-keiji..."

* * *

.

_And...here we are. Please let us know your thoughts on this chapter; we're very curious. Take care, all, and we'll see you next week with __**Book Six, Chapter Fifteen: "Anything less than lethal results is an improvement."**__ Have a fun week! (and a piece of cake on 5/26/11; it's my birthday!- Ysabet) _


	80. Anything less than lethal results

_Evening, all! Apologies for the late-hour posting - _ **nightengale**_ 's here (along with a number of others) in my (_ **ysabet**_'s) side of the country and we've spent the day soaking in hot springs and stuffing our faces with watermelon and sammiches. It's being a wonderful weekend!_

_And tonight we have an... interesting chapter for you. So much happens; so much of this is necessary, and we'll let you all in on a little secret: any time we post a chapter that has a lot of daily-life-as-it-needs-to-happen, understand that it's crammed FULL of stuff that will prove important. And oh, this chapter is a fine example, believe me. So- please enjoy!_

_And remember, we'll be going on a several-week chapter hiatus after this one; we'll be writing like great big writing fiends, and we'll also be posting the omakes for the winners of the contests and a few other little surprises as well. So take care, all... The Management_

___._

* * *

___**Book Six, Chapter Fifteen**____**: "Anything less than lethal results is an improvement"**_

"Haibara," said Shinichi as patiently as possible for what felt like the thousandth time, "you HAVE to come with us."

"No."

The detective gritted his teeth, hanging onto wakefulness with finger-and-toenails; the whole world felt muzzy. "Look, we can have most of your equipment shipped over in, I don't know, a cleaning truck or something; Agasa's coming, right? Right. So-"

___"No."_

"WH-" Sato cleared her throat, and Shinichi dropped his voice. "Why not?"

Silence. He tried a new tactic. "Haibara, we've

___told__you: things have a good chance of escalating now that Kid's stirred up the anthill. None of us know who in the Organization knows about us- hell, we might be under surveillance by them right now!" He deliberately gentled his voice as much as fatigue and rising crankiness would allow. "I know this place's been a sanctuary for you, but it may not be anymore; you HAVE to leave."_

"I- Kudo-kun, my experiments- my research-"

"-will be packed up and brought along as soon as possible. Haibara, I'll see to it; I promise you. My parents are on the way right now; you can give them a list of what needs to come when you arrive and they'll pass it along to Megure." Chiba had been designated to transport Ai and Agasa and would be arriving there soon; scrubbing at the bridge of his nose between his eyes, Shinichi sighed. Neither the research nor the experiments were the real problem, and rubbing Haibara's face into her own fear and instability wasn't going to help anyone.

___I didn't want to do this, but...__ "Haibara. ____Ai.__" He listened to the surprised silence on the other end of the line and then, steeling himself, used the weapon that he'd held in reserve until that moment. "You know the Professor's not going to allow you to stay alone; he'll refuse to go as well. And... well. There's one person that knows about both you and me, isn't there?" Shinichi dropped his voice, deliberately causing the scientist to strain after what he was saying. "Ai. Do you want Agasa-hakase to be here if- __when__- Vermouth decides it's time to collect you before whatever shit the Organization has going on hits the fan?"_

"..."

The silence this time was long enough to make him wonder if she'd hung up on him; cradling his cellphone against his cheekbone, Shinichi closed his eyes and listened for Haibara's fast, light breathing.

___Still there. Good.__"Haibara?"_

He could hear her swallow hard, just once. "I- Yes. I'll... we'll be ready as quickly as possible, Kudo-kun." The line went dead.

Shinichi and the two officers drove on in preoccupied silence for a little while; the first one to break it was Takagi. "Kudo-kun? Forgive me for saying so, but that sounded a little—" He hesitated.

"Cruel? Manipulative? Yeah. Not like I didn't notice it myself," muttered Shinichi. The necessity to apply fear rather than logic to Haibara Ai's rigid barricades had left a slightly sick, sour taste in the back of his throat. "That's twice today I've been a deliberate bastard for a good cause. Kind of makes me wonder what I'll be like by the time this is all over." He pinched the bridge of his nose again, weary wretchedness welling up in the pit of his stomach. "But they _had_ to come, Takagi-kun; in a way, they're the most vulnerable of all. Vermouth knows where they live, she knows who Haibara really is, and she's a just paralyzes Haibara; I honestly don't believe there's anyone in the world that frightens her more, not even Gin. And Agasa-hakase means a great deal to her, you know? She'll do almost anything to keep him safe." The portly scientist's face drifted before Shinichi's mind, his kind eyes beaming with humor and intelligence. "They were friends even before she shrank; they used to write each other. He was the one she came to when she escaped the Organization, and if I hadn't twisted the knife just now…"

Shinichi opened eyes that he hadn't been aware had closed; fatigue was burning little furrows through his concentration, leaving ashes in its wake. "When she came to Agasa, it wasn't because she shrank herself deliberately; it was because she survived a suicide attempt and had to go ___somewhere." _He heard Sato's intake of breath. "I didn't think you realized that; it's not obvious at first light. Haibara doesn't handle fear very well. Her first impulse is to escape in any way she can, even through death; and… knowing what we do now about the addictive drug that the Organization uses on its members, I can understand why a little better than I did."

Sato turned on her windshield wipers; heavy raindrops were just beginning to spot the glass. "I have to wonder something, though, Kudo-kun. If _all _of the Organization's operatives are addicted in this manner, how did she survive? Did—when she shrank—did that do it? It doesn't seem very likely," she added doubtfully, "but I'm no chemist."

The detective in her back seat watched the slow sweep of the wipers with unseeing eyes. "It might've, I guess; just one more thing to ask her about. It might explain a lot of things, really."

___Like her sister's desperation to leave the Organization; I wonder if Haibara managed to get her a large supply of the drug? Had to've; she wouldn't've taken the chance she did otherwise. God, I wonder how soon they addict new agents? They…__ He heard his own breath catch in his throat as the faces of far, far too many missing children paraded through his mind. ____No. Not that young, they ____**wouldn't**____, would they?_

Of course they would.

They were hitting midtown traffic now, and Sato had to turn her attention back to her driving. Over his shoulder, though, Takagi's worried, thoughtful gaze met Shinichi's for a moment. "Kudo-kun? Are you, ah, going to be all right for a little while longer?" The question in his eyes translated with amusing ease into ___Kudo-kun, are you planning to commit involuntary chemical mutation any time soon, and can you tell me before you do so I can get my panicking out of the way before I embarrass myself?_

Shinichi shifted, settling back against the seat, and smiled wryly at his friend. "I promise you, Takagi-kun, if I feel like I'm about to suddenly drop ten years, I'll let you know." He shrugged, shoving down uneasiness. "And according to what I've been told, you'll probably be able to figure out when it happens by the smell anyway."

Takagi turned faintly green. Neither he nor Sato said very much after that.

They reached the Shiratori estate without further complication, though to say 'easily' would bely the circuitous route which they took to get there. While protecting all of the people involved was essential, Shinichi knew that from a police perspective, he was the lynchpin - the "most" important one. So it made sense that what should have been a relatively brief trip across town took three hours with a stop for coffee.

Made sense, yes. Was any less frustrating- no.

"Yo, Ku-Ah, Chibi!" Hattori greeted Shinichi as he exited the car, flanked on one side by a Sato who was probably hovering more than she realized. Shiratori was at Hattori's elbow, and the pair seemed to have chatted during the past three hours together; the earlier animosity was gone, and Shiratori obviously welcomed Hattori's presence on the estate. Shinichi smiled - you certainly didn't learn Hattori Heiji simply by a first impression, and the Osakan's appreciation and knowledge of traditional family estates, and the traditions associated with them, had probably made itself apparent as Shiratori had shown the high school detective around the property.

___Just wait until Shiratori sees what Hattori can do with a sword,_ Shinichi grinned,_ allowing his friend to support him a little as he wobbled coming in the gate. __It's not a vanity to say he's well-equipped to protect me._

If he was honest, Shinichi would admit that the thought rankled, more than a little: that so many people were becoming uprooted, changing their lives and leaving their homes, taking the sort of action that might seem more appropriate to a wartime scenario, and all because of him. Because they knew him, and by knowing him, were most certainly living in the shadow of the same Sword of Damocles which Vermouth had been holding over his head for over two years.

___Maybe she thinks she'll never drop it,_ he frowned, his body going through the motions as he was shown his room and his mind continued chugging along, heavy thoughts tumbling over each other like stones in a drum. Eventually they'd all grow smooth from the friction, but for now they were giving him a headache. ___Maybe she's tricked herself into forgetting the game will ever end._

___Unfortunately that's not the case. Already Kid may have made her reconsider where she stands, but soon...if she hasn't already, I'll make sure that she does. She's been the 'nicest' to me, if that even applies, but she's more dangerous than any of the other short-sighted grunts we've seen. So I know better than to assume she'll forever continue being amused by her pet 'Silver Bullet.'_

___Eventually - hopefully sooner than later - she'll change her mind and decide that this pet is too dangerous, and needs to be put down. And then...well, maybe whatever comes after, will be less murky than where we are now._

Ran and Shinichi's parents had arrived a short while before Shinichi, Sato, and Takagi had; Ran had been assigned the room across the hall from Shinichi, and nominally Hattori would be sharing Shinichi's. As the couple curled up on a futon together, unconsciously keeping their backs to the corner as Shinichi supported Ran's head on his shoulder with an eye on the door, Hattori and Yuusaku shared a quiet look.

"The room next to ours is very nice," the writer said mildly, nodding at the sliding shoji door of Ran's intended room with a suppressed smile.

Hattori grinned. "Bit smaller'n this one, too, isn't it? I think that suits me just fine."

"Less talking more sleeping," Yukiko muttered, hugging her husband's arm in passing as she tottered toward their room and the futon within. "I stayed awake til Shin-chan arrived. Now I need my beauty sleep. I'm an ___actress, _for goodness's sake."

"Goodnight, dear," Yuusaku called after her. Sato, who had joined the conversation as Yukiko drifted past, raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"It's midday."

Yuusaku nodded. "Yes, and in two hours she'll be awake and demanding scones. But for now..."

Shiratori acknowledged Yuusaku's quiet amusement with a nod. "You do realize that you're both too high-profile to remain here, Kudo-san," he reminded the writer. "It's best for you to stay here until arrangements can be made, rather than returning to your home, but the longer you do stay here, the more you endanger your son's cover, and the rest as well."

"Oh, I know, Shiratori-keiji," Yuusaku agreed, his frown thin but firm. "We will move on as soon as it's feasible to do so. I doubt Yukiko will want to leave until Haibara-san is settled, however...she's developed a motherly fondness for the young woman."

Politely, Shiratori did nothing but blink mildly in response to that. "I can certainly see how," he commented. "She's a very...charming...personality."

Hattori, on the edge of the group, snorted. "Haibara-san? Charming?"

"Ah, I was referring to Kudo-san," Shiratori clarified, his eyes showing the amusement that his tone didn't. "I am sure I didn't mean to be confusing."

"Of course," Yuusaku snickered.

A map of the grounds had been supplied for Ran and Shinichi, and Hattori leaned against a wall beside the bed to study it as well while Shiratori excused himself to take care of Agasa and Haibara's sleeping arrangements in advance of their arrival; the Osakajin crossed his arms, peering over Shinichi's shoulder. "Main house, secondary family quarters and kitchen, buncha little outbuildings for guests, servant's quarters, work-sheds, old stable that's halfway been converted to a garage, decent wall, surveilance cameras and a decent alarm system, four basements, veggie garden, some ornamental stuff..." he murmured, one brown fingertip tracing the diagram. "Nothin' like a dojo, but there's a wide porch on the secondary house that'll do for practice. Place's got WiFi, too, and- Kudo? You listening?"

"...Mmm?"

Shinichi's eyes were closing; his shoulders slumped, and Heiji gently fished the map from lax fingers. The Detective of the West traded a look with the Detective of the East's father, and the two edged quietly out of the room, sliding the door closed behind them.

* * *

Haibara Ai sat quietly on the front stoop of the small outbuilding that she and the Professor had been assigned; from her place beside a tall wooden column she could hear her fellow scientist moving around behind her, unpacking the suitcase he had so hurriedly put together. Her own smaller bag lay, still unpacked, in the tiny four-tatami room that she had been given; barely wide enough for the small modern bed, lamp and dresser that furnished it, she still preferred it over Agasa's larger one. In a small space, she felt less vulnerable.

___...with a given value of 'vulnerable', _of course. Ai stared out unseeingly over the manicured grounds that lay between the guest houses and the main quarters. She'd wait to unpack until the Professor was done, so that he wouldn't poke his head in unexpectedly as he tended to do and see her putting away the small snub-nose pistol she had hidden beneath the bag's contents.

___If Kudo thinks I only have one gun, he's a fool. Unlikely, though; while he frequently allows his more Quixotic moments to override his sense of self-preservation, I doubt he expects the same of me. I could wish that there were more minds turned to our defense; we are not dealing with a common foe, and common security will not defeat them when they find out where we have gone. And they will. They will. I'm certain of it._

In the growing dusk, the small figure brought her knees up, clasping her arms around them in an unusually childlike posture (at least it was unusual for her.) Deep in thought, she jumped, startled, when Hattori Heiji appeared silent-footed on the porch from around the building's corner, carrying two handleless tea cups. He passed one to her and sat down without preamble to dangle his long legs off the porch, kicking at a stray pinecone; his sneaker-clad feet seemed enormous beside her much smaller ones, and as she sipped at the fragrant green tea Haibara eyed him cautiously.

"Been checkin' out the staff," he said easily and with more than his usual familiarity. "They're not quite sure what t'make of us, but I told 'em we were some of his coworker's kids, here to work on a landscaping project." Heiji cupped his hands around the blotched brown ceramic of his cup, blowing on the tea to cool it. "Didn't mention Neechan yet; we'll haveta think of something. You," he nodded at her, "you're Agasa-hakase's granddaughter; he's directin' the project, doing research on how some old garden here was laid out. Hm- maybe Neechan can be his assistant'r something. Me'n Kudo, we're the labor." The idea obviously amused him, and Heiji's green eyes crinkled. "You think Kudo'll stay his right size long enough to make the ruse worthwhile?"

Ai regarded the detective with irritation leavened with a smattering of respect. "I have no idea," she answered; and it ___rankled, _having to say that. "As soon as my equipment arrives, I plan to put him through considerable testing-" ("Kudo's gonna be a freakin' liter short," murmured Heiji) "-but until then I can only speculate." She hid her uncertainty behind the rim of her cup and the steam of her tea; but after a moment she sighed, dipping her head.

"We've worked towards this," she murmured, more to herself than to the young man beside her. "I calculated that it would happen sooner or later, though I had postulated a date sometime next year rather than so very soon. He's barely been receiving the additional Apotoxin for two months! WHY this extended change? WHY hasn't he shown even the slightest indication of reverting back? -and why am I asking ___you?"_

"'Cause I'm here," pointed out Heiji with unerring logic.

As the dusk deepened, small solar-powered lights were coming on here and there in discreet locations; the old Shiratori manor might be antique, but its owners had obviously made a few improvements as they saw fit. One flickered into life near their feet, and the cool radiance washed out all the color from Heiji's face and clothing as he turned to her. "Look. Most've the time I'd say t'just be glad and forget about the whys, but that's not what you do. So Kudo stayed tall unexpectedly; not like you've got a control-group t'work with, but you ___can _kind of make one, can't you?"

Visions of Doctor Frankenstein's laboratory-born creation flitted incongruously through Haibara's mind for a moment, and she wondered just what kind of tea she was drinking. Heiji apparently saw the look on her face, because he flapped broad hands as if shooing away mosquitoes. "Not like ___that,_ Haibara. Like... you know what he should be doin', right? So draw up a model, build a file for somebody who oughta be on schedule and changin' back at the right time. Then draw up a second file with the same data but with him notchangin', and extrapolate backwards to where they diverge." Amused eyes glinted at her through the thin light. "Basic detective work, Tensai-han; you draw up a model of how things shoulda gone, then you fit what really happened against it and look for where the cracks show."

"An imaginary control group," Ai said slowly; the idea had merit. Somewhat to her astonishment, she realized that she was actually enjoying the conversation with the Osakajin.

"Y'could call it 'Kudo's Evil Twin'," suggested Heiji with a disarming grin. "Hell, you got his parents right here, you could get samples've blood off both of 'em too, if you ask 'em right. They're still sleeping, but... and speakin' of which... Do you know why he's so tired? I had to half carry him in t'bed."

She shrugged her narrow shoulders slightly. "I'm not surprised. I ___did_ tell him that he'd pay for the extra energy boost that I arranged for him to receive from his Apotoxin unit; you might think of it as a continual, secondary transformation that overlaps the first." Haibara frowned down at her tea, gnawing on the problem. "It shouldn't have happened, you know- mere physical exhaustion rather than his usual transformation back amidst considerable pain and prolonged unconsciousness, which was what I expected." Beside her, Heiji stiffened; she gave him a cool look. "Please remember, Hattori-kun: Kudo-kun should have diedupon ingestion of APTX-4869. Anything less than lethal results is an improvement."

Heiji mulled this over, fingers stroking the mottled sides of his cooling cup. "Yeah? So why didn't he? Die, I mean." He looked at her, scowling. "Why didn't

___you__die, come t'think of it?"_

"I do not know," she said tightly. "I've focused my research far more on present results rather than past ones; perhaps it's time I should look backwards instead of forwards."

"Maybe you need an Evil Twin too," suggested the detective.

"Hrrm? _Who _needs an Evil Twin?" asked a voice from behind them, "and where did you get that tea?" It was Agasa, wandering out onto the porch in a pair of dark blue house-scuffs embroidered with the Shiratori mon. "I, ah, don't suppose it might have dinner accompanying it?" he asked hopefully.

Heiji hiked one eyebrow up at the grey-haired scientist before squinting at his watch. "Should be about ten more minutes, according to the kitchen staff," he reported. "You wanna wake up the Sleeping Beauties?"

* * *

Agasa had a much easier time of waking the Kudo clan than Hattori would have expected. Yukiko and Yuusaku were perfectly attired and composed when they left their room, arranging themselves at the dining table with a minimum of fuss. Prodded along much like recalcitrant livestock by a rather amused Hattori, Shinichi followed his parents, yawning, and Ran toddled along beside him with more decorum but no less exhaustion.

Contrary to what they'd expected, Shiratori seemed to not mind the crowd of new faces and voices around his family's table. He was quiet through dinner, while Yukiko and Hattori held the discussion's focus and Shinichi, Ran, and Sato focused more on eating and staying awake than on brisk conversation. Takagi, Agasa, Yuusaku, and Ai seemed to stand in a middle ground, neither exhausted nor effusive; and Shiratori was smiling, just a little, and continued to do so through the meal. Conversation focused on harmless things - the whole group seemed to be agreed, without discussion, that there had been enough serious business in the weeks leading up to the events that had brought them there.

___And we'll have enough coming up, too.__ Hattori frowned, glancing around the table at his friends. ____It's enough to just know it's coming, I guess. Kudo and his thief have probably bit off way more'n they realize...again._

* * *

The next days passed tensely. While physically settling in to the Shiratori estate wasn't difficult - in fact, a small contingent of legitimate family staff made certain to attend to the group's needs - emotionally settling in proved more difficult. Half-awake in the morning, Shinichi missed the bathroom doorway by a foot and hit the wall instead. Unluckily, Hattori was there to see him do it.

"Watch yourself there, Kudo," the Osakan laughed, sliding the bathroom door open helpfully. The bow that accompanied the gesture was less than helpful, and Shinichi did his best half-asleep impression of a displeased scowl.

"Stand up," he muttered, toeing off his house scuffs with a wide yawn. "Gettin' waited on hand and foot enough anyway."

"You know it's not actually for politeness, probably, right?" Hattori snickered, catching his friend's eye. "I really think Shiratori-han thinks we're gonna break shit if he leaves us alone."

"Or go off and be stupid with felons again," Shinichi muttered. "More likely, that."

"Couldn't've put it better myself," Hattori agreed. "What? You said it.

"Anyway..." Hattori turned his gaze to a small window at the top of the hallway wall, through which a bright morning sky could be seen. "...It's been a couple days. 'Bout as long as we'll be able to keep Neesan's folks at bay, and more important, way longer'n I thought we'd manage before the crazy showed up again."

"Hey."

"Well, he ___is _crazy," Heiji repeated, amicable. "Anyway, you heard from him?"

Shinichi's glance shifted to the side, a little uneasy, and he slid the bathroom door shut between them. "Nothing important."

In the hallway, Heiji observed the closed door with raised brows. "...Right." A frustrated sigh, and he turned from the door, pacing the hall back toward his room. "Shit. One of these days, I'm going to end up asking the idiot for his phone number. Easier than going through his agent."

* * *

Across town...

"Paging Kaitou Kid? Kaitou Kid, please come to the Why-Did-I-Ever-Think-It-Would-Be-A-Good-Thing-For-Your-Boyfriend-To-Learn-To-Mentally-Prod-Me Line. You have a call waiting."

"Oh, tell him to hold." Kid grumbled, mostly to himself, and rolled fully onto his back, squinting one eye against the grit and dust falling from the underside of the complex computer bank he was currently hacking into. "Do they ever freaking clean this shit?"

"Now now, don't curse," his brother cheerily scolded, from his comfortable position a fair distance above Kid's knees. The thief was stuck half underneath a broad bank of server towers, and Kaito had taken up his incorporeal 'place' in the space beside the towers. Two or three visible "motion-detecting laser beams" crossed through his illusory body; even if they'd been real sensors, Kaito's presence wouldn't have triggered them. As it was, the "lasers" were actually just red penlights duct-taped to the room's far walls as someone's pathetic idea of a deterrent, and just one more proof of the laughable lack of sufficient security measures which this small credit union headquarters could boast.

To be honest, though, the fact that the beams were fake made things less fun for Kaito, as he used one of them as a step, hopping up to "sit" in the cradle of three other beams, arranged at mildly unparallel angles to each other, such that a properly creative and insouciant insubstantial mental projection of a world-class magician might be tempted to use them as a lounge chair.

"It would be so much cooler if these were real lasers," Kaito complained, nudging one of the beams into a better angle with the toe of his boot. Satisfied, he grinned, laced his hands behind his head, and kicked his feet up onto the adjusted beam with a sigh, every inch the indulgent television-ready pose of a man in his element.

"Mental note, when Kaito decides to build himself a man-cave, buy him lasers for his birthday." The monocle protected one of Kid's eyes, and since the other was squinted shut there was no point in rolling his eyes. But even his snark ended up backfiring; a chunk of ashy powder slid off the drive he was currently adjusting and straight into his mouth.

Coughing and spluttering, Kid wriggled out from under the server bank quickly, clonking his head in the process. Once he was sitting and could breathe a little easier, he made a cursory rude gesture in the direction of his very amused brother and sat, sulking, with his back against the grid of towers.

"You suck today," Kaito observed.

"Well, ___yes,_" Kid responded. "What in Benten's name brought you to that erudite conclusion?"

"Ooooh. You suck ___and _you're pissy. You should go see the Tantei."

"I do not need to get laid, Kaito."

"Couldn't hurt," the Magician observed. "Might improve your mood a bit."

Kid rolled his eyes. "It's certainly not ___helping_ that my ever so beloved brother, who has seen and experienced first-hand the very ordinary process of re-balancing our Luck after overdrawing it at least a dozen times in the past two years alone, has for some reason decided that today he's going to mock me into the next lifeabout it!"

"...Ooooh, italics," Kaito remarked.

"GAH!" In complete frustration, Kid pushed himself off the floor of the server room, smacking himself about the arms and legs to dislodge as much of the gathered dust as he could. It didn't help much - his working blacks were more like working charcoals by this point, and disturbing the grit just ended up with more of it in his mouth.

"I hate everything," the thief grumbled, packing up his tools with efficient and automatic ease, while his brother remained comfortably supported by his fake laser lounge chair. "We are leaving."

Kaito raised a brow. "Didn't get the money."

"Don't ___care,__"_ Kid grumbled. "Stupid neglected servers that are stupid decades out of stupid date, how the hell would I have known to bring _steam engine maintenance__ tools _for this freaking job!"

Wisely, Kaito finally chose to keep his mouth shut, floating after Kid without comment as the thief erased trace of their presence and headed for the door. A few feet from the ducting that had let them into the building, the thief paused, frowned, and made an about face.

"Kid...?" Kaito bit his lip, being extremely careful not to let his amusement show. His brother was so amusing when he was pissed off. Like a wet cat.

"Stupid stupid servers," Kid muttered. "Stupid dust." With a hand wrapped in black antistatic cloth, Kid made a fist and swung it left and back, backhanding the fire alarm mounted on the wall with a defiant punch. The alarm screamed, and the overhead sprinklers began to sputter into life.

Satisfied, Kid headed toward the duct, slipping in and closing the grate behind him as though it had never been moved. As he shimmied along the duct's length, headed for a ground-level exit behind one of the service buildings, Kaito was unable to hold back his snickers any longer, and the thief growled while the magician giggled.

When the fire crews came, they would find a completely undisturbed building, with no signs of entry, forcible, unauthorised, or otherwise. In the server room, the shattered fire alarm case would be their only clue...that, and the two hundred thousand dollars of fried, still-steaming computer equipment buried under two inches of very wet dust.

___Knock-knock. Knock-knock-knockity-knock. Knock-knock, knock-knock, knock-kn-knock-knock-KNO-_

"-Ow."

One hand on his hip, the other loosely fisted and withdrawing from Shinichi's forehead, Kid cocked a brow and smiled through the opened window at his irritated boyfriend.

"Well how was I supposed to know you'd open it that fast? You shouldn't keep your forehead that close to an opening door. Things can come through and smack it."

"Obviously," Shinichi muttered, stepping back from the window to let his boyfriend enter. But his crankiness - mostly due to sleepiness, as it was (he checked the clock) 4:37 in the morning - was quickly wearing off. "Hang on, I'll wake Ran. Where've you ___been? _ It's been three days."

"Oh, here and there," Kid answered casually, settling himself with a bit of gingerness onto Shinichi's futon. His thigh was heavily bandaged, showing a lump where the wrappings were under his clothes, but he seemed to be otherwise physically fit. "Hacked into a couple accounts, shifted a few hundred million yen around, left a few red herrings around places, have been sending the doves on recon around the city, discovered a truly excellent resource on a sub-domain of a panty-snatching coalition's website - did you know they catalogue the information and residents of the windows which live across the street from ideal panty targets? Also the ones in the neighboring buildings. Apparently, there's a big business in renting out your living room by the hour. You can charge extra if you have an audio amplifying setup."

"That better-" (yawn) "-not be ___my_ panties you're talking about," murmured a voice from behind Shinichi; lacing her fingers and stretching against the doorway, Ran had managed to wake herself up on her own. Her sleepy eyes smiled a welcome to her less lawful boyfriend. "I wonder if Sonoko's are on the website?" Shinichi's eyes widened and, combing her fingers through her hair, Ran arranged herself on the futon beside the two and explained. "One of her family's employees stole a pair last year from her bedroom and sold them online somewhere; he boasted about it too much and got caught, but they never recovered the panties. She was mortified."Over the detective's appalled snickers, Ran scooted a little closer to Kid and peered at the ridge of bandages. "Are you healing okay?"

The thief kissed her fingertips. "Well enough, though not nearly as well as I might if someone kissed my grievous wounds better for me. Either one of you," he added cheerfully; "Or both. I'd be perfectly content to compare the effects; we could even ask one of your pet scientists to graph out the results for us, maybe write a paper: ___'Comparative Effectiveness of Male and Female Smooches In Regards To Post-Trauma Recuperation.'"_

"I'm not sure I'd want to ask Haibara to do anything right now," answered Shinichi, leaning his chin on Kid's shoulder; his hair was tousled and stuck up in every direction as if the ever-present cowlick had spread across the detective's scalp in his sleep. "Megure arranged for a truck to bring her lab equipment in this afternoon, and she went to work on some new project right away. More blood samples," he said with mock mournfulness, and held up a forearm; the inner elbow was bandaged. "She even got a few CCs from my parents, which is worrying, and asked Kaasan if there were any past samples of her blood in storage anywhere. There wasn't, but Haibara collected some strands from a lock of baby-hair her mother'd kept in a locket from when she was tiny." Kid raised an eyebrow at this and his boyfriend shrugged without removing his chin.

"She asked for more than that," said Ran darkly, also leaning against Kid and settling against his other shoulder. "She asked if your kaasan had her own _kotobuki bako _around anywhere, and she did." Shinichi grimaced. "It was back at your house, but someone'll pick it up tomorrow... and they're getting yours too."

Her boyfriend made a somewhat disgusted face; keeping a child's preserved umbilical cord in an ornate box was an old Japanese tradition, but it had always struck him as just a little gruesome. "What's she going to do with them?" he asked skeptically. "Is she trying to clone us or what?" He nosed Kid's shoulder, breathing in; the thief was wearing his working blacks, and the dark material carried the scent of clear night air in the fibers as well as the thief's own unique scent.

Kid turned his head, rubbing his cheek against his detective's disarrayed hair. "Mmwell... Did she ask for his tousan's too, Ran?"

Their girlfriend tucked up her feet beneath her, reaching across Kid's back to smooth Shinichi's cowlick down. "Yes, but- oh, he said something about it being in storage. In Hawaii? I think so, anyway. Why?" Her voice was still sleepy, and she yawned a second time.

It was Shinichi who answered, though, and his eyes were troubled. "Genetic comparison, probably; she might be able to get some of Tousan's baby-hair too, I think there's a lock in an envelope in our family photo album. Why, though?" He tipped his head back, eyes going a little vague as Ran's fingers began stroking gently. "I'd think she'd be spending more time on the problem with the agent the cops captured..." Kid (who was leaning back against Ran's arm by now) made an interrogative noise, and Shinichi explained about how the Organization collared its agents with addictive drugs.

The prisoner had not improved in the slightest; if anything, he had deteriorated somewhat, his physical health losing ground as his mind lost coherence. He had been moved in all secrecy to a very small, very private, ___very _secure medical facility and was currently under heavy guard. His babbling had produced nothing new; he had become increasingly violent, attempting to harm himself when unable to reach anyone else. "According to Haibara, chances are good he's undergone irreversable brain damage," said Shinichi unhappily; by now the trio had settled in a kind of curled-up pile, not so much for any erotic reasons but simply for the security of warmth and touch. The futon was thick and comfortable, laid out in the traditional manner in the center of the room; Shinichi and Ran had chosen to sleep separately that night due to the latter's studying her college course material ("If I can't be on campus, at least I can complete the online classes," she'd said) into the wee hours.

Sprawled between his two lovers and taking up a considerable portion of the futon rather like a cat attempting to snuggle against both of his humans at once, Kid sighed and thumped the mattress with the heel of his good leg. "It answers quite a few questions, doesn't it though, Tantei? I wonder if Tensai-chan might be able to come up with a more permanent cure for the addictive drug? Much as I would like to see its members reap what they've sown, it'd make a good bargaining chip, wouldn't it?" He thumped the mattress again, this time with the heel of his ___bad_ leg. "...ow. I, ah, meant to do that."

Ran kissed his forehead and then pillowed her head on his chest. "Of course you did. Kid? Is- how is your mother doing?"

"She's...well, she's..." Searching for words, the thief looked from Ran to Shinichi without finding what he needed, eyes wide. "It's crazy, because I've never, never seen her like this before - but somehow, it's not completely foreign."

"Like this?" Shinichi looked alarmed, his posture immediately tensing. "Is she alright? Did something-"

"Happen, yeah." Obviously amused with his boyfriend's paranoia, Kid nevertheless couldn't shake the preoccupation from his face or voice. "I think - putting it really simply - she realized she'd become somebody she didn't want to be. So she fixed it. Or, well. Undid it."

Lacing her fingers tight with Kid's, Ran could feel her cheeks straining with her grin. "Is that what happened, that morning? At the hotel room? You both looked...startled. And Jii-san was starting to cry."

"Kaito kind of recognizes her. From a long time ago." The thief flexed, stretching his spine, and let both shoulderblades flop onto the futon with a satisfying thud. "He says that she used to be, um." Kid blinked, rolling his head to the side to meet Shinichi's eyes sheepishly. "How do I say this without insulting my kaasan?"

The detective laughed. "I think we get what you mean. Ran and I were worried about her when we met her the first time. She's...more confident now?"

Kid grinned. "Tactful! Yeah. She's...wow. Kinda scary actually. And kinda...weird, actually." The thief pushed himself up, lurching up to a sitting position with no small amount of help from Shinichi, since Kid only had one functional leg to counterbalance himself with. He caught Ran staring at his abs as he accomplished the half-crunch, but simply smirked and continued. "It's...it's like I'm looking into the past.

"It's obvious Kaasan used to be like this, when Tousan was still alive. And it makes a lot more sense now, how they would have been together, how they must have worked with each other, playing off each other. A really good team. Kaito has memories - kind of fuzzy ones, though. It's weird, you'd think an eight-year-old's memory would be a bit more reliable than that. But everything from before Tousan's death is fuzzy...like looking through milk glass."

"That's not weird," Ran said, stroking Kid's back gently. "It was...the worst thing that's happened to either of you. It was the ___first_ thing that happened to you! So...that, plus the weirdness of suddenly finding a brother in your head...it makes sense that things would go blurry."

"Well, one way or another, Mom's kickass now!" Kid's laugh was probably louder than it should have been, given the hour, but he grinned brightly at the others, eyes absolutely gleaming, and they needed only to glance at each other to form their plan. In seconds, the thief was tackled flat, his wounded leg immobilized at the hip to protect it while the rest of him was mercilessly attacked with tickle-kisses.

"How does this- ack, stoppit!- Gah!" Kid squirmed and laughed, kissing and wiggling back, though with Ran's full weight planted on his hip to keep his thigh immobile and remind him not to hurt himself, he wasn't really making significant progress. "Mmph, like I was saying- Ack! How's this have anything to do with the conversation at hand?"

"Not a bit," Ran cheerily informed him, tugging the edge of his shirt up to kiss his belly.

Nodding in agreement, Shinichi nuzzled the thief's throat, heading for the spot behind his ear. "You just looked...well."

"Right," Kid panted, chest rising with a deep breath. "Next time, don't-kkhhaugh!" Shinichi and Ran both pulled back as the thief fell into a sudden and rough coughing fit; he didn't gain control of it for several long seconds, until he turned partway onto his side to let gravity help. Eventually, he quieted, spit onto the sleeve of his shirt, and wiped his mouth with a scowl. "Ahem. Hm."

Ran and Shinichi blinked.

"What? I choked."

"On...?"

"Um."

"And you kind of fell over, earlier."

"And you yanked your leg earlier, even though I ___know _you didn't forget about the wound."

"Um."

The conclusion came to them both at the same time. Ran started giggling while Shinichi fixed Kid with an excessively smarmy look. "The cost this time! You're a ___klutz _today, aren't you?"

"___No,__" _Kid protested reflexively, flushing red. Then, eyes widening, one hand came up to feel his hot face while his scowl deepened. "Dammit. Yes. Not- not like a normalklutz. Just...like a normal person would be."

"Are you calling us klutzy, mister?" Ran smacked his shoulder, her glower ruined somewhat by the sparkle in her eyes.

"No. Yes. Um. Dammit. And don't you even ___start _on me, Tantei, believe me, I've already heard it all and then some from a very insolent server room - may Benten thrice damn its stupid godforsaken routers."

Shinichi leaned forward again to settle himself on top of the thief, elbows planted on Kid's ribs and fingers laced beneath his chin. "I take it you didn't exactly do your banking through a teller window," he murmured, slowly allowing his weight to come to rest a little more each second. "Several hundred million yen, wasn't it? Was ___that _what the cost was for?" Amused eyes fixed on the other's, he was peripherally aware of Ran sliding closer. "Klutzy, hmmm... and you risked coming to see us anyway? We should show our appreciation, shouldn't we?"

___"Get 'em, Ran!"_

Terrible, tickling fingers that had wreaked havoc on both Conan's economy-sized ribs and Shinichi's larger ones attacked in earnest, and Kid squawked in protest, twisting beneath Shinichi like a f- well, like a very slippery thing in a net. It didn't last long, but the noise generated ended abruptly as a hand smacked hard on the other side of the dividing wall to the futon's left.

"Gaahh! ___SOME_ people around here like t'get their rest, y'know," said a loud, Osakan-accented grumble through the plaster and wood. "SOMEpeople keep reasonable hours an' don't show up at godforsaken- WHAT time is it?" There was another thump, sounding remarkably like an alarm clock being hurled across a room. "Well, fuck. -you three decent? Or is that a stupid question?"

"I'll put my pants back on for you, Tantei-ha-aaaaack ack ack ack okay okay I'm sorry, I'm clothed, Ran, ___please!__"_

Three pairs of eyes looked at each other. "And anyway, _are _we decent?" Kid wondered out loud, laughter battling it out with gasps for breath. "It's a very delicate question. Since we're a bit pr_e_ssed for time I suppose we are, but if you'll give us just a few minutes I'm sure we can remedy that..." Ran's fingers threatened his ribs again and he eeped. "We're decent! We're decent! ...shame, though."

The door slid open on its track almost soundlessly; not so soundless was the snort of amusement that Hattori Heiji made a moment later, leaning on the doorjamb and viewing the recumbent thief. He slipped inside and closed the door with a click, eyebrows rising. "'Spose I oughta be glad you're all still dressed," he remarked casually. "An' Kudo? Does this count as a capture or what?"

"Not between heists. Rules," his friend informed him, grinning down into deep blue eyes as he slid carefully off. "Sorry we, ah, made so much noise."

The look of withering cynicism and disbelief he got in return for this blatant untruth was enough to scorch the air, but all Heiji did was wave a hand. "Yeah, yeah, whatever; s'okay. I got a riddle to ask you anyway." Back flat against the wall, Heiji slid down to sit crosslegged on the tatami matting. "So: What's blond and sneaky and likes to skulk at bus stops at weird hours? Wearin', I might add, a ___brown_ trench coat, not a black one."

Before Hattori had even finished speaking, a heartfelt groan and ___thud! _drew everyone's attention to the thief in the middle of the room with his arm thrown across his eyes in theatrical distress. "Oh, Goddess, I had nearly forgotten I had to deal with him still."

Shinichi blinked. "You have a fanclub you haven't told us about?"

Kid lifted his arm, aiming a mild glare in his boyfriend's direction. "The ___Brit__, _Tantei. Actually, I ought to say the Brit Tantei. ...I'm only surprised it's taken him this long to come sniffing around. Ugh, but I doowe him one." Kid scowled, sticking his tongue out with a cat-like 'pleh' noise.

"That felt gross just to ___say __it."_

Ran slipped a hand in and poked Kid in the sternum. "Behave. He DID help you get away... sort of. Didn't he?" She sat up, tucking her legs beneath her; all three of the room's more lawful occupants were wearing variations on sleepwear of one kind or another, and Ran tugged her loose pajama-top a little more securely into place. "Shinichi, ___you _were going to talk to him too, you said." The groan the detective made nearly matched Kid's, but she ignored it and fixed Kid with a Look. "Maybe you both ought to talk to him at the same time? And... um." Ran looked sideways at Heiji, hesitated, and then said very cautiously, "...what about school?"

The thief blinked. "School?"

"SCHOOL. Classmates, absences, truancy charges… you know, all those little things that we kind of forget to worry about but that ___other people-"_ (Ran did air quotes with her fingers) "—are good at keeping track of? SCHOOL." She sighed. "Whydo I have to be the Voice of Reason here again?" she appealed to Heiji.

"Oh. School." Looking around the room, Kid found three confused faces and no comprehending ones; with a frown, he tried again, exaggerating his emphasis. "School. Remember? I...oh." Blink, blink. "I didn't tell you I dealt with that already, did I."

A low growl of frustration from Ran's direction answered that for him. "Oh. Um. I did!" Beaming, he grinned at each of the others in turn. "It's all taken care of."

"___What__," _Shinichi tried again, "Exactly, does 'taken care of' mean?We don't even know what you've been telling Hakuba in the mornings!"

"Mornings?" Kid looked alarmed. "Why would I be seeing ___his_ face first thing in the mornings?"

"Did ___not _need that mental image," Hattori groaned, waving both hands in an emphatic 'shut up' gesture. "That was definitely on my list of never want to imagine again."

"What?" Kid batted his eyes. "The idea that you're the only famous young tantei not tapping a piece of this _**OW!**__"_

Ran rolled her eyes, sighing at Shinichi, as she smothered Kid with her hands. "Shinichi, where's the duct tape?"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Squirming free, Kid stayed both Ran's and Shinichi's frustrations with a hand to cover their own. "I said I took care of it because I took care of it. I dropped out of school."

Silence.

"Well, officially, I'm studying under a private tutor, but I don't actually expect many people to believe that without proof, and they won't be getting any since the house isn't exactly a wander-in-whenever sort of place."

More silence.

"...Please tell me you're not actually confused? This was the obvious choice - I can't go wandering around with a gunshot in my leg, that's too obvious - and the idea of school for us - well, for me - is going to be so obsolete in a very short while that it's really just bumping the schedule up by a month or two...Okay, stop

___looking__ at me like that, ____what?__"_

Ran dithered, biting her lip. "Well, Kid, it's-"

"Hakuba knows," Shinichi cut in, his tone careful. "That's pretty much inevitable since the heist. There's a question as to how many other people you want to-"

The thief blinked. "Oh! Is that all?" He addressed his attention to Hattori, blue eyes flashing in a bit of light from the window. "Kuroba Kaito, otherwise known as Kaitou Kid, third year student at Ekoda. You know where that is?"

Hattori nodded slowly. "Yeaaaah...?"

Kid seemed satisfied with this, and nodded once more. "Good. Okay, now ___that's_ dealt with as well..." Back to Shinichi, and this time the thief's gaze ___dared _his boyfriend to show alarm or fear. "What next?"

"You- that- Oh, god, Kid." Frowning, Shinichi squeezed Kid's shoulder, about as affectionate as he felt comfortable with in front of Hattori, and let his forehead thump against the thief's collarbone. "You're going to make me go grey."

"Won't be the first man I turned salt-and-pepper."

"About that," Ran said quietly, touching Kid's good knee carefully for his attention. "Obviously, whether Hakuba-san knows or not isn't so much an issue, since he hasn't arrested you yet. But, ah...well..."

Kid sighed, his tension only visible in his eyes. "There's no reasonable precaution which could be taken to circumvent that, and certainly none inexpensive enough in mental power or equipment that it'd be worth it."

Hattori blinked. "Okay, I'm only partial lost here in general, but that one just threw me - equipment?"

"Made a robot of myself once," Kid explained, grinning past one of the others' shoulders. "Actually, more than once. Good fun."

The look that the Kansai detective awarded Kid with brought downright disbelief up to the level of Performance Art.

___"Yeeeeee~__ahhhh..._ right, ___robots. _Don't wanna ask, don't wanna know. Or not right now anyway." He cleared his throat, green eyes sharpening. "I take it you got bigger complications at your school than just the Brit with the stick up his ass, huh? -no, no details, like I said, I don't wanna know." Heiji reached up to adjust a non-existent baseball cap before dropping his hands into his lap. "Was thinkin', though," he added thoughtfully, "if you're worried about school an' all, you could always get whats-her-name with the FBI to tutor you. You know? The one with the-" He held out both hands in front of his chest, palms rounded, grinning as Ran squeaked.

"JODIE-SENSEI! Shinichi, we forgot about her!"

Her boyfriend shifted uncomfortably. "No we didn't. Or I didn't, anyway; she emailed Haibara yesterday, said she'll be by tomorrow afternoon at three." Shinichi had the grace to look embarrassed. "I, ahh, meant to mention it, but..." The mention of yet another female acquaintance triggered a question he'd meant to ask Heiji earlier, and he frowned at the other detective. "Hey, Hattori? Have you heard from Kazuha-kun? Have to admit, I'm kind of surprised she hasn't done her best to track you down too." Mental images of Hakuba, Jodi-sensei and Kazuha all pounding on the front gate of Shiratori's family's estate at the same time made him twist around and peer past both his lovers in sudden suspicion. "So- why isn't she? Did you two have a fight?" Ran elbowed him, but Shinichi shook his head. "If she's going to show up in Beika and start visibly searching for him, we need a little warning. Hattori?" He blinked in alarm. "Uh... Hattori?"

For Hattori Heiji had dropped his face into his hands with a groan. "S'not gonna come lookin'," he muttered through his fingers. "Just- don't ask, okay?" Oddly enough, he seemed more resigned than anything else. "Don't ask. This's one thing I am NOT talkin' about."

Alarmed silence. "Hattori-kun...?" asked Ran tentatively. "Are you alright?"

Heiji refused to look up. "Oh, just ___peachy,"_ he said, muffled, but there was enough humor in the word to make Shinichi's shoulders relax a little. Beside him, Kid made an inquisitive, birdlike noise in the back of his throat and Hattori groaned again, allowing his hands to slide free. "Don't you goddamn DARE go lookin' into it, Thief," said the Detective of the West with a heated glare. "Just- she's gonna keep back for a while, or she _says _she is." He crossed his arms defensively. "An' that's what I want, Kazuha out've the way of... everything. Kidnappings. Bullets. Unbelievably stupid ideas, what the FUCK was she thinkin'..."

Grinning - but making the admirable effort to hold his peace and avoid ruffling Hattori's feathers any further - Kid instead turned his attention back a topic.

"So, Jodie-sensei? She's, ah, a talented teacher, yes? Quite a few assets she could show me-OW!"

"Deserved that," Ran declared plainly, flexing her fist as if to clearly say, ___And I'll hit you again if you make me._

"So I did. ANYway. Tantei. Do you think Jodie-sensei would mind me sitting in on the classes, when I've got the free time to do so?"

"Don't see why," Shinichi said. "Think you'll be around much, though?"

"That depends." The thief frowned, his humor fading, and met Hattori's eye with a wry smile. "You're not the only one with lady problems, you know."

Hattori, eyes widening, looked from Ran's unsurprised face back to Kid's offhand one. His own brow drew down sharply, anger suddenly building. "You'n I might have our differences but don't you DARE try an' tell me to my face you're messin' around on Neechan, cause that's-" He looked to Ran again - who was still not worried - and then to Shinichi, who was somewhere between not-worried and a failed poker face.

"I am not," Kid said, voice pitched to quiet Hattori's, "Messing around on Ran or Shinichi. Except with the other, but they're usually there for that, and I can't say that I've had any compla-"

"

___KID.__"_

"-ints about my abilities to address all the emotional needs of my friends, and my friends' friends. However...

"Well, I've a few classmates I'm avoiding, not just Hakuba-san."

With a groan, Hattori clapped his hands over his ears. "Dammit, Thief-"

Kid blinked. "Ooooops."

Flopping back onto the bed with a sigh, Shinichi rolled his eyes. He held up his hands, framing an imaginary sign with his fingers and scribbling equally imaginary kana with a digit. ___"'NOTICE: VISITORS TO KUDO, HATTORI AND MOURI, ESQUIRES, PLEASE TAKE A NUMBER; YOU WILL BE KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS AND DRAGGED INSIDE IN THE ORDER THAT YOU ARRIVED. THANK YOU.'" _The detective rolled his eyes. "Heiji? If we're not upset, you don't need to be. Okay? Trust us on this." He gave the other a weak grin. "Between physical instability, open gunfire and doubtful future security, I think we've got enough on our plates right now without inviting more, don't you?"

"And anyway," (said Ran a bit more prosaically) "Kid wouldn't do that kind of thing to us."

Hattori sighed, rubbing his temples; the futon was looking really good right now, just as an option to lie the fuck down. It was what, five am? Way too late - early - whatever - for this kind of stuff.

"Kudo, aside from the idiot trying to make me misunderstand things on purpose, did you just miss the part where he just now said that-"

"Not that it matters," Kid sighed, flopping forward onto his stomach. Burying his face in the futon cover, the thief sighed with his whole body, and sank into the mattress like a melting ice cube as the breath left him. "Dammit. Still paying costs. A show like that doesn't come for free, you know," he added, lifting his head to stare earnestly at Hattori, one finger raised educationally. "Resources! Endless resources."

Flop.

"So...aside from all of us exasperated an' tired an' a little irritated, where's that put us?" Hattori tried again, his expression wry and a little more familiar than he knew when Kid looked up to meet his eye. "I got a crazy best friend who's stayin' put at home - for now - and you two've - er, three've - got a British nutter on your tails."

"And I have another two ladies who are going to need to have Words with me," Kid added listlessly, pointed finger raised and wobbling emphatically in the air beside the back of his head. "And Tantei-san has a few whole police departments who'd probably like to ground him and take away his television privileges."

"And the, um, trenchcoats are after us all, probably," Ran added helpfully, hesitating only as she devised an on-the-fly substitute for actually speaking the name of the Org.

"And a partridge in a freaking pear tree." Shinichi sighed, drooping both arms across his face in a posture of utter mental exhaustion. "No big deal, right? We've got this."

"Right," Hattori said, not sounding convinced. Ran kicked Kid lightly.

"Come on, Kid, tell them."

"...Right," the thief muttered.

Ran looked to the others, her hopeful face falling slowly. "...Right."

* * *

.

___.  
...and that's it for now, ladies and gentlemen! Worried? Fearful? Don't be; we have tons and tons in store for you, and we promise we'll be back to chaptering as soon as possible. Have a wonderful week, and keep watching; there's more to come. **bows** _


	81. Omake 'Death, Please'

_Surpriiiiise! :D We did tell you we weren't posting a chapter today - but we weren't about to leave you hanging, would we?_

The treat tonight is a _**prize**__, actually, the first of the TT 1st Anniversary omake prizes. This one goes to our Trivial Pursuit Quiz First Prize Winner __**joisbishmyoga**__, who requested, when asked to pick cake or death: "Death! Can I die horribly please please pleeeeease?"_

Dear Jo... we aim to please. :D :D

.

* * *

_**TT Omake - Death, Please**_

_(warnings for gore and Conan being a freakin' scary little tantei)_

.

It was a remarkably messy murder. The copier would never be the same.

Conan stood quietly off to one side of the small office, listening to one of the building's security guards being sick into a trashcan; for that matter, he felt pretty sick himself. There was a _lot_of blood; it ran in messy runnels down the plastic sides of the machine, pooled on the clear anti-static mat beneath it and soaked the carpet in a sticky, squelching mess. In fact, it had been stepping on that carpet and hearing the squish underfoot that had set the security guard off. And it'd been the second time he'd stepped in it, too; that was going to cause all sorts of hell for Evidence Retrieval, but what could you do?

Takagi and Megure had just arrived; Ran was still talking to them, white faced. They had been on their way back from the doctor's when they'd heard the scream, and when a uniformed man trailing wet, bloody footprints runs out into the corridor in front of you with a horrified look on his face, you generally have a pretty good idea what's going on.

Well, if you're Edogawa Conan you do. These things happen.

An adult human body contains just over five and a half liters of blood; that's enough to fill a smallish cooler, two large shoe-boxes or half a standard desk trash-can. Allowing for the small amount still retained in the corpse's tissues, it made more than a modest pool around said corpse, which belonged to a young woman in her twenties- Ido Aijou, a temp clerk just trying to get by in the world like everybody else. She had made it to the copier and had clung there with her one good hand for a few minutes before succumbing to the blood-loss that had killed her; her glasses lay beside her on the floor, sticky and spattered like pretty much everything else in the vicinity.

Her right hand, however, lay several feet away in its own exclusive puddle; the fingers were curled slightly, markedly pale. And the blood was fairly fresh—less than an hour old, surely, not yet beginning to separate out into plasma and heavier elements. Whoever had killed her had used the large paper-cutter next to the copier to do the deed- the thing's heavy metal arm and blade were stained and ugly.

"Looks like she left her cellphone behind and came back to get it," muttered Takagi out of the side of his mouth to the small detective next to him; it wouldn't do for him to be too overt about passing along information, there were too many people around that could overhear- building security guards, upset clerks from the office next door craning their heads in through the open double doors, several construction workers from the new stairwell-installation down the hall, even a uniformed repairman of some kind peering in, face greenish. "She told the parking-lot security guard she'd be just a few minutes and then never came out; he got his relief to take his place and came in to take a look."

"Hm." The boy frowned at the smeared footprints on the carpet; they led from the soaked patch around a counter and out through the front desk exit, the width between each blotched tread-mark indicating that the man had been running. Takagi followed his gaze and frowned as well. "You see that?" asked the boy. The officer nodded; there were scuffed little crescents along the same path, the kind of mark you'd get from the toe of a shoe that had, say, caught just a spatter of blood.

"They're in the hall as well, but they fade out at the men's room," murmured the young officer beneath his breath; the corner of Takagi's mouth crooked up faintly as he acknowledged the not-so-amusing fact that the murderer had almost certainly clued them as to which sex he was by an act of habit—panic made people fall back on routine behaviors more often than not. "And we found a smear on a stall tile; the culprit probably rinsed his shoes in the toilet and flushed any evidence."

"Mmhmm." Conan glanced back at the crowd in the hall. "I don't suppose the hall security cameras caught anybody leaving, did they?" The ironic look the officer gave him answered that. "Didn't think so. And they're probably out in the hall right now, trying to look innocent." …_or trying not to throw up. Even if this was a crime of passion, it must've been horrific._

The room smelled of blood; moreover, it smelled of _cooked_ blood—some of it had spilled down inside the copier's workings and was currently busy clotting among the wires and circuitry. Nothing had shorted out yet, and the boy raised up on tiptoes to peer at the enormous machine. As copiers went it was truly huge; the vertical touchpad showed practically every function imaginable, from scanning to binding to faxing, all of it preprogrammed and brightly illuminated. A pity the screen was so smeared—

_Smeared. _Not just spattered, those were fingerprints. Unconsciously, Conan moved forward, trying for a better view… only to be caught at the shoulder by Takagi's warning hand. "—don't step in the—!"

_Aaack! _The miniaturized detective looked down, swallowed hard, and stepped back. "Takagi-kun, look at the touchpad."

The other's face was grim. "I see it…" He sighed, pulling a pair of sterile gloves out of his pocket. "Conan-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to start another betting pool."

"Really? What about?" Conan craned his head. There was a smudge on the lower left corner below the touchpad, a vivid zig-zag blot across the touchpad's entire screen, a smear on the lower right edge that looked like part of a handprint—

"Do you have any idea how many murder investigations I've been in on where the victim _doesn't_ leave a 'dying message' as compared to how many I've been on where they have? And do you know how many of them you've been involved in?"

The boy returned his ironic look with one of his own. "Don't tell me the answer; I might want to buy into that one." He pulled a pair of child-sized gloves from his pocket, beginning to roll them into place.

* * *

Ran rummaged around in her purse, looking for her cellphone; it had managed to migrate to the bottom of her purse, and she fished it out by the spiky little charm that lived on the end of its cord. _Beep be-de-deepdeep-dedeeeeep..._"Tousan?" She took a deep breath. "Conan and I'll be a little late getting home from the doctor's..." There were irritated noises. "I'm sorry, we- got caught up in something, Tousan, and we'll be home as soon as we can." She looked over her shoulder; she could see Takagi-keiji, he was-

She stared.

-was holding Conan up off the floor, his hands hooked under the boy's arms, so he could get a better look at something. _Probably something clue-shaped._ She felt one eyebrow climbing as the officer shifted his grip, raising the small body a little higher. _Shinichi, how do you manage to get mixed up in these things?_

The phone was making sharp, annoyed sounds at her. "-uh. Sorry, Tousan. No, we'll- we're fine, it's just-" There was a faint _splat!_ from the office and a dismayed exclamation. "-Tousan, I have to go. We'll be home in a few hours, bye." _Click._

_...at least I hope we will._

* * *

"That was absolutely disgusting, Kudo-kun."

"I know. I'm _sorry,_okay? I was just trying to see—"

"If you hadn't wiggled I wouldn't have dropped you!"

"I said I was sorry, Takagi-kun. YOU try investigating a crime-scene when you're barely more than a meter tall some time, okay? And at least you don't have to wear these shoes home….. Eeeeuugh. On second thought, I'd better take them off; we don't want any more prints on the carpet than we've already got."

The two surveyed the crime scene from their respective heights while the blue-uniformed photographers took their shots and several techs removed samples of blood, carpet fibers and other evidence from the scene. The child-sized footprints that now impacted the edge of the bloodsoaked pile received grumbles and annoyed looks from the techs as they worked, and one of them, a scruffy-looking photographer with a rather weedy moustache, made a couple of remarks about 'clumsy junior officers and their mascots' that probably would've been better off left unheard. The man knelt down to get a better shot of the smear patterns halfway down the copier (a long, sliding handprint trailed down to the corpse's own fingers like something out of a horror movie) and glanced up at the pair. "Sumimasen, keiji... and, um, kid... but I need to get a couple more shots here. You mind?" He adjusted his flat cap.

Putting on the Conan face, Shinichi shrugged and scooted sideways. "Go ahead," he said, and made a face. "Watch where you step, though, it's pretty messy here."

The man shrugged. "Seen worse," he answered laconically, steading his camera; the hem of his navy uniform slacks dipped against the sodden carpet, and he grimaced as a wet blotch bloomed on the cuff. "Cold water and baking soda," the photographer said with a shrug. "No problem."

Shinichi didn't mean to, but a bit of his true, wry amusement leaked through the Conan face at that. "Can't say I've had much luck with that one once the bloodstain dries," Conan opined, his cheerful, gregarious child's voice making the statement all the more incongruous. "I use WD-40 sometimes! But it's a little hard to find in Japan. It was easier when I lived in America with my parents."

Slowly, the photographer looked up from his shot, his expression very wary. If he and Conan hadn't both been poised carefully at the edge of a pool of blood evidence, he might have attempted to edge away from the earnest nine-year-old watching him expectantly. As it was, Takagi edged closer, hooking two fingers into Conan's collar and tugging him a safe distance away from the photographer and Aijou-san's body.

"You," he began, voice laced with a mixture of absolute, profound irritation and worried dismay; but Shinichi's face, half Conan-innocence and half Shinichi-impatience, made him lose the rest of his sentence. _Tampered with evidence, probably - __certainly__ - has lied to at least two of the techs here to solicit further information, and who knows what he'll get up to as soon as I let go of him - until this case is closed, and somehow I know it will be before we even leave this __building__, he's going to be absolutely incorrigibly difficult to explain. Seems like since he let us all in on the secret, it's gotten __harder__to keep the rest from noticing, since he slips up with the little kid act more and more._

_...And Wataru, you shouldn't actually be upset that the case is going to be solved by day's end. That's supposed to be a good thing. Remember?_

Takagi sighed to himself, rubbing his brow with the hand not currently leashing Shinichi to the spot. The child in his grasp was still squirming, acting more like his apparent age with each moment.

_...And if I feel this petty about it, I can't imagine what Shiratori-san and the rest feel. Even Miwako gets touchy, sometimes._

"...go of me let _go _of me, Takagi-keiji, I have to..."

"Are you going to climb out of your shirt to get back over there?" Takagi asked the small detective, lifting upward slightly to pull the back of Shinichi's feet off the floor and focus his attention. Takagi had intended amusement, but the bright expression he got in return to his suggestion made his stomach drop.

"...I'm going to regret this," the officer sighed. Conan - Shinichi - beamed, and Takagi closed his eyes and opened his grip. The quick patter of small feet, then the insistent _"Ne! Ne ne ne ne, ojisan, what's THAT?"_...then the sharp intake from one of the techs, and a babbling discussion from several adult voices and one childish voice that nevertheless managed to dominate them all...

Well. Maybe he wouldn't regret it _that _much.

* * *

"...And you think that we should call in this employee for questioning in a murder case based on...?"

"The opinion of this child. Yes." Takagi kept his gaze and voice level as he addressed the Goudatsu office manager responsible for the floor where Aijou was murdered.

"I might remind you, Manager-san," Megure added, "That we wouldn't ask you to bring Takeo-san in to speak with us unless we had good reasons to desire his company." Though Megure was standing off to the side, and had been discussing something with Ran and one of the forensic techs while Takagi addressed the manager, his interjection was pitched gently, obviously intended to be more of a friendly second opinion than the voice of looming authority. That tone helped; with a bit of guidance from Takagi, the manager called up one of the building's electricians, Takeo Samoshii, who had been finishing up his shift around the estimated time of Aijou-san's death.

"Please be brisk about it," he said, glancing nervously at the police listening in to the call, as the other end of the line buzzed with an irritated voice. "I would like to finish up your paperwork and, ah, tie up loose ends."

* * *

The electrician's face was familiar; after a moment Takagi recognized it- he'd been out in the hall, looking sick and frightened. Takeo Samoshii wasn't a particularly prepossessing specimen, though the young officer supposed he might appeal to a certain type of woman. He was on the tall side with black hair cut in a spiky gelled buzz, twitchy and thin like something that hasn't been fed in too long. A smoker, the officer noted automatically, seeing the tobacco-stains on the man's thin fingers and the cigarette-pack he pulled from some pocket inside his jacket; he fiddled with the packet and finally tucked it back away.

Takagi frowned. There was something odd about that jacket-

But Megure-keibu was asking questions. Before he turned his attention back to the suspect, however, the young officer noticed a pair of thoughtful, waist-level eyes considering it as well.

"My shift's eight a.m. to five p.m., Keibu," said the electrician in answer to the head of Division One's query. He licked his lips nervously. "I was down in the basement checking on some wiring when I heard the sirens; nothing else, though, sorry." His hands tried to tuck into jacket pockets; finding none above the gathered waistband, he crossed his arms. "Was just doin' my job, y'know? Lot's've people were here too." His tone of voice took on a truculent tone. "Are you gonna interview all of them?"

"If we have to; that's our job," said the senior officer mildly. He surveyed the man with raised eyebrows. "Can you verify that you were in the basement? Do you have a witness?"

Takeo-san shrugged. "Yeah; I talked to my girlfriend on the phone while I was down there. Probably heard me drop my wrench on my foot, too." he cleared his throat, uncrossing his arms and trying once more in vain to stuff his hands into his jacket pockets.

_Nervous body language; is he trying to protect something in his pockets- ah. His jacket's on wrong side out. _The blue cotton liner was on the outside, not all that noticeable since it matched the outer shell. But it was odd, considering the soft rain that had been falling since before dawn. Why wear a jacket unless you had to work both outside a building? Reasonable; Takeo-san's duties probably required that he do just that. But... who would wear a cotton-lined nylon jacket wrong side outwards on a rainy day?

_Someone in a hurry, maybe. He could've snatched it up when the screaming started, shoved his arms into wrong-side-out and not noticed until he reached for a pocket. Simple enough. _Takagi felt something brush against his leg and glanced down to see the crown of Conan's head as the boy moved into view. Two eyes carrying entirely too much contrived innocence to be believed (at least in Takagi's now-enlightened view) were examining the electrician from head to foot... and, come to think of it, paying quite a bit of attention to the 'foot' part. The man was wearing plain black work-shoes, heavily scuffed and probably steeltoed. _No signs of blood anywhere, though I'd want to look at the soles for confirmation of that._

"Ne, Electrician-san? Where's your phone?"

The man blinked. "What?"

Conan pointed a small finger at the industrial-style phone holster hanging from the man's work belt. "I've seen the janitor at my school wearing a holder like that; it's so he can put his keys in his pockets and take the phone off if he needs to. But you don't have a phone in there; where's your phone, Electrician-san?"

The man made a show of patting down his coverall, a wary look on his narrow face; he spread empty hands in front of Takagi's eyes. "Must've dropped it're something. All that screaming earlier, guess it rattled me. Why?" Takeo-san licked his lips. "It's a company phone anyway, just a beat-up piece of junk.

"A broken old company phone, Electrician-san?" Conan echoed, blinking widely. "That's not nice to say. This Company seems like a very well-off place to work. Why wouldn't they give you a good phone? You work during the day, so you would have to take lots of phone calls about fixing things. Wouldn't they make sure you had a super nice phone instead?"

The crowd - and it pained Takagi to find himself using that word, knowing it was apt - of officers and forensics crew members gathered around Takeo-san and his height-challenged interviewer clamored into alertness once more, and Conan slipped back from the front edge of it, making a beeline straight for Mouri-san as she came back into the room, clutching her own cellphone in a frustrated fist. Conan - Shinichi - wrapped himself around her leg, and Takagi felt a headache coming on.

_Shameless, brilliant, a little bit sadistic...Kaitou Kid might have gotten a Task Force, but I'm certain Kudo-kun ought to have a team of professional handlers by this point._

Takagi was pulled from his reflective mood almost immediately - a high, cheerful _ah-le-le-le~ _from across the room called him to action. Where it had once been the enlightenment cry of a young, dangerously intelligent pet of the Division, Takagi now knew the sound for what it was - the exasperated, scripted lines of an individual more intelligent and more greatly underestimated than anyone else in the room. And like honey for flies, it captured and controlled the officers and criminals alike. Once you knew what Conan-kun was - who he was, that is - even his sweetest words sounded a little sinister.

Takagi sighed, pushing himself into motion. The next ten minutes were going to be exhausting. He'd go over there, agree with whatever Conan was saying, and back him up completely. And while Takagi himself might not comprehend the answer until just before its reveal, he would seem to have understood it completely from the start. If Kudo-kun was especially in a playful mood, he'd center his leading questions on Takagi, giving the detective credit for the solve. All Takagi had to do was play along and keep anyone from playing the "evict the chibi" card.

_Sometimes, I almost wish I didn't know his secret..._

* * *

"-And that was when Aijou-san witnessed Takeo-san taking pictures of the clients' bank account information," Megure frowned. "He could have done anything with that information. Bankrupting them all would have been the least of it.

"He could have made it look like they were stealing from each other," Conan added. "That would have probably been fun for him."

Visibly uncomfortable, Megure simply nodded and smiled stiffly. "He wouldn't have resisted the urge to misuse as much of the stolen data as he could have. And Aijou-san, the innocent thing, thought she could stop him with a phone camera. The poor girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"If Aijou-san hadn't come back in because she forgot something, she wouldn't have seen him," Conan agreed, nodding strongly. "And then the Company would be broke and so would a lot of other people."

"Conan-kun, it isn't right to say that," Mouri-san admonished her charge, her grip slow and tight across his shoulder. "It's not okay that people die, no matter why they did."

"At least Aijou-san's message didn't go to waste," Takagi reminded her, lips pressed together tightly. He was suddenly very glad for Miwako's absence - since the 20,000,000 hostages case, she had learned to think of Matsuda Jinpei with sadness but also warmth, but that didn't mean that Takagi felt it was healthy to pick at an incompletely healed wound.

"If Conan-kun hadn't noticed that the fax buttons were smeared in the shape of a zigzag, we wouldn't have known that she meant to say 'lightning bolt,' for the electrician." Ran bit her lip, tugging Conan closer. "The way she had to have felt...she must have been so scared! And she stood...she stayed standing, and she fought to protect the Company and all the people Takeo-san was stealing from."

"The Company's name will be recovered because of this." The Goudatsu's floor manager, whom even Takagi was thinking of as Manager-san by this point, inspired by the incessantly cheerful encouragement of the smallest and most talkative person in the room, the one with blood-soaked pants cuffs. The manager looked down at Conan, who offered another bright smile, and sighed. "Now it's clear that Takeo was the one stealing, the whole while. With him gone, we can rebulid our Company's good name."

"It won't be as easy to prove on paper as it has been tonight," Megure warned the man. "If you come with my officers and me, we'll get started on the process right away...and see that guilt is placed where it's due."

* * *

Slowly, the stage cleared; the plot had been brought to its conclusion and the players had worked in very nearly perfect rhythm with the little maestro conducting their actions. It helped that most had a level of familiarity with the situation - a situation which those unfamiliar with Kudo Shinichi would certainly label disturbing. But these are professionals, career men and women, and many of them have learned to hope for and, perhaps, even rely on the presence of Mouri-tantei's strange ward. No matter the absurdity of the conclusion and denouement, they have played the story through, both jealous of and anticipating its final exclamation: _"The criminal... is you!"_

* * *

And after the stage clears...

Two players remain.

A weatherproof jacket worn inside-out on a rainy day.

An aggressive attitude, brusque conversation, and absolutely no reason to be present at the scene riddled through with leaks, squelching with murdered blood.

And a fair share more blood hidden within that turned-in jacket than was generally considered fashionable - especially when your judges, rather than the red carpet-and-diamonds type, had been a cache of badges standing even-footed around the crimson, quickly browning, yardage of carpet for which Samoshii Takeo was, to the intuition of everyone present excepting himself, responsible.

Aside from the two officers making certain that the murderer was adequately cuffed and restrained while the police wagon could be brought around, just Shinichi - appearing even younger than his nine physical years in the seat of a standard rolling office chair - lingered near the ruined photocopier, Ran by his side. With his legs crossed beneath him Western-style, the boy observed the captured man with his chin in his hand, elbow resting on his knee. From the side, he may have appeared a child in idle repose, a son playing office in his tousan's chair.

From straight ahead, where the full strength of his absolutely dispassionate blue glare scoured Takeo like desert wind, whittling him into excelsior, there was no aspect of him which appeared in the least childlike. Swallowed up by the breadth and girth of the unassuming grey swivel chair, Shinichi was an avatar of authority upon his throne.

"Thievery," Shinichi sighed. He sat upright, leashed disgust clipping his words and manner. "To preserve your ability to be a greedy, honorless piece of slime, you murdered this girl. Not even to save someone else's life, or prolong your own - just for greed, and money. And not even that much money at that.

"I hope you're aware you're no longer a human being in my eyes," the boy detective continued, one eyebrow raised mildly. "I'm aware you probably don't know exactly how much trouble that could put you in, if I wanted it to."

At Shinichi's elbow, Ran touched her boyfriend's shoulder softly, a gentle pressure that reminded him where the ground stood. He breathed a little less harshly, less taken up in his own cold-boil rage, and exhaled slowly, eyes closed. When he opened them again, Conan - not Shinichi - smiled brightly at the criminal in front of him. Everyone - Takeo-san and the two remaining officers in the room, still holding him by the elbows - took a step back.

"But I like to know that **I**am human," Shinichi continued, eyes Conan-wide and simple, his voice bright, the incongruity of it almost more potent than the scent of the dead girl's incipent rot. "So I could do a lot of things to you. A LOT of things, Electrician-san, but I won't. I really wish I could. Know why?"

Mutely, Samoshii Takeo managed to shake his head in a vaguely horizontal motion.

'Conan's' eyes hardened, and the teenage detective beneath them, intimately familiar with death and blood, floated to the surface. The false child's expression grew into the hard adult's, and because it didn't matter, because the man was a sure conviction anyway, Shinichi let a little bit of true sorrow show through, too.

"Because she had a ring, ojisan. Didn't you see? It's new. There's not even a streak on it. Silver dims a little after the cosmetic coating from the jeweler's comes off, after you wear it a bit. Annnd your finger gets rings too, doesn't it? Red rings for under where the silver one stays. Especially if it's new, if it's got a nice big diamond sticking out of it and you like it, so you keep spinning it around your finger, around and around. If it's new and shiny and you love it, you'll touch it lots, right? Like you can't believe it's there. And you'll get finger oil on it and all sorts of things, won't you, Electrician-san?

"But she doesn't have any of that. And the ring is spotless. She got that ring yesterday."

_-Owari-_

.

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed - please let us know what you think! :D Next week, look forward to the second Prize Omake, containing the prize featurettes of all our other Trivial Pursuit quiz winners. Week after? We'll have yet more fun things for you. Most likely won't be nearly as chunky as this one, but we'll make sure to keep you entertained while we're busy writing for ya! :D_

Love,  
Your Writers & Thieves


	82. Omake 'Truth Is Stranger Than'

_Gooooooood evening! Tonight we have a lovely omake for you to keep you happy during our hiatus. We are, btw, writing up a storm; we've been busy, busy, busy, and we'll keep at it._

_But in the meantime... **clears throat**_

_Tonight's omake is, ah, less than serious, and as promised **kills off all the other winners of our one-year anniversary contest. ** It's also very image and link heavy. Please be advised of this. **halo** And it made me want to write other things... oh, so much... **mage_san** , **sealunis** , **mars_bars626** , **opundo** and **nightpounce**, this is for you!_

_ANYWAY. Here goes. Let us know what you think, hmm? And, um, apologies for the exceptionally gory deaths, okay? (hides under the bed)... The Management_

* * *

.

**OMAKE: "****Truth Is Stranger Than...****"**

_(Warnings for gore, suave sexy thieves (no, Kid, not you. Down, boy!) and mindfuckery)  
_

The bookreading-slash-autograph-session was a sellout as predicted, all seats taken. Not a big surprise, really; mystery readers are voracious fans, and when they find out that one of the best-selling authors of a well-known series is going to give a sneak-preview of his upcoming work, the tickets usually melt away like butter in the sun.

From his place in the impromptu 'green room' that the staff of Maruzen Bookstore had set up for him, Kudo Yuusaku fidgeted nervously with his tie. "Quit that," his wife ordered briskly, snugging the knot back into place. "And stop pacing; you look like a grade-schooler backstage just before the play starts. You _know_you'll do fine; you always do at these things."

"I hate these things, 'Kiko," her husband grumbled, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. "It's going to be nothing but critics and book-reviewers; they'll hate the new book, it'll get written up as pure drivel, it won't sell-" He was whining and he knew it.

"Pish. You'll get up there, people'll ask you questions, you'll start talking, and the next thing you know it'll be three hours later and the store manager'll have to kick us all out, not just the audience." Yukiko was, for once, dressed quietly- almost conservatively, really, in a simple navy blue dress designed to allow her to fade into the background rather more than usual; tonight wasn't her night, it was her husband's. And he _would_enjoy himself once he allowed it to happen; she had seen it again and again.

She'd also seen him have the same identical fit of collywobbles almost every time as well. _It's a good thing,_ she thought to herself privately, _that Shin-chan gets his stage presence from me and not his tousan._Not that the writer was timid or cowardly in any way; it was just that... he had a very, very good imagination, and was all too able to think of all the worse-case scenarios possible.

Peeking carefully around the edge of the green room's door, she sighed and walked back to Yuusaku. "Darling, listen to me, hm? There's a roomfull of people out there that want to see you, want to hear about the book, and they ALL had to reserve their tickets weeks ago. Why don't you go and give them their money's worth?" Slipping around behind her husband, she gave him a little shove. "Go on, now, they're starting the introductions." Outside the door, the manager's voice could be heard clearly as the crowd settled down. "Shin-chan and Ran-chan're out there too, you know; you wouldn't want to disappoint them, would you? We'll go get some coffee afterwards- there's this nice little café right around the corner." She kissed his suit jacket between his shoulderblades. "Return to me with your shield or on it, sweetheart."

"...that's not very encouraging, 'Kiko..."

"Oh, shush." Reaching past him, she pulled the door open wide as the crowd beyond the podium erupted into applause.

* * *

_Yukiko was right, of course; she always is about this sort of thing._Taking a drink from his water-glass, Yuusaku smiled at the young man whose question he had just answered.

The first half-hour had gone just as she'd said- a little initial awkwardness (it always shocked Yuusaku just how enthusiastic some of his fans got; there were even a few cosplayers in the crowd) followed by a few questions and a bit of history about his series. And now it was time for the main event.

He cleared his throat, glancing to one side; on an easel left of the podium stood an oversized rendition of his next book's cover. It featured the white silhouette of a silver-masked figure standing beside a body, also stark white; over everything the shadow of a cross-topped Christian churchsteeple lay thick and black. The title, _Sacred And Profane: A Night Baron Mystery_, swirled above the scene in carefully rendered silver kana. "As you can all tell from the title and cover," he began, "the next story in my main series has more than a little to do with what one might call articles of faith—belief, and the extent that a person will go for that belief and for pure greed when driven beyond the brink of sanity. I became fascinated some time ago with the Roman Catholic calendar of saints; it's not for the faint of heart, I can promise you—some of the more notorious martyrs died in the most extremely gruesome ways—"

"—which," murmured Yukiko from her chair beside the easel, "you've been researching and reading about out loud for _weeks._ During _dinner."_There was a rustle of laughter from the audience, and Yuusaku shot his wife a quelling look; she blew him a kiss in return, causing cameras to flash like excited lightning-bugs.

"Erm. Yes, well... _Anyway._To give you a little background..." As he continued to outline the new book's cast of characters (the ever-enigmatic Night Baron, his nemesis and occasional reluctant ally Saito Yukio, the faithful and scarred Adeline Montagne, and an entire diocese' worth of bishops, altar boys, seductresses and villains), Yuusaku glanced at his son and son's girlfriend. Shinichi—Conan, actually, as he was currently in his diminutive state—sat beside Mouri Ran on the edge of the room's last row, back by the left-hand set of double doors. The room had two sets, one to each side of the audience; both had been left open to allow air to flow through as well as to draw attention to the reading and to the autograph session afterwards, to which tickets were not required.

"—we'll start with chapter four," Yuusaku concluded, clicking his laptop on the appropriate file; on the AV screen that had been arranged to the right of the podium, a PowerPoint display of pictures began to pop neatly up. "By this point there's been two murders, both occurring on specific saints' feast days in August. Let's see- The first one was the famous beauty Murasaki Ayako, shipping magnate's daughter and well-known for her habit of running through lovers like used tissues; she was found doused with oil and burned to death with her hands tied around the post of her enormous bed on the fifth of August." The picture on the screen showed a huge four-poster bed with a fur spread and gauze curtains.

"The second victim, the Reverend Lina Hamano, a former nun turned Anglican priest, was discovered stuffed inside an extremely large portable barbeque-grill which was then abandoned at a state park; she had been quite literally cooked to death." Horrified, anticipatory murmurs arose from the audience, plus a number of "eews" at the picture that popped up; it displayed a mamoth-sized grill on a trailor.

"That was on the tenth. Each victim had stuffed in their pocket- or down her cleavage, in the case of Murasaki-san- a tiny silver saint's medal. After investigating at Adeline's urging, Saito-tantei makes the connection between the murders and the saints on whose feast days the murders occurred." Yuusaku clicked a small remote sitting to one side of his laptop; the screen to his right now displayed a rather medieval artist's rendition of a woman, bound to a stake and aflame. "For instance, Saint Afra, a former lady of the evening, was burned at the stake during the third century; and Saint Lawrence, a bishop, was martyred by being grilled to death over an open fire."

"Imagine hearing this in detail while trying to cook yaki-zakana..." murmured his wife; again the audience laughed.

Her husband snorted. "A bishop is not a fish, even if he comes from a Holy See," he informed her; the obscure pun made a few of the more English-savvy listeners groan while the rest looked puzzled. "Err- in any case, the clues are pointing him to the congregation of St. Felix, a small Catholic church in which the priest mysteriously died one August day two years past from eating a poisoned communion wafer. The crime was never solved... and the members of the choir that sang on the day of Father McWhorter's murder are being picked off one at a time. Saito-san suspects that he knows who the next victim may be, and that he might be too late already. So, without further ado-" His son was fidgeting a little in the back of the room, one short leg kicking idly at his chair; Yuusaku noticed this distantly as he leaned towards his laptop, clicking the remote and bringing up a photo of another female saint, this one bearing a sword and a resolute expression.

He began.

**"The rain was coming down in torrents as Saito tried the front door of the Barson residence; if his suspicions were correct, there was no time to waste. When his repeated ringing of the doorbell gave no response, he pounded on the slick, wet wood of the door until his fists stung. At last, fearing the worst, he put his shoulder to the door itself- and nearly fell onto his face when it opened with scarcely any force at all."**

**"Inside, the foyer was dark; the dank smell of wet plaster and leaking roofs pervaded the old building even as the sound of the storm's arrival in earnest drummed through the roof, masking all sounds. Even his own footsteps were muted, and he paused, wrinkling his nose at a new scent that hung like fog around the doorway to the small, shabby living-room. It was heavy and coppery, metallic and familiar; and, dreading the sight that he knew he would find, Saito stepped warily into the room."**

**"Mariel Barson's headless body had been arranged in an attitude of prayer. Her hands were clasped together and she knelt- or so it seemed, and if the ropes coiling around every limb had been less visible perhaps the scene would have been less shocking. As it was, the young woman's sightless eyes stared up from where her head lay at her knees, long brown braid winding almost artistically across the jagged edge where neck ended and floor began. Too late, too late, Saito's thoughts cried out; in horror and despair, he scarcely felt his own hand move as it reached to unhook the shining silver medallion that dangled from the bound hands."**

**"'Saint Susanna,' he whispered aloud. 'I was right.'"**

**"'Indeed,' said the sardonic voice from the shadows behind him. 'A virgin saint, who refused to wed and was beheaded for her principles. Fictional, possibly; dramatic, certainly. No, Saito-tantei, don't turn around.' The detective could feel something small and solid brush against his jacket- one of the Baron's many guns, he assumed, perhaps even the one that had wounded Adeline. 'If you turn around, I'll have to do something about it; and you don't want that, do you?' The voice was deep and saturnine, rich as molten chocolate.'"**

**"'Did you kill her?' demanded the detective, his breathing harsh."**

**"That laugh, the one he'd heard so many times before, whispered across the back of his neck. 'Now, what would be the profit in that? I only kill when it's to my benefit, Saito-tantei, or if I think someone needs killing. This poor young woman was only of interest to me because of her collection of rare books, and alas, it's against my principles to steal from the innocent dead.'"**

**"'-unless you're their killer,' spat Saito, fists tightening white-knuckled."**

**"Laughter again. 'Of course,' agreed the Baron without a quiver. 'To the victor go the spoils. And to the detective... the crime.' The blow that came then to the back of Saito's head was a calculated one, and as he fell forward across a footstool, he was aware of the faint swish of a midnight-black cloak and swift footsteps that faded into silence. After that came a period of blackness, from which he was roused by the abrupt sound of a piercing scream-"**

**"EEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"**

Very nearly closing his laptop on his own fingers, Yuusaku straightened up in alarm. The shriek had come from outside the open double-doors, causing the majority of his audience to levitate in their seats. Shinichi was already racing out the door, small feet flying. Alarmed voices and a woman's sobs came through- something about _found her on the floor, she was_and another voice, male and managerial, making awkward soothing sounds.

Yuusaku looked at the audience; the audience looked at him, and he looked at his wife. Yukiko made an expressive half-shrug-half-grimace and pointed at his laptop; clearing his throat, the writer fumbled for his place. "Ahh- nothing to worry about, ladies and gentlemen... Moving right along; let's skip ahead a bit, shall we?" As the audience settled down with much peering over shoulders and whispering, he moved to the next chapter and began all over again. "Ahem. Chapter Five... We'll start with murder number four. I'm sure you all recall Saito-tantei's good friend, Inspector Ichiro Ken?" Swallowing the nerves which had attempted to strangle his voice (and wondering what the hell Shin-chan was up to), he went on.

Another pic popped up on the screen (this one of a man being torn apart by wild horses in front of an appreciative Roman audience) and Yuusaku read:

**"Inspector Ichiro greeted Saito at the De Opundo mansion's front door; the foyer was full of policemen, and as the officer drew him down a narrow side hall, Ichiro shook his head. 'How did you know? How the hell did you know, Saito?'**

**"The detective sighed. 'Today is the feast day of Saint Hippolytus,' he said tiredly, 'August the thirteenth. He's the patron saint of prison workers and was reportedly dragged to death by wild horses; Isabel De Opundo worked with the prison ministry for St. Felix's, was a possible victim, and owns horses. Q.E.D.' He paused, seeing the look on the Inspector's face. 'I was right about the horses, wasn't I?' he asked, dreading the answer.**

**"The door ahead of them led to another hall; they were skirting the rest of the mansion, taking the servant's routes. There was a broom and a dustpan standing in one corner before the double door that presumably led to the stables; Inspector Ichiro stopped, hand on the handle, and stared at the broom blankly. "De Opundo-san was, we believe, unsaddling her horse after a dawn morning ride when she was struck unconscious from behind. She was then bound, gagged, dragged out into the regrettably small ring behind her stable and then tied to the saddle's bellyband.' The Inspector's face was stony. 'The rest of the stable's inhabitants—six horses in all—were also released into the pasture... and then a string of lit firecrackers were thrown in after them. By the time anyone came to see what the noise was about, the deed was done.' Ichiro opened the door and led the way out into the stables."**

**"The body still lay where it had been found, a trampled mass of mud and dirt. The young woman's brilliant red scarf, still looped incongruously around her neck, lent a horribly cheerful note of color to the scene; Isabel De Opundo's long black hair hid her face, fortunately, but from the look of her injuries death had very likely been quick. 'And the medal?' Ichiro stared at Saito. 'The medal, man! There'll be a silver pendant on a chain—' Impatiently he pushed past the handful of uniformed policemen who were busy interviewing several stableworkers and—"**

The abrupt sound of loud, official-sounding voices jerked Yuusaku from the reading-trance he'd fallen into, half-hypnotized by his own words. He looked up just in time to see the short, childish form of his son go past first one open door and then the other, followed by an evenly-spaced line of uniformed policemen all in a row like obedient little baby ducks. Many of the rest of the audience swiveled around in their seats, watching the procession in owlish silence; when the last officer had passed, they all turned back as one to stare at Yuusaku, who blinked hard.

"Erp. Ah. ...where were we?"

A small voice came from somewhere in the audience. "Um. Could we see more of the Baron, Kudo-san?"

"Right, right- oh! Here's something, chapter seven-" So much for his preplanned one-chapter reading... Yuusaku gave an internal shrug, attempting to regain his composure. "The Baron, as I'm sure some of you are aware, is very fond of rare, one-of-a-kind items..." A policeman hurried past the open doors, this time going the other way; the writer did his best to ignore him and concentrated ferociously on the screen. He clicked again, and a new photo appeared on the AV screen as he began to read aloud.

**"They stood at either end of the aisle, Saito with the six-hundred-year-old bible clutched to his chest and the Baron silhouetted against the altar, a midnight figure with a mocking white mask of a face. Behind the Baron the body of Jay Hunter lay sprawled in the loose-limbed abandonment of the very thoroughly dead, bruises from the thrown bricks that had taken her life and shattered the stained glass windows behind the altar vivid against her pale skin. Her short hair owed as much of the red glinting in the strands to blood as to hue; from one side a statue of St. Tarsisius, patron saint of altar boys and guardian of the Gospel _(stoned to death by a mob, feast day's today_Saito's voice yammered in his head) looked down impassively from his marble nich."**

**"'You won't shoot me,' said Saito to the Baron, his voice filled with certainty."**

**"The masked figure kept his antique revolver focused on his nemesis. 'Oh, and why is that, Saito-tantei?' asked the deep voice mockingly."**

**"'Because if you do you might damage the book.' Saito gripped the bible tightly. It was such a small thing to hide behind; but that was faith for you, he supposed. 'You won't risk getting blood all over it, not a priceless antiquity like this. And there's been enough bloodshed already, don't you think?' He nodded towards the young woman's corpse. 'Did you see her killer?'"**

**"'I did not. If I had, there would be two bodies lying here.' The anger in the master thief's voice was honest enough; and while Saito could not condone a killing, even the destruction of a murderer, he recognized regret when he heard it. 'Five deaths, all in the company of saints. Or in the manner of, at least.' The white mask tilted a little, acknowledging the statue of St. Tarsisius. 'She hid the book well; who would have suspected that it lay in her sock-drawerfor two years?'"**

**"Someone did," said Saito grimly. 'You do realize that that's only the Old Testament, correct? Someone else has the second volume, Baron-san, and there aren't many choir members left who could have it.' The cloaked figure was still. 'Oh, didn't you know? Yes; the New Testament's in a separate volume, they're a matched set. And it's still hidden.' The detective licked his lips. 'You've beat me to three of the five murders; you have as many of the clues as I do. How many innocents are you willing to see die just to get your prize?'"**

**"The answer, when it came, shocked Saito Yuko more than anything his opponent had done in nearly a decade of cat-and-mouse games; a black-clad arm straightened out, the gun-barrel raised, and the master thief fired-"**

There was a resounding yell; jolted into silence, Yuusaku stared again as a man in a Maruzen employee's uniform pelted past first one door and then the other, pursued by a thundering herd of uniformed policemen. There was a commotion, there were further shouts; and then there was silence. Swallowing hard, the writer continued in a shaky voice:

**"-over the detective's shoulder. A second shot, not from the Baron's gun but from behind Saito, went astray and took out a vase full of flowers beside the Baron's altar. From the narthex beyond the nave an anguished voice bit off an exclamation of pain; the heavy wooden door leading outside slammed shut hard. 'You owe me one, Saito-tantei,' purred the his savior, satisfaction in every word. 'Or perhaps two; a matched set, I should think...?'"**

Shinichi came wandering back into the room, a fangy little smile that never belonged on a small boy's face curving his lips. Ignoring the audience's startled silence, he took his place beside his girlfriend and smiled innocently at her. His whisper was just barely audible. "Did I miss anything, Ran-neechan?"

"Sh- C-Conan-kun, what-" The crowd was staring at his son, and Yuusaku hastily cleared his throat as loudly as possible.

"SO! I think that's enough of a preview, don't you?" Heads jerked as attention shifted back to the author, and someone in the front row began to clap half-heartedly; the applause grew, however, and few people actually saw the gurney which was wheeled past the open doors towards where the original scream had originated from. Yukiko flashed her husband a wide-eyed look and then mimed drawing a question-mark in the air; he took the suggestion gratefully, smiled at the audience, and bowed modestly. "Ah, you're all too kind, too kind. Now, how about just a few more questions and answers before we close? I think we have three or four minutes left." The young woman who had begun the applause raised her hand politely; she had a notebook in her lap. "You, in the front row- yes?"

"Kudo-san, will you ever write about the Night Baron's secret past? You've hinted a time or two that you might like to."

The writer beamed at her. _Questions and answers I can do, thank God. Nice, soothing questions and answers-_" I would indeed, and I plan to." The woman looked elated. "...when I'm ready to retire; it'll be the last book of the series, and I already have it all plotted out." There were sighs of regret mixed with anticipation and quite a few whispers. "Next question?"

A man in the middle raised his hand. "Ah- Kudo-san, we've all heard the rumors about a new Night Baron movie in the works. Can you confirm this?"

Yuusaku allowed a mysterious little smile onto his face. "Actually? _Two_ new movies; the first one, _Ten Thousand Lies and Counting,_ will be out next November; the second, _Scarlet Pawn,_should be in filming by then and out perhaps by the following June." He felt his headache fading; even the sight of the gurney being wheeled back toting a bodybag couldn't damp his rising spirits. "Next?"

Two young women (Americans by the look of them) sitting near the back looked at each other; the one on the left with the oddly-colored hair raised her hand. "Kudo-san, is it true that you've deliberately fostered an air of sexual tension between the Baron and Saito-tantei?" At Yuusaku's dropped jaw, she hurriedly added: "I mean, in _Crystals and Kings,_there was that scene where Saito was tied to his bed and the Baron made all those references to how he..." She trailed off, correctly interpreting the writer's bug-eyed look.

"And in _Blacker Than Velvet,"_ her companion piped up, "where they're both trapped underwater, you nearly had them kiss accidentally-" She shut up abruptly when elbowed in the side by her friend. "Well, you DID."

Yuusaku looked a little desperately at his wife. "That was _your_idea!" he hissed from one corner of his mouth; Yukiko was beet-red from repressed laughter by now, and merely gave him a wicked grin as answer. "Erm. Well, err-" he stuttered in a somewhat louder voice, "It, ah, depends on one's viewpoint; I, err, suppose that one could interpret their, ah, adversarial relationship as, as a, err-"

His wife crossed her legs. "What he's _trying _to say," she murmured quite loudly enough to be heard by the audience, "is that you won't know until the last book. Something to look forward to, isn't it?" Her lovely eyes gleamed with mischief.

"YES! Ah, that is- yes. _Last book._Right..." Yuusaku looked at his watch. "Oh dear is that the time, I believe we'll need to bring things to a close, I hope you've all enjoyed yourselves tonight as much as I have!" He spoke rapidly, plastering a rather strained smile on his face as the applause began again. "Autographs will begin in fifteen minutes!" He bowed, acknowledging their approbation as politely as possible, and then fled through the door back into the green room with a laughing Yukiko trailing behind.

* * *

_Some time later, at a small café right around the corner..._

"Son? WHAT was all that?"

"Just a murder. Don't worry, the killer couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag."

"...oh. That's- comforting, I suppose, so long as you're not the victim."

"Suppose so. Tousan?"

"Yes, Shinichi?"

"What on earth was all that about sexual tension and...?"

Yukiko snickered; her husband rolled his eyes and sipped his coffee. "Sorry, son; you'll have to wait until the last book comes out."

-Owari-

* * *

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_Aaaand there you go. Next Friday we'll have something entirely different for you! (glitters mysteriously) We hope you enjoyed this week's entertainment. Have a good week, all!_


	83. Omake 'Rooftop'

_Hallo again!_

_The hiatus continues; we've gotten a lot of writing and plotting done, but as promised, we have something new for you this week. It's another omake, one written quite some time ago but only just recently completed. You can place this one kind of fuzzily sometime between the beginning of Shinichi's experimental treatments and present day; it's a what-if maybe-kinda might've-happened silly bit of naughtiness, worksafe enough though with a touch of innuendo._

_We hope you like it; we had fun. And presumably, so did the cast._

_Also, an only-very-slightly-belated Happy Birthday wish to Masters Kaito and Kid, whose natal day fell on the 21st of this month. Many happy returns, you two!_

_And now, on with the show... The Management_

.

* * *

___**Omake: "**____**Rooftop**____**"**____  
Warnings: Pantyhose abuse, gravel_

___._

"Ran!"

"Ran, dammit! Wake up! RAN! Well, shit. RAAAAN!"

Silence.

There are good days, and there are bad days. And then there are days where things go so far up the creek without a paddle that you couldn't find them even if you had the entire Japanese Navy, the Canadian Royal Mounted Police and the French Foreign Legion ('Vive la morte! Vive la guerre!') assisting with the search. And on days like that, all you can really do is-

"RAN! RAN DAMMIT! RAN, WAKE UP!"

-ask for a little help-

"I'M FREEZING MY ASS OFF UP HERE! _RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!_Aaaagh..."

-from your friends.

Kudo Shinichi'd had a long day. Due to an unfortunate mixup in the apotoxin unit's refill packs (Ai would later blame her error on too little sleep and too much attention spent watching_Samurai Love Slaves_on late-night TV), he'd reverted to his adult form several hours before his anticipated change time. Normally this wouldn't be a problem; he craved that shape, he welcomed it... but at the moment it wasn't just inconvienient, it was uncomfortable, chilly and oh SO highly embarrassing, with an emphasis on the 'highly' part. Why?

"Ran? Ran? Oh C'MON, Ran, nobody sleeps that deeply- RAN! RAN, WAKE UP! WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!" _Whimper._

He'd developed this little habit some months earlier; a harmless thing, really, so long as he was careful. And he'd beencareful, careful and quiet, climbing up on top of the Mouri Agency's rooftop to think in the wee hours, Conan-sized and Conan-shaped. Out the window, up the fabric ladder (sooner or later Ran was going to find out what had happened to her panty-hose) and then it was only a few feet to the best spot to sit, his back up against an A/C unit and his feet propped against an exhaust-vent.

Only...

"Shit. Shit, shit, SHIT."

When you change from Form A into Form B, and Form B outweighs Form A by nearly three times the kilos and quite a chunk of centimeters in width, breadth and height, something has to give. Like pajamas, for instance, and child-sized briefs, and socks. And that's when you end up buck-naked on a rooftop, sweating and ill and exhausted, wondering how the hell you can get down a ladder that will no longer bear your weight and squeeze in through a window that's not open nearly wide enough.

Shinichi sighed, scooting back up onto the roof from his vain attempt at waking Ran. Mouri, thank God, was out of town; being caught starkers on his girlfriend's rooftop _by his girlfriend's father_would have qualified as cause for justifiable homicide so far as the Sleeping Detective was concerned, and he was still married to a lawyer. And so, looked at from that perspective, things could have been much worse.

...and they _would_be in about two hours, when the sun came up and the office across the street (the one two stories taller than the Mouri Agency's building) opened for business, workers filtering in and raising the blinds in front of their desks...

"SHIT."

Maybe he could jump up and down hard enough to wake her up? Or smash a hole into the attic, which was actually beginning to sound _really attractive_what with the cold wind and the no clothes and what Mouri would do to him when he was arrested for indecent exposure. Shinichi prodded the surface beneath him cautiously, wondering which would be the best spot. Ran'd understand; Ran'd forgive him. Ran'd... Ran would...

Wow, that was a really solid roof.

...wait. Hadn't he- _Oh God, please let me have-_ Squatting bare-assed on the gravelly rooftop, Shinichi rifled frantically through the disheveled shreds of his pajamas. He'd planned to take some night-time shots from the rooftop of the street below, and his cell-camera'd been the only one available- _Yes!_Shinichi cradled the phone in his hands thankfully.

*bzzzzt*  
*bzzzzt*  
*bzzzzt*

_"Moshi moshi, you've reached Ran, or you've tried to and I'm not here or you wouldn't be getting this message. Please leave your name and number at the sound of the beep, okay? Bye!"_*BEEP!*

**"Aaaaagh!"**

Maybe if he tried Agasa's- no, Ai'd been turning off the ringer at night. Who else? _...uh..._Well, there was really only one option left, wasn't there? Other than flinging himself bodily off the roof in despair, anyway. At least Kid wouldn't mind seeing him naked.

* * *

Shinichi felt, rather than heard, Kid touch down on the roof's edge behind him and to the right, in his blind spot. Without turning to look, Shinichi shifted against the warm metal of the exhaust vent and pressed his lips together hard. "Go ahead and laugh, but _first_for the love of all the gods, get me clothes."

A snicker behind him, and the tap of shoes onto the rooftop, let the detective breathe a little easier. "Tantei, why're you assuming I'm going to - hee - laugh at you? I can't - heh! - imagine why - _*snort*_- you'd think that I would-"

Cranky, Shinichi pushed himself up onto his knees and turned in place, ignoring the way the rooftop grit dug into his kneecaps, only thinking about his stupid smug boyfriend who was _actually_laughing, despite Shinichi's stupid sore muscles, sick stomach, chattering teeth, aching head, and bruised pride. The thief wasn't supposed to really mock him - Shinichi's suggestion had been sarcastic, and Kid knew that, and Shinichi had about _this_much patience left before he-

_Mmmmmnnnngh._

Startled, still naked, and suddenly wrapped in the warmth of Kid's embrace and his cape, Shinichi melted into the thief's kiss. The monocle, pressed between their cheeks, was cold; the brim of Kid's hat interfered with Shinichi's hand as he reached up to grip Kid's nape and hold on tight.

The thief rocked back, rolling down from a crouch to sit on the roof, and the huge expanse of his cape spread neatly beneath them both as he drew Shinichi onto it. The fabric, clean and tough and smooth, was a relief to the detective's skin, abraded where it had dragged through grit and dirt as he changed, naked and blissfully unconscious, missing the pain of his transformation on Mouri's rooftop at three A.M. Shinichi relaxed onto it, tugging one corner up over himself for warmth as he curled against Kid's body.

The thief's suit was smooth, the best quality wool; his shirt quality pima cotton, tie of finely spun silk, the glass and metal of his monocle cold from the air above the buildings where Kid had been flying. Shinichi pulled back to look as the pieces all clicked into place; Kaitou Kid, _in full uniform,_sat crosslegged in front of him, lips plush and red from the kiss they'd just shared.

Suddenly, Shinichi's night didn't seem so bad at _all_.

"I felt like being seen," Kid explained, preempting Shinichi's baffled question. The detective closed his mouth again, content to listen to the thief's explanation, though he curled closer for warmth while Kid talked.

"You didn't miss any notes, don't worry," Kid chuckled, petting Shinichi's hair. "I was just going to swing by some acquaintances of mine who happen to be in town this week. And there's only one face that's safe to show them, regardless of how noticeable it might be to everyone _else,_too."

"Acquaintances?" Alarmed, Shinichi tried to push himself upright, but Kid's grip around his shoulders was iron, and he subsided as the thief's explanation reassured him.

"Not those kinds," Kid said. "They're, hmm, how do I explain. I can't quite call them professional acquaintances, as I work alone; but they're not adversaries, either, despite the fact that we're all working independently, and often at cross-purposes. They usually don't travel to Japan, so there's rarely any conflict of interest, and I doubt I have to tell you that I haven't divulged my true quest to any of them. I don't know if any of them are aware of the Organization's presence, or even if any of them are its agents." Shinichi froze at that, and Kid petted his shoulder soothingly, wrapping the cape closer around them both. "Shh, Tantei. It's no more dangerous for me to consort with this type of contact than it is for you to accost _Sharon Vineyard herself_in a parking garage without any back-up, now is it?"

Shinichi grumbled, but let the point go. "Get any good information from them?"

"Maybe," the thief allowed. "We'll have to check it with what we already have. But I didn't come here to talk shop with you, now did I? Or..." Kid's hand began to roam. Shinichi had time to notice that it was ungloved before he abruptly lost his breath, arching against Kid's body with a distracted sigh. The thief purred in smug satisfaction. "Or did I come here to _talk shop_, after all?"

Shinichi squirmed around in Kid's arms, turning to face upward. Kid's features were silhouetted against the moonlight from above, a silver line tracing his monocle and the curve of his mouth. "You aren't worried?"

"Of course I am," Kid said, the quirk of his mouth tired and wry. "I didn't say that I'd be letting _my_guard down, now did I? But if you're okay with that..."

"Just a kiss," Shinichi decided then, finally getting a handhold against the roof's surface and pushing himself up to find Kid's mouth. It was many moments before they pulled apart again; the detective was panting while the thief looked unruffled. Shinichi smiled wryly, wiping saliva off his chin with the back of one hand, and his grin had fangs as he reached up to get a better grip on his boyfriend's nape.

"Okay. Maybe more than a kiss."

* * *

"Shinichi, do I even _want_ to know how you managed to get roadrash after you went to bed? Or how you got it _**there?**_Where in the world did you go, anyway? I didn't hear the front door- no, never mind, don't tell me; you've got that look on your face, I won't get a word of truth out of you. You look just like you did the last time you- I mean, Conan-you- broke your glasses."

"Fine, then. Kid, YOU tell me."

"I can promise that he never left the building, Ran-cha~an. Not even for a moment."

"...then how did he get... I mean... Stop WIGGLING, Shinichi!"

"Well, you see, there's this thing where he sort of pushes forward and then up with his-"

"NEVER MIND. -and anyway, I remember." Blush. "Um. Just hand me the Bactine, please."

_-Owari-_

* * *

.

_...aaaand that's all, folks! For today, at least. See you in seven!_


	84. Omake 'Where In The World'

_**From ysabet's cowriter rednightengale (nightengale on LJ):** _

_With apologies, this week's installment of hiatus-entertainment is a bit belated. Personal issues kept me from getting it written yesterday, as planned._

_But this one's a little idea I've sat on for a while. It should be taken as Three Thieves canon, as far as that's worth, and gives a bit of insight into Kaitou Kid (the second's) early years, and where he started. Fans of the the Magic Kaitou manga know that Kid's come a loooong way from his start with Kaitou and the octopus blimp. In Detective Conan canon, including the movies, he's competent, classy, and generally refrains from the sort of base panty humor that he (and Kaito) were fond of at their start._

_Here's my take on how they got there, featuring an homage to how __**I **got here, too. - rednightengale_

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* * *

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**Omake: Where In The World**  
by **nightengale**. No warnings.

Fall, 2008. A lone figure garbed in white stood confidently on the raised six-centimeter rim of an Austrian mansion's rooftop and surveyed the night. Less than a year after the Kaitou Kid returned to the skies and museums of Japan and the world, law enforcement sectors around the globe had already acknowledged the threat he presented to their nations' treasures and investors and taken organized action against him. The task forces and special intelligence units created a decade prior were revived, and the criminal profiles used at that time had, according to some whispers, already begun to be submitted for review and revision to integrate the newest information from the Kid's appearances in Prague, Paris, Tokyo, and beyond.

The Tokyo Kaitou Kid Task Force, Scotland Yard, and even Interpol itself were struggling to keep hidden from the public exactly how clueless they were in the face of this new-yet-old adversary; their best schemes were no match for his skill. And even more intimidating, they knew that he was not yet taking them seriously - were this revived master thief to exert the full strength of the talent and ingenuity that he surely had spent the past eight years perfecting, his talent would be as a honed edge of diamond, capable of-

"_Are_you quite finished?"

The arch, husky female voice jerked Kid out of his reverie. A few meters to his left, a slim figure all in black, with curves remarked upon in far too few of the numerous dossiers written on the topic of her exploits, stood balancing just as easily upon the roof's narrow rim.

Fingers to the brim of his hat, Kid gestured as though he'd tip it with respect due a lady by a gentleman, but did not actually do so; he wasn't a fool. "I could regard Vienna for days at a time and not be satisfied," he answered her. His smile was impenetrable.

"Cute," the woman responded, stepping down from the rail. Her hips swished as she stepped quietly closer to the thief, one hand extended; her index finger tapped Kid's hatbrim lightly. "Are you finished _monologuing_, was the question."

"Monologuing?" Affronted, the thief hopped down, dancing out of the woman's reach. "Never would a gentleman personality of my caliber be caught monologuing!" The woman snickered, and Kid grinned too, winking behind his monocle.

"...Though, I've been known to indulge in a soliloquy from time to time."

The woman perched on the roof's edge, swinging one leather-clad leg over the edge so she straddled the rim. Her gloves, long and smooth nearly to her shoulders, didn't add much bulk or protection to her hands; in the full moon's light, Kid could just about see the lines of her perfectly manicured cuticles and nails through the slinky black fabric. There were other parts of her which seemed more displayed than hidden by her black bodysuit, zipped neatly up to her chin, but a gentleman would never allow his gaze to linger on such things without a lady's permission, so Kid averted his gaze. Eventually.

As near each other as professional thieves were in the practice of allowing each other, Kid and the black-clad woman rested on the rooftop in silence, waiting. Kid knew his plans for the evening would occupy only a small bit of it, and his preparations, what little there remained, were the work of moments. But the woman's plans were a mystery to him, and the longer she lingered on the roof, watching the moon and the city lights beside him, the more curious Kid became about her identity.

"Have we...met somewhere, before?" he asked, broaching conversation after a comfortable half hour spent in quiet. "You seem to know more about me than I do about you, and that's just not ladylike."

The woman laughed, and Kid was surprised by how sharp the sound was, coming from such a elegant face. "I am certainly no lady," she chuckled, voice rich and a little mannish in its husky tones. "Though I pretend at being one, from time to time."

"Would you pretend with me?" Kid asked, leaning a little closer; the woman seemed flattered, tipping her lips to his ear with a soft smile.

"What shall we pretend?" she asked. Though her voice was quiet, the archness didn't leave it for a moment; Kid grinned, pleased. It seemed he'd found a colleague of Vienna who could amuse him as well as the Black Cat did during his visits to Paris.

Still learning the faces and names of his father's territory of phantom thieves and glamorous intrigue, Kid was pleased with what he could see of this woman. Her features were young enough to all but remove the odds that she was old enough to have been one of her father's colleagues; he smirked, his mouth hovering near her cheek.

"Shall we pretend we're compatriots in arms, Miss Not-A-Lady?" Kid suggested, using what purr he had at the disposal of his fifteen-year-old voice. "The International Criminal 1412 and his mysterious lady friend of the night could do wonderful work together, if she were free for an evening's entertainment as my aide."

The woman laughed, loud and boldly, and pulled back from Kid, rising to her feet. The amusement in her eyes wasn't pleasure with his suggestion; as she paced toward him, her practical rubber-soled footwear making little noise on the tiles of the roof, he noticed for the first time a predatory experience in her eyes he'd missed - or she'd concealed - before.

"Compatriots? Oh, boy, you are very amusing. To make an offer like that without knowing to whom you speak? That is certainly not a gentlemanly maneuver."

Undeterred, Kid moved to follow her, affecting all the theatrical turns of voice he loved best. "Well, I have obviously underestimated your charms and talents! But I can't be expected to have familiarity with every thief of glamour on the planet; a jewel thief such as myself, pursued by Interpol itself, cannot keep track of all the local talents with whom I might brush elbows in my travels."

"Hmph." Standing on the rail of the roof now, her back to the open drop below, the woman looked down on Kid with obvious disdain. "It's clear you're not of your father's caliber," she said. "You are a _Kid_indeed, boy, and you'll learn in time how lucky you are to have encountered a lady thief of gentle tendencies for a mistake such as this. Listen now," she continued.

"I am neither Viennese or Austrian, as you have presumed. Nor am I a newcomer to this craft. Your father, rest him, could have told you much about me; we were...acquainted, in a professional sense. His tastes have always run toward the glittery and palm-sized; we had enjoyable discussions on topics of taste. If you're going to thieve, I believe you ought to go grand. Why steal a gem when you could steal a capitol building?"

As Kid blinked, unsure whether the woman was serious in her intent, she crossed one foot over the other, dainty ankles bending surely; she paced sideways on the rail, heading for the corner of the roof and the column that rose high above it. Her smile grew sharper as Kid's confident expression faltered.

"Though your father and I always agreed upon one rule - and these last months, I've kept an eye on you, just to make sure you maintained it as well. I'm glad to see that he raised a son with morals."

"Morals?" Still trying to make light of the situation, Kid laughed, folding his hands behind his head. The wind caught his cape, blowing it back from his body a bit; the evening was growing cooler. "We are thieves. Has the context become too absurd yet?"

"No," the woman returned, all seriousness. "Who am I? You might as well know. If you are the great and terrible _International Thief Kaitou Kid,_ let's call me _The World's Greatest Thief._" Kid bristled, and the lady laughed once more.

"I wish you wouldn't find me quite so humorous, my lady," he grumbled, feeling more unnerved by the moment. "I'm afraid I don't find the joke agreeable."

A sweeping beam of light crossed the woman's face for a moment; dark eyes, dark chocolate hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and a wicked smile were shown to Kid's eyes for brief moments.

"I am The Lady In Red. The Miss of Misdemeanor. I've been thieving since before you were born, nearly twenty years now. And you shouldn't feel so special just because Interpol's given you a little widdle criminal number all your own, you know." As her husky tones devolved into baby talk, the woman was busy with both hands behind her back, unfixing something strapped to her spine; she bent at the waist, dramatizing a bow to her junior colleague.

As the woman stood, wavy hair puffing out behind her in a sudden strong breeze, she whipped one hand out from behind her back, holding a bright crimson hat, wide-brimmed with a yellow band. Settling it onto her head at a jaunty angle, she flashed a bright white grin and a salute at Kid.

"I've got a number too, you know. 4-9-3-5. If you read that in numerological code, it's V-I-C-E." She watched him expectantly for a few moments; when Kid obviously showed no recognition, the woman sighed.

"Still not ringing any bells? Your father should have taught you the value of research, just as much as flashiness. Look up my pet group VICE when you get back to Tokyo, hmm?

"And tell your dear butler hello from Isabella. He always did like my middle name better than my first. And as for you, little thief full of pride and grand ideas... I hope the next time we meet, you are less amused with yourself, and more the Gentleman Thief your father was."

Suddenly Kid became aware of the world around them, the sirens and chopping roar of helicopter blades. A spotlight beam washed across the clay tiles, fixing on him when it spotted his white cape; the woman, hidden in the shadow of the pillar, escaped the first sweep and the choppers circled back around. As megaphones boomed and two more spotlights joined the first trained on Kid, the woman held her hand up, ready to blow him a kiss.

"Sink or swim, little thief," she said. Then she pursed her lips and blew - and a red powder, fine and vivid, exploded outward from her palm. The wind from the helicopters whipped it into a fine, circling mist, and Kid's clothes - top hat to shoes - were instantly dyed deep crimson red.

Spitting dye out of his mouth - it tasted like rhubarb - Kid scanned the rooftop, shoulders tensed. "Isabella" was nowhere to be seen. The curses of the Interpol officers now gaining the rooftop were suddenly clear to his ears. As he threw himself from the edge, praying to all his gods that the red dye hadn't jammed his glider mechanism, the Interpol officers' hands scrabbled at the tiles, missing his cape's edge by mere centimeters, and he heard them screaming:

_"Confound you, Carmen Sandiego!"_

* * *

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.  
_Hope you all enjoyed. Stay cool!_

_In addition: If any of you would like to download the music we've played (and mentioned) so much during Three Thieves- all FIFTY-SIX SONGS, for crying out loud- go to the following address to find it (you'll have to fix the html, of course, but them's the breaks): **http colon slash slash threethieves dot livejournal dot com slash 38617 dot html**_


	85. Tiny scientist, you need me

_Aaaand we're **BACK.**_

_Did you miss us? ^_^ Not that we've been gone or anything much, what with omakes and tweets and soundtracks..._

_Anyway, we've been writing like perfect fiends and now we're ready to go. We're glad to be posting again too; we thank you for your patience, and we hope you enjoy the twisty, windy roads we're about to take you on._

_Tonight's chapter begins where we haven't gone before, in a very dark place. These little interludes will appear now and then, but not often. So welcome back, keep your hands inside the ride and buckle up... The Management_

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* * *

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_**Book Six, Chapter Sixteen**__**: "Tiny scientist, you need me."**_  
_**(Music: **__**'Back In Black' (AC/DC)**_

In a place geographically close to the Shiratori estate and the small cache of teenage fear and determination it concealed, a woman stood squarely upon her own convictions. From her vantage point, a moral stance as far-flung from those of her playthings as was inhumanly possible, she smiled and looked down upon her world.

It was going to be such a_ lovely _day.

Life lay spread out before her, a glittering expanse of orangish pre-dawn city glow fed by veins and arteries of highways and lesser roads; from the high place where she stood, the city's glimmer was muted somewhat by thick, tinted glass, but it was bright enough. She loved high places; some nights she felt as if she could reach down with a gloved hand, scoop up choice bits of the metropolis below in her fingers, hold them up... and squeeze...

The thought made her smile. Hers was a face prone to smiling, actually; she found much of life amusing in one sense or another.

Her reflection made a death-mask in the dark window, eerily floating above the dark clothing that the tinted panes rendered invisible. She watched the lips curve as she listened to the report that her secretary read out loud to her from several paces back.

"-Makashima-san has withdrawn, as have our placements in the Mitsui and Sumimoto executive staff. There was some concern that the six agents in Star Alliance would be apprehended, but only one was detained; he is no longer a concern, and all details of his removal have been sanitized." The woman's voice went on, steady and non-committal; she had been serving in this way for the past six years. "Cathay Pacifica had been accessed to the top level and is therefore being left unchanged until further notice; Asiana, however, has been compromised, though with no living captives- the two lower-rank operatives who were held for questioning attempted escape, were captured a second time and again removed from concern."

The woman's lips tightened at this last example of clumsiness; she did so dislike unnecessary violence.

"The agents overseeing the lower-rank operatives have been disciplined. Following their recovery from disciplinary actions, they will be confined and reindoctrinated to assure exemplary performance."

_Necessary violence, however..._She watched her reflection nod approvingly.

Her secretary cleared her throat. "To continue-" The woman went on at some length, reading out a list of withdrawals and continued placements within the ranks of some of Japan's most valuable travel and manufacturing industries. Recent events had necessitated an abrupt reshuffling of business tactics here and there- nothing too drastic, a bribe to this official, a threat to that one... But all too often, specific agents were being recalled and/or transferred to new placements elsewhere.

Sometimes, of course, this required 'sanitizing'. She did so like that word; it was clean, it concluded things. It wasn't that she actually minded getting her hands dirty- far from it. Getting truly involved right down to the nadir of the matter could be delicious and so, so useful later, assuming there was a later for the others taking part. But some things _needed_ conclusions: business matters, lives, plans of action, charades. _And some do not. Some need to continue on and on and on, oh, 'til the stars fall from the sky. Isn't there __a song__ about that? I think so._

She hummed the tune to herself as she flipped through the files her assistant had brought in; it made the other woman nervous, she thought, which was all to the good.

When she was done, the files went back into their basket, all neatly flagged for actions to be taken. Her associates, she thought with a sigh, would be quite occupied that day. Not that they weren't at the moment, it was easy enough to tell- despite the really excellent soundproofing materials built into the walls, floors and ceiling (they owned the building, of course), the air fairly vibrated with intense activity. And oh, the people she'd seen coming in earlier that evening-! It had been enough to make one weep, all the old, familiar faces. Why, some of them she hadn't seen in more than a decade!

_Old, old friends... oh yes._ She chuckled to herself, humming along with the lyrics in her mind: _'...until the sun no longer shines...'_

Still smiling, she turned to her secretary again. "What did I decide to call you this week?" she asked the woman sweetly.

The secretary's calm, carefully blank face never twitched. "'Tia', I believe, Madam."

"Did I? I wonder why? No matter. Will he be needing me later this morning, Tia?" The _he_did not require elaboration.

"I... He has not said, Madam." A shred of emotion crossed the woman's face, just the tiniest tremor, the surface tension of a pond which shifts as an insect lands upon its mirrorlike expanse. "I would suggest staying in contact." The tremor smoothed out, the insect flew away. "Will you be out? Shall I order a car?"

_'...nothing in the world can drive me away...'_ Vermouth smiled, smoothing the single sheet of paper that she had subtracted from a single file from the stack. Printed on it were a rather lengthy list of addresses, each one a beautiful, abundant world of possibility. "For a little while, Tia. And no, I think I'll drive myself." It was, after all, going to be such a fine day; and possibilities, once recognized, should never be wasted.

_'-until the end of time-' _Vermouth hummed to herself again.

But first she needed to run an errand.

* * *

"How are they doing? Just an abbreviated report, please."

The woman in charge was older, a flat-eyed, heavyset woman with nothing matronly or soft about her; she leaned heavily on a cane, and the side of her face was disfigured with what looked like chemical scarring, one eye pale and opaque. She consulted a clipboard, glancing at the rows where her charges (a dozen or so children ranging from nine or so to their early teens) sat quietly in study corrals, heads bent over their work. Several wore headphones; others typed away at keyboards, eyes intent. None paid any attention whatsoever at the conversation going on across the room; they knew better by now. But they listened- oh yes, they listened.

"This lot? Well enough; several show particular promise, though I wouldn't consider any of them to be absolute prime material. But then, we've had them for less than two years; give them a little more time, I think one or two'll be worth the trouble. He-" (she indicated a dark, thin-faced teenager who was jotting down notes rapid-fire as he listened to a droning voice from a file) "-is giving me a little disciplinary trouble, but he's got a real knack for clean up; incendiary scenarios, mostly, that's where they always start, though he's branched out into 'natural disaster' setups lately. Lousy on the range, though. That's _her_place to shine, the youngest one down on the end." The woman shook her head. "Why is it that so many of the little girls are good with guns?"

"Natural vicious streak?"

"I suppose; makes as much sense as anything else. D'you need one of them today? And will they be returning?" Not a muscle moved in the woman's face to indicate distress; if she had been told that one of her charges were being chosen to be fed to a shark, she would have simply reshelved the child's supplies and then made a note that a space had opened up in the schedule.

"I think not today. Soon, though, possibly, and as to their return... we'll see; please keep me informed of their progress. Have they all received the standard dose?"

"Yes, madam, shortly after arrival. No deaths this time."

"Lovely." Vermouth smiled at the group of children. "Any paranoia? Psychotic tendencies?"

"Just the usual, nothing beyond acceptable levels. We're giving them Zoloft at bedtimes, it takes care of the worst problems."

"Anything that should be-" (Vermouth smiled to herself at the other woman's own phrase) "-ah, 'cultivated'?"

The heavyset woman considered the thought, her lips compressed into a thin, hard line; after a moment she nodded cautiously, fingering her cane. "The aggression, yes. With the proper drugs to reinforce it, I believe we might have something useful there. If we could make it a triggerable, controllable response early on, it could be a good tool for later. There are anabolic steroids, synthetic cocaethelyne..." She flushed at Vermouth's raised eyebrow. "Just a suggestion."

The blonde studied her. "Your background was originally in pharmacology, wasn't it? Before your... injury? Well, never mind." She waved a red-nailed hand at the silent, tensely listening children. "Discuss it with R&D and send me a report afterwards, will you? Though I'd prefer," she added lightly, "that you choose your test-subjects from a different batch; use these as a control group, if you will." Some of the tension went out of narrow shoulders in the study corrals at that, and one small boy shivered slightly.

Vermouth noticed.

She moved back towards the children, and every head went up; it could have been respect that made them all turn to face her, but it wasn't. Smiling, she stopped by the small boy's corral and reached out, tipping his face up with one slender finger. He was slightly built, one of the youngest; his dark eyes were masked by glasses and his hair tumbled untidily over his forehead. "What's your name, little one?" Vermouth asked him softly. "What's your name, hmm?" Her nails cradled his chin, grazing the skin delicately.

"T-Takanori. Takanori Goro, M-Madam." The boy's voice quivered, but he remained frozen in place, trembling just perceptably.

Her long fingers stroked his cheek. "Goro-kun. You're new, aren't you?" The words were almost crooned. "You remind me of another boy, another little boy... But you're shaking; tsk." She leaned over him, eyes devouring the child's terror. "You shouldn't be afraid of me, my sweet little chosen one, don't you know that? So long as you do as you're told, I'll take _very_ good care of you. I always take good care of my children. The good ones, the useful ones, at least." Eyes half-closed, Vermouth turned to smile at the heavyset woman who stood watching. "Don't I? I remember when youwere small too."

The woman swallowed audibly; the skin around her blind eye twitched. "Yes, Madam. We... The children are Madam's treasures. Everyone knows that."

"Yes. _Yes."_Vermouth let go, straightening up. "Treasures..." She seemed to shake herself out of a momentary fog, eyes sharpening. "Well. Enough. Forward the results of the study to me as soon as it's completed, please. Ta." She gave the room one last smile, nodded at the woman and then left, closing the door behind her.

For a long moment there was silence, broken at last by a stifled sob and then another. The older woman turned back towards the children sharply. "Be still," she snapped, one hand rubbing unconsciously at the withered flesh at her temple. "What the hell are you lot upset about? Didn't you hear her?" She drew in a deep breath. "You're to be the _control group, _not the test subjects. So get back to work!"

In the subdued silence that followed this, she shook her head. "You don't know how lucky you are, you really don't," she muttered to herself and sat back down at her desk, staring blankly into space for a long moment before sending off an email to Vermouth's research department.

* * *

"No, Tousan, I- Oh my god NO, Tousan! Ooh, don't you say that where Kaasan can hear you. ...No, I'm not with him, of course not, he's out of town on that case of his, he has been for-"

"Oh come on, okaa, I think ya oughta - no, that...would be th' opposite of helpful. Is Kazuha there? She's - NO, don't listen to her, jus' give her the phone. Please?"

"...Megure-keibu said so? Um. Well, uh, yes, he has been around, he um, came back for Kid's- ah, the Kaitou Kid heist, but we haven't- TOUSAN!"

"-Oh for the love'a...Zuha, jus put Tousan on, okay? I'm- No, I already got it all from ya yesterday. Look, I'm not- Shaddup, just- don't you DARE let Tousan hear you say that or I'll-"

"Yo, Hakuba. ...Yeah, I think we do. You wanna come meet me? I'm a little tied up at the- No, hah, not like that. Don't worry, my wrists're still virgin-free of cuffs, just for you. ...I'm not mocking you, Hakuba-san. That, if nothing else, you can believe. I hold you in quite high respect, and I owe you a debt from this past... Yeah, you're right. I can send a car for you? I'm not exactly easy to find these days. ...Haha, you don't miss a note. Actually, I have that more sorted out than I'd anticipated! You'll have to meet my new tutor. I think you and she will have a LOT to chat about. ...Who? She's merely a competent professional. Like yourself. How about one o'clock? We could have a tea."

"-very busy, Tousan, and after the shooting and everything, it was very frightening and we've been listening to Megure-keibu, he told us- You talked with him already? So I'm sure he said that- No, of course I'm not hiding out at Kaasan's. That would be- Tousaaaaan, please! I promise I'll see you soon, I-"

"-Yes, Nakamori-keibu. No, Nakamori-keibu. Of course, Nakamori-keibu. ...I would never be insolent to you, Nakamori-keibu. I swear it. Yes, at keiji's suggestion. No. Of course, first thing tomorrow."

"Yo, Ao-AAAACK! Ow, that was my EAR!"

"...I don't think that's within my power to promise, Nakamori-keibu. No, I'm not protecting him. I just know I don't want your faith in my word to hinge on his reliability rather than mine. ...No, I'm not- I'm not saying that at all, Nakamori-keibu. I'm only- Please, I'm just saying that I don't feel comfortable making promises for other people without consulting them. ...Of course. ...Nakamori-keibu, he's willing to speak with you if you wi- Ah, um. Are you sure you don't want to? He says- Ah, alright. I will call again soon."

"-LATER, Tousan. I promise! Bye!"

"-gotta GO, Okaa. I'll be fine, sheesh, ja!"

"-later, Aoko, I pro-_eeeek_ okay going now bye!"

_Click._

Click.

Click.

Clunk.

Three cell phones and one house phone were closed - the cells snapping shut, the larger corded phone thunking into its cradle - and four exhausted teenagers flopped onto their backs across the tatami mats of Shinichi's room in the Shiratori estate.

"Oh..."

"my..."

"...gods and little demons."

"You guys too?" Hattori shaded his eyes with his everpresent ballcap and exhaled, long and frustrated. "I feel like I just got the _fourth _degree from Kazuha an' Okaa together."

"At least your inquisitors aren't badged," Shinichi groaned, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists. "I feel like I just got a head massage from a steamroller."

"Tousan nags," Ran mumbled, rolling onto her belly and burying her face against the flank of the fourth person in the room. "If he'd just stop after the first or second time, it wouldn't be so bad..."

"A little of column A, a little of column C? I believe this afternoon's teatime will be...illuminating, to say the least."

Shinichi uncovered one eye and glared at his lover's brother. "I _thought_ I heard you saying something monumentally stupid over there, but I was hoping I'd misheard. For the love of God, please tell me you didn't invite Hakuba over for _tea?_"

Kaito grinned. "Okay, so I didn't."

Shinichi pushed himself off the floor, face a picture of perfect exasperation, and snatched back the cell phone beside the magician. "See if I loan you my phone again," he grumbled.

"I'm not gonna comment on the being-a-shit-just-cause-you-can that's goin' on to my right," Hattori put in placatingly, reaching toward Ran for his own phone while Ran took hers back from Shinichi. "But it made sense at least t'scramble our phones."

"If we'd gone the other way," Kid put in, sitting up and gesturing counterclockwise, "It probably would have done more damage than good, as it would prove who's been in contact with whom, for whoever was looking. But this way, Ran's Tousan believes she's safe in Hattori-han's hands, Shinichi's babysitters know he's at least attempting to keep both his now-invalid identities under wraps, my pet detective - the other one - knows I'm in Shinichi's hands and therefore theoretically less of a Problem than if I were allowed free rein, and Hattori-han's beard doesn't have a clue where he is, as the Shiratori estate house line isn't on the shortlist of easily identifiable numbers."

"This is why I'm no good at Rubik's cubes," Hattori snorted, grinning at the thief. "Well, good then, least it's being handled by a professional legerdemain...er."

Kid laughed, mellifluously amused. "Excellently said. There's still a bit of time before we should warn Shiratori-san's staff that we'll be requesting an English tea today - they'll probably have to go shopping - so why don't we..." The thief's gaze, scanning his companions, stopped on Shinichi and his sullen expression.

"Tantei, what's bothering you now?"

Mumble.

With a soft smile, Kid tucked a knuckle under the other's chin and nudged it up playfully. "Try again?"

"...'s _not_ your pet detective," Shinichi muttered, glare sharp and shoulders tense. "**I am.**"

"Ohhhh man," Hattori exclaimed, eyes wide as Kid's eyes widened as well; the thief's expression was skidding quickly toward 'Oh Shit' while Shinichi glowered, and Hattori's grin spread. "I think I oughta clear out 'fore it gets gooshy in here. Neechan, you comin' with me? I'll go find the cook and let her know we're entertaining Mother Britain today."

"I'm okay here," Ran smiled, holding Hattori's eye and pointedly ignoring the restless boys behind and to either side of her. "These two are still grounded for that stunt the other night, so I'm their chaperone to keep future stupidity to a minimum."

Standing, Hattori settled his cap and dusted off his knees, snickering. "Riiiight, Neechan. Well, tea's in three hours - you think you'll be done 'chaperoning' by then? Ack!" Running from a thrown house-slipper, the Osakan detective made his exit, closing the shoji screen behind him.

* * *

Several hours later...

The small café was situated just a few blocks away from Bunkyo Gakuin University, walking-distance from Sonoko's classes; she had been attending Orientation, and now the stylish backpack that she had hoisted over one shoulder bristled with pamphlets, textbooks, a map of the university and guides to her newest hobby.

Her somewhat downcast expression brightened as she saw the familiar face of Eri Kisaki through the café's window; momentarily ignoring the other woman sitting opposite her, Sonoko pushed open the door and looked around quickly for Ran, drooping again when her friend was nowhere to be found. Crestfallen, she allowed her backpack to slide to the floor with a _thump! _of weighty paperwork as she slid into the sole unoccupied chair at Eri's table, murmuring a greeting that was just short of doleful.

"Sonoko-chan, whatever's wrong? You look like you don't have a friend in the world."

The familiar voice caused her to look up and blink. "…Jodie-sensei? What are you doing here?"

"Manners, Sonoko!" scolded Eri, waving a waitress over to their table.

The next few minutes were busy with lunch orders, but after the matter of food had been dealt with the blonde tilted her head at the younger woman and raised an eyebrow. "Ran," Sonoko almost wailed. "I was hoping Ran'd be here, I haven't seen her in _days_and she won't tell me where she is! All I've gotten was one lousy phone call and a few texts." She waved her arms, nearly upsetting the table's tiny centerpiece. "We were supposed to go to college together—well, sort of together—and now she said all she can do is take night classes, and I don't get to SEE her and even Chibi-chan's gone back to his parents, not that I miss his shrimpy little butt or anything, and I might as well be in Siberia for all I see anybody I know, and—"

"Sonoko-chan? Breathe, please?" Jodie Sanetmillion tapped her former student on the nose with a forefinger. "Don't make me talk horrible Japanese at you, hmmmmm?"

Eri frowned, confused by the reference, but the younger woman stopped short at this, her diatribe breaking off into a somewhat shaky giggle. "Y-you don't always do that, Jodie-sensei, just when you want people to think you're being silly."

The blonde beamed at her. "Haaa_aiiii_~iiiii! Dai_JO_-bu des-u ka, Gaku-sei-chaaaan!" At Eri's snort, she added "...deshouuu... Anyway! I do wish Ran-chan could've made it too, but," (she hesitated) "she's in a very safe place right now, Sonoko-chan. And if she leaves it at the moment, she won't be nearly so safe. So I'm sorry, but it's for the best."

Eri narrowed her eyes. "Santemillion-san, when you asked me to meet you here, I assumed that you were planning on discussing my daughter's classes- that _is_ what you said on the phone. I understand that she's gotten herself involved in some sort of police investigation- again- but... 'a very safe place'? This sounds almost as if she's in protective custody." Jodie's expression of cheerful solicitude did not change, but the lawyer's did, suspicion deepening with every second. _"Is _she? And why?"

"Is she okay? She's okay, isn't she? Is that detective dweeb still with her? She said he'd had to g-" asked Sonoko anxiously- and then clapped both hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

"...'detective dweeb'?" Eri's voice was a low with menace. "Sonoko. Explain. NOW." Sonoko shook her head violently, hands still locked over her mouth.

"Oh dear. Well, never mind, let me do the explaining, Kisaki-san," said Jodie calmly, the good humor still in her voice; she patted Sonoko on one shoulder. "And _you_ can just shush and sit there and listen, hmmm? That way nobody'll break any promises... deshou." _'Probably'_hung in the air like a whiff of gunsmoke.

Eri looked at her hard. "Where," she asked carefully, "is Ran?"

The blonde sighed. "Well," she murmured, tapping her lips with a peach-tinted fingernail. "The thing is, Kisaki-san, your daughter has indeed managed to get herself mixed up in quite a delicate police matter; so have a few other parties who've been... absent for some time." She waved a calming hand in the air as Ran's mother opened her mouth in outrage. "Yes, yes, shhh... He's been, ahh, involved in his own very serious investigation, terribly hush-hush- missing persons, deep cover, the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated, et cetera..." Jodie tilted her head to one side, seriousness stealing into her eyes. "I honestly can't explain beyond that, Kisaki-san. I'm aware that you're not happy with that answer, but I assure you, your daughter is in a _marvelously _secure place, in good company-"

Sonoko made a strangled noise behind her own hands, eyes crinkling. "Yes, I'm more than a little concerned about her 'company' myself," muttered Eri, not giving an inch of ground.

Their drinks arrived then, and all three fell silent. When the waitress had left, however, Jodie sighed and took a different tack. "Kisaki-san," she said gently, "when you were nineteen, what were you doing?"

"Preparing for college," Ran's mother said through her teeth. "I was NOT holed up in some godforsaken safe-house with, with a teenaged so-called 'detective' who's already shown a marked propensity to get himself and the people around him in far more trouble than he can get out of! _You,_ Santemillion-sensei, are just a teacher, and an out-of-work one at that, from what I understand! Why on earth should I listen to you? If Ran's in police custody, then it's Megure-keibu I need to talk to, not some- And as for you, Sonoko, how could you?" she railed at the youngest of their party, who huddled nervously in her chair, hands rising up to cover her mouth again just in case. "Did you know about any of this? Did-" Eri's eyes narrowed even more, fury turning them flintlike. "Did that low-life beer-sodden loser who calls himself my husband know?" Movements abrupt and angry, she dug her cell phone out from her purse and began the process of pulling up Mouri's number. "Oh, what I'll DO to him-"

"Kisaki-san, Kisaki-san!" It took a few minutes and a great deal of persuasion before the lawyer regained enough calmness to put her phone down and listen. If Eri Kisaki had a weakness, it was her daughter; face set, she stared the other woman down as Jodie sighed and fished in her own bag. "You asked why you should listen to me, hmmmm? I suppose that you should really know..." (she hesitated) "..._one_ little fact..." The wallet that she opened up on the table under the cover of her napkin showed her FBI identification and badge; and at Sonoko's muffled squeak, Jodie gave them both an almost demure little smile. "Dreadful photo, isn't it? I don't know _what_the photographer was thinking." She folded the wallet closed and made it vanish while her tablemates' mouths still hung open.

Lunch arrived at that point, and with it a very welcome break in the conversation; Eri and Sonoko eyed the other woman over their lunches with a mixture of wariness and consternation and, on Sonoko's part at least, awe. "Why didn't you tell us, Jodie-sensei?" she hissed over her chopsticks, voice dramatically low.

The blonde sighed, clicking her own implements together. "Now, what use is a secret identity if it's not secret?" she asked, smiling.

"Were you- were you- Oh! You were working undercover?" The daughter of the Suzuki family nearly bounced in her seat. "That's sooooo exciting~! What kind of case was it? Did you catch them? I mean, were you after a criminal, or trying to break up a, a, a-" She paused, blinking. "What on earth would the American FBI be trying to do in a... Japanese high school?"

Jodie-sensei's everpresent little smile faltered slightly at this. "I can't tell you that, Sonoko-chan," she said softly, gaze fixed for a moment on memories; "But it did peripherally concern Ran-chan, as well as a certain, ah, 'detective dweeb' that you mentioned earlier. Nonono; loose lips and all that, you know," Sonoko's former teacher cautioned her, reaching across and pinching the young woman's lips closed. "Let's let the past remain the past, shall we?"

"It's not the past I'm worried about," muttered Eri, taking a mostly untasted bite of her meal. "It's the present. So you _aren't _a teacher at all-"

"Ah-ah-ah! I am, actually; licensed and everything, _and _in more than one country." Jodie preened. "You see, I honestly DID call you to talk about your daughter's schooling! It's just that there are other reassurances I felt that you needed as well, before you decided to go looking for them yourself. Either of you," she added, giving Sonoko a sunny smile. "You're both such resourceful women! And so determined, and I just knew that you wouldn't rest until you knew that Ran-chan was in good hands."

"Yes. About those hands-" Eri leveled a hard look that had cowed many a future denizen of the Japanese penal system while in the courtroom. "I seem to recall that K- a certain young man of our acquaintance is _also _nineteen. And I remember what most nineteen-year-old males think about, Santemillion-san." She gave the blonde agent a warning glare. "I understand the need for security in some police cases, and if the FBI is actually cooperating with Japanese law enforcement then I also realize that whatever's going on must be very..." She took a deep breath. "...very dangerous. However."

"...yes?"

"I would like your reassurance that Ran is- is properly chaperoned while in protective custody. After all," Eri pointed out, "you aren't there right now, are you?"

Fleeting images of something quite, quite amusing seemed to pass before the teacher-cum-agent's eyes for a moment; the corner of her mouth twitched before she composed herself to answer the other woman. "Kisaki-san," she said quite seriously, "I can promise you that your daughter _and _any former classmates she might have in her company are at all times under the care of several adults who are, I assure you, living and taking meals with them every day. Security is tight, I see Ran-chan quite often, and she's absolutely fine." Jodie paused for a moment, looking away; when she met Eri's gaze again, her eyes had lost all humor. "It's my responsibility to help keep her that way, after all... and to see to her schooling as well."

"Oh, COLLEGE!" Sonoko burst out, unable to contain herself any more. "Who cares about _college?_I want to know-" This time Jodie laid a forefinger across Sonoko's lips. "But I want to know..." she half whispered, eyes tearful.

"I know you do, Sonoko-chan; that's why I came today. If I hadn't spoken to you both, how long would it've been before you set out looking for Ran?" Jodie-sensei shook her head. "But enough, mmm? You both know she's safe and sound _and_well chaperoned; so let's talk about her schooling, shall we?" Pushing aside her half-empty plate, the agent pulled a small notebook out of her purse and flipped it open to a schedule written in blue ink. "Let's see. She has a rather challenging series of courses arranged for this term..."

Despite numerous segues by Sonoko and sharp questioning by Eri, the schedule was eventually combed through and (somewhat grudgingly) approved. "Most of it will be online, of course, though I've arranged taping of her major lectures; if we need to rearrange things later on, we'll manage," confided Jodie to the other two as they concluded. "I'm sorry she won't be able to meet you like you had both planned, Sonoko-chan, but perhaps we might meet and talk now and then, hmm?" The FBI agent gave the girl an encouraging smile. "Now, you both understand that you'll need to keep this absolutely secret, of course, don't you?"

"Of course," murmured Eri, and showed her teeth to Sonoko, about whom she had few illusions. "Absolutely secret. Ran's safety depends on it. Doesn't it, Sonoko?" The young woman blinked and then nodded hurriedly, making a zipping motion across her lips with one finger. "That's right. As you said," she added to Jodie a little dryly, "'loose lips and all that.'" She rose to pay her bill. "When will I be hearing from you again, Santemillion-san?"

The blonde bit her lip in amusement. "'When shall we three meet again?'" she quoted in English, and then dropped back into fortunately excellent Japanese without a pause. "Mmm, a week from now? Unless," she added, "anything interesting happens. But don't worry," she reassured the lawyer, "I'll let you know if anything does." As she and Sonoko rose to her feet, she gave Eri a little wave. "Scout's honor, Kisaki-san!"

The Look she received dimmed her brilliant smile not at all. As Eri turned away, however, Sonoko leaned close and whispered: "Ran-chan... she really _is_with that Shinichi of hers, isn't she? I hope she gives him a piece of her mind, after being left in the lurch all this time! He could've said SOMEthing! Of all the immature, big-headed brats...!"

Jodie Santemillion raised one amused eyebrow. "Sonoko-chan, from what I understand, at the right time and place he can be quite mature." She chuckled to herself. "Quite."

* * *

"...isn't right, isn't _possible._This isn't accurate." Eyes wide in furious denial, Ai slouched back in her too-large chair, skimming her gaze once more across the data displayed on her monitor. "It can't possibly be."

A light double knock at the door, Agasa's greeting, preceded her colleague into the room which had been designated as Ai's workroom and temporary laboratory during their time in hiding at the Shiratori estate. Without the resources or gall to try something as transparent as a delivery of properly sanitized laboratory surfaces and sinks, Ai was - reluctantly - making do as best as she could within a sterilised bubble-like enclosure which had been carried in flat and expanded within the shoji-screened room she had been given.

Once he'd slipped out of his house shoes and slipped a cap over his bushy hair, Agasa shuffled over to Ai's side in sock feet, carrying two mugs of coffee. "Ai-chan, I brought your- Ai-chan, what's wrong?"

The small scientist accepted her coffee with faintly unsteady hands and a vague headshake. "I...earnestly hope only my numbers." She set her coffee on the counter in front of her shakily, struggling to focus her gaze and gather her speech. "Professor, if you would - please..." She gestured at the computer's display.

Agasa scanned the numbers displayed there, frowning and hmming as he drew conclusions in his mind. Halfway down the screen, Agasa's attention snagged on one particular line item. "Ai-chan... are you certain about these figures?"

"That's just what I've said," she snapped. "-I'm sorry, that wasn't..."

"It's alright, Ai-chan. Explain to me what you're trying to prove with these calculations?"

Nodding, Ai pulled closer a notebook lined with neatly penned notes and drew a steadying breath. "I was working on the second stage of bloodwork based on the sample I took from Kudo-kun, with the intent to discern what has caused his extended transformation." Without comment, Agasa raised one brow, but Ai's drew down in impatience at his amusement. "There is no evidence yet to support his premature conclusion that the state change is permanent, therefore, I refuse to endorse that optimism until I have sufficient reason to do so. And there _is_evidence supporting my caution.

"Kudo-kun's results show a high likelihood that his state will continue to fluctuate, though at less regular intervals than the black box dictates. I believe that his system is learning to reject the control of APTX entirely, and that by continuing to administer a standard dosage of the drug through his APTX box, we can rather easily observe the vacillations while maintaining an experimentally sound baseline on which to compare readings."

Agasa glanced to the monitor again, and the blinking cursor highlighting a single cell of the displayed spreadsheet. "And...you found something else?"

Ai double clicked on a different part of the screen, changing the cursor's focus to a new cell. In the formula bar of her software, the equation used to derive the cell's contents was displayed. Agasa read it with interest.

"This pertains to..."

"His parents, yes. The deviation in Kudo-kun's genetic code from his father's is vastly greater than that from his mother's. Yet he looks and acts much more like his father. And yes, Professor, I know that this sounds inconsequential..." Ai met her colleague's eye with a tight look in her own. "But please look at this, too."

She pulled up a chart, with several lines tracing steepled paths across the screen. Around the lines, clouds of data points displayed fine detail; the lines, color-coded to their subject, illustrated the summaric trends. Ai placed one small fingertip on a point on the screen at which three of the four lines converged completely.

"That will be Shin-chan and his parents' lines, won't it?" Agasa asked hopefully, looking to Ai for confirmation. What he saw in her eyes made him swallow, hard. "Ai-chan?"

"These three lines are, respectively, Kudo-kun's, his kaasan's...and mine." Ai paused, curling both hands around her coffee mug to hide the small tremors that shook her wrists and hands. "His tousan's, Kudo-san's, is there." She pointed to the line at the bottom of the graph, least peaked and furthest from the other three in all respects.

"Ai-chan, you can't- surely this is wrong," Agasa tried, stammering over his words a bit in haste. "This tracks the- the genetic makeup, correct? The actual DNA sequence?"

"Modified by several accessory factors and variables to filter out conflating influences which would complicate the data, but yes, essentially, that's what we're looking at." Together, Ai and Agasa stared at the display, where Shinichi's and Yukiko's jagged lines of genetic trend intertwined with each other, winding over and above and through Ai's own similarly bladed course.

"And...Ai-chan, but, you're sure you haven't..."

"Mixed up the data sets? Believe me, Professor, the thought has occurred. More than once." The petite scientist turned her gaze back to the screen in front of her as Agasa pulled up his own chair beside hers, his face grave and coffee - probably not actually decaf as advertised - completely forgotten.

"...I _hoped _I had."

"Ai-chan?" One broad hand on his friend's slim shoulder, Agasa leaned in close. "Is there something else?"

"There's one more data set, Professor." Two clicks and the hidden layer was revealed, adding two deep purple data sets to the chart's red, blue, green, and black lines. "Both of these purple lines belong to the same person. Taken at different times in her lifetime - one from a lock of baby hair...one from a blood sample taken shortly before she died."

Agasa studied the graph quietly. One of Akemi's lines danced along the bottom of the chart, with Yuusaku's; the other leapt irregularly across the chart's midline, more jagged and aggressive than the three it zigzagged across.

"...What does this mean, Ai-chan?"

"This chart displays details of the DNA sequences of each individual in question from whom I've obtained a genetic sample. In Akemi's case, two samples. The full DNA sequence is mostly irrelevant to this application; several of those filters I mentioned earlier simplify some of the elements of the sequences which don't have pertinent effects on the sections I'm interested in."

Agasa swallowed. "The sections affected by APTX?"

Brows up, Ai cast an approving glance over her colleague despite the grim topic at hand. "Very good, Professor. That's quite a jump, considering you haven't heard what I'm about to say next.

"The sections in question are those affected by APTX, yes. I expected to see variation in Kudo-kun's and my sequences that deviated sharply from everyone else's; the samples from his parents were taken mainly for comparison within the rest of the sequence, but I noticed some irregularities in Yukiko-san's that made me look closer. I'm not sure whether I'm glad that I did."

"Ai-chan, are you saying that Yukiko-san was..."

"Possibly," Ai said, mouth and voice tight. "If we combine what I'm seeing in these data lines with the information Kudo-kun gathered from the prisoner at Division One, and a healthy amount of supposition, we just might come up with something truly terrifying.

"Suppose for a moment, Professor," Ai continued, cradling her cooling coffee and turning in her chair to face her friend. "Suppose that the Organization uses derivatives of the APTX line of chemicals for all its recruits, from the day they're captured or inducted. It's a fair enough assumption; I personally worked on several strains which were designed for strengthening high-level stealth operatives' physical faculties in their areas of specialty by diverting neural function to the chosen muscle or sensory groups when under conditions of..." She trailed off, noting Agasa's fond, quietly amused smile. "Ahm. Regardless.

"Suppose that 4869 has sister compounds, closely related. Suppose that the presence of an APTX compound that is related to 4869 within a certain range of deviation within the genetic makeup of an individual would later have further effects on that individual's interaction with other APTX compounds, including 4869."

"Do all the APTX compounds alter the genetic structure?" Agasa asked, frowning. "Are some of them merely addictive or narcotic in nature?"

"Some, but not most," Ai conceded, biting her lip in concentration. "Most of those are of minor importance - sterilisation and neutralisation chemicals." Agasa blinked, somewhat owlish, and Ai flushed - very slightly. "Ahm. That would be..."

"Neutralisation of agents," Agasa murmured. "I understand, Ai-chan."

"Yes. Well, regardless, perhaps the first family of APTX compounds have more interaction properties than we'd originally imagined. The opportunity to experiment with any of them was always vanishingly rare; compounding the drugs took massive amounts of financial resource and time, as well, so I was rarely afforded the chance to conduct any of the more open-ended inquiries I had regarding the effects of my creations in any number of fascinating-" Again she stopped, reeling in her scientific enthusiasm with chagrin.

"I'm sorry, Professor, it's just...I've never had an opportunity for pride regarding what I accomplished in those years. The products of my work were - are - used for horrible, atrocious acts, by even more loathesome persons. And yet..."

Agasa smiled, raising his coffee mug in a quiet salute. "They're scientific marvels, Ai-chan. On a technical level, you have every reason to be proud. ...And I am very proud of you, too." Ai's gaze jerked up, meeting Agasa's warm regard, and eyes wide, the woman-girl struggled not to wilt in startled confusion under the light of that affection. For his part, unwilling to withdraw his regard but unsure how to react to Ai's alarm, Agasa smiled warmer still, trying unsuccessfully to reassure. After a moment's pause, in which the pair matched gazes, increasingly awkwardly but unsure how to break the tension, Agasa dropped his, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"Ahm, well. You were saying, about the interactions of the APTX family. Do you think that Kudo-san and your sister were exposed to a certain combination of those compounds?"

"Yes. It's a huge leap of supposition, but _if_Kudo-san was exposed to a sister chemical to APTX-4869, similarly to Akemi's exposure - taking her data from the sample later in her life - then...perhaps..."

"That would transfer biologically, wouldn't it?" Agasa's eyes, wide, snapped to the monitor as realisation suddenly clicked into place. Ai handed the mouse over with a terse nod.

"Yes. And that - again, resting wildly on supposition - may be the cause of Kudo-san's genetic similarity to myself, Kudo-kun, and Akemi...all three of whom we can safely state have been exposed to lethal doses of APTX-4869.

"Frustratingly, two of us have declined to become deceased following these dosages."

"Ai-chan!"

"No, I'm not simply maundering, Professor. It would be easier to draw conclusions about this data if we had a uniform sample set. However, Akemi's death - or my survival, depending on how you look at it - precludes that. However...there's another parallel you may not have noticed as yet."

A few mouse clicks later, Ai handed the mouse back to Agasa and sat back to allow him to examine the screen. With only Ai's line, Akemi's pair, and Yukiko's displayed, the graph seemed much more empty and confusing. Yet similarities soon emerged between the four lines; where Ai's and young Akemi's lines mirrored each other in significant ranges, the line of Akemi's adult DNA shared more similarities with Yukiko's than her own childhood line.

"What does this mean, Ai-chan? How can Akemi-san's DNA have changed so much?"

"Perhaps it hasn't as much as it appears," Ai said quietly. "Perhaps the effect on an adult introduced to the first family of APTX compounds is different than the effect on a child. Perhaps what kills an adult...only makes a child stronger."

"Ai-chan, I don't understand."

The small scientist sighed, cradling her face in her hands before the monitor. Onscreen, the green, black, and purple lines drew patterns she couldn't bring herself to look at any longer. "Akemi and I were born into the Organization. I know that she and I have been dosed with a multitude of chemicals since we've been tiny. It's what happens to children of the Org. My potential was evident early; I was given a soft treatment as I grew, after the first..._booster _set...but Akemi, as well as most of the others, got the standard battery of injections and treatments.

"Most of what I now consider the APTX "first family" wasn't in existence then - it couldn't have been. I invented ninety percent of the high-level APTX-derivative chemicals the Organisation is now using, after all. They had loyalty-addicting chemicals in use at the time, but they were more closely based on narcotics than the genetically-modifying chemicals that were likely used on Kudo-kun's pet captive, or on the children who have been disappearing. Akemi and I were treated to that breed of 'hooks,' as our teacher called them.

"Once I'd come of age to be given authority in the laboratories, one of my first products was a chemical which would eventually become one of the least-popular of my APTX derivatives. At the time, I was proud of it. It was a sort of stamina booster; in short, it reduced the negative effects on the body of extended exertion, dehydration, or starvation. Not by making food or water unnecessary - I'm not so delusional as that - but to, ahm, slow the cellular process of shutting down and diverting resources in the case of a state of famine or water rationing. It makes the body able to function at low level for much longer before finally shutting down.

"Akemi had a stock of this drug on hand at all times. I never questioned why; she was given several challenging assignments, and when I became aware of her and our father's...compromises, I considered that removing their access to my drugs would likely only serve to lessen my chances of maintaining a surviving family. As it turned out, Akemi was able to resist the effects of the loyalty-addicting narcotic by relying heavily on my drug. It wasn't a permanent solution.

"But it _was _an APTX-derivative drug, formulated using a system which is, very roughly speaking, similar to that which I would someday use to create APTX-4869. Professor, do you see the significance of this?"

"Your sister was exposed to APTX late in her life," Agasa summarised, his gaze distant while his mind worked furiously. "Yukiko-san's DNA, in this specific selection of sequences which you've chosen to highlight, displays similarly to Akemi-san's from that time in her life."

"It's not the _same _APTX derivative that I believe Yukiko-san has been exposed to," Ai nodded, her fingernails white, pressed hard against the curve of her mug. "There was only one prominent drug of the APTX family which existed prior to my work on expanding the drug's family. I believe it was that one which Yukiko-san was given, at some point in her life."

"When?"

Lips pressed tightly together, Ai glanced to the door, eyes hooded, before answering. "...Prior to Kudo-kun's birth."

"Ai-chan..."

"Please, Professor," the small scientist at his shoulder mumbled. "Just Ai."

"This scares you?"

"It does," she admitted, curling up in her chair. Knees pulled up to her chin, Ai peered across the small distance between herself and her closest confidante and best colleague and sighed. "I never told you where I got the initial impetus for the APTX line, did I?"

"I had wondered," Agasa admitted, a bit sheepish. "It's a stroke of genius, no, more than that - and I'm not saying I believe you incapable of it, Ai-chan, it's just that such vision rarely springs from nothingness."

"True," Ai nodded, smiling bitterly. "In fact, the first APTX-based drug...that is, the first apotoxin-reactive drug which the Organisation used...and still uses...has nothing to do with me at all."

"I think I want to hear this story."

The soft but insistent voice at the doorway made both Ai and Agasa nearly jump out of their skins. Ai had her tiny Glock out of her desk drawer and trained on the newcomer's forehead in a few short seconds, but Kaito stood unruffled with both hands in the air, smiling bitterly at the tiny scientist across the room.

"You think this is the first time I've had a gun on me? Put it down, Haibara-san. I think I have some information that will help you put the pieces together."

"You don't even know what we're discussing," Ai snapped, gun still leveled at the magician's forehead. "Why should I trust you with anything of this nature? Surely eavesdropping is the perfect way to gain my trust," she sneered. At the door, Kaito bent to tuck sterile booties on over his socks, then slipped on a pair of sterile gloves, and held his hands up again for examination.

"Tiny scientist, you need me," Kaito said bluntly, resisting the urge to laugh as Ai's jaw dropped in pure horror. "You do, and you don't even know why yet. I could tell you, completely honestly, that my magic told me I needed to be at your door just before you said that last thing you said." He slid the shoji screen shut behind him, zipping the protective bubble's door shut after that, and turned back to Ai with a wry grimace.

"Not that you'd believe that for a second. So instead I shall distract you. The APTX drugs had a seed. Do you know what that seed's seed was?"

"Ku-Kuroba-kun," Agasa attempted, rather obviously unsure whether to attempt to mediate between the two very angry lions in the room. "Ai-chan, put the gun down, please?" Kuroba-kun, please attempt to make sense? It would do everyone here some good."

Kaito shrugged, hands still in the air, and didn't take his gaze off of Ai's. The barrel of her gun wavered as he continued. "The APTX drugs have an apotoxin-active base as their seed, from which you draw various functions and uses. True?" A tight nod agreed. "I'm certain you've wondered where that seed came from, itself. What was used to make that first APTX drug?"

"You're merely making guesses," Ai snarled, lowering her gun but not the blades in her eyes or voice. "You're intruding on a private conversation."

"And you're still not sure what creates the original APTX. Number...90, I believe? Nicknamed the 'Spring'?"

Ai's gun clacked to the table beside her, forgotten. Her face flushed with alarm and eyes narrowed with anger, she studied the magician before her carefully. "How."

"Because I know what they used to make that, or at least I have an extremely good guess," Kaito answered simply. He gestured at the floor with one gloved hand. "May I? This might take a minute."

Ai nodded tersely. "You know what created APTX-90?"

"Believe so, yup," Kaito nodded, taking a seat on the floor in the center of the small room, legs crossed Western-style. "And I think...based on what I heard just before I popped in your door...that I know how Kudo Yukiko ended up giving her only son an in-vitro dose of it, all by accident."

* * *

.

.

Don't worry, we won't leave you hanging for long. Next chapter will hold another excursion into the dark and the return of a very special member of our cast in _Book Six, Chapter Seventeen: "Excuse me, is there anyone there?" _ Take care, and we'll see you then.


	86. Excuse me, is there anyone there?

_Hello agaaaaaaaiiiin..._

_Tonight's chapter begins, once again, with a trip into the dark. Very dark. However, where you go afterwards... well, let's just say that we expect to hear your heads exploding from here. **cocks head** Was that a boom? We LIKE booms._

_And this is only the beginning... Don't forget, the title of this book is 'War.' However, there are all sorts of ways to fight._

_Enjoy... The Management_

* * *

.

.

_**Book Six, Chapter Seventeen**__**: "Excuse me, is there anyone there?"**_

_Busy, busy… Meetings were designed to keep people from getting anything accomplished, weren't they? How fortunate that I so seldom have to attend them._

A red-nailed fingertip pressed a tiny control on a palm-sized recorder; thick blonde hair tucked back, Vermouth frowned as she listened carefully to what the little toys she had planted in certain very secure locations had to tell her. Surveillance had long been a hobby of hers—it was simply astounding what people would let slip if they thought they were in complete privacy—and she had become quite the connoisseur of modern 'bugging' techniques and where to hide them. _In the old days,_ she mused, _we'd place transmitters inside pens or jewelry or hide them inside light-fixtures and so forth; but these days, they're so tiny one can conceal them with nothing more than a few layers of paint. So much more clever to just have them built into boardroom furniture from the beginning._

The gabble of noise coming from her earbuds separated itself out: "—_seventeen acquisitions in the pharmaceuticals field, mostly stand-alone labs. These should provide enough black-market profit in the next three years, and combined with the two new street-drugs we developed last month should—"_

She spared a moment to wonder how many of the 'legal' businessmen of Japan used the same technique; probably there were a few, at the very least, though Vermouth doubted it was for the same reason.

Because, despite the supposed 'cut-throat' atmosphere of the corporate world, most of their coups and takeovers tended to be bloodless. Not so in the Black Organization; never, **ever**bloodless.

Not that she was quite ready for anything _that_drastic, of course; not yet. One of the reasons Rome had fallen had been the frequent tendency for its rulers to try to win wars on too many fronts—you couldn't pull a proper takeover if your forces were divided, and despite her many years of planning, Vermouth knew that her deadly little garden wasn't quite ripe for the plucking, not just yet. Her poison fruits needed time and cultivation, persuasion, and some more than others—the sweetest and most lethal required the highest level of care, and some days it was quite maddening to not be able to just reach out and take them.

…but oh, what a pure and perfect weapon she would have when the day came to gather the best one in! Vermouth smiled to herself, steepling her fingers before her as the recorder droned on. "—_prostitution. Less trouble than we thought, actually, this last shipment from our China holdings had a lower mortality rate than usual— we were right to go with a younger age group, they'll be hardier stock. We have good prospects in Bangkok as well, especially with corporate tie-ins... I think we can ignore the private venues for now, they don't bring in enough revenue and the blackmail returns haven't been high enough this past quarter to make them worthwhile. Now, what about our South American contacts? I understand you have a list of—"_

_Boring. Boring, boring, boring. But useful; if you want to know where the power lies, follow where the money is going and who directs it._ Committing several names from the recording to memory, Vermouth frowned and tapped her nails in a preoccupied manner on the heavily tinted glass of her car-window. _Of course, we all know where the, ah, ultimate power lies; but He doesn't care about petty little details such as quarterly revenue reports or how many teenaged Chinese prostitutes died of drugs or disease before they could be sold to corporate-run brothels. Nor do I, but knowledge is power._

And power… is the only thing worth having.

It was difficult, the little game she'd been playing- so many years of being the loyal favorite of _That Man,_ so many decades building the persona, honing her skills, training and experimenting, camouflaging the less-successful subjects as deaths of no concern and (even more importantly) carefully hiding the actual successes away where they wouldn't be noticed. Games inside of games, surviving and climbing in power and authority, burying her own agenda within _His_and keeping her loyalty above question, unimpeachable.

Vermouth had no illusions as to what would happen if her plans for the future were ever discovered. There wouldn't even be ashes left; _He_would see to that... but somewhere there would be damage, a scarred wall, a burnt patch of pavement, a bloodstain. It'd be where the rest could see it, like a signature of failure and retribution.

_And that just makes it all the sweeter._ She closed her eyes, hearing _His_ voice in her ears. _I'll dance to your tune, just as I always have, for a little while longer. But sooner or later I'll be the one paying the piper and in control of the music. This dance has belonged to You for far too long._

* * *

The morning had been strictly business; the afternoon was, therefore, devoted to pleasure. Although, of course, one man's pleasure might be another man's pain.

Or another woman's, for that matter…

Vermouth stood in one of the 'public' steel-shielded shooting booths; wearing thin black gloves and full ear-protection, she laid down a steady, target-eating barrage of fire and moved through a procession of weapons- first a small Ruger .38, lightweight and easy to fire, then a Beretta 9mm that she had had for years, then a Walther PB-120 that had been specially modified for her grip. Small brass cartridges rained around her, littering the floor as she filled her world with the scent of cordite and the heavy jolt that even the lightest handgun sends shocking down the arm from hand to elbow. Behind her protective goggles, Vermouth's eyes glinted with pure, predatory satisfaction.

The larger guns were next— another Walther followed the last, this one a shoulder-stocked TEP94 automatic pistol. It had a greater range, and she moved to a different lane to make use of the weapon's full 75-meter reach. All around her other agents were busy with their own practice; she recognized a number of upper echelon members, some nearly her own age. Not that one would _know_that, of course… The thought, as always, made Vermouth smile a secret little smile. "The Ruger next," she said to the silent range handler who stood by; the man nodded silently and began to load the rifle.

The targets that were set up were of the 'standing silhouette' and a modified 'running man' type; the second one was clipped to a movable guywire that made things more interesting, though still not all that much of a challenge. Humming to herself, Vermouth nodded to the range handler, who tapped a control on the booth's panel and activated the sensors in the 'runner's' lower torso and legs as well as upping the speed.

The target jolted as if in terror; tiny lights sprang up on the human-sized frame holding it to either side of the newly-activated areas, and it took off: skittering back and forward in the lane as it frantically surged towards the distant bulletstop where it would be out of reach. Eyes narrowing behind her goggles, Vermouth took out its knees—

It stopped, swaying in place; obedient to its preprogrammed instructions, the servo on its guywire dropped it two feet until it took on the semblance of a kneeling human figure, legs shattered. The lights on its lower frame went dark.

Systematically, Vermouth took out left thigh, right thigh, the ink-targeted stomach, left elbow, right elbow… and then paused, regarding the shattered thing with satisfaction; around her, most of the other shooters had paused to watch.

The last shot was perfectly centered on the target's forehead. As she squeezed it off, the agent pictured the target's eyes widening in horror and wondered: was it really true that you could feel the red dot of a laser-sight on your skin just before the end?

_I do hope so. One last little tiny, fleeting little spark of warmth; how very nice._

The target fell to the ground, cardboard skittering as it separated from its frame and the last lights were extinguished. There was silence in the gun-range for a few seconds—the Organization's members were not so gauche as to do anything that conferred active approval—before first one gun began firing again, and then another, and then another. But Vermouth had heard, and she smiled sweetly to herself before turning to the handler and passing him her gun.

Silent as ever, he handed over the guns to another blank-faced attendant who would clean and store the weaponry; "Are there any 'special targets' today?" asked Vermouth of her range-handler idly, smoothing the knot that she had tied her hair back in with one hand as she passed him her ear protection.

The quiet man's eyes flickered, emotionless. "Yes ma'am. I sent word that you were here through already; they should be ready for you by now." He handed over a sheaf of paperwork and nodded to the other attendant, who pressed a button beneath the counter; a door at the other end of the range blinked security-lights from red to green as it unlocked, and Vermouth and the handler passed through.

The air on the other side of the door had a stale taste to it and a dry, peculiar tang that caught in the throat: old cordite-smoke, never cleared out by cleaning or ventilation. The lighting overhead was bright enough to read by, though it fell flatly on scarred, black-painted walls and gave the documents that Vermouth scanned the color of yellowed bones. "My, my, my," she murmured; "A would-be turncoat, hm? Caught with a briefcase full of copied files on his way to the authorities; tsk." She sighed in mock-sadness. "How the little rats run at the first sight of a cat; did he think we wouldn't notice when he didn't show up at his office? Bought men should staybought, don't you think?" The question seemed to require an answer, and the range-handler hesitated.

"I wouldn't know, ma'am. I was born to the Organization."

She raised the other eyebrow as she turned a page. "Were you? No wonder you work in Weaponry, then." Sharp eyes flickered down the page, and her mouth turned down in disappointment. "This little wretch will barely provide any sort of a challenge; I've half a mind to go in unarmed." The handler gave her a wordless glance, the unease in his face the first emotion he had shown, and Vermouth laughed softly. "Oh, I won't; today is devoted to marksmanship practice, not hand-to-hand. But I _will_ use a handgun instead of a rifle." The woman crumpled the paperwork in one fist. "No scopes for traitors; they don't deserve them. And I have to have a _little_fun, don't I? Otherwise, what's the point?"

"…..Very good, ma'am." The handler unlocked the final door.

Inside—was outside. Dead trees stood thickly in an enormous dark room, the black-painted ceiling a good thirty feet above them lit with sullen, small bulbs scattered like stars. There were waist-high walls staggering through the trees in uneven lines, raised berms of dirt and stone, even a murky watercourse; tall, dead grass stood unmoving and still in uneven clumps and blighted expanses, the occasional ruler-straight cut in the sod showing how once upon a time the groundcover had been brought in and planted green and alive before being allowed to wither. Off in a distant corner dim light filtered through the trees, and Vermouth knew from long familiarity that the ruined one-room shack planted there was only barely beyond useless as a shelter or haven. _It's a wonder that they don't fall down, really, considering how bullet-riddled they are by now. Not that we have to use this room all that often, but they __always__go there to hide. Always._

It's a pity, really. It takes all the enjoyment out of it when they're predictable.

A shadow moved against the light; Vermouth sighed. "Just the gun," she murmured. "No vest. It's not as though I'll need it….. what?" She raised an eyebrow again.

"Ma'am, he _was_armed. Your orders, ma'am—"

"Of course he was," she said lightly, checking the clip of the small Glock she was handed. "It wouldn't be nearly as much fun if they weren't. It wouldn't be… what's that word? Oh," she smirked in self-mockery. "'Fair.' And if he kills me, he gets all my holdings and every sin is washed away with my blood, true? That's the rule, _**if**_he kills me; I wrote that one myself. But then…" the agent gave the perturbed handler a whimsical smile, "how likely is that?"

Laughing, she slipped into the darkness, leaving him behind.

* * *

"Hakuba-san!"

Raising one eyebrow, the blond British detective tipped his head back, swallowing with difficulty two large pills and a sip of cool water. Teeth gritted together, he gulped soundly to settle his throat; by the time the grimace faded from Hakuba's face, Kuroba Kaito had completed his jog from the far side of the plaza and pulled up to his side, barely winded.

"Hiyo, what're those?" the magician asked, gesturing to the small paper packet which had held Hakuba's pills.

Hands in his pockets, Hakuba regarded the other levelly. "High-strength headache medication. I took a double dose."

"Woah. You got a migraine or something?"

"It's just arrived," the detective deadpanned. "Don't concern yourself with me. I'll be fine - I have another two doses still reserved for just after tea."

Kaito eyed Hakuba leerily. "...It's one in the afternoon."

"Yes, which means I've to wait two full hours before I can take the next dose," Hakuba sighed. "Please try not to remind me."

"_Well._" Blinking away his alarm, Kaito crooked his elbow out to the side and grinned charmingly at Hakuba, who stood a good four centimeters taller than him. "I'll try my best not to be offended. Shall we? Our carriage waits."

The magician's smile held steady under his classmate's scathingly alarmed stare; after a few long seconds, Hakuba shook his head as though to clear it and strode off ahead of Kaito, heading for the black sedan obviously belonging to the Kuroba household. Kaito trotted to catch up, grinning and shaking his head at the same time.

_Pushing it too far, Magician,_ Kid warned in the back of their mind. _Don't alienate him just because you can._

_Hai, hai,_ Kaito sighed. _That's less fun._

Kid laughed. _Yeah. But we need him, Kaito._His brother cocked a brow, lips pursed to hold back a smarmy grin.

_I bet you say that to all the pretty detectives._

Shaking his head, Kid leaned back, leaving his brother to the focus of the body and interaction with Hakuba. _Suppose I do, these days._

* * *

Hakuba didn't take kindly to Kuroba's refusal to tell him where they were headed, once they'd seated themselves in the back of the black luxury sedan. He took even less well to the magician's next suggestion.

"I'm sorry, Hakuba-san, but it's necessary." Kuroba brandished the black silk scarf with undaunted enthusiasm.

His classmate folded his arms, eying him askance. "There's a school of thought which says that one should always look before one leaps," he pointed out. "Not exactly a possibility with my eyes blindfolded, is it?" Hakuba gave his classmate's amused face a long, withering look before at last ending it with a sigh. "Very well, if it will expedite things. However, someday in the future I may ask an equal exercise in trust from you, you do understand?"

Kuroba quirked one brow and the corner of his mouth in a smile. "You should know that you already have my trust," the magician murmured, something unidentifiable tinting his voice as he leaned forward, blindfold held almost delicately between nimble fingers. As Hakuba's world went black, the other tied a snug and efficient knot against the back of his head, without painfully tugging a single blond hair. It was an issue of willpower for Hakuba to keep his hands still on his lap with the thief leaning so close -

_the magician, of course, the magician. Not thief, he's Kuroba-kun my obnoxious classmate._

...At the moment, and likely only because it is daytime and he's...off-duty...

...But at the moment, I am blindfolded in a car with my classmate, and no felons.

...That doesn't sound any more encouraging. Doubtless, anything beginning with 'I am blindfolded in a car,' or perhaps simply 'I am blindfolded,' has an abnormally low rate of resulting in an encouraging sentiment. Still.

- but he somehow managed.

"There," Kuroba said, moving away from Hakuba; through the imperfect black, Hakuba could tell that light through the windows was flickering - they were moving - and that Kaito had leaned back to give Hakuba more room. "Like I said, it's necessary," Kuroba continued, his tone much calmer and smoother than the intentionally authority-shredding enthusiasm he favored. "There's a number of sensitive things - facts and faces - that I have to show you when we arrive. Even though I would bet my life that you're not a source of concern for us, it's not useful nor wise for more people to know more facts than are absolutely necessary. We need your analytical skill and your trust." Hakuba scoffed at that, a harsh sound that had him coughing for air the next minute.

"We do," Kuroba continued, his voice again tipped in a quality Hakuba couldn't identify. "And we simply feel it's not wise to put, well, more informational pressure on any one link than is necessary. It's a stronger chain when the weight's divided, don't you think?"

"Fair enough," Hakuba reluctantly allowed, after a moment of tense consideration. "I'm less of a risk if I can only identify your plans, not your location?"

"Yes," Kuroba said. Hakuba could hear the smile on the other's lips. "And...if you don't see more faces than you need to."

Hakuba stiffened, shoulders tensing abruptly. "You mean to lead me blindfolded through some...safehouse? Present me trussed and blind to-"

"Ahaha! No, Hakuba-san, today's not a day for indulging my personal fantasies," Kuroba purred, leaning closer. With an undignified squeak, which he immediately resolved could not _possibly_have come from his own throat, Hakuba scooted as far away as their situation would allow; pressed up against the sedan's door, he put one hand up, palm flat and ready to push if he was lucky enough to blindly strike upon his target.

"_Kuroba-kun,_ I would ask that you at least _attempt_a facade of professionalism!" Hakuba scolded. "I would ask for common decency, but I believe that's too much to hope for."

Still laughing, the magician leaned away, until Hakuba heard the soft sound of his shoulders pressed against the far door, his head coming to rest against the window glass. Kuroba sounded more contemplative when he spoke next, after a silence which Hakuba couldn't interpret.

"If I spoke with you seriously, would you believe that I was speaking in earnest? You would suspect me even more strongly, I think.

"Hakuba-san, please put aside your ideas about who I am and how I behave. You asked for a future extension of my trust...but that's backwards. This, today, is your future extension of the trust I have held in you for three years."

Kuroba's voice was entirely unfamiliar to Hakuba now, carrying some note of danger that had nothing to do with the sound of his voice and more with the prickling, uneasy sensation crawling across Hakuba's skin like centipedes beneath his clothes. It abbreviated his breath and sped his heart.

"I am sorry, Hakuba-san. It has been fun until now. It really has."

They rode the remainder of the way in silence.

* * *

Yukiko sat on the edge of the porch of the main house, ankles crossed, contemplating her shoes. They were quite nice: open-toed red leather slingbacks with Cuban heels, a bit retro but perfectly matching her outfit. The weather was beautifully warm, there were birds in the trees and the sun was shining, her husband was in Shiratori-keiji's home's study with his head in his laptop wasting the day away, her son was attempting to chop his fingers off with garden-shears while ostensibly doing some much-needed pruning, and there was _absolutely nothing for her to do._So why not sit and contemplate one's shoes?

It wasn't like she could help the two scientists; Agasa, dear man that he was, tended to stammer and turn pale if she offered to hold test-tubes or centrifuge beakers or whatever else they did in that jury-rigged lab of theirs. And Ai-chan simply looked at her with that I-Am-Studying-A-Bug stare of hers. It wasn't fair; she hadn't broken a _thing._And anyway, they'd both been shutting up every time she came into earshot, which was a touch alarming. Yukiko was certain they weren't aware of it, too. What was THAT all about?

She sighed a deep, heartfelt sigh, and examined her shoes again. "It's not as if I'm utterly useless," she grumbled at the hapless footware. "I have a brain, you know. And two hands; I could be... I don't know, Googling things for them. Or writing up their findings. Or... something other than sitting here waiting for lunch and talking to you."

She uncrossed her ankles and clicked her heels together lightly; shoes weren't much of conversationalists at the best of times. But at least they were stylish.

"...Kudo-san? Am I, err, interrupting...?" The voice came from behind her, and Yukiko twisted around to look up towards the porch's entrance.

Shiratori stood in all his dark-suited, ultra-proper glory in the doorway. Sometimes the actress wondered if he realized just how very perfectly he fit the stereotype of the Professional Police Detective in all the better cop shows. He even had the right voice; had he auditioned for such a role in her presence, she would have put him as a charactor actor, probably with at least a couple of movies under his belt but stuck with the Trustworthy Friend parts. _He might try for a villain's role, though; he could do a good Stone Cold Killer, maybe, though he'd be the kind that the Evil Boss In Charge shoots from behind when he tries to betray him and take the goods._

All this passed through her quick mind in a second or so, no longer. "Interrupting? Oh no, we're finished." Slipping the shoes off and rising gracefully to her feet, Yukiko smiled at the detective. "Is lunch ready?"

Lunch was indeed ready, laid out in a small side-room back of the kitchen where (Yukiko thought) the staff probably ate when it was just them and not a bunch of pesky guests-slash-researchers. Or whatever the cook, house staff and security really believed they were; Yukiko thought that their cover story was actually quite flimsy, but having the Young Master Of The House a detective probably meant that they understood secrecy and Need Not To Know.

Really, she did think in capitals quite a lot, didn't she? It was probably an industrial disease of sorts to do with acting. Yuusaku thought in plotlines, after all.

Heiji was already in the room, waiting impatiently but politely; "Th'others are busy," he informed them in his strong Osakajin. "Ran's writing some sort've report for class, Kudo's trying to get some exercise that doesn't involve his brain, the nutjob's off somewhere and the Science Twins have their door closed." He shrugged. "Don't think they mean to be rude or anything; Agasa-han said he'd make sure Haibara ate when they got done with whatever they're doin'."

"And _YUUSAKU"_ (said Yukiko, deliberately raising her voice to carry through the open door) _"is going to MISS HIS LUNCH_ because he's got his nose buried in his work." She paused, and one corner of her mouth quirked in amusement as a faint sound of dismay came from somewhere out of view, followed seconds later by the thump of unshod feet crossing a porch, the scuffle of shoes being slipped on, an uneven clatter of hard soles against path stones, another scuffle, and more footsteps. A moment later the writer appeared in the doorway, a little out of breath. "Were you wearing _geta?"_Yukiko demanded incredulously, staring down at the tabi socks on her husband's feet.

"It's a traditional house," he explained a little sheepishly. "I still had that pair from the hot springs resort, remember? The ones I-"

"-the ones you nearly broke your neck wearing?" she answered him tartly, much to Heiji's amusement. "Oh, never mind. Here, sit down and eat some traditional food."

Lunch was plentiful and very good, though actually not entirely 'traditional'; Shiratori applied himself to making polite conversation with his guests, and Yukiko applied herself equally to making her host feel as if he was doing a fantastic job of it- a great deal of being a successful actress, after all, was convincing your audience that they were doing the right thing in watching you perform. Talk was desultory, the topics ranging from the history of the house and its grounds to a discussion of Kendo following Heiji's comments on the small practice dojo he'd found in the western wing of the main building. Not until the last piece of lightly grilled fish had been devoured and the last tea had been drunk did talk turn to more serious matters.

"I hesitate to broach the subject so soon after a meal, but..." They were back in the study that Yuusaku had been using; by mutual agreement they had all followed Shiratori there to allow for greater privacy, sliding the room's door shut behind them. It was somewhat more modern than the majority of the house, being lined with bookcases and fitted with perfectly adequate WiFi and a television; the faint, pervading scent of cigars made Yukiko wrinkle her nose but told her that Shiratori's father had probably used the room as a typical masculine haven. The heavy leather-upholstered couches and chairs certainly looked the part, as did the tones of maroon, black and brown that predominated the room.

She raised an inquiring brow at their host. "We've, ah, received our results from the morgue," Shiratori explained, looking a little discomfited. "From the three fatalities that occurred at the end of the Lotus heist." Heiji sat straight up at that, jeans squeaking against his chair while the Division One officer steepled his fingers in front of him. "We were able to hurry the toxicology study along due to the circumstances. The first set of results belonged to one Akatake Asa, a thirty-two year old resident of Chikushima; according to friends and family, she was on site to watch the... festivities, as it were." He sat back, frowning. "She was unemployed, having just moved into the area from a small rural village near Hitoyoshi, and so far nothing has been found to link her in any way to the Organization. Her lab results came back clean; traces of the other corpse's skin were found beneath her fingernails, and witnesses both heard her shout and saw her struggling with the second gunshot victim. In the process of the struggle she was shot at very close range by a .22 calibre bullet which entered her lower left lung and lodged in her heart; death was very quick. However, Akatake-san was also armed; she was unlicensed but according to family interviews had been carrying a small, illegal pistol since an episode with a persistent boyfriend some time back." He blinked as Heiji stirred impatiently, visibly dismissed the young woman's death, and moved on.

"As to the second fatality, we have been unable to identify her with any certainty, but her description and a birthmark on her left inner elbow matches that of a woman who disappeared several years ago from Nagoya, one Zayama Rishi; she had a number of minor brushes with the law, but oddly enough never as either a victim nor a possible suspect- she was reported three times in a list of incidental bystanders to public accidental deaths, twice as a direct witness to the same."

Yuusaku tilted his head to one side. "On the scene but not primarily part of it, hm? I'd consider having those deaths reexamined, Shiratori-keiji." The officer nodded.

"In time, yes; discreetly, of course." He cleared his throat. _"Her_toxicology study returned rather unusual results; no traces of illegal drugs were found in Zayama's system, though at first testing of samples obtained at autopsy indicated possible anabolic steroid use. That has since been disproved, however, and..." Shiratori hesitated, then shrugged and brought several stapled pages from one pocket, folded twice over into a neat rectangle. "Well. The lab in charge noted no less than eleven unidentifiable but active chemical traces in liver, spleen, brainstem and pancreas, plus abnormally high levels of adrenaline." The officer's eyes flicked up to meet those of Hattori Heiji, who was watching him intently. "A number of equally unidentifiable pills were also found on her person along with a significant amount of cash and a wallet; the ID in the wallet has since been proven to be a very good forgery, quite high quality."

"Nothin' but the best for our little friends in black," muttered Heiji. "Kudo needs t'be here to hear this, but I'll make sure he knows. How'd she die?"

A muscle twitched in Shiratori's jaw. "She received two injuries: a small-calibre bullet to the abdomen, apparently from Akatake-san's gun; and, somewhat to our surprise, a secondary and much larger bullet to the base of her skull from some distance off. That was the shot that actually killed her; it, ah, matches the rifling patterns pulled from the weapon taken from our current prisoner upon his arrest." The Division One officer let that sink in before continuing. "Hattori-san, does this fit with what Kudo-san has told you regarding past operation procedures of Organization members?"

Heiji snorted. "Do you mean, 'do they kill each other if things're heading down the tubes?' Gee, lemme think." He made a show of scratching his head. "'S not like they have a big hail-and-farewell banquet every year, but from what he's told me they're not much on dealing with failures. There was the guy he described, another Osakajin; worked with programmers a lot, died in an explosion. Then- you remember that game programmer, worked for Tokiwa Corporation? You were in on the investigation of his death, weren't you?" At Shiratori's startled not, Heiji shrugged. "Kudo said he was shot by Gin, the psycho that gave him the poison. Some sort of low-echelon agent, but an agent... There was that bastard Irish, too, the one that beat the crap out've Neechan up on the Tower. Remember him? Kudo told you about him when he did his big Full-Disclosure talk." He hunched his shoulders a little. "They're pretty big on suicide, too, and after seeing what that prisoner of yours went through I guess I can understand that. Kudo's mentioned a guy called Calvados, another one named Kusuda who worked in Haido Central Hospital, another agent named Arrack..."

In the silence that followed, Heiji hesitated, then gave the other three people in the room a Look. "There's one more, too; whatever you do, don't ask Haibara about her sister, okay?" he growled. "Her name was Miyano Akemi; Kudo told me about her case. Gin shot her when she tried t'bargain her and Haibara's way out of the Org. Didn't work, obviously, and... just don't ask her about it. If she wants to talk about her neechan, she will." He mulled over the thought for a moment and then added, "And there's her parents. I'm not sure what happened to them, but I know they're both dead too."

Yukiko bit her lip. "Now I guess we know why they keep kidnapping people," she murmured, her hand sliding across the couch-cushions to find her husband's. "High mortality rate. It's not like they can advertise for new recruits, after all." The joke fell utterly flat in the quiet room, and Yuusaku's fingers tightened comfortingly on hers. "Arethe kidnappings still happening?"

"They are. Or rather, attempts are still being made, with limited success. The list of primary gradeschool-level targets that we were provided helped immensely." The furrow that had appeared between Shiratori's dark brows eased a little with the chance to tell some good news for a change. "Of the four attempts made over the past five days, all but one were failures. The fourth... vanished on the way to school." He shook his head. "I have the child's name, background and circumstances of his abduction, but suffice it to say that he was among the top ten at-risk targets." The officer raised an eyebrow. "Do you-"

Heiji waved a distracted brown hand. "Later, yeah. But- there were three bodies, right? What about the third one, the sniper?" He leaned forward in his chair, eyes intent.

The officer gave him a somber look. "The third one," he said quietly, "we _have_identified; or rather," he added quietly, "his name was already known to us. Isao Jacobs."

_Isao Jacobs._ Yukiko's mind flipped the name around to proper Japanese order automatically, _Jacobs Isao_; she had never heard of it, but she saw Heiji blink once before shock blanked his face. "A 'half'," he said slowly; half-Japanese, half something else. "How old?"

"Twenty. He's been missing for—"

"—nine years, right? God." The leather of the Osakajin's chair squeaked again as he slumped back in agitation, chin tucked low. "Kudo _**really**_needs to hear this," he muttered. "One of the first missing kids in the files, I remember the name. Oldest one of the batch."

Yuusaku's hand tightened once more on his wife's as a thought made the writer look at Shiratori sharply. "Calluses. Is there anything in the report about the calluses on the third body's hands? I'd like to know," he explained, "if he was specially trained as a sniper. This would've been an important mission, wouldn't it? So they wouldn't have sent out an inexperienced pair of shooters, not to handle something like this."

The officer quirked an eyebrow up again, something that he did fairly often. "Good thought; thank you, Kudo-san. I'll contact the coroner's office and see what I can find out. One thing we_do_know," he added, "is that the rifle found with his body was the one which took out the windows on the Hinata Center in the first volley of gunfire."

"Huh. Somebody out to make their mark, maybe? Somebody's protegé?" Heiji looked at that fact and tried to fit it in. "They'd send either an experienced marksman or a really good one, or both; the other guy said he took out K-" He paused, shot the discomfited Shiratori a Look, then went on. "-and that hadta be a tougher shot, moving target and all. So... I guess the point is-"

Yukiko made a frustrated noise; Heiji paused. "The _point,_dear, is that you've got your first definite confirmation on where the kidnapped children have been going," she told him. "And I know Jacobs was one of THEM by now, but he was alive, wasn't he? Right up until he was killed, I mean. And if you've found one still alive, then maybe the rest are too. Or most of them, at least." She reached out and patted his arm encouragingly. "It's better than nothing, isn't it?" He nodded, green eyes darkened and fixed, perhaps, on the image of a young man bare months older than himself: a kidnap-victim guilty of attempted murder, now ice-cold in a mortuary drawer.

"Shiratori-keiji?" Beside Yukiko her husband spoke up again. "What were the results of Jacobs' autopsy?"

The officer steepled his fingers before him again. "He died as a result of a bullet from his counterpart's gun; not surprising, I suppose. Toxicology again showed a number of unknown substances, this time less widespread through his body but with the majority of their effects centering on the central cortex and pituitary system." He stared through his fingers, sighed, and sat up. "Copies of the results will be available for Agasa-hakase and his- ah, fellow scientist; I'm sure they'll be able to make more from it than I can."

Yukiko thought of the looks that she'd been receiving all that morning: silent, troubled expressions from Agasa, abstracted ones from Ai- and wondered, just a little, if they'd ever hear what the two scientists concluded from the new data. _Oh well,_ she thought with resignation. _If they won't tell us, I suppose I could go offer to help again._

Or maybe she could go knock on their door with a lunch tray... Even scientists had to eat sometime. _And,_ she thought determinedly, _it'll give me something to do._

And if

_that__ doesn't work, then I guess I really WILL just have to break something, won't I?_

* * *

Shinichi and Ran heard them coming. Clearly.

_"-the LAST TIME, you infernally pernicious-minded creature, I __said__-"_

"Oh, Ha~ku~ba~san, you flatter me, you don't need to say such sweet things again just for _my_benefit-"

Stepping into the hallway quietly, Shinichi led Ran by the hand toward the front of the sleeping quarters of the house, from where Kaito's and Hakuba's voices were clearly sounding. Shinichi winced, sympathizing with the British detective's abject frustration. _Don't worry, Hakuba-san, he has this effect on all of us._

Eventually, the only thing to do is to sit back and choose to enjoy it.

One of the two pairs of footsteps slowed, dragging, and Ran's eyes widened, startled to be able to hear Hakuba's growl from a hallway away. "Gggh...Ku...ro...ba..."

"Hakuba-san, you shouldn't grind your teeth like that, it's not good for your enamel." With this, Kaito popped his head around Shinichi and Ran's corner, beaming silently as he spotted them, but didn't make a sound for Hakuba's benefit as he led the blindfolded detective forward. Shinichi's inhale of surprise, though, was audible enough that Hakuba noticed, and his attention and blindfolded gaze swiveled toward what he immediately identified as a potential source of recourse.

"Excuse me? Excuse me, is there anyone there? I am an idiot's captive and I require sanctuary. Please, is anyone there?"

Ran hung back, mouthing _Should we help or not?_at Shinichi; he gave a very elaborate shrug and raised an eyebrow at Kaito, miming zipping his lips with a question clear in his eyes. The magician was obviously pleased, but shook his head negatively, grinning as Hakuba slid his blindfolded attention from his oftentimes opponent to the newcomer he could hear breathing in the hall ahead of him.

"Assistance? ...Please?"

"You seem to be doing just fine, Hakuba-san," commented Shinichi mildly, fighting to hold back a grin of his own and to keep it out of his voice. "All things considered, you've managed to find your way into a very secure location and you have a good chance of getting some very pressing questions answered." He gave up the fight and allowed the grin to have its way. "And... I have to admire your courage. I mean, blindfolded in Kuroba's hands?" Ran bit back a giggle and nudged him; he gave the magician a raised eyebrow. "And your patience, Kuroba-kun, for that matter. So... where shall we start?"

His girlfriend looked at at the magician as well, eyes dancing just a little. "And does he _have_to keep the blindfold on?"

"Before removing it," Hakuba interjected, standing with admirably calm posture given his situation, "Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention? While I am still able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital? Otherwise my energy and attention will unavoidably be dissipated instead of being concentrated, as soon as the silk is taken away."

Over Hakuba's shoulder, Kaito raised an impressed brow at the other two while Shinichi's expression split wide in a toothsome grin. "Hakuba-san, I admire your precaution. Then let me simply remind you this: many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have already had experience of such, ne? And there will be more presented today."

Hakuba tipped his head, acknowledging Shinichi's quote in return to his own. Kaito smiled quietly, gesturing for Shinichi and Ran to return the way they'd come down the hall, and leading Hakuba gently by his elbow as they followed.

"I have your assurance that there will be a thorough explanation of the necessity of this?" Hakuba asked of Shinichi, as they proceeded. A gentle touch on his elbow turned him left, and he sensed a broader room in front of him as his classmate led him out of the hall through a doorway. Immediately, he caught the scent of Earl Grey and found himself smiling thinly despite his frustration.

"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said Kuroba, leading Hakuba into the room. He brought the detective to a stop at the side of a low Japanese-style tea table, on which was spread the sweets and foods comprising the best of English teas. "Results without causes are much more impressive." The sounds of others arranging themselves around the table followed, and then a brief silence; Hakuba would later deny the prickle of his skin tightening, raising the short hairs on the back of his neck, as a voice from directly across the table addressed him warmly.

"Please remove the silk, Hakuba-tantei, unless you'd prefer the assistance of one of us."

Shinichi watched as the other detective's rather square hands slipped behind his own head, tugging the blindfold's knot free with the soft _shhh_of silk-on-silk; beside him, Ran settled herself on a cushion, sitting seiza as neatly as she ever had, also watching as Hakabua's wary eyes appeared. He stood there a moment, taking in the room's layout and inhabitants with the same quickness and all-encompassing sweep of a glance that Heiji did (and, Shinichi knew, he did himself; it was a detective thing): walls, table, cushions, teapot, dishes both full and empty... Shinichi, Ran... and...

"'But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them,'" the half-Brit quoted under his breath as he took his seat on the cushion farthest from the door, the one in the honored guest's spot; and it took Shinichi only a moment to recognize the line from Doyle's _Adventure of the Three Gables._

"Why, _thank_you," murmured the master jewel thief, International Criminal 1412, the Magician in the Moonlight from where he sat opposite Hakuba; lambent blue gleamed as he surveyed the table that had been laid out in his absence per his very explicit instructions. "Now let's see, what do we have here... Ah! Toasted crumpets, egg salad sandwiches cut into fingers, scones with lemon curd and clotted cream, a selection of tarts, jammy dodgers, fresh strawberries in a sugar glaze, more sandwiches- I believe these are watercress and cream cheese." He lifted the lid of a silver salver. "And this seems to be a berry trifle."

With one of his best brain-breaking Trust-Me smiles, Kid beamed towards Ran and gestured with one eloquent hand at the very English tea-pot, which was sending up curls of aromatic steam into the air. "Ran, would you be kind enough to pour?"

* * *

.

_**grins** Was that fun? We hope so. And next time, we'll continue it directly with __**Book Six, Chapter Eighteen**__**: "Say my name, Hakuba-tantei." **__Have a good week, everyone! We'll see you in seven. _


	87. Say my name, Hakubatantei

Good evening, all! Time for tea!

And scones, and lemon curd, and strawberries and a WHOLE LOT OF TALKING OMG SO MUCH TALKING. Hakuba is a talker. And so, of course, are the rest of our fine feathered friends; but we think you'll enjoy the conversation. It's a long, long one.

Reaction to Hakuba's arr_... The Management_ival has been generally pretty favorable; we're glad, because he's not going away soon. **grin** Detectives- gotta catch 'em all! This chapter is, for all the seriousness of the topic of conversation, rather more light-hearted in some ways than other recent ones; we hope you enjoy it.

So sit back, butter a scone, sugar your Earl Grey and have a napkin; it's Full Disclosure Time. ^_^

.

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Eighteen**__**: "Say my name, Hakuba-tantei."**_

_'When one has eliminated the impossible...'_Hakuba Saguru did not complete the quote, even mentally; he rather expected to hear it come up in conversation sooner or later, so why bother?

Kudo Shinichi, the long-absent Detective Of the East, sat to his right (appropriately to the eastern side of the room) beside the young woman which Hakuba had met first at during the Twilight Mansion case, Mouri Ran. Across from them both an empty cushion marked a place for an as yet unknown guest at the table, and the detective had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew just who it might be for, all things considered.

All things...

Directly opposite him, someone who was, without a shadow of a doubt, one Kuroba Kaito and Hakuba's classmate, rambled on about the table's contents. The fact that said person was also unquestionably and provably the Kaitou Kid would have normally sent Hakuba into what passed for transports of joy within his reserved nature. However...

_This is anything but normal. And I am having distinct difficulties reconciling the two personae; I... did not expect that._

The face was the same; the expressions were not. The eyes were- and the smile was- and there was something about the blink-patterns, body language, the rate of hesitation and movement in his hands as he gestured, it was... _Quite possibly,_ Hakuba reminded himself as he deliberately attempted to calm his heartbeat to a more acceptable rate, _I am simply unaccustomed to seeing 1412 in a state of peace, so to speak; while I would not call the alternate 'war', the current situation certainly does not fit within the confines of heist, chase, attempted capture and/or escape._

As he accepted a fine china cup full of fragrant tea, he wondered what to call the other. "Sugar, Hakuba-san?" asked the young woman beyond Kudo. He accepted two lumps absentmindedly, and watched silently as she turned to the thief beside her. "Sugar, K- ah-?" She held out bowl and tongs mutely, and the mixture of hesitation and familiarity in her voice caused the blond detective's thoughts to shuffle several bits of data into new possible formations.

"No thank you, Ran," the thief answered, grinning; too late, Hakuba registered the fact that the grin's focus had swung across the table onto himself. "I'll take these here," he continued, bare fingers plucking the two sugar cubes out of Hakuba's lax palm; jerking back from the touch, Hakuba studied the other with apprehension and no small amount of irritation.

"You don't take sugar in your tea," the other explained, eyes closing in a pleasant, saccharine smile. "Just one lemon slice, unless it's been a stressful day; then two." Rind-down, he placed a small crescent of lemon in Hakuba's palm instead, then - as though nothing he'd said was of the least consequence or irregularity - offered the bowl of lemons to the guest of next precedent. "Lemon, Ran?"

_Mouri Ran is well known as a compatriot of Kudo Shinichi's._ Hakuba resumed his analysis of the exchange in front of him, noting the lack of honorifics and nuances of body language, and utterly ignoring the alarming implications of 1412's awareness of his own tea habits, as they were of little significance and likely based simply on educated supposition. _Kudo Shinichi has shown himself to be acting in concert, at least at the moment, with 1412. Mouri-san is evidently aware and at least tacitly approving of Kudo-san's arrangement with the thief. Interesting. And she is not reacting to the lack of honorific by body language nor verbal protest; very interesting indeed, and quite unexpected._

And as for Kudo himself... Hakuba had deliberately kept his eyes off the other detective's face since his brief first glance. Sometimes one could learn more about a person (_suspect,_ his mind murmured) by others' reactions than by that person's actions. Mouri-san had offered Hakuba the first cup of tea, quite properly by Japanese custom despite the Britishness of the setting; the second cup had gone to Kudo. Sugar had been offered solely to himself and then to Kuroba (_Kid,_ whispered the little voice again; _Shut up,_he answered it) without even a gesture towards Kudo, which argued for familiarity with his habits. The lemon bowl settled back to the table, after Kudo was again passed over and Mouri-san took one; after a moment's consideration, Hakuba took his stress-day second slice and watched his smiling host add his two sugar cubes to his own cup.

It took a further moment before he realized that he still had no idea what to call the familiar/unfamiliar person who sat across from him, grinning at him. Choosing the lesser of two evils, Hakuba turned at last to regard Kudo Shinichi.

Upon viewing the other outside of a crime-scene and a Taskforce coverall, _anorexic_ was the first word to come to mind, followed closely by_ill._But neither of those felt exactly correct; while the Detective of the East's wrists were painfully thin, none of the tell-tale marks of sallow skin or odd hair-growth found in anorexia sufferers seemed to be present. As for illness, that was a possibility; something about the other's face spoke of a familiarity with suffering, although Hakuba could not have said precisely what form it took. In fact, there were certain anomalies in Kudo Shinichi's physique that simply did not add up.

His movements, for instance; he tended to over-reach on occasion, and to pick up items with fingers that were not clumsy so much as perhaps uncertain, readjusting his grip. He seemed to have no lack of sensitivity in his fingertips, though, and the odd ambivalence was not a constant; it reminded Hakuba just a little of how a musician who had fallen out of practice might fumble with his instrument upon picking it up again at last. Kudo-san was also remarkably silent, not something his fellow detective recalled from their brief encounters during the Lotus heist. He hadn't been exactly garrulous as such, but-

Fighting back the urge to look to his left at the empty seat there, Hakuba winced internally as he recalled a certain Osakan Detective Of The West who didfit that description... and hoped, for once, that his deductions were wrong.

"Something wrong, Hakuba-san?"

With a blink (and a dawning sense of mortification), the detective realized that he had been sitting in dead silence, staring directly at Kudo Shinichi. He could feel his face staining red as he demurred hastily. An eyebrow went up over an amused blue eye, but the other merely passed him a plate. "Scones?"

"Please." A moment later, however, he very nearly dropped the plate and its pastry burden as the grinning figure at the end of the table (whom Hakuba was _still_avoiding looking directly at) delicately tapped his butter-knife against the side of his water-glass and announced in a rather plummy voice:

"Ahem. I suppose you're all wondering why I've brought you here today-" The thief made a great show of leaning forward, hands to either side of an imaginary board table. To Hakuba's right, his fellow detective held up a scone in a distinctly threatening manner, and the young woman beside him bit back a laugh. "Hai, hai! I'll behave myself, I promise; ballistic bakery items are not necessary."

"They will be if you don't get to the point," said Mouri Ran. "Could you please pass me some strawberries? And- ooh, cream, please."

"Certainly. _AS_ I was saying..." Nimble fingers busy with fresh strawberries and clotted cream, Kuroba/Kid composed his expression to something resembling, if not seriousness, at least less manic levity than usual. "Hakuba-tantei, to begin with, why _do_you think I've brought you here?"

Hakuba took a moment to finish applying lemon curd to his own scone before answering. "Several reasons spring to mind. One, to attempt to persuade me to aid you in whatever madness you've managed to embroil yourself in; two, to somehow justify the theft of and damage to both private and public property; three, to request and presumably acquire my assistance in establishing you in good grace with the authorities-" (Kudo made an incredulous noise, quickly stifled in his cup of tea) "-and four..."

Hakuba hesitated.

"...four, to- _explain._Because I suspect that what we've been seeing is not actually what there was to see." He gave the known/unknown face opposite his an ironic glance. "Having gone the distance, so to speak, I should very much like to understand why I'm here, as I suspect it's not for the quality of your tea. Although," Hakuba added a little dryly, "it's excellent. Please give my regards to the cook." He smiled a thin little smile and quoted: "'Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.'"

Kudo chuckled softly; Mouri-san gave him a slightly perplexed look and bit into a strawberry. Kuroba- the Kaitou Kid- whoever he was- cleared his throat again.

"As you are aware, Hakuba-tantei, there are none who know the higher criminal sphere of the world so well as yourself and Shinichi, allied with the strongest investigatory forces in London, Japan, and America, do. For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again in cases of the most varying sorts - forgery cases, robberies, murders - I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to this Organisation."

Hakuba frowned, recognizing the quote - another Doyle passage - and more importantly, its context. "You fancy yourself battling a modern Moriarty?"

"I would rather that it were Moriarty," the thief replied, eyes hard.

"Egotistical thief." Hakuba had snapped out the insult before he'd even thought about it; there was no taking it back now, but through either a stroke of luck or the thief's own insanity, the Kaitou Kid looked _complimented_, not distressed, and the insult brushed aside.

"Yes, I am," the maddening person - personae - _thief_, Hakuba decided, with a mental huff - agreed, buffing his nails on his shirt for no discernable reason except to be obnoxious - and to be obnoxious in a way that Hakuba, with his greater Western media exposure than either of the others, would especially appreciate.

"And, egotistical or no, I'm correct." And just like that, again, the thief had switched tacks. Hakuba's brain was still readying a parry to the thief's insolence when it kind of froze, noticing that the blue gaze staring him down wasn't the laughing bright gaze that had regarded him a split second earlier. _There he - they - go again,_Hakuba noted absently.

"The Organisation is bigger, more resourceful, and more integrated into the fabric of the world than any single man and his network of informers could be - even Moriarty," Kid informed him, with a tint of what might have even been regret in his voice. "Moriarty had only his own tenacious lifetime in which to do so. The Organisation has had - I am afraid - longer than I can even bring myself to guess. At the least, two hundred years or so - four generations, perhaps. And a lot has been done in that time."

The thief's tone was cool but sturdy, a voice that _would_be listened to, regardless of the listener's preference. But, for his part, Hakuba made the conscious decision to be attentive. He was very used to self-important Voices of Authority, or the sorts of voices which spoke with authority that had been given them by rank or birth. The Kaitou Kid's voice, as he continued steadily to explain his grand nemesis, was neither of these, and because of that, Hakuba was willing to credit it.

Even if what it was saying was becoming more fantastical by the moment.

The thief told Hakuba about the secret Black Organisation, the murder of his own father, the infiltrations and involvements of the Organisation in the high-profile criminal cases of years past. He informed his audience that it was the Organisation's power that had brought high - and low - politicians, military leaders, and more. He spoke with certainty about fatal infiltrations of whole divisions of the police, and of the guerilla war his father had led against them when a simple bout of search-and-recover began as an illegal pastime and became the gateway through which Kuroba Toichi had glimpsed the bilious gut of the country's underworld.

'It's a bonny thing,'" smiled Kid, quoting Doyle once more - this time from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The corners of his smile were pinched though, deep emotional pain running through him at a level Hakuba knew he was expected to pretend not to see. He dropped his gaze to his teacup, giving the thief the moment he needed to lock the honesty out of his gaze once more. Though Hakuba appreciated the candid, seemingly honest thread that had run through his entire day's dealings with Kuroba, there was certainly a limit.

After a moment, the thief continued. "'I can merely imagine how it glints and sparkles. I have dreams of its singular hue. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed,' and this stone is perhaps the source of all more well-known gems of sorrow."

Shinichi, who had been sitting silent and still for the most part through the entire explanation, sat down his now-cold cup of tea onto the table with an abrupt click. "Pandora," he said softly, and the name fell into the room's calm like a pebble into a pool. "Why 'Pandora'? I've been wondering about that since the first time you mentioned it."

"Does the name matter?" asked Ran, still nibbling strawberries, a frown-line between her brows.

"Names usually do, except for most human beings; places are named for their characteristics or for famous inhabitants, things are named after their makers or to compliment someone, gems are usually given grandiose titles or named after where they were found or after whoever owns them." The detective ticked these points off on his fingers one after the other. "Even people sometimes get named something that points out if they're the eldest, 'first son' or 'junior', that sort of thing. Most of the time, though, human names are just whatever the parents like at the time, or hope will influence their child- nominative determinism. But... Pandora..."

Hakuba shrugged. "Pandora, the first woman created by the gods in Greek mythology, moulded out of earth by Hephaestus and endowed with divine gifts as if by a bunch of unimaginative faery godmothers; opener of a box that let out all the ills that plague Mankind and also the releaser of hope, the last escapee from the box. It's a suitably dramatic name for a mythological gem."

Shinichi regarded him impatiently. "And it doesn't say anything about where it came from, what it looks like, who its owner or owners were... It doesn't _fit._Why not?"

Beside him, Ran shook her head. "I've always felt kind of sorry for her. The original Pandora, I mean... somebody shoved a shiny box in front of her and yelled 'Don't touch me!' and expected her not to be curious. She was set up as a punishment, did you know that? Poor thing." She gave Shinichi and Kid both a little sidelong smile despite the seriousness of the subject. "Bet I know what would've happened if somebody did that to _you_two."

"Ah, we would have opened it?" Innocently, Shinichi beamed at Kid, then back at Ran - and their girlfriend rolled her eyes tolerantly.

"Ahm." Hakuba cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with conceptualizing either his ally or his rival in such a personal context as Ran's tone of voice implied, and attempted to drag the topic back toward center.

"But you haven't addressed the question." Hakuba frowned, directly addressing his rival. "Why Pandora? Why not the name of the queen who owned it, or the prince who died for it?"

"Which queen? Which prince?" The thief sighed, eyes lowering to his teacup; he poured himself hot from the delicate porcelain pot, fine workmanship in British style, and curled his hands around the cup, warming them.

"Hakuba-tantei, Pandora is different than any other gem in the world. She is above every other. When Tousan was instructed to find her, and bring her to the Organisation, he thought it was a simple thieving mission - thief for hire, not unheard of, certainly not a singular request. He didn't know what he'd been asked to find - what he would have put into their hands, had he completed the job."

Eyes narrowing, Hakuba frowned at the thief, hands stilling at the biscuits plate. "...And what is that?"

"The power - if you'll excuse the drama, Hakuba-tantei - the power to control the world." Something in the power - and the leashed anger - of Kid's voice kept his audience still, muffled the disbelieving snort with which under any other circumstances Hakuba might have redressed such a claim.

"The Organisation contracted my father with the ultimate goal of acquiring the power to truly and actually accomplish this. And, potentially, not just the world but also the minds of all its people...all its governments, and all its countries. If used properly, if used shrewdly, Pandora contains the power to dominate all these."

"If used shrewdly," Hakuba repeated. He let the words settle across the tea table, concentrating his anxious energy on his teacup. Teacup, jammy dodger, sugar.

"You are making very bold claims, Four-" _Bloody hell._ Cutting himself off roughly, Hakuba yanked his gaze back down to his tea, trying to steady his breath. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a slim hand, almost sensuous in its smooth ridges of callous and wrinkle, laid down over his own. Hakuba tried to yank his hand away, but the weight of his gaze - Kuroba's - Kid's - _fourteen-twelve's_-

- it paralyzed him.

Gently, the blue eyes looked at him steadily. Gently, he spoke.

"Say my name, Hakuba-tantei. Say my name. Please." Eyes wide, Hakuba watched him - as though afraid to blink. "I'm not leaving anything out. You know it already - I've already made it so clear - and...Hakuba...I'm not doing this just to be an asshole."

Hakuba blinked. Kid grinned.

"Asshole, yeah. I know I am. Most of the time I do it on purpose."

Hakuba blinked again. "...I should likely feel more gratified than I do at the moment," he muttered, voice dry.

Kid didn't falter. "What is my name, Hakuba?"

Quiet and nearly forgotten to either end of the table, Shinichi and Ran held still, meeting Hakuba's fearful gaze, and returning it with calm, reassuring stability.

"...Fourteen-twelve. International Criminal One-Four-One-Two, Kaitou Kid."

From a firm, fierce gaze, Kid's malleable face faded into a warm smile. "That's me."

Across the table from him, his classmate and sometime friend slumped where he sat, letting out a huge, exhausted sigh. "I'm sorry, I'm acting rather - rather unlike myself. I had thought... I had resisted it for years. I suppose I thought, well, I thought it would change something, the moment I said it." He looked up, meeting Kid's gaze. "I guess the only thing I hadn't done was to name you. I didn't even realize it, Kuroba, but I suppose I've come to terms with this a long time ago."

It was Kid's turn to sigh, drooping where he sat, and with his palms curled around his teacup, he smiled in bone-deep relief across the table.

"Thank you, Hakuba. I need you for this...for where this is all heading. And I am so relieved to have you with me."

Bristling, the Brit pushed away from the table a little, summoning up a glare somehow, from some still-cranky, still-aggressive corner of him, the rest of him wrung dry by the simple emotional strain of the preceding three minutes. "And what says you do, Thief? You're so quick to assume-"

The thief merely smiled. "But I do, don't I?" His smile held, unfaltering, and Hakuba frowned, grumbled, sighed, and slumped down, elbow thumping the table in weariness.

"You do."

A low chuckle broke the pause that followed the detective's reluctant response. "Don't feel too badly about it, Hakuba-san. After a while you won't even notice your morals degrading; you'll be much too busy trying to keep your head from exploding to worry about little things like legalities." Shinichi's wry grin carried a surprising amount of sympathy plus an invitation to share in the joke; as the young woman beside him exclaimed and smacked him on the shoulder ("Ow!"), he turned to regard Kid's wilted droop into contrived despondency. "Don't _you_start. Are you trying to collect the full set or what? Next thing you know we'll be inviting Nakamori-keibu out for karaoke."

The mild joke was welcome, even if the mental image of the head of the Kaitou Kid Taskforce crooning into a microphone made the British detective shudder. "I've heard his singing voice," he said dryly. "And while far be it from me to in any way limit the available resources, I suspect that his, ah, flexibility will only stretch so far when it comes to matters of the law." The tension had not been broken so much as allowed to ease, a tightly-strung cord relaxing just enough to allow it to be secured rather than snapped.

"You're supposed to call him back tomorrow, aren't you?" Ran reminded her particular detective of the set; he groaned, and she shook her head, picking up the teapot. "Honestly, Shinichi, he can't be _that_bad. He let you and Kid go, didn't he? After the heist, I mean. More tea?" She indicated Hakuba's cup with a lift of his chin and he obligingly held it out.

"He had a lot on his mind at the time, andhe was badly shaken," Shinichi pointed out, his gaze resting on Kid's face all the while; the other looked satisfied, warmth deepening the blue in his eyes as he toyed with his own cup. "It doesn't count when he's so far out of his comfort zone he doesn't know how to react." He mused on this for a second. "Does Nakamori-keibu even HAVE a comfort zone?"

"Oh, certainly." Kid grinned across the table. "It's about eight inches long and extends from his—"

"KID!" Ran brandished the teapot.

"—left wrist halfway to his elbow," continued the thief imperturbably. He held out his cup. "Tea, please~?"

"I ought to pour it into your lap," the young woman warned him, but held out the pot anyway. "You two... Hakuba-san, it'll be fine. Now you won't have to dance around what you know about Kid and Kuroba-kun, or wonder who knows what. Or at least you won't have to after you know the rest of it." Deftly she poured Kid's cup and then attended to her own, slipping the pot's cozy on afterwards to keep the remaining brew warm. "There's a lot more, if we're going to tell you everything. Isn't there, Shinichi?" At her rather pointed question, the Detective of the East grimaced, looking discomfited. "If Kid tells everything, we should too. The more he knows-"

"-the more danger we'll be in if he gets nabbed and wrung out to dry by the Organization, if they ever decide to go for him," retorted Shinichi, helping himself to a small pile of sandwich fingers. He had, Hakuba had noticed, been eating a rather inordinate amount of the table's bounty; whatever it was that had thinned the Beika detective down to bone and muscle, it certainly hadn't damaged his appetite.

Now Shinichi was pointing at the Brit with the serving tongs. "You _do_realize the position you're in, don't you? One of the best, most well-known experts on the Kaitou Kid, present at his most recent heist, witness to that thing with the fake gemstone, in touch with the authorities and almost certainly capable of accessing all their information as well- You've got to be high on their 'detain and interrogate' list. You're a minor, which makes it simpler; teenagers, even famous ones, vanish every day. And with your case-to-success ratio you're bound to have enemies, correct?" He placed the tongs back on the now-depleted sandwich plate. "So if you went missing-" Shinichi nodded as alarm swept through Hakuba. "You understand. Not only are you at risk, it wouldn't be all that difficult to tilt the facts towards a plausible reason; it might even be suggested publicly that Kid had something to do with it."

Ran sugared her tea, stirring the cup with a delicate _ting!_as the spoon touched porcelain. "Well, now Hakuba-san's warned," she said calmly. "And anyway, I'm at risk too, aren't I?"

"Yes, but you're not a 'well-known expert,' Mouri-san," Hakuba pointed out. "In fact, other than your involvement through your father with detective work and your association with the Beika-cho police force through your young ward, there is nothing to link you to the Organization or 1412 at all. No disrespect meant," he added with a nod towards Shinichi, "but your lack of presence has long since put you out of the public mind."

"And that's all for the good." Ran added a lemon slice; Kid, eyebrows raised, had settled back to watch the other three with his narrow hands curled around his cup so that only the handle could be seen; his face was veiled behind a curtain of rising steam, eyes glinting as he watched the conversational ball bounce back and forth. "No more fanmail, nobody trying to get you to help on a case, nobody trying to shoot you or kidnap you or..." She faltered. "Um. Well. Kidnapping- but that was, um, Conan-kun." Hastily Ran picked up her cup.

"So it was," purred Kid through the steam; he took a long sip, lips curved in an anticipatory little smile. Across the table Shinichi cleared his throat warningly.

Hakuba frowned. "Where _is_your ward? Aside from the utter insanity of involving a child in something of this sort, I'd expect to see him right in the middle of it all. Have you sent him somewhere safe?"

Mysteriously, the simple question caused Ran to choke on her tea. "N-not exactly," she muttered, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin.

The pregnant pause that followed made Hakuba frown even more; he watched his hostess closely. _Indications are that Edogawa is still close by; I do recall seeing the kidnapping attempt in the news several weeks ago, but Mouri-san is not precisely showing the signs of the guilt I would expect of an adult who has placed a child in danger. Even a precocious child... even __that__ precocious child..._His meetings with young Conan-kun had been limited but he'd followed the boy's career via newspaper, television and internet; exceptional intellect and behavior were always a draw.

_...of course, those selfsame same two traits were why I became interested in 1412. And now look at me._

The thief was lounging back in his chair, watching Shinichi and Ran both with an expression that took 'smug' far beyond all limits of decency and into very dubious waters. Hakuba had the distinct and uneasy impression that, had he not been there, some very untoward things indeed might have been occurring amongst the china and lemon-curd. He chose for once not to speculate on what those things might have been and instead placed his half-full cup on the table and sat back himself, crossing his arms. "Just what," he heard himself ask, "have you done with Edogawa Conan?"

"That," said Kudo Shinichi carefully, "will take a little explaining." He cleared his throat again.

And began.

If the tale which 1412 had spun had been wild, then the one which the Beika detective laid out before him stretched credulity to the breaking point. It started out with ignorance and a simple trip to an amusement park and some sort or attack there; Shinichi alluded to it sidelong, saying merely that it had forced him into hiding. It paralleled Kuroba's narrative in its claims of improbable villains and murderous deeds, and again like his had yet to meet its conclusion. It focused not inwards from a wide array of targets towards a single goal but _outwards_from a sole event, fanning through multiple agents and cases and growing ever broader and more complex.

And it hadn't ended yet, anymore than the thief's had. Hakuba listened silently while the other detective talked, and made a mental note to put his black trenchcoat, raincoat and any black jackets he might own into storage for the nonce.

The two stories complemented each other and knotted together like a fishnet, intersecting here and there. The kidnapping and pharmacological information in particular were of interest to Hakuba—he'd noticed the growing trend of missing gradeschool students in the news but had put it down as a symptom of culture-wide decay, not a specifically targeted group. As for the drugs... well, there were always new ones popping up; but in general they could be traced back to known chemical components. An _entirely new, utterly untraceable_category of modifiers and inhibitors— He felt his skin pebble with gooseflesh.

Hakuba put aside the question of belief for the moment and simply continued to listen as the detective talked and talked, touching on one encounter after another. Proof could be obtained later; Kudo's contacts through police, FBI and other authorities would make that possible, and it was ridiculous to suppose that the Beika detective expected Hakuba to take his word without something to back it up. Wild as the tale was, it was laid out with impeccable logic; however, there was something about the way Shinichi kept skirting around his initial confrontation with the Black Organization, the attack in the park… and where he had been hiding all this time. _And_how he'd obtained certain key bits of information, for that matter. Short of bugging Mouri-san's home and a number of other places (including Beika's Division One offices), the only way that he could have done so would've been in person. So—how-?

Shinichi had just described his and his companions' role in deriving a list of high-risk kidnap potentials for the police; he drew in breath to continue, but Hakuba held up a hand. "Kudo-kun? Forgive me for interrupting, but I must ask for a few details before we go any further, and I believe they're related to one another. That attack which you suffered in Tropical Land—what exactly happened? And why, if you went into full seclusion afterwards, were you able to witness so many of the events you've just described? Clearly quite a number of them were first-person accounts." Hakuba steepled his hands together before him, eyes fixed on the other detective's gaze and the dismay growing there. "Could you please elucidate?"

The thief smirking to one side gave a snort of delighted laughter. "You _knew_he was good, Tantei," he reminded Shinichi. (Hakuba blinked. Had he just been complimented by 1412? How very surreal.)

"Yeah, well." Shinichi fidgeted. "Okay. To begin with, it wasn't just a—that is, I overheard a deal going down between a 'client' of the Organization's and two of their agents, and… I was struck from behind. And… had a drug forced down my throat, an experimental one."

"It was supposed to kill him," said Ran helpfully. "Only obviously it didn't work."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "No, it didn't work. Or it didn't mostly, which is I guess the point. The thing is, Hakuba-san," The detective sighed, obviously uncomfortable. "The thing is—aagh. The last time I had to explain this it was… easier," he muttered. "For one thing, I sounded a lot older than I looked."

The British detective blinked. That made no sense whatsoever. "'Older'?" he ventured, and opened his mouth to request clarification—

And the door to the small room slid open with a _CLACK!_as Hattori Heiji, Detective of the West, hothead and prospective inhabitant of the sole remaining empty spot at the table propped himself against the doorjamb, arms crossed. "'Older'," he confirmed cheerfully. "'Bout ten years older, if you wanna be exact. 'Bout a meter taller, too." He grinned, white teeth gleaming in his dark face. "Was wondering when they'd drag you out here, Hakuba-san. I take it you're being brought up to speed?" He pointed with a thumb to Shinichi. "He tell you about being chibified yet?" He edged around Kid, taking his place to the west; Ran filled his empty teacup while Hakuba raised an eyebrow, mystified.

…'_chibified'? 'Older'?_

Shinichi dropped his face into his hand with a smack. "No, I haven't. I've been trying, but—dammit." He looked mortified. "It's one thing, telling a bunch of cops who know me as both Kudo Shinichi and—and—"

Kid reached across and patted his cheek. "Courage, Tantei," he said cheerfully. "It can't be worse than being shrunk, shot, experimented on, expanded, knocked out, flung through the air, smacked on the head, half-drowned or drugged senseless, now can it?" Shinichi gave him a distinctly dirty look and hesitated.

Hattori dropped four lumps of sugar into his tea one after the other, obviously enjoying the chaos; Hakuba eyed him with covert (he hoped) distaste. "Here, I'll tell it. It's pretty simple, yanno. He—" he thumbed towards Shinichi again, "—got poisoned by those bastards in black; only it didn't kill him, instead it burned him up like a candle. Or maybe a manju; he steams when he shrinks, all that extra bodymass has to go somewhere." Hattori imitated rising vapor with his hands and Ran stifled a giggle. "Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. But next thing you know, he's this little shrimpy little chibified rugrat in glasses with a huge brain who can't keep himself out of trou—"

"HEIJI. SHUT UP."

"Well, that's what happened."

"Not _helping,_Heiji," Shinichi groaned into his hand, flopping back in his chair in despair.

"..." Hakuba stared from face to face, examining each minutely. Kudo looked distraught and embarrassed, Mouri-san seemed caught between amusement and sympathy, Hattori was smirking as he buttered a scone, and the thief... 1412 was watching him back, head tilted to one side, obviously waiting for a reaction. His lambent blue eyes seemed to flicker in shade, light to dark; meeting Hakuba's own gaze, he gave him an innocent little smile.

"'When one has eliminated the impossible...'" he said, humor infusing the words; the Brit closed his eyes. There it came at last, the quote he'd been expecting. Somewhere the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was surely shuddering in utter horror.

From the East of the table, a quiet squeak preceded Mouri-san's widening gaze as she looked at each of the others around the table. "Wait. Just wait a second..." She blinked at Kid, then swung her gaze to look at Kudo-kun, who was biting down a big smile, then at Hattori-san - unconfused - and finally to Hakuba, who was certain his disgust was still plain on his face. She pointed an accusing finger at them all. "That's a Holmes quote! You- you've all been quoting Sherlock Holmes! That's why you've been talking funny and making eyes at each other. This _whole_time?"

At her shoulder, Kudo tapped her arm gently. "Technically, we've all been quoting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," he corrected her. "Since he was the author of- Ow!"

Ran neatly folded her hands together, obviously feeling no pain from the thwap she'd dealt his skull, and addressed the rest of the room with a voice of judgement. "OTAKU. ALL OF YOU. CRAZY HOLMES OTAKU."

"Not me!" Offended, Hattori protested through a mouthful of scone. "It's all 'bout Ellery Queen for me." Hakuba sighed thinly, preparing a polite response, but the thief - predictably - beat him to the response, if not the politesse.

"That's because you're not one of the cool Detectives, Hattori-han."

"OI, you're not either, you madman."

Hakuba reflected briefly that it was somewhat pleasant to watch Hattori-san bickering with someone not-himself. And it was definitely pleasant to have 1412's insanity focused somewhere other than himself. Perhaps it wasn't so bad, having both his largest headaches in the same-

"Ohhhhhh really?" the thief crooned, grinning like the lunatic he was. Then that grin fixed on Hakuba, and he swallowed nervously. "Ha~kuba-sa~n, do you remember that mess with the exploding amusement-park wrist bracelets?"

"I'm sorry, the what?" Hattori-san was looking alarmed, which seemed to encourage the thief; as 1412 swung his toothy grin back over toward the West, Kudo-kun seemed abruptly uncomfortable - as did Hattori-san, but that went without saying.

"Exactly," the thief purred.

_This is absurd._ Hakuba felt his patience drawing to a tight, narrow point, ready to snap. "And _what,_exactly, are you getting at with this line of questioning? I can't help but-"

"Ahem."

"-wonder what you intend-"

"_Ahem._"

"-to achieve by introducing this sort of-"

"_AHEM._"

"-irritant in a deliberate context such that I-"

"In case you didn't hear him, _Kudo said __**SHADDUP**__._"

Silence, as all turned to the West. Hattori let out a long breath, smiling with relief, as all the room's occupants breathed a little smoother, relaxing out of their unconsciously aggressive postures leaning over the tea table. "Jeez. That's better. Okay, your turn, Kudo."

Kudo had his hands braced on his knees, looking pretty cranky even for him, and was glaring very pointedly at the freakshow, who subsided, covering a faux yawn with one hand. Not that anyone would expect him to care about getting scolded, but he could at least try to behave. This was supposed to be a not-killing-each-other kinda tea, right?

Not that Hattori was without his own frustrations. The info that Hakuba-han had actually been Kid in disguise during that case would have been helpful a bit before this, and Hattori shot a glare at Kudo to emphasize his irritation.

The glare he got back spoke for itself. _Shove it, Hattori. Later._Kudo turned to their guest with a sigh.

"Aside from our rather tact-impaired kaitou friend-"

"_Acquaintance,_" Hakuba corrected him snippily. Kudo exhaled slowly.

"-Acquaintance," he allowed. "Anyway, aside from him, we had more we wanted to tell you today."

"Are you trying to cause my expiration, Kudo-kun?" The Brit was being bitchy, as anybody could have predicted, but at the least he'd stopped smoking at the ears. Seriously, trying to keep that much cranky in gear while dealing with the thief just wasn't possible. Hattori would know - he'd tried, way back when. In the end it just was easier to go along with the crazy and take breaks for sanity when you started getting light-headed. Which, Hattori wondered, Hakuba might start doing if he didn't stop for breath sometime soon...

"The sheer volume of information you have conveyed to me in the last few hours is more than sufficient to have me executed for three or four breaches of security, if the interested parties were to discover me. To say nothing of the effect this is all having on my blood pressure! I may have suspected you, Kuroba-kun, but I can't honestly claim to ever have desired being dragged into this sort of- of _criminal web_. Certainly not! All I have desired is your capture. And now you desire my _allegiance?_"

The thief - who was currently examining his cuticles, as though barely interested in the conversation at hand - glanced up. Hattori was really glad the lambent blue gaze wasn't aimed at himself. "Yyyup. That's about the size of it. But Hakuba-san's right," he added, turning to Kudo with a roll of his shoulder. "If we keep at this, it'll be time for _high_tea pretty soon, and seriously, they separate the two teas for a reason. So, let's just wrap up here. What do we need Hakuba-tantei to know?"

"Chibi Kudo equals big-size Conan," Hattori offered, grinning at the thief as his statement made both Kudo and Hakuba squirm. It wasn't so hard to see what Kid enjoyed about being a little shit, after all.

"Black Org is integrated into everything - police, government, all of it - and wants my head on a plate," Kudo continued, rubbing his temples. Ran patted him on the head.

"Kid is going to be homeschooling with Shinichi and myself so we can all stay safe while we plan our next move," she said. "And Hakuba-san, we'll keep in touch with you, but you shouldn't come here too often. It's too complicated to get you here and back. You're safer if you don't know where this is, anyway," she added, gesturing around the room.

Hakuba nodded. "Noted. Adding to our list: Chemical warfare using capsule-based psychotropic, addictive, and fatal drugs."

"Really bad drug testing lab if they didn't know the side effects of the 'Kill ya now' drug was 'First grade, bitches!'," Hattori added. Kid blinked, his face falling.

"...'Bitches'?" The thief looked to be offended down to his soul, his face comically distraught. Hattori just lifted one brow, meeting the thief's drama with a level stare of his own.

"Yup. You got anything to add?"

"Of course!" Kid perked up again, turning back to Hakuba with a softer smile than anyone was used to seeing off of him. "My name is Kaito Kuroba. The Org killed my father. Prepare to die."

"...Indubitably," Hakuba muttered. "And of course, the presence of this Pandora gem. Have we covered all the high points?"

"I suppose so," Kudo agreed. "I mean, there's also the kidnappings going back about a decade, several of the terrorist actions in Beika recently being tied back to the Org, even suspicions that terrorist cells like the Red Siamese Cats were originally seeded and made viable by support from Org operatives. Also the probability of Org presence in all the departments you are familiar with, possibly also in the Task Force, and certainly the FBI, though hopefully not in the branch which is most familiar with myself as Conan-kun.

"Did I miss anything?"

"..."

"...Nnnope, I think you hit every pessimistic nail right on its head," Ran agreed, shooting Kudo a Look. Hattori snickered, smiling across the table at his friend. _I feel ya, man._That thought led back to thoughts of Kazuha, and Hattori drew his teacup closer to his face, breathing the steam and steadying himself. Stupid, crazy ideas, and that girl was full of them. But if they'd keep her away, then hell, she was welcome to all the crazy ideas she could cook up. As long as she stayed safe, away from Kudo - and the hellstorm tightening around him.

Hakuba sat back, picking at the pattern on his cup with one fingernail. At last he looked up and, avoiding the others' eyes, focused on the sympathetic face of the Sleeping Kogoro's daughter. "I must say," he began wearily, "that among everything that I've heard today, one of the greatest mysteries is why an intelligent young woman such as yourself, Mouri-san, should be willing to put up with- with-" He gestured at the two detectives and one thief, momentarily wordless in his frustration. "-I mean- seriously, Mouri-san. I should think it becomes tiring, having to play the mum to these three delinquents."

Ran blinked. "'Play the mum'?" she asked tentatively.

"British slang term," said Kid, grinning. "It means being the responsible one, the Voice of Reason, laying down the law, acting like an adult- or, when at a tea, being the one who pours." He reached out and flicked the teapot with one hand; _ting!_

The aforementioned Voice of Reason shook her head. "It's more like being Wendy from _Peter Pan,"_she informed Hakuba. "It was one of the first translated books I read back in grade school, and believe me, I think about it a lot these days. I've got my own Lost Boy, a long ways from home but stuck in Neverland for a while..."

"Oi!" Hattori snorted indignantly, but smiled at her, and Neechan smiled back.

"...and my Boy Who Never Grew Up..."

Shinichi made an inarticulate noise of protest in the back of his throat, ignored by everyone at the table.

"...and, well... Kid _does_fly, so I guess he's Tinkerbell."

The thief beamed at the entire table. "Clap your hands if you believe," he advised them seriously, and provided Ran with an absolutely glorious grin.

* * *

.

.

So there we go. **dabs at lips daintily with a napkin** Whew... **burps** Excuse me.

Next time, things get somewhat darker. Quite a bit darker, actually. In seven days we'll show you, in _**Book Six, Chapter Nineteen**__**: "See what you should've seen..." **_Take care, all, and have a good week.


	88. See what you should've seen

_Evening, everyone! Time for this week's chapter... and it's a rather serious one this time. You wanted explanations? You got 'em. There are developments this time that we've been building up to for, oh... ages. AGES._

_You'll see. Please let us know your opinions of this, hmm? I think we've done something a wee bit different...__... The Management_

_._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Nineteen**__**: "See what you should've seen..."**_

Getting Hakuba out of the house and back to the point that Kaito had picked him up from was accomplished in reverse of the process to bring him there. With no tangible proof of his visit - but his head full and aching with too much information, too much conspiracy, and too much certainty that, personalities aside, three of the most brilliant minds of Japan, whom he respected as intellectual equals if not socially acceptable ones, couldn't all be wrong - the British detective was bustled into a car, blindfolded as before.

In the house, Ran cleaned up from tea, assisting the servants despite their strong protest. It gave her something to do with her hands. Shinichi remained by the table, nursing a cup of tea - now in a more reassuring handleless Japanese mug - and Ran returned to his side, slumping against him, when the table was clear.

"That...went well?" she hazarded, face pressed against his collarbone. "I think?"

"Depends on how much he believes us—" At the slow handclap that Heiji, lounging still on his own cushion, had started, Shinichi glared. "And YOU can stop that right now, Hattori." The other detective laughed but obliged. "As I was saying… If, and it's a big if, he believed us, then we're okay. Hakuba's not my favorite person on the planet, but nobody's going to pry information out of him if he doesn't want to let it go." The transformed teenager sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave off the headache that was looming on his personal horizon. "I don't like putting him in harm's way, but he's pretty good at putting _himself_there, so…"

Heiji hmmphed, muttering something uncomplimentary under his breath about sticks and the placement thereof. At the Look that Ran gave him, he stuck out his bottom lip defiantly. "Just sayin'. It's okay, just because I don't like the guy much, it doesn't mean I can't work with 'em. I just wish he'd loosen up, that's all." He shrugged. There was a melon Ramune sitting in front of him, something he'd managed to inveigle out of the kitchen staff.

Shinichi raised an eyebrow at his Western counterpart. "He _goes to school_ with _Kid._Or used to." Kid AND Kaito, to be exact, but Shinichi was unwilling to open that particular can of bifurcated worms at the moment. "Don't you think that maybe that might have something to do with it? Refining of a natural propensity towards anal retentivity by constant pressure, like the way you sharpen a knife by rubbing it against a whetstone?"

"'Spose so. Hard on the knife, though."

"Hard on the whetstone, too. Or would youhave liked having Hakuba-san as a classmate?" pointed out Shinichi. Ran poked him in the side with a pointy elbow. "C'mon, Ran, it's true; he's—"

"—important, in danger, and Kid and Kaito both trust him," said Ran firmly. She hooked Shinichi's arm over her shoulders, tucking herself against him below his chin. "Besides, I think he's kind of sweet. He was awfully polite to me." This time it was Shinichi who hmmphed. "He WAS. And he played cards with me way back at the Sunset Mansion thing, remember?" She shifted again, crossing her arms. "I bet he's the type who opens doors for women and helps old ladies cross the street," she added teasingly, "and turns in his library books all on time. And remembers his mother's birthday, and is never late for appointments, and doesn't show up for lunch _two whole days_after he's supposed to—"

Shinichi groaned. "I only did that once!"

"Oooh, smooooth, Kudo. You gonna be givin' lessons?"

"-AND," went on Ran, "he's sort of cute. If you like stodgy British imports, that is." She tilted her face to one side, grinning up at her lover with a disturbingly Kid-like expression of pure mischief. "Now, _I_ like domestic better than imported, but that's because I'm an _intelligent young woman._And SOME people are nice enough to recognize that when they see it." Her smile deepened. "I wonder what Sonoko-chan'd think of him? I know she likes blonds, and Hakuba-san IS sort of exotic-looking..."

From across the table, Heiji had begun to regard Ran with almost more alarm than amusement. "That nutjob's rubbing off on Neechan, Kudo. Better do something about it before she starts pickin' locks."

From below Shinichi's chin, Ran dimpled back at the Osakajin. "Silly. I don't look good in white, it washes me out. And anyway, I have my hands full."

"I should imagine," said a dry voice from the doorway, "that you do."

Three heads turned. Haibara Ai's small figure stood watching from the open door, her toffee-colored hair glinting in the late bars of sunlight filtering in crossways from behind. She surveyed the three of them and her mouth twitched at one corner. "I'm assuming your little chat went well?" At their startled looks she raised one fine, childlike eyebrow impatiently. "I _am_aware of what goes on outside the laboratory, you know. It was only a matter of time before Hakuba Saguru was brought into confidence- you were quite clear on his role in the Lotus incident and in your estimation of his intelligence."

Shinichi eyed her warily. "...and you're being very... good... about _another_person being brought in on the secret. Why? I thought you were going to blow a gasket when I proposed telling Division One."

"Because," retorted Ai with a hint of acid in her voice, "firstly, I've found that it's nearly impossible to dissuade you from whatever macroencephalic notion you've come up with. And secondly, because I must admit that they seem to eventually bear fruit." The last was said in rather aggrieved tones; how dare Kudo actually come up with patently unwise ideas that actually _worked?_Haibara Ai sighed, the sound a bad match for her childish face and form.

"And also, finally... because we're going to need every ally that we can safely acquire. And I _am_aware of Hakuba-san's scientific and investigative background, though primarily through his family. His grandfather," she explained a little impatiently, "was a very inventive biochemist. His early work was seminal in quite a few fields and even provided a base for some groundbreaking discoveries in biomedical engineering."

"Artificial heart-valves and things?" hazarded Heiji, tilting his Ramune so that the marble in the bottle clinked.

Ai rolled her eyes. "And things, yes." She crossed her arms. "Kudo-kun? Might I speak to you in private for a few minutes?" It was phrased as a request for politeness' sake. Ran and Heiji traded doubtful looks as, with a sigh, Shinichi disentangled himself and stood.

* * *

A few minutes later found him staring at multicolored lines on a computer screen in the small room outside the lab, an anxious Agasa watching over his left shoulder while Ai explained their most recent research's content in precise, clipped tones from beside and below his right. It was a bit like having one's Good Angel and Bad Angel chiming in from either side, only with greatly varying heights and weights and a lack of horns or halos.

"Let me see if I understand what you're saying," said Shinichi slowly; his head was spinning and there was a strange hollow feeling in his gut, a new gulf of wrenching emptiness that hadn't been there before. "Your sister Akemi—"

Ai sighed; with evident reluctance she tapped a new command, and a small grid popped up. With growing horror, Shinichi read the details written there:

**_'Miyano Akemi..._****_In Utero: Exposed to unknown substances, APTX a possibility. Early Life: No significant findings. Later Life: Self-exposure to 4869-related endurance-enhancing drug at age 25 in order to resist addictive effects of 'loyalty' drug. Current Status: Deceased; showed signs of marked aggression prior to death.'_**

**_'Haibara Ai... In Utero: Exposed to unknown substances, APTX a possibility. Early Life: No significant findings. Later Life: Self-exposure to 4869 at age 18. Current Status: Affected by 4869 - reduction in age/appearance; notable post-effect resistance to 'loyalty' drug. Reacts to related substances.'_**

**_'Kudo Yukiko... In Utero: Shows no sign of exposure. Early Life: Shows no sign of exposure. Later Life: Exposed to 4869-related drug either prior to pregnancy or while pregant (specific age unknown.) Current Status: Suspected inability to conceive beyond primary offspring's genesis.'_**

**_'Kudo Yuusaku... In Utero: Shows no sign of exposure. Early Life__: Shows no sign of exposure. Later Life__: Shows no sign of exposure. Current Status__: Shows no sign of exposure.'_**

**_______'Kudo Shinichi... In Utero: Exposed to APTX variant prior to birth. Early Life: No obvious effects of exposure noted. Later Life: Exposed to 4869 at age 16. Current Status: Affected by 4869 - reduction in age/appearance; reacts to experimental APTX prototypes, related substances.'_**

"You do understand that this is a compilation of conjecture as well as fact, correct?" murmured the diminutive scientist's voice in Shinichi's ears. It was difficult to hear the words over the rush of white noise produced by the center column of the grid.

…'_Exposed to 4869-related drug either prior to pregnancy or while pregnant (specific age unknown)'… 'Suspected inability to conceive beyond primary offspring's genesis'… Oh god. Oh no. Oh no—_

-Kaasan-

"Ai," he whispered, not even noticing his deviation from the more formal 'Haibara', "are you _**sure?**_"

"Shinichi," said Agasa very gently from his left, "do you honestly think she'd even begin suggest something like this if there were no sound data on which to base her conclusions?" His eyes, reflected in the monitor's glass, were weary and full of distress. It occurred to Shinichi distantly that Agasa had known his mother for many years beyond his own lifetime. "This—" (and he tapped the screen with one finger) "—may contain 'conjecture', but there's enough chemical evidence to base it in; we're going to need more samples and we have more tests to run, but… you saw. Even if we… can't establish _exactly_when or how your mother was dosed, that part's pretty certain; you received and were affected by some variant of Apotoxin while in-vitro."

The hesitation in Agasa's careful phrasing made something huddled blind and hurt inside Shinichi raise its head up, scenting. "What aren't you telling me? _Hakase—!_" The older scientist shook his head and took a step back, biting his lip as the boy he had known since infancy wheeled to glare at him.

"Do NOT snap at him, Kudo. If you want a target, my culpability's already beyond question." Ai's small fingers caught in Shinichi's shirt with surprising strength, jerking him around to face her. Her jaw was set; her small, rounded countenance was pale. "A developing fetus is vulnerable to anything that the mother ingests or is injected with during her pregnancy; even if there wasn't the problem of a shared circulatory system, few chemicals are unable to pass the placental barrier. Whatever your mother took—"

"She did NOT—"

"Kudo-kun. _Shinichi."_ Ai's level voice got through the rising tide of denial. "Listen to me. Have I _even suggested_ that your mother did this under consent? Think. We already know that the Organization has infiltrated many levels of authority; how difficult do you think it would be for them to place agents in major medical facilities? There may be—" Ai paused to gather a deep breath. "There may be _many_test-subjects out there, completely ignorant of their state; there may be dozens, even hundreds of second-generation APTX-influenced individuals… or you may be the only one. We simply do—not—know."

Her gaze remained fixed on his, a bleak blue-gray stare that simultaneously steadied Shinichi and froze him inside; he found himself being steered to a wooden folding chair by the doorway, Agasa's hands on his shoulders pressing until he sat down. Agasa sat beside him, face anxious; Ai remained standing as she went on, doggedly determined to lay the facts- and her guilt- out. "I should say, 'the only one besides myself,' I suppose. My speculations regarding Kudo-san's difficulties in conceiving after your birth are driven by studies that I recall being done by Pisco on rats; I had never considered the results as relevant, not until now. But it is a fact that lab animals injected with nearly any of the APTX derivatives while in the early stages of pregnancy were unable to carry future litters to term, even if they themselves showed no ill effects."

"You were born as I was, as my sister was, a child of the Black Organization—"

Shinichi was unaware that he had stood back up until his chair clattered to the floor, wooden struts creaking as they folded flat. _**"I. Am. Not. Theirs,"**_he said flatly, eyes blazing down at Haibara; somehow he'd grabbed her thin shoulders in his hands, and she sat stock-still in his grasp. "I'm not YOU. I don't belong to them!"

Steady, quiet eyes, unblinking, unswerving. "No, you do not. But they had their hand on you before you ever came into this world, just like they had on me; they fastened their collar on you before you were more than a coagulation of dividing cells, Kudo-kun, just as they did to me. They tried to _own_ you... just like they owned me, and my sister before me." He heard her swallow. "Look at the chart again, Kudo-kun. Put your brain to work. _Look_at it, Kudo-kun. See what you should've seen when you learned what the Organization does to its agents to keep them loyal."

His hands slowly loosened; Shinichi heard Agasa catch his breath behind him as he turned away from Ai and back towards the screen, pushing through the fog of horror until he found another reason to freeze. "'Notable post-effect resistance to loyalty drug,'" he read aloud, voice barely above a whisper. _"'Post-_effect.' Ai? You- I thought maybe you'd created yourself an antidote while you were still with the Organization, that you were taking placebos..."

"No. I was as much an addict the night that I took the Apotoxin as any of their other agents. And just as doomed." Her voice was composed; only the tiny tremor that hid in its fringes said otherwise. "Why do you think I took the drug? I had been locked away for over twenty hours when I decided on suicide."

He turned back to her at that; she sat, contained and still and so small in the wooden chair, hands lying loosely in her lap; mind whirling, Shinichi crouched before her, staring Haibara Ai straight in the face as he had so very many times from behind Conan's glasses. "You never asked me how long I ran before I came to Agasa's," she said almost gently. "I was on the far side of Tokyo, Kudo-kun; at first, all I did was run until I found a quiet place where they wouldn't find me, where I could die in peace. I fully expected to, you see; very young children do not react to the adult-strength loyalty drug's backlash with mental instability... they simply expire."

"But when I awoke nearly twelve hours after I had left them and found myself both alive and sane, I... had no idea what to do. And so I waited, and slept again, and woke again, still sane. And that's when I made my plan and ran for Agasa's." Now her voice cracked a little, though her gaze remained steady. In her lap, Ai's hands shook. "Don't you see, Kudo-kun? The drug that dragged us both back into childhood saved my life and my mind; it had to be that... just as whatever it was that contaminated _both of us prior to birth_was very likely the element that kept us from dying. APTX-4869 has no intended purpose besides an assassin's tool, after all."

Now her gaze dropped from his, turned inwards and unfocused. "There's so much I don't know yet. Why were there two of us, my sister and I? How was I born, if Akemi was also altered in utero? Was she instead injected as an infant? Why didn't it kill her, if that was so? Did they use the same chemicals on Akemi, myself and you? And I've wondered what Akemi might have done if- if I had found her in time. If I had given her the drug, if it had worked on her in the same way. We'd be children together again, but we'd both be alive..." Now it was her voice that shook, and as Shinichi wobbled upright, Agasa moved forward to kneel clumsily beside the diminutive scientist, murmuring reassurances. Breathing hard, the detective backed away until he bumped into the doorway.

"I-" Shinichi couldn't think; his mind was full of horror, realization circling around words like _kaasan_ and _contaminated_until it all turned into a maelstrom of fins and teeth...

...and he turned and ran.

* * *

Dark green needles overhead, rough bark at his back. Shinichi crouched beneath the twisted centuries-old pine, barely aware of anything more than misery. He'd run until he'd reached the estate's overgrown garden, the one which he and the others were supposedly restoring. Now, huddled in the deepest shadows beyond all sight under the oldest and most distant tree in the grove, he shivered and rested his face on his bent knees.

_Kaasan. All my fault. However it happened, whenever it happened- what's the saying? Once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy? Miyano Akemi, Haibara and me- and maybe others, lots of others. It'd be so easy; she's right. So easy..._ He could see it clearly, the setup; an Apotoxin derivative mixed into prenatal vitamins, perhaps, dispensed to unknowing pregnant women in a series of clinics. Records would be kept; the Organization would have its test subjects all lined up, single children with no siblings to complicate matters should their parents ever meet with an 'accident'. _I wonder if Kaasan and Tousan were just too well known? Haibara's parents are dead. God, god, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Kaasan; I knew you had trouble carrying me, and I knew you'd been told that there'd be no more after I was born, but-_Guilt dampened his cheeks with salty tears, and Shinichi scrubbed at his eyes with both palms. It didn't help.

Nothing much could.

_No wonder Vermouth calls me 'baby', no wonder she's always known who I was. She must've been watching me since I was born, since before I- How many others are there? Are we the only ones? What about the kidnap victims, are they- no. No, I remember, there were names of siblings in their charts. But some of them... Contamination. They contaminated us, rubbed their black filth all over mothers and unborn children. Children. Oh god._

Children of the Organization. Like Ai and her sister. Like- me.

Kaasan, how can I tell you what was done to you? There might've been more, you could have had others, I could've had brothers and sisters. They took that away from you. They took away your

_choice__. And why?_

To make _**me**__._

Long after twilight had hazed over from blue into black, long after voices had begun frantically calling his name- and long after a very familiar pain had begun to burn inside him, scalding him from the inside out- Shinichi huddled where he was, heartsick, and kept his silence.

* * *

Through the influence of happenstance, or perhaps her own persistent strain of luck, Sato was the first to arrive at the scene of an incident of violent robbery and vandalism.

The fact that said incident occurred less than thirty feet from the breakroom in which she was attempting a brief caffeine recharge might have had something to do with her prompt arrival, too.

Chirokawa-san was sprawled on the hallway floor just outside his office, bleeding from his temple and his ear canal when she found him, responding to the shrill shout and series of crashes from down the hall. Chiba-keiji, Megure-keibu, and two Traffic officers were the next responders; Shiratori-keiji came sprinting from the other direction, but - assessing the situation quickly as he always was able - skidded to a halt and raced the opposite direction, heading for the front doors of the precinct office to seal them. A third Traffic officer arrived, just off shift and still wearing her radio, as none of the others were. Soon the hallway was blocked off and clamoring with voices.

In the middle of it all, Sato held Chirokawa carefully, cradling the old man's head and neck. Chiba-keiji crouched beside her and opened his arms, offering to take their injured colleague and allow Sato the freedom to _move_- all of Division One knew how much Sato chafed when she couldn't be part of the aggressive, active branches of an investigation - but Chirokawa grew suddenly distressed, twisting violently away from Chiba's reach.

"Chirokawa-san, hold _still,_" Sato ordered him, voice brusque as she pinned his shoulders and neck in place against her own lap with a simple but powerful hold. "We don't know if you're injured beyond the obvious- Chiro_kawa-san!_" She repeated her admonition, more angry. "For heaven's sake!"

"Floor, filthy, oh in the name of all the sanitary deities I am bleeding on the _floor_," the old man muttered, his face wrinkling up in abject horror. "Sato-keiji, you will tell me honestly and promptly. How long have I been lying here? The contraction of multiple pestilences increases exponentially with every forty-seven seconds an open wound remains in direct contact with-"

"Chirokawa-san, so glad to see you still remain with the living." Bluntly, Megure-keibu's strong voice interrupted the lamentations of the neurotic Missing Persons officer; Sato and Chirokawa both looked up, meeting their senior officer's steady smile with less confident expressions of their own. Megure smiled quietly at Sato's leashed exasperation, and met Chirokawa's state of neurotic hyperventilation with reassuring calm.

"You will be pleased to know that Sato-keiji arrived at the scene instantly upon your attack, and lifted you from the tiles before even fourteen seconds of your unconsciousness had elapsed. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to say that your chances for surviving are extremely positive."

"It is statistically irrelevant to describe chances in a ratio of positive to negative," Chirokawa grumbled, clearly put out at having his bathos interrupted. "Regardless, I assume that my assailant has been apprehended and appropriately dealt with?"

"Unfortunately not." Joining the conversation was Shiratori-san, who received a relieved smile from Chirokawa as he hovered into the technician's view. "I did my level best, but the culprit either escaped the building or successfully disguised himself or herself before I was able to completely isolate the area."

"Well." Seeming both disgusted and pacified, Chirokawa allowed himself to be helped to his feet by Shiratori-san and Sato-keiji together. Behind his back, Sato shrugged apologetically at both Megure-keibu and Chiba-keiji, neither of which Chirokawa would allow to touch him in even the smallest way. The old man sagged against Sato's shoulder as she steadied him; as soon as his balance had mostly returned, he resumed grumbling about his impending death via infection in the darkest terms he could conjure.

Sato helped Chirokawa down the hall toward one of the interrogation rooms, smiling as her charge began to integrate commentary about his invaluable testimony regarding his attacker into his maunderings. Once they had him seated, Shiratori produced a very large bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a glass of water, and a stack of sterile gauze pads. Chirokawa embraced the supplies as any other person might a delectable ice cream sundae, promptly setting himself to the task of soaking his wounds with sufficient sterile solution to make his skin wrinkle like toes soaked too long in the bath.

Once the expectant silence, waiting for Chirokawa's own readiness for conversation, had stretched beyond the reasonable extent of its context, he looked around the room with an dispassionate, arch expression. "You will find your tongues beneath your oral palate," he commented dryly. "You may wish to use them to enquire as to the manner in which an employee of this precinct was assaulted and robbed within its supposedly secure walls, in the middle of the workday.

"Please proceed at your leisure."

Sato and Shiratori traded a Look; Megure pinched his temples; Chirokawa inspected the mouth of the hydrogen peroxide bottle as though contemplating the benefits of consuming a quantity of its contents; and Takagi skidded in the door of the soundproof room, a bit out of breath, carrying two sodas and wearing a wild-eyed expression. "Sato-san, Yumi said that Chirokawa-san was-um-"

The room's occupants regarded Takagi with varyingly generous amounts of patience as the contents of the room in front of him hastily clicked into his awareness.

"...I'll. Um. Just leave these here."

The door snicked shut quietly behind him; Sato sighed, exasperated, and while Shiratori looked disgusted, Megure-keibu patted Sato on the shoulder companionably. "Well. So long as Takagi-kun is, ahm, keeping things under control at your desks, I suppose your continued presence would be helpful while we discuss the assault. Do you agree, Chirokawa-san?"

"Quite," the older man muttered, patting at the pile of used tissues he'd been given with a frown. "I suppose we could send him out for more tissues. He makes a good coffee boy, I imagine?"

Sato cleared her throat testily; Chirokawa blinked at her, unconcerned. "I may or may not have suffered a minor concussion, I certainly have suffered damage to my inner ear and senses of balance as well as hearing, and I am still bleeding from a _very serious wound_in my forehead. I am feeling somewhat unimportant at the current moment."

"Chirokawa-san," Megure said heavily, settling into a chair beside the distressed technician. "Let's leave the pettiness aside and begin? I understand you're feeling very vulnerable, but a grazing impact to the side of the head, while potentially dangerous, is not quite as dire an injury as a gunshot or knife wound. We thought getting your testimony immediately would be most adventageous, since you're fit to give your account as you-"

"I nearly _died,_" Chirokawa interrupted, his tone scathing. "I still may well do so!"

"We wish you well in all your endeavors, Chirokawa-san," Shiratori responded, just as snippily. "Until such time as you decide a lifestyle change is in order, however, we will continue to address you as a Division One civilian employee rather than a new resident hopeful of our morgue. We should enjoy it very greatly if you would cooperate with this perception."

"Shiratori!" Megure scolded his junior officer, moustache tugged downward with his frown. Chirokawa, sulking at the table, missed the approving smile Sato aimed at her colleague.

"Hrmph." Megure attempted decorum, smiling nonetheless. "Well. Let's begin."

* * *

The ride back to Ekoda, during which Kaito and Hakuba sat quiet and tense on either side of the Kuroba car's back seat, had been uncomfortable at best. When Hakuba exited the vehicle, hesitating, the complete uncertainty with which they both tried to craft a goodbye both brief and encompassing enough for their shared confidences, was worse. But on the return trip, Kaito and Kid sat in the front seat on the left, comfortably chatting with Jii-chan while the quiet hum of the car's radio gently soothed the space between them. It had been some time since Jii and his young masters were able to spend time alone, without the influence of a heist or Jii's duties to the boys' mother, and all three left the car in good - in Kid's case, manically cheerful - spirits.

"Annnnnd a partri~idge in a pear~ tree~"

"That's an unusual song for this time of year, Master Kid," Jii smiled, walking just half a pace back from the brothers' elbow as they followed the comfortable curves of a stone path toward the main estate building. "Anything in particular place it in your mind?"

"Mmm, not sure," Kid smiled, twisting on his toes as he walked. The grounds of the Shiratori estate, darkening into the beginnings of gentle twilight, spun before him; he turned another pirouette mid-step, just because he could, and smoothed his grin down into a soft smile, burying most of the joy deep in his heart. There was still Aoko to sort out, and the brothers had no illusions about the difficulty of that - but Hakuba, Hakuba _knew_and was with them.

Oh, he was _with_ them and they were right about him, they'd always been, and the relief and joy of that fact, of knowing now for certain that their faith in him was justified - Kaito and Kid spun again, a little hop and leap in their pace as they pulled ahead of Jii-chan on the path. Ahead was their room, and Tantei and Ran and Hattori-han, and a good meal and the elder Kudos. Jii would return to their mother with the good news, they would all sleep soundly tonight, and tomorrow - oh, the terror they'd raise. It was all beginning, it was all going to be huge and explodey and surely messy and turn out perfectly _marvelously_, and they just might have had both the most tense and thus most rewardingly good day in-

_Thud._

Kid and Kaito were off balance when Ran slammed into them, and Kaito ended up having to sling a rope of magic out toward one of the tree trunks at the edge of the gardens, some one hundred meters away, in order to get enough leverage to keep them both from crashing flat to the paving stones. As Kid got his arms around Ran and Kaito got their feet under them, the brothers realized that Ran was sobbing.

"-and we- we- I can't f-find him any- _hic_- anywhere and it's, oh, Kid, it's been hours and hours and. And, and, Kid, please. I'm so scared."

Cradling her against him, Kid tucked one hand under Ran's chin and lifted up, forcing her to meet his eye. "Can't find him? Can't find-"

Ran stifled another sob, clinging tightly to her lover, nodding fiercely. "I'm so- I just want to know he's okay. I don't know how, how could anyone have found him..."

Though Ran was too distressed to note it, Jintarou wasn't: the black rage that swept across his young master's face was akin to the anger he'd seen only once before, on the rooftop where he had let down his Master Toichi and, unintentionally, driven the young master to take up his father's profession. It chilled him deeply, but the gentleness he could now see in the young master's face, a careful tenderness directed toward the young mistress in his arms, gave Jintarou some small relief.

"We'll find him," Kid murmured, speaking quietly against Ran's hair. Wind whipped through the trees at the edge of the gardens, and Jintarou wondered briefly if that was Master Kaito's doing, already searching the small woods for signs of Kudo Shinichi.

Ran breathed deeply, steadying herself with the encouragement of Kid, firm as marble in resolution beside her. "Okay."

* * *

It was full dark - and had been for hours - by the time they found him. By that point, Kid had made himself several dire promises about exactly how much Shinichi would suffer, once they found him, for needlessly terrifying both himself and Ran so badly. The thought that their fear wasn't needless, that something beyond their Tantei's idiocy had hidden him away for so many hours, wasn't one that Kid could bear to entertain.

And when they did finally find him, Kid was by that point so consumed with the sickening mixture of relief and deferred horrors that it didn't matter that Shinichi was bleeding and draped in the overlarge clothing of his proper self, curled up beneath the heavy branches of an ancient pine. The sympathy and relief that the thief felt was by then far, far outweighed by other emotions.

_THWAP!_

Shinichi jerked awake with a jolt of terror and pain, cheek stinging, and the first thing he saw as his eyes opened was the incandescdently furious, tear-streaked glare of his Thief. Who then proceeded to slap him across the face. Again.

Barely aware that his body had diminished in size once more- the agony had been short-lived this time, mixed so thoroughly with mental trauma that consiousness had deserted him almost immediately- Shinichi huddled back against the tree-trunk, bark scraping his skin where the oversized shirt rode down. His feet, shoeless and floundering in loose socks, scrabbled at branches, ground, anything, until he had wedged himself past the trunk and into a little hollow left where the bent tree's roots wrapped themselves around stones. In a haze of pain from transformation, the two blows and the black grief still throbbing inside his head, he curled up around himself in a tight knot of misery. He was dimly aware of commotion just beyond his haven, of Ran's angry voice and someone (Kid? Why would Kid be angry? His face had been wet) snapping something furious back at her.

But it was all a confusion, the things Haibara had told him and the fever of his change, the look on Kid's face and Ran's frightened voice, all of it blending and warping until all he could do was hide his face and think, dully, _They must know. She told them about me and __**they know.**_

They know, and I should never have been b- Kaasan, I'm so sorry- Ran, Kid, I'm-

Kid had struck him. Kid was crying, Ran was shouting, angry and terrified, tears in her voice too. And _he_ had, his _very existence_had caused... Senses reeling, Shinichi closed his eyes and let the haze wrap him up, drown everything; he didn't fight when hands pulled him out of his haven, and none of the words that were flung at him made any sense to him at all. The world had stopped making sense right about the time that he had… that Ai had…

Shinichi's face hurt. He'd probably deserved it. Of course he had.

It was a measure of just how much the fever and the weakness of Shinichi's enforced change had fogged his mind, all things considered; if he had been more aware, he would have realized that the hand that wiped the blood and sweat from his grazed hands and forehead was the same one that had slapped him. He would have heard both voices gentle, shatter into frantic worry and tenderness; he would have heard them transform from opposition to a duet of mutual caring and fear. But wrapped in his very private little scrap of hell, he didn't, and when strong arms wrapped around him and carried him off, Shinichi neither knew nor cared.

* * *

He awoke warm; not fever-hot or with the scalded feeling brought on by tears, but held close and hemmed in around by warmth. His eyes were still closed and there was a faint intimation that something, somewhere, was hurting; and so Shinichi lay very still, bathing in the warmth and listening.

The words filtered in gradually; it was quite cinematic, like a fade-in from an old black and white movie. "—sn't aware that he would take it in quite that manner," said a detached, calm voice with wrinkles of unsteadiness around its edges; that was Haibara, Shinichi noted fuzzily. "I attempted to explain with as little drama as possible, but I… may have lost some of my own equilibrium. I was difficult under any circumstances to explain—"

"_Difficult?_ We found him hiding like a-a wounded animal! You said it yourself, he probably wouldn't have changed if he hadn't gotten so upset! Ai-chan, how couldyou?"

That was Ran, very close by. _Angry,_ murmured Shinichi's mind in an unconcerned way, and the words _don't you dare, don't you DARE_flickered somewhere backstage; where had he heard them? Something to do with Kid. Where was Kid? Was he angry too?

"Ran, Chibi-tensai, if you _must_ yowl like cats, do it elsewhere, please? You'll wake him." More words, close by again; Ran's voice dropped down to a hissing whisper, broken only by Ai's quiet replies. Something smoothed across Shinichi's brow; something brushed his cheek. A little ripple of pain disturbed the surface of his consciousness for a bare second before subsiding beneath the touch. _Kid,_he whispered to himself, and then the warmth shifted and became familiar.

He was... lying somewhere soft; there were arms around him, a hand stroking his hair- Ran's, he identified; fingernails. But he was against Kid's body, supported on his right against the thief's solidity while Ran pressed against his left, bracketing him with her own body. _Bed? Where?_A tenuous little thread of curiosity made Shinichi's eyelids want to quiver-

But if he woke up, then he'd have to- tell them. No, wait, they already knew. That was why-

The thought twisted inside him like a splinter of glass, and Shinichi tried to writhe away from it, back down into the warm dark; too late, though. There was a soft curse from his right. "Tantei? -Tantei, shhh, don't move yet."

Covers rustled around him: that was a blanket, being pulled up to his chin and tucked around a body whose convulsive shivers he hadn't been aware of until that moment. There was a sharp little dig in his left forearm: that was an IV, he could feel the tug of the tape on his skin. His skin... it was still overheated, if cooler than before; everything ached, bone-deep in a very familiar and unpleasant way, though the delirium that had colored his earlier wakening in the gardens was mostly gone now. _Oh. Small again. It didn't last. Don't be stupid, you knew it wouldn't, you just hoped it would._There, a clear thought at last. No more hiding in the dark; that was how everything had gotten started, wasn't it?

Slowly, very much afraid of what he'd see, Shinichi opened his eyes.

There were too many eyes in the room: Agasa's from the doorway, Haibara's, less calm than usual from where she stood in front of her fellow scientist; Ran's, looking down at him from a drawn, tearstained face, Kid's, shadowed and tight and a somber blue; Hattori's, an ominously silent stare from his crouch on the foot of the bed... And his tousan and kaasan's worried faces, peering past Hattori. His tousan and his kaasan-

"'m... so sorry," Shinichi croaked out. "Kaasan. So sorry."

Kudo Yukiko's face was tight with worry; her makeup had smeared at some point in the past, and even as one hand clutched her husband's in a white-knuckled grip, the other had fastened on Heiji's shoulder. It loosened now, and she moved forward to kneel next to the bed, almost stumbling- and Yukiko was never ungraceful. Kid pressed himself back a little to give her room; her arms reached out... and then, with an effort of will, stopped short of gathering her diminutized son out of the bed and into her lap. Shinichi could see the effort in her eyes as she let her hands drop, settling on smoothing his hair back and cupping his face gently in one palm. "S-Shin-chan, you don't have anything to apologize for. Nothing. At all. Nobody in this room does." She bit her lip, eyes momentarily full of something hot and deadly. _"Outside_this room, though... Never mind, darling, it's alright. Ai-chan explained everything."

"Everything?" Shinichi asked (Conan's voice, gods, high and childish after almost a week of his real voice), wishing he could pull the covers over his head like a real child. _"Everything?"_ He turned his face against her hand, desperate for comfort but unwilling to accept the easy gift everyone seemed to be offering. "Kaasan, don't you understand? You were- they _did_this to you. Because of m-me. They experimented on you, to make me." He shuddered, and she smoothed the blanket higher. "I'm the reason you couldn't have any more children, Kaasan!" His voice cracked, stress spiraling it higher. "Because of what they did, just so they could get what they wanted-" Two pairs of hands pulled him back from incipient hysteria, soothed him; he could feel Ran lay her cheek against his hair, and he subsided, exhausted. Kid's fingers slid down to cup his nape, and Shinichi heard more than saw his free hand lift to stroke Ran's hair as well.

"Shin-chan, _Shinichi._ Because of what THEY did, not because of something you did, sweetheart. No, listen to me." Cool fingers scented with the freesia skin-cream Yukiko loved stroked his face, wiped away dampness he had been wholly unconscious of from his cheeks. "It's not your fault, it's not. Did you ask for this? No. Did I? No." She leaned in, ignoring the other two on the bed entirely; all her focus was on her son, her child. "And Shin-chan? If someone told me that... that if I wanted to change the past I'd have to change you too..." Yukiko shook her head, her caramel-colored hair falling over her shoulders even as she smiled a crooked little smile down at him. "I would never, ever _dream_ of saying yes. How could I ever give you up? Ai-chan's wrong, don't you know that, darling? No matter what they did, no matter who they are, you're not _their_son, you're MINE. Ours."

"And," said his father quietly, "it's not 'they'; it's 'she'." Everybody in the room looked at him, and from his place on the foot of the bed Heiji stirred and then subsided, forcing back violent movement by an act of will. _"'She.'_We know who it had to be." His gaze shifted, settling on the thief who along with Ran held the writer's son so carefully. "And you and your brother know something about that, or so Haibara-san tells us." There was a note in Yuusaku's voice that would have surprised many of his acquaintances; the elder Kudo was not known for his steel. "If there's something you can tell us that might help, then now's the time to speak."

Still at Shinichi's side, Kid drew a deep breath and exhaled; he curved one forearm under Shinichi's small shoulders, lifting the boy into his mother's lap. Yukiko hesitated, flustered, trying to fight the urge to clasp Shinichi close for the sake of his pride. But then Ran helped too, moving Shinichi's weight from her own support into Yukiko's arms, and Shinichi's expression, so uncertain, but so hurting, tipped the scales for his mother. No element of her actress's skill attempted to cover the mixture of anger and love with which she cradled Shinichi close; Heiji turned his head, giving his friend privacy, and Ran withdrew to simply hold her lover's hand.

With Shinichi in good hands - the best hands, Kid was certain, up to and including his own or Ran's - the thief shifted away from the others on the bed, perching lightly on its edge with deliberate and smooth motions. He closed his eyes, and the brothers Kuroba both opened them. For Ai and Agasa, most directly facing the pair, the flickering, liquid color of the brothers' shared eyes, blue and indigo roiling together, was nothing less than eerie. It was an easily forgotten detail, though, as the pair began to speak.

"I have..._we_have told some of you, but not all, that Vermouth was the individual responsible for training myself and my brother in our trades." A sharp, collective intake of breath punctuated their statement, but pausing to acknowledge their audience's upset would only provide openings for interruptions. Kaito continued, voice cool.

"She went by Chris Vineyard at the time. This was long after she had retired the Sharon Vineyard disguise, whom she claimed was her current persona's mother. That woman, Sharon Vineyard, was the woman whom my father Kuroba Toichi entrusted with all the secrets of his trade in disguise and costuming." Kaito had to pause here, swallowing firmly to control his wavering tone; he exhaled softly, back in control, and lifted his gaze to meet Yukiko's as he continued. "That woman...and one other at the same time."

The actress gulped, holding her son close; Shinichi had wrapped his hands around his mother's, and squeezed tight as his small hands could manage as Yukiko struggled to keep her emotions in check. Save for a few bright tears gently tracking her cheeks - Yukiko was even beautiful when she cried - she was successful, and the face she showed Kaito, nearly forgetting everyone else in the room save her son and his lover's brother, was a fair, beautiful mirror of the magician's more olive complexion.

Compared to Yukiko, Kaito's features were drawn darker, with heavier lines and deeper colors, than her fair honey hues, a palette that only could have come from the West. But on both faces, so different in age and in personality, everyone with eyes could see the same heavy shadows and lines of strain... and the same cheerful, blithely blunt talents which both actress and magician used without reserve to always obscure those keys to their honesty.

"I can see it in your face, Kudo-san," Kaito whispered, his Poker Face slipping by large notches as the pain in Yukiko's expression, unfolding like a tragic flower, tugged on the deeply hidden pain within his own. "I can see my Tousan...he's here, all over you." With a hesitant hand the boy magician reached up, and Yukiko held still, holding his gaze, as with feather-light fingertips Kaito traced the lines of her eyes, the tension just in front of her ears that could tug the rest of her face into whatever mood she chose. "I...I've never said so. But...I can see him. It hurts, sometimes."

Both of Yukiko's arms were still wrapped around Shinichi, who through this exchange had chosen to hold still and simply observe the conversation. Its light trails of memories older than his knowledge zipped across the gap between the two in the room who _could_remember; the detective mused to himself that it seemed almost that his mother and Kaito were breathing the same air, like air passed mouth-to-mouth between drowning men.

"You should look in the mirror more often," Yukiko answered Kaito, her smile and tone bravely cheerful, fighting to banish the sadness. Kaito and Kid joined her, eyecolor roiling above a shaky but strengthening grin.

"Well, then the old snake was good for one thing after all," the brothers grimaced, turning their attention with difficulty away from their father's last remaining - as far as they could know or discern - true student.

"Chibi-tensai," Kid continued, taking up the conversation smoothly, "the APTX derivative that Vermouth, in all likelihood, has used...is APTX-90, the 'Spring.' Of youth, that is - or of life, if you prefer. And I am sorry, Yukiko-san, but I don't think that your timeless beauty was passed to you by your parents, though I'm certain your kaasan was regal in her own time."

Yukiko smiled, reaching across the bed to pat Kid's knee fondly. "Oh, dear, you're being too polite now. But as soon as Ai-chan explained her theory...I came to the same conclusion as you."

"I can't make guesses as to the context or manner in which she did so," Kid continued, dipping his head just a bit in deference to the Kudos, then continuing. "I do know what substance it was. The first drug of the 'APTX' family, APTX-90 has been in existence for an indeterminate time prior to our Chibi-tensai's involvement in the Organization. She and I compared notes briefly, earlier today, and from what we discussed I can decisively claim that APTX-90 is the _only_viable derivative of its drug family which Haibara-san didn't actually create."

A bit of silence in the room, while everyone not-Kuroba tried to parse what had been revealed so far, and found themselves in great difficulty to do so. Hattori, especially, hunched contemplatively at the foot of Shinichi's bed, rubbing his temples with one hand, cap balled up in the other. Though his expression was a picture of perfect concentration, it couldn't last; after a few moments, he exhaled harshly, nearly growling with frustration.

"Okay, so lemme see if I got this straight, at least to the point where it goes all bendy and I lose it," he said, grinning at Shinichi as the Eastern detective, despite his situation and size, snickered fondly at his best friend. "So old bitch's - sorry, Neechan," he interrupted himself, as Ran frowned disapprovingly "- anyway, she's older than she looks, and she looks like whatever she wants. And she learned from the Wonder Twins' tousan, and the Wonder Twins learned from her, and Kudo-han learned from Tousan Kuroba too, so snakeface - Stop giggling, Kudo, nicknames help me think - is like Kudo's disguisey-aunt, if the Wonder Twins are his disguisey-cousins. And that makes Kuroba-han everybody's disguisey-granddad, and pretty awesome. Except then I still don't follow what's going on with the drugs. Chibi-han?"

"Oi," Shinichi muttered. Hattori waved a dismissive hand at him, focusing on Haibara, quiet and somewhat neglected on the far side of the room, beside Agasa her rock.

"_That_chibi-han," Hattori clarified. His tone was brusque as ever, but his gaze was gentle as he observed Haibara's clear discomfort, read clearly in the whip-tight tension of her shoulders. "So you got all the APTX-drugs from one that they already had, right?"

"...True," Haibara allowed, guarded to the point of crankiness - which, Hattori reflected, wasn't really out of the norm. Maybe she was feeling okay by now?

"And they had that one a long time, and nobody'll say where it's from, cause you didn't know til Thing 1 toldja he thought he knew where they got it. And you never woulda just not asked or not investigated it, so if the Org knows where they got the thing, they ain't sayin, not even to their top R&D lady."

Somewhat mollified by the series of left-handed compliments, Haibara nodded again, less severely. "Again, true."

"Sooo," Hattori concluded, swinging his gaze back over to the Kuroba brothers - at least, it seemed like it was still both of them, with the watery flickering their eyes kept doing - "That leaves it up to you guys, who know what the Org's been chasing for so long that it knocked off your tousan for it. Well, wait- for it, or for the information about it?"

Kaito - definitely Kaito, though Hattori wasn't sure how he knew - swallowed roughly. "The information."

Hattori nodded shortly. "Thanks. And...believe me, the only thing that'd keep me from knocking Snakey off a building all by myself is that I know you got that right moren' I do. I'll get the railing opened up for ya, tho, if that means anything."

Again Kaito swallowed, nodding faintly in answer, and Heiji did as well. "Kay.

"So, we got Snakeface who knows somethin' about the drug, and the Org who do too, but maybe they don't know the same stuff? Can't say for sure yet." Ran, the Kudos, Agasa and Ai, and Shinichi himself all listened attentively as Hattori continued. The Osakan detective could see Kudo making mental notes, and made one of his own to make sure to compare Kudo's conclusions with his own, just to double-check them all. In the meantime, the Wonder Twins were listening quietly, very carefully, and Hattori puffed up a little with satisfied pride. It was a good day, no matter how grim the topic, when the crazy one wasn't constantly knocking down his deductions.

"What we do know," Hattori continued, drawing close to his conclusion now and feeling the excitement of it as he did, "Is that somebody DOES know what the drug is, and what it does, and how it does it. An' I don' think they even trust that they know it for sure. But when everythin' else points to them bein' the only ones with information, I'd say the info they've got is fact until proven otherwise, right? Right. So, Kid, whatcha got for us about this..._Pandora_?"

"It's a stone," Kid answered, looking around the room guardedly. This information, the most protected and guarded nuggets of truth he and his brother knew, didn't feel _right_to touch human lips and tongues. The brothers had always felt, since the first moment they began to realize the truth behind the fragments of memory and story painstakingly pieced together, that to talk candidly about Pandora was akin to blasphemy. But blasphemy of what, they had never been able to decide.

Kid and Kaito closed their eyes; Kaito floated surfaceward, letting Kid submerge himself deep in their consciousness, for the space of fifteen silent seconds, in which the silence pressed down upon the room and everyone in it like lead. Heavier and heavier, a literally physical sensation that made Yuusaku grit his teeth and clasp his wife's shoulder gently, which made Haibara subtly shift her weight, supporting herself on Agasa - and then suddenly, the pressure popped, like popping your ears on a plane, and all the sounds that had surrounded the room - and the sound of Kid's voice - seemed to flatten out and go dim. Popping back to the front of their shared consciousness, Kid resumed speaking before anyone not familiar with his brother's magic could gather the words to challenge what had just occurred.

"It's a stone...which can be processed, the exact method is unimportant right now, but the point is, it can be processed, distilled, ground down...and this product can be used as a medicine. It can be added to other drugs, used to synthesize new ones, or...simply consumed.

"It, to the best of my understanding, retards the process of human aging. On a chemical level, the effects of Pandora-product are most similar to an inverted cellular apoptosis acceleration. Apoptosis in the apotoxin-derived drugs which Haibara-san is most familiar with work by speeding - extremely speeding - the rate and process of pre-programmed cellular death. More cells die than should, less are created, and the rate of progression leaves the body insufficiently equipped to regrow cells and organs to replace the dying ones. APTX-4869 literally kills you cell by cell.

"I imagine it's rather painful."

It surprised most of the room that Shinichi wasn't the only one to laugh briefly, without humor but with mirth; at Agasa's side, Haibara uttered the same sort of bitter, disbelieving chuckle, and then as she and Kudo caught each other's eye, warily allied in amusement over the thief's monumental understatement, Kid smiled as well and continued.

"Apoptosis can be reversed. It isn't scientifically sound - but it doesn't need to be in this case, since we have material proof, two cases each, of the two separate ways in which APTX-90 can do this. Instead of accelerating cellular deprogramming and death, 90 rewrites the cellular program. It's like the motorways in America. Here we know what we're doing, but do you recall the highways in America, Kudo-san?" Kid directed his question at both of Shinichi's parents, and Yukiko laughed while Yuusaku winced.

"Painfully clearly, yes," Yuusaku conceded. "I assume you are about to reference the 'Pot Holes' they have there?"

Kid snickered. "Not quite, but I feel for your suspension," the thief grinned. "I suppose there's plenty of domestic examples I could use too, but this one sprung first to mind. In America, they often say they'll upgrade a section of their roads by some reasonable, not too far off date. Then the project completion date gets pushed back, and then again, and three years later, the Americans say that it's still 'orange' season, for some reason. Anyway, the roads are highways. People need to get from here to there using them. They can't make the trip without them. So the trips get delayed and delayed and maybe are never taken.

"What I think happens with APTX-90 is that the body is like those motorways. Apoptosis - cell death - is planned. But 90 pushes the time back, and then does it again a little later, and then a little later. The body doesn't fight it like it might fight a complete and immediate rewriting of its codes, since each push back is maybe less, hm, threatening? than a full cancellation would be. Obviously, I'm acting like the cells can think, and they can't, but does it generally make sense?"

Quiet for a moment - then Heiji, snickering. "So...you're sayin' that APTX-90, this fabled 'spring of youth' stuff that Snakeface and Kudo-han got touched with, it's basically...cell bureaucracy? Red tape?"

From her place in front of Agasa, Ai crossed her arms and made a small tsk of both annoyance and appreciation. "Thank you, Kuroba-kun and Hattori-kun, for breaking down the sum of what was doubtless _decades_worth of research into mere geographic and govermental symbolism."

"Although," rumbled the Professor from behind and above her, "you must admit that the analogy serves." Ai made another sound of protest and he patted her shoulder soothingly. "Mah mah, Ai-chan, they did sum up all the facts quite neatly, true? Well then." He smiled at the room and its inhabitants, moustache bristling. "Do you know, this is probably the first time that we've all been up to date on everything? All of us, entirely so and at the same time, I mean. It's reassuring, don't you think?"

Still cradled in his mother's embrace, Shinichi winced internally. _Not quite 'everything', Hakase, but it's enough for now, I guess._ His gaze slid towards Kid's face, turned in profile to his own; the day that he believed that the Kuroba brothers had told them everything, the boy considered, would be the day that pigs had to be cleared to land at Tokyo International.

* * *

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_So; did that help to clear things up? Questions? Please ask away- we'll do our best to answer. And next time, we'll continue on directly from this point with __**Book Six, Chapter Twenty**__**: "Don't do that again, though." **__Take care, and have a good week!_


	89. Don't do that again, though

_Greetings and salutations!_

Ready for the next bit? This week's chapter is... a little different. It picks up directly from last week's, and it takes it some interesting places. Please, if you're a bit surprised by what you see, read the bits that surprise you carefully. No, it isn't as dialogue-heavy as last week's episode- it's a bit of a roller-coaster ride this time, really. Let us know what you think, hmm? We'd say that the Heiji fans among you should be happy.

Also, a question for you all: what sorts of new omakes would you like to see? We haven't posted any since the hiatus and we'd like to know your opinions.

And with that, on with the show!... ___The Management_

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* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Twenty**__**: "Don't do that again, though."**_

As the evening was sufficiently advanced that dinnertime had come and gone, several trays of sandwiches and other simple snacks were procured from the kitchen. No-one really wanted to leave the comfort of company, and it was only under protest that Yukiko relenquished her son into the custody of Ran and Kid. Ai stood nearby, impatiently riffling through the contents of a tray of medical supplies- apparently more blood-sampling was imminent- and it was only after Shinichi's mother had been reassured to the nth degree that her offspring's guardians would lay down their lives to keep him safe that she allowed herself to be reluctantly dragged away by her husband. "Although, darlings," she informed the two practically as she left, "you don't need to go _that _far; he'd be terribly upset if anything happened to you. Just kill any invaders and everything'll be fine! Sleep tight, Shin-chan!" With that cheery advice, she left under her husband's firm escort.

From his place at the bed's foot, Heiji raised one black eyebrow. "Gonna try to shoo me outta the room too?" He sat, one ankle propped across the other leg, solid and seemingly rooted where he was, and pointed with his chin at Shinichi. "Not like you can scare me off with threats'r anything." Kid opened his mouth, but Heiji beat him to it. "And don't try t'rattle me by sayin' you're gonna have sex, 'cause that ain't happening with Kudo like _that. _Right?"

Kid eyed the boy he had scooped back between himself and Ran again, a meditative expression on his face; he then looked up at Ran and brightened perceptably, opening his mouth once more. "Right," answered Ran hastily. "And anyway, I want you here. Somebody needs to keep an eye on Shinichi all the time, and we're going to have to sleep sooner or later." She stroked her detective's hair, making a brief face. "Eeew. Mister, you need a shower; you've got pine-needles _everywhere._Dirt and sweat, too, and you smell like... smoke. Sort of smoke. You know what I mean."

From his other side, Kid wrinkled up his nose. "Tsk; can't be having that. I suppose we could give our Tantei a sponge-bath-?"

Haibara quelled this (possibly) helpful suggestion of Kid's with a dire look. "No shower until he's stabilized; no sponge-bath until after I've taken his vitals and changed his IV bag. After that, it's up to you... though I do agree with the idea of a watch. As I recall, your previous 'flashback' only lasted a matter of hours, correct, Kudo-kun?"

Picking the aforementioned pine-needles out of his hair, Shinichi nodded. "Yeah; six or so, I guess. Might've been less. Only, it was going the other direction that time." His small face scowled in thought. "That'd mean that my body really isaccepting the larger state as the norm, wouldn't it?"

"Or that it's attempting to revert back permanently to its smaller configuration; hence the tests. Now, roll up your sleeve and hold still." With that bright and cheerful comment, Ai advanced on him, hands full of hypodermics.

Vitals taken ("Hypertensive? Again?"), reflexes tested ("I hate it when you scowl at your clipboard,") and samples taken ("Ow! leave me a LITTLE blood, will you, Haibara?"), Shinichi moodily studied his now shrunken toes where they rested on top of the covers. "Can I get some rest now?" he asked her wearily.

The child-sized pharmacist studied her notes, nodding absently. "Considering that you changed back while asleep during your previous flashback, it's possible that pattern will reoccur. Sleep would be preferable, yes." She tucked her pen away into the top part of the clipboard and considered it for a moment. "Before I leave, though..." Raising her cool, blue-gray gaze to Shinichi's, she hesitated. "...I would like to apologize."

Stare. Four stares, actually. A faint flush tinged Ai's cheeks, but she lifted her chin. "I would prefer to do this in private, but I have no illusions that your keepers will leave you alone for even a second. Therefore," (she took a deep breath) "I- wish to tender my apologies for telling you about your mother's apotoxin-affected state in the way that I did. I could have been more tactful." She cleared her throat, a small, uneasy sound. "Agasa-hakase has discussed this with me, briefly but rather intensely."

Shinichi blinked; Agasa had-? He swallowed. "I, ah, okay. That is, I... accept?" He was silent for a moment. "You had to tell me. How you told me was, yeah, traumatic. But I don't think any way you could've said it wouldn't've been hard to take." A small laugh rumbled in his chest, and he winced to hear its pitch, high and boyish. "If you _hadn't_ told me and I had found out, _then_I'd be pretty damn pissed. But at least you did tell me."

Ai looked affronted. "Of course; I- Withholding information of that level of importance would be-"

Shinichi held up a hand; it matched hers in size again, and he swallowed down a knot of regret. "Ai. The thing is, this didn't involve me so much as it did my kaasan; and that's what made it hit so hard. If you find out _anything, ever again_ that affects my family- and that includes the other three people in this room, and Agasa, _and_ yourself... I'd appreciate it if you tell me right away, no matter how traumatic you think it might be." He matched her gaze with one of his own. "If this didn't kill me, I doubt any other revelations will. _Tell me." _He half-smiled. "And you can practice your tact when you do it."

Ai stared at Shinichi for a long, dumbfounded moment before nodding. "I- yes. Of course." Without another word she gathered up her tray of medical debris and turned towards the door. Before leaving, she glanced at Heiji. "Call me if anything occurs, please. Good night."

Click.

"Well, stuff me and sell me at Shitennoji market," remarked Heiji laconically. He gave the three on the bed a Look. "You expect that, Kudo?"

"No," said Shinichi quietly. "But you know, I'm not really surprised."

* * *

Heiji, Shinichi, Ran, and Kid spent some time after Ai's departure simply talking, and the novelty of a complete absence of pressing topic was heartwarming for them all in a way that felt fragile enough to shatter if commented upon. Still, time progressed, and while Shinichi remained regrettably travel-sized, nothing _else_went wrong.

"You're a total ass, and one hundred percent wrong on this, and I'm gonna prove it to ya! No way did Nakajima have a better rookie season then Suzuki. No way! I don't care about potential, it's all about what they actually brought to the field." Indignant, Heiji sat back, arms akimbo, and with cheery aggression regarded his equally resolute opponent in their debate.

For his part, Kid was not to be bowed, and drained his glass of water with a gasp, theatrically thumping it to the tatami floor, grinning broadly. "Not a chance," he countered, leaning into the argument. "Your deduction is incorrect for the following sixteen reasons!"

"...They'll be at that a while." In Ran's arms, Shinichi smiled up at her, leaning close against her chest, contented and bone-tired. The day had been, to say the very very least, _long. _Long in the way of Roman epics. Long in the way of the last half-hour before the bell rang and you were free to leave school (or your office) toward freedom on a sunny Friday afternoon, too long like the best kisses were too short.

And not just long - but _hard._Hard like the last quarter of the soccer game, when his legs were burning - beyond that, when they felt shredded with effort, and he still had to run. Hard like a concrete floor three floors below the window he had no choice but to jump from, hard like the knowledge that the crook was two blocks away and someone would die if he guessed wrong: did he go left, or right? and a whole life rested in the balance of his whim. Hard like the skateboard running out of juice three kilometers from home right as he attempted the hop up onto the sidewalk, and ended up on his nose in the dirt. Hard like it would be if 'difficult' enrolled in night cram school taught by 'miserable' and financed by the academic coalition of 'pain,' 'cruelty,' and 'salt in wounds,' which would be a sort of corporation of like-minded businesses all seeking the mutual goal of utter-

"ACK!"

"_Someone _wasn't paying atten~tion." Ran's singsong voice in Shinichi's ear, as much as her light fingers on his ribs, made the chibified detective twitch in sudden alarm as the room around him snapped back into focus, and laughter from all three of his friends suddenly registered in his ears.

"I think he was doing that mental soliloquy thing again," Heiji snickered, grinning shamelessly at Shinichi. While most of his brain glowered at Heiji and began collating all of Heiji's absolutely most boneheaded moments ever in his _life_, including a few from years well before their friendship which Shinichi had researched just in the case that seriously intense blackmail were ever required, some distracted corner of Shinichi's mind absently noted that Heiji and Kid were sitting a good deal closer to each other than they had been before he'd checked out, and that their body language spoke eloquently about their relative levels of comfort around each other: their focus on their conversation, not their contention.

_Good._ Shinichi cherished the private glow that the observation kindled. _Heiji doesn't know how important he really is to me... how little Kid has to do with anything about our friendship. If they start to really get along... I think I can convince him of that. And wow, Kid is __really __rubbing off on me. I never would have thought about Heiji's looks before Kid mentioned it, and now I'm staring at my best friend's bone structure._

_...One dark and one pale, wonder what that'd look li-_

"-AIIIIIIIIEEK!"

Shinichi flailed within Ran's arms, but it was no effort at all for her to keep him pinned in place, giggling as Kid leaned away from their boyfriend's ear with the smuggest, most satisfied expression on his face. Wiping the spit out of his ear as best as he could with the sleeve of Ran's shirt, Shinichi glared indignant, angry-kitten death at his completely unrepentant boyfriend.

"KID! You! You just-"

"Raspberried your ear, yes. Learn not to drift off twice in as many minutes, Tantei, and maybe you'll save yourself the indignation of another."

"_Augh._"

Ran was shaking with giggles behind him; she wrapped her arms around her smaller boyfriend's body and snuggled him like a teddybear. "You _deserved _that, Shinichi," she murmured in his ear. "Just like you deserve- THIS!" The short-lived bout of tickling was just that, short-lived, though aimed at Shinichi's ribs and devastating on impact. When he lay panting and totally subdued, it was to see Heiji grinning at him like someone had just plugged a hundred-watt bulb into a 60-watt socket.

"You. Kudo, you-" Overcome with snickers of his own, the other detective chortled at him for a moment. "You're stupidly cute, ya know? Like a real rugrat."

"HEIJI." Shinichi kicked weakly, missing the other's kneecap by a half meter.

"No, really," Heiji continued, blithely ignoring the murder in his friend's eyes. "Just like a real rugrat. Hair's stickin' up, you got yer shirt hiked halfway off, and if that's not tighty-whities I'm seein', then-" He pointed; Shinichi yelped and yanked the shorts and t-shirt he'd been hastily dressed in after his transformation back into place. "I mean," the Osakajin continued cheerfully, "when you get around to havin' kids of your own, at least y'know what they'll look like. Or probably, 'less they're girls." His grin widened. "You'd make a good little girl, all pink cheeks an' skinny. Kind of a monkey but cute, like Kazuha useta be when she was a squeaker."

Ran's hands crept up the sides of Shinichi's head, gathering his soft hair into two pigtails. "He _would, _wouldn't he, Kid? Maybe I ought to have a girl first," she said teasingly. "Or twins- one from you, one from Shinichi." Laughter lurked in her eyes, redoubling at Heiji's abrupt freeze and blink. "Kid'd make a pretty girl too," she told him, and flopped back on the bed with Shinichi sprawled half on top of her. "Shinichi told me- pink! Lots of pink!"

Heiji eyed her like she'd sprouted a second head. "...pink?"

"They went on a _date. _Kid told me ALL about that part," she murmured wickedly. The boy in her arms turned even redder, squirming.

"Pink, huh?" As it was apparently Pick-On-Shinichi Night, Heiji framed his friend's childish face in his hands at a distance, squinting. "Ne, he looks like Kid, or Kid looks like him, whatever, so... pink. How much pink?" he appealed to the thief, who answered him solemnly.

"Oodles. Tons. And rhinestones, quite a lot of those; fake eyelashes, a _great_ deal of makeup and facial prosthetics, a quite fetching dress and stockings, matching shoes, extravagantly long eyelashes..." He batted his own at the by now beet-red Shinichi. "I begrudged absolutely _no _effort for our Tantei's sake."

"So..." Heiji framed the squirming Shinichi's face again. "If we did up his hair and added some fake eyelashes and lotsa pink, we'd know what yer daughter'd look l- ow!"

A flailing foot had finally connected. "NOT talking to anyone in this room AGAIN," huffed Shinichi, straightening his clothing once more just in case. He was somewhat glad of his heated face, though, because during Heiji's little sojourn into conjecture it had occurred to him that, if he and Kid in adult form looked a great deal alike, then Kid and Heiji would look _quite _a lot like Heiji and himself-

Banishing that thought to uncharted and distant regions, he flopped back against Ran and crossed his arms. "And anyway, what about Heiji?"

"Bwuh? What about me?"

Shinichi smirked and pointed at the other detective. "Girl. Kid, could you do it? Disguise him as Heiji-chaa~aan?" He drew out the last syllable like a little boy sticking out his tongue.

"_Could I do it?_ _COULD _I? Oh, Tantei, Tantei, Tantei - I just don't know what to say!" Wounded, Kid fell against Heiji, a dying, liquid flop across the other's lap. Heiji, for his part, did his best to act the part of a mourning friend - or at least not crack up entirely - as Kid breathed his last breath, betrayed by his lover's faltering faith in the spread of his skill.

The wicked grin on the boy's face belonged anywhere but on that of a child's. "How about 'Do you prefer flavored lip-gloss or plain?'" Shinichi smirked up at Heiji, whose face was by this point marking mid-point on the scale between Extremely Alarmed and Seriously Considering Running. "You chicken? I mean, if I can flip-flop back and forth between prepuberty and adulthood, a little thing like a _disguise_ wouldn't be so bad, would it?" Eyes extremely large, Heiji goggled at his friend. "You're not-" (Shinichi lowered his voice, or at least as much as he could, all things considered) "-_scared, _are you?"

A pause. Hands over her mouth, Ran waited, face crimson.

"...bring it."

If it hadn't been a tacit knowledge held by every single other person in the Shiratori main estate building that a rather unhinged but charmingly (mostly) harmless young man had joined the household, the manic, brassy, thunderously unapologetic laughter that suddenly filled the bedroom - and most of that wing of the house - might have caused some significant amount of consternation.

Or, at least, those who heard it might not have reconsidered their urges to investigate the cause of the laughter. As it was...

Kid finally stopped cackling when a sound smack from Heiji to his stomach grabbed his attention and muted his mirth.

"Wasn't that funny," Heiji grumbled. Wiping tears from his eyes, Kid pushed himself upright, gathering his breath, and beamed earnestly - without the unnerving fixation that the detective was accustomed to seeing from the thief, just true pleasure.

"Hattori-tantei, it'll be my pleasure. When I'm done, you'll surprise everyone - even yourself." The hearts and sparkles in the thief's tone were nearly visible, like mosquitoes hovering about Heiji's face, and the detective batted them - and the thief - away with a huff.

"Yeah, yeah, sure." He shrugged, eyeing Shinichi and Ran - both holding back their overflowing mirth (and glee? Heiji was rather worried by the look in Neechan's eye) by bare threads. "Aw go on, you two, you're gonna burst a seam."

"_WE CAN GO SHOPPING,_" Ran exclaimed, then squeaked and covered her mouth with both hands again. "Eep. I mean. Kid and me, we can go shopping for Heiji-nee!"

Shinichi grinned, crooked and companionable (and, for the moment, forgiveably young). "Hattori'n me'll go shopping too. -For a drink. Liquid reinforcement for the makeup chair, huh?"

"Heh, you're buying, chibi."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Oh grow up, Hattori-and don't _start_," he added quickly, seeing the glee in Hattori's face. "I seriously want this-" he gestured to his whole body- "_over._"

"You've just gotten spoiled," said Ran, half-seriously... and then thought for a moment. "And so have we." She rolled over, spreading her arms above her head and stretching; half upside-down, the digital clock on the bedside table caught her eye, and she moaned. "After ten... we woke up at what time this morning? Four-something? Why are we all still awake? Shinichi,_you're_supposed to be asleep! Do you want Ai-chan after you? And besides," she added, "she was right; last time you changed in your sleep. Wouldn't you like to wake up back to your normal self again?" She rolled back over, this time onto her stomach, smoothing her transformed boyfriend's hair into something resembling smoothness.

"Can't think of anything I'd like better right now in the entire world," he muttered, and tucked himself against her with a sigh. He eyed the other two. "Hattori? Kid? Who wants first watch? Not that I think it's really necessary, but I don't want to give Haibara any more reasons to poke holes in my anatomy than I have to."

Heiji opted to sit up while they slept, waking Kid at two a.m.; Ran made Kid promise solemnly to shake her into wakefulness four hours after that. "We can have a late morning for a change," she said firmly. That settled, the three sleepers arranged themselves comfortably on the bed (Shinichi's small frame making the rather skimpy filling in a very warm sandwich), Heiji fetched a few books from the stack he'd borrowed from the estate library, and the room settled into restful silence.

It couldn't have been all that much later when Shinichi awoke, no more than an hour or perhaps two. Ran was breathing across the hair on top of his head, one arm bridging the gap between her and Kid's body and lying open-handed on his hip; Kid lay facing him, scooted down so that his chin lay level with the boy's nose. Tilting his head up just a bit as consciousness filtered back, Shinichi watched the tiny shifts and changes in his thief's face as sleep eddied and flowed with the seconds. From the foot of the bed there came a faint _"...snnrk-RK!" _that indicated that Heiji had lost his own battle with the hours.

Kid slept lightly, just below the surface, very nearly breaking through; he floated, almost aware... and Heiji's quiet snore was enough to disturb the waters. His eyes flickered, opened, and he cracked a soundless yawn.

Shinichi smiled, eyes sore and a bit too tired to focus well on his thief's face at such close range, and wiggled one hand free to reach up toward Kid's face, touching his jawbone with two thin fingertips.

"You sleep lightly," he mouthed, just breathing the words. The thief smiled, sliding his hand off of Ran's shoulderblade; he gently poked Shinichi in the nose with one finger, curling his arm around Shinichi's back, rather than Ran's, as he settled down again into near-sleep.

It was warm - almost too warm, but only _almost_- sandwiched between his lovers, and for the sixteen millionth and third time since being woken from his transformation beneath the pine, the detective fervently wished the return of his real body, the one that he'd almost forgotten could still be taken from him by a chemical whim.

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" His thief's voice was so quiet that at first Shinichi didn't realize Kid had actually spoken...but the glint in Kid's eyes said otherwise as he snuggled closer, sliding down so that their noses touched, and the thief's lambent blue eyes slid halfway shut in an expression of bliss very familiar indeed to the detective.

"T-thinking about it?"

The thief, his thief, smiled, his voice a singsong murmur. "You a~are."

He was blushing, Shinichi knew it. "...maybe. A little. Kind of..." he swallowed; those eyes, so close. Unearthly deepest blue, almost luminous in the half-dark that the single small reading-lamp Heiji'd been using had dimmed the room down to. "...difficult not to," he finished. "Still me inside this body; still you... right there." Tiny electric threads crackled warningly down his spine, reacting to the thought; they subsided but stayed watchful.

"Well..." The thief's voice dropped in register, dipping into the purring tones that he would have claimed, if challenged, were just another facet of his incredible act. But in truth the purr, the rumble of want that churned up the bottom of Kid's voice every time he began to speak closely with Shinichi, wasn't under his control much at all; it was just a reaction to his Tantei, a reaction to _his_Tantei - and now he nuzzled closer, stroking Shinichi's too-small temples with the bridge of his nose, skin against skin, his breath warming his lover's closed eyes.

"I imagine...a shock to your system got you here, mm?" His Tantei stiffened in his arms, nerves and brilliance anticipating Kid's intent; the thief thrilled to that, knowing what was inside Shinichi's mind, needing to taste it. "Maybe another shock'll get you back out."

Kid paused, two heartbeats' worth, just enough to make Shinichi curious, opening his eyes to see why the thief was holding back. And then he grinned, as their gazes met, and all the glee and groundedness that warred for control of each stupidly excellent decision he made were bare to see.

"...Wanna try it?"

Shinichi's eyebrows rose, almost shocked; not quite, though. In the small space between their bodies, guarded by Ran on one side and Heiji on the other, the rules didn't so much exist to be broken as simply not exist at all. And he was halfway there already; Kid's dare was mirrored in his own eyes, and anyway...

...it was just a kiss, right? Nothing more.

Settling the question meant taking the initiative himself, not pushing it onto Kid; that way even the faintest breath of coercion wasn't a question at all (not like it ever could have been, ever would have been, but Heiji _was_awfully close by, and. Just 'and.') His small hands slid up, caught Kid's collar, slowly traced his jawline, and he kissed him.

Small and soft, an awkwardness of two very differently-sized shapes trying to fit together; little warning jolts of lightning shot painful crackles along his skin and made him shiver, but if he kept his eyes closed it wasn't so bad. Not bad at _all, _actually; bearable, ignorable, no matter how loud the buzzing in his head grew. He made a little sound, felt Kid drink it in, breathed his thief's breath and gave it back. He knew his lips were softer in this form, Shinichi could feel them himself; what did they feel like to Kid? Kid's felt… like they always did, enticingly warm and intriguing, though the perspective was different. A little tremor of alarm stirred and then subsided; Shinichi's fingers tightened on fabric, knotted in his thief's shirt as if his small strength would be enough to draw Kid closer to him.

_Different, so different... not- perverted or wrong or anything like that; I'm still __**me**__ under my skin. I'd still be me if I was a paraplegic or blind or in a different body altogether. Still __me__. Nothing can take that away. _He hesitated, though, drawing back momentarily to give Kid the chance to pull away if he wanted to, and licked his lips. They burned a little, internal fire making its way to the surface, electricity dancing like a thunderstorm through his nerves.

Shinichi wasn't the only one electrified. Kid shivered ever so slightly, just the prickling of his skin beneath his clothes, and his neck arched down as he rolled up onto one elbow, framing Shinichi's small frame beneath him. The size didn't matter to Kid in the slightest. He hadn't been sure of that - he'd wondered if he would feel compelled to recoil, put off or unnerved by the knowledge that Shinichi's body was just too small, too young, to be in a lover's bed. No part of Kid's sensibilities - or Kaito's - desired to argue that fact.

And yet - certainly not a lover's bed, but perhaps a loving bed? A kiss, or a few, a knowledge that the mind within, not the body around it, was his goal: This was a distinction Kid could easily make, and one with which he was completely satisfied. 'Conan' had always been a disguise for Shinichi, an unintentional but serendipitous method of maintaining espionage of the deepest cover. And what made that so different than a latex mask and complex costumery of his own trade? Kid no more owned, nor had rights to, the curvaceous woman's body he often incorporated in his disguises than Shinichi did to the nine-year-old body currently trapping his adult's mind within. Tantei was Tantei, no matter the form.

With the advantage of his new angle the thief kissed his lover thoroughly, holding back his urge to slip his tongue deep between the other's lips, or nip too firmly on their plush curves. Shinichi was wearing Conan's body, in a way; a body both his and not his, and smaller in every way. Throttling his lover or choking Shinichi on his tongue wasn't exactly Kid's idea of a sexy time, so with a strong mental note, he set a limit for himself, and then found himself able to relax within it.

Kid let his hand trace its way up Shinichi's arm, so much less distance between (especially) thin wrist and the sharp shoulder point leading toward his neck. He tucked three fingers beneath the detective's nape, gently framing his face; the heel of his hand caressed Shinichi's jaw as Kid tipped his head aside, kissing more deeply, long presses and carefully shallow dips of his tongue against and moving with Shinichi's own.

At some point, his heart had begun beating fiercely, and Kid took mental inventory of his own situation, coming up with a worrisome sum. Much further, and they'd reach a point of awkwardness Shinichi surely didn't yet realize was possible; so Kid pulled back gently, sprinkling delicate kisses on the unbelievably soft skin of his lover's small neck, and finally withdrawing completely, separating their bodies from contact except the gentle touch and hold of his hand on Shinichi's nape.

"...Tantei?"

Somewhere in the middle of the whirl of sparks that had been Shinichi's consciousness a few minutes before, he heard Kid's voice, felt him draw back and away; and regretted the necessary distance with all his heart. _It's like that time on the rooftop,_ he thought dimly, or tried to, when I thought Kid and Ran were- Everything, every thought, every scrap of coherence, _everything _rose up in the storm and crackled fire from synapse to synapse. It was terrible and at one and the same time absolutely incredible.

He'd felt every touch, every tentative movement, every shift of lips and brush of skin. He'd felt Kid's growing intensity and allowed himself to reach for what his brain said should be there even if it wasn't, because in a way it still was- the mind remembered, and what else was he? Even when the body changed, he was still the same. And so he'd given himself over not to the things his child's form hadn't the capacity to feel but to the reactions inside, the way he should have felt. It was all there, every last bit of it. _That _was where the dissonance came from, not his body attempting to react in ways it couldn't, but in his mind's reactions trying to express themselves in the body.

Kid was saying his name again, distant and faint. Shinichi, barely aware of anything but the fierce, buzzing energy that had pushed past pain now and no longer hurt in any way, tried to shape the words to answer; but it was too hard, and anyway it was alright. Everything was alright, and just as he had on the rooftop not all that long ago, he slid down into the brightness and the spaces between the sparks until it all fell over into night.

Gentle shuffling sounds on the bed beside him, the sounds of Ran waking up; Kid looked up to meet his girlfriend's sleepily inquisitive look with dismay. "...I wasn't done yet." His tone was petulant.

"Done...?" Ran glanced over Shinichi's unconscious form briefly, seeing no damages, noting little reddened crescents and the plush swell of his lips. She glanced to Kid, finding a similar redness on the thief's mouth, and didn't quite gasp - but the sound she made was definitely tangled up in the indistinct mix of territories where alarm, interest, guilt, worry, and aversion brushed shoulders. "You-?"

"Just kissed," Kid said, looking down on their boyfriend's sleeping features. His brow was furrowed, sweat beginning to bead there; Kid raised his eyes to Ran again. His expression was a mixture of disappointment and bemusement as he candidly explained what Ran had dozed through. "We thought we could ricochet him back toward where he ought to be with a bit of a system shock."

"_Kid!_You weren't going to-"

"_**No,**_" Kid agreed quickly, eyes popped wide in alarm. "No way. Literally, no _way_ - he's not wearing a body that can do...that sort of thing. And I respect Hattori-san a bit more than that. But_he_..." The thief paused, tasting the edges of a smile as it returned to his mouth, lingering in the corners. "...Well, he didn't dislike the kissing."

Looking down at the small body between them both, Ran shook her head. "I couldn't do it. I look at him, and I see Conan-kun, and I want to take care of him. I still do, even though I know it's Shinichi - there's this knowledge that he needs looked after, him and the Shonen Tantei but _especially _him, he needs watching and mothering and bandaging on a daily basis. And I...I suppose I was a very matronly Ran-neechan, until I knew the truth."

"It makes sense that you would be unable to separate those years of experience simply because things are different now," Kid agreed, voice no more than a soft murmur to ensure Heiji and Shinichi would continue calm sleep. "And to be honest, Ran...he _still_needs mothering and watching and bandaging - I think he's simply tall enough to reach more fires now." With a reassuringly broad smile, Kid leaned across the space between them, sheltering Shinichi with the curve of his chest, to press his lips gently to Ran's, and his breath pressed smoothly out of his lungs, gently becoming exhausted as thief and Reason kissed.

The uneven refrain from the end of the bed broke, stuttered, and stopped. "Wrf? 'Za lie, wzn't sleepin'," declared Heiji with drowsy certainty. He paused for a general systems check, scrubbing at his eyes as the rest of the world registered; "Nngh. Getta room, you two."

"Three," murmured Ran, one hand slipping between and brushing Shinichi's forehead; it came away damp with sweat, and she frowned. "We... might want to give _him_a little room, though, just in case he needs it."

"Huh? You think?" Alert now, Heiji staggered to his feet and dragged his chair right up to the bedfoot. He studied the supine detective, face almost comically anxious. "Looks kinda puny... no smoke or steam, though." The Detective of the West sniffed audibly and scowled. "Not yet, anyway. Think we oughta wake the scary blonde?"

Kid rested pickpocket-light fingertips on the boy's thin wrist, seeking out his pulse; it was slow and even, not the rapid patter that he remembered from the last time Shinichi had transformed this close at hand. "Not until we have to. She needs her sleep as well, and Benten forbid that our Chibi-Tensai be less that optimum when treating our Tantei." A little smile curled Kid's lips, and when he continued his words were pitched with concious nonchalance for Heiji's benefit. "It'd be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, if he couldn't continue what we began such a short time ago?"

"KID! Quit that!" Ran glared at the thief, cheeks flaming (which, of course, only made things look worse.) "Honestly, you are the WORST-! If your mother never washed your mouth out with soap before this, it's overdue."

"But Ran-chan, it wasn't like he protested in the least. In fact," and Kid's smile widened wickedly, "he made the first move." She swatted at him; he only ducked and laughed, carefully avoiding disturbing their slumbering lover.

Heiji had been watching all of this with a fixed, highly disturbed expression, spots of red visible on his dark cheekbones. After a moment, though, he shook his head. "...nope. You SO did not-"

"Did not what?" inquired the thief, and ducked another swipe from Ran. Shinichi slept on unnoticing.

"Did not... do any damn thing that'd hurt the chibi. I know enough 'bout you to know _that_ much, and 'sides, mebbe I dozed off just a little but I'd have t'be _DEAD _to miss-"

"Miss what, Tantei-haaaan?" Kid's innocence was worthy of a full set of numbered halos ranging from 'Barely Worthy To Scrape Past St. Peter' to 'Saint/Martyr Blessed By All Three Popes.' Heiji responded with a most unheavenly gesture.

Ran, who was now sitting fully upright, put her hands on her hips and glared. "If you two comedians don't _shut up,_ I'm going to be the one hurting somebody, and I WON'T miss. You're going to wake up Shinichi!" She rubbed at her race, continuing on in a cross voice. "And I'm tired and if I don't get more sleep I'm going to fall over, and I _can't _fall over in case he needs me..." Immediately contrite, the two assured her of their compliance, lowering their voices and dropping all attempts at levity. It was, after all, either that or facing Ran's wrath, something that neither of them were stupid enough to underestimate. And besides which, even Kid's indefatigable energy was flagging by that point.

"T'late." There was a mumble from between Ran and Kid; the pair jerked back briefly, startled, but their hands returned promptly, weighting Shinichi's shoulders gently. The boy rolled over, his face pinched. "M'awake anyway, whatdya...need?"

"Nothing, Shinichi, Hattori is just being _loud,_" Ran said, eyeing the guilty detective, "and making it hard for us to sleep."

"S'okay, I didn't mean t'drop off yet..." The detective shook his head, trying to clear it, and focused his gaze on his thief. "I had a question to ask, still."

Kid's expression sobered, the line of his mouth straightening. "I am sorry, Tantei. I shouldn't have."

"I didn't know what was going on - I was lost and then you were there, but..." The detective frowned, eyes firm, and waited for Kid's explanation.

"...I was scared. I was terrified, Tantei." Taking Shinichi's head in his hands, Kid gently stroked the detective's temples, fingertips delicately tracing Shinichi's jaw. Conflicted, visibly divided between the urge to brush away Kid's hands and allow them to remain, Shinichi instead just listened.

"When Ran told me you were gone, it had been hours. I didn't even know you were missing; I took my time with Hakuba and with Jii. I couldn't feel something was wrong. And Ran told me: she'd been crying through the whole grove, and you didn't answer.

"Tantei, I thought they'd gotten you. And when we found you, right under our noses, and Ran was still crying, and...even I was too..."

Kid bent down, pressing a kiss to Shinichi's forehead. When he drew back, it was only as far as he needed to meet the other's eyes. "Never...never scare me that badly again, Tantei."

Heiji, who had been silently listening to all of this from the foot of the bed, watched them with hooded eyes. "Wondered where y'got the red marks on your face earlier, Kudo," he said with fairly remarkable (for him) calmness. "Know a handprint when I see it, but if Neechan'd done it I figured she'd be guilting all over the place and she wasn't, so-" He shrugged, picking up the book he had dropped when he'd dozed off. "But she hadn't tried t'put you through the wall, either, Thief." He raised an eyebrow. "So don't be too hard on yerself. People react funny when they're scared, ne? All you can be sure of's that they'll jump one way're another- y'never know which way they'll spook."

It was hard to say whether he was speaking to Shinichi or to Kid; but after a moment he bared his teeth in something that was not a smile, this time very directly at Kid. _"Don't _do that again, though."

The thief nodded, entirely sober. "I promise." Then, because humor never could stay far from the thief's mood, he smiled thinly, eyes sparking at Heiji. "Is this my turn at the Shovel Speech?"

The Osakajin settled his chin on his hands, straddling the chair and grinning back wickedly. "Hell no, that's for Neechan t'do. Though IF you insist..."

Shinichi sputtered; Ran snuck a hand between her two problem children and put it neatly over the boy's mouth. "Shush, I want to hear this."

Green eyes darkened with humor- and maybe a little something else, something not quite so lighthearted; Heiji drummed his fingertips on the book he was holding. "Short and sweet, Thief: I got friends in police departments all over th'country, and my Otou's got a helluva lot more. And _they_got a lot of cells, handcuffs, tranquilizer rifles, gas grenades, you name it. Not sayin' we could catch you, but you treat the Chibi right or I'll make sure they make your life reeeeal interestin'; you'll have a brand new fan-club showin' up at every heist. Not that I'm particularly worried it'll ever actually happen, since you just apologized, but..." He yawned. "Shovel Speech. That's my speech, an' I'm sure Neechan'll lend me a shovel if I need one."

Ran removed her hand from Shinichi's lips, not quite giggling. "Hattori-kun, I really don't think you ever will," she said demurely. "But if you do, I know _exactly_ where to find it." _Next to a beautiful hot spring in the woods, _her eyes told her two lovers, dancing; Kid and Shinichi traded slightly alarmed glances but let the matter lie.

They tucked Shinichi's covers around him loosely but securely and settled him as comfortably as they could; he groaned a little, wincing. What had passed between him and Kid earlier had very likely pushed him further along towards _something, _at least- his joints pained him, and his temperature had noticeably risen. Worried, Ran opted to remain on the bed with him, flattened against the wall to give the boy what room he might require; she kept one hand lightly against his hair, fingers just touching.

Kid stayed there as well, far over along the bed's other edge; as lightly as he slept even in his present state of weariness, any movements of Shinichi's would wake him instantly, and so he dropped off with all the ease of a cat curling up on a windowsill. Book open on his lap, Heiji sat against the far wall; he dragged his chair to one side and replaced it with a spare cushion and a less-comfortable seat with his back to the plain wood paneling. As Ran's breathing slowed and deepened as well, Heiji flipped his book back open and began once more to read away the long hours.

It was 1:13 a.m., and there was still a lot of night ahead.

_Saturday, May 10th, 8:05 a.m._

The young woman fidgeted. There wasn't much else for her to do.

To say that she had expected to be called in to Megure-keibu's office first thing that morning would be a lie... almost. She'd hoped, oh, how she had hoped that it wouldn't happen, that she'd (she hated to even think the words) get away with…

…what she had done. What she was supposed to keep doing. What they'd _expected_her to keep doing, on and on until she'd repaid her debt. And it hadn't been all that awful at first, just—it hadn't even been anything big, just tiny little tidbits of information passed along: who was handling this case, who was getting commended for that piece of investigative work, who were the rookies and who'd been passed up for promotion… She'd told herself it was harmless. And anyway, what kind of choice did she have?

She'd needed the money, _Kioshi'd_ needed it. And (she assured herself, biting her lip nervously) it'd been for a good cause, nothing selfish or petty, hadn't it? A really good cause. And it had just been a little information, just on the level of office gossip… it wasn't like they'd asked her to do anything _illegal._

Not at first, anyway.

She bit her lip, wondering how long it'd be before Megure-keibu showed up. His assistant hadn't said, she'd just been shown into his office and told to wait. The small room was tidy to a fault, files and in-baskets neatly arranged, though the faded green calendar blotter on his desk showed numerous coffee-cup rings and many scribbled notes across the dates. There was a hat-rack in one corner, and not for the first time she wondered if the head of Division One ever used it.

In her nervousness, she picked at her nails, shredding the pale pink polish from cuticles and then the nails themselves in thin scrapings. The color was called 'Pink Forever' and had been hard to come by; but _he _had said he liked it the first time she worn it (that had been their second date) so she'd kept it up. Now the tiny litter of it dusted her blue uniform skirt and blazer, and she wondered if she should put her gloves back on. Instead she pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped off the pink shreds, and then sat tearing that to bits as the seconds ticked past.

The first time Kioshi'd talked about his little brother hadn't been on that date, no; it had been, what? Their fifth date? Sixth? Something like that… and he'd told her how sick the little boy was, poor Akio, and apologized about the inexpensive restaurant he'd taken her to. The restaurant hadn't mattered. She didn't even remember which one it had been, just the conversation and the way he'd lowered his eyes to his plate, worry tightening the skin on Kioshi's sharply featured, model-handsome face. He'd been so concerned, so talkative, so at a loss for what to do...

The tissue tore into consecutively smaller bits, wadding in her fingers, snowing across her skirt.

She hadn't been stupid; working at Beika Metro didn't exactly blind you to cons and cheats, so she'd insisted on meeting Akio. He'd been a pale little thing, not much like his brother at all; his huge dark eyes had watched her apprehensively from where he lay on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, medicines at hand. Kioshi'd fussed over him and shown her the doctor's latest reports. She'd even looked up the doctor's name after that; he'd been legit, he really did work where the records said, and Akio'd definitely seemed sick. He'd been so quiet, nothing like a normal little boy. But normal little boys didn't have leukemia, did they?

And then… there'd been a phonecall: _-just a friend, your boyfriend Kioshi knows me. He told me about his little brother. Maybe you can help him; you want to help him, don't you? If you help me, I can help you both. _And she'd talked, and they'd talked, and then she'd gone on another date and poor little Akio was even worse, big brother had his medical records in the car- Who knew bone-marrow transplants cost so much? And there wasn't any insurance or savings and he was desperate, so desperate.

And so persuasive. He hadn't asked her. Kioshi'd never asked her, not once. But she'd had that phone number, and calling was easy.

The rest was easy too, at first. Gossip and little niggling bits and pieces of information, that was all. Only then one day they called and asked for a copy of someone's record, and that had been easy to get too—they even knew which desk it was at (she'd wonder about that later.) And then more records, mailed out; and more, and reports about accidents and who the investigating officers were, and one night they called and told her that she'd be _getting _a report dropped off in her mailslot and she was to replace the original with that one… It wouldn't even be hard. And the money had been coming in, not to her but straight to Kioshi, he'd showed her the deposits and he'd been so elated—

So she'd done it, heart in her throat. But it was for a good cause, right? She'd even tried to hint to Kioshi that maybe if they were… married or something… he could be on her insurance, and surely they'd be able to work out something. But—

There'd been one time she'd balked, the first time they'd asked her to actually change an accident report. And nobody'd said a word, but the next night Kioshi'd told her that one of the checks had bounced, and Akio'd been put back several places on the transplant list. And after that, she'd gotten another call, and she'd done what they asked.

She'd wanted to tell Miwako-chan, oh so badly! But—

Tiny shreds of tissue fell to the ground, danced down to land like miniature ghosts on her feet in their regulation rubber-soled shoes.

But Kioshi'd never managed to meet Miwako-chan, no matter how many times she'd tried to get them together; he'd had to work or there'd been an appointment across town or he'd been busy with his brother, always something. And truth to tell, after seeing Miwako and Takagi-san talking together in Miwako's snazzy red car one evening, she'd… been a little jealous. This was_hers,_ she didn't _have_ to share it, did she? Only- Akio'd gotten worse and needed more medicines, Kioshi'd shown her the prescriptions and the cost estimates, and this time she'd been the one to call, to ask for more money. Again, it had been easy.

_Easy. Oh God. _She put her hand over her mouth, wondering if she was going to be sick.

That had **really **been when it had started. They'd begun making more and more requests, things that she KNEW were wrong, and then one day Kioshi'd taken her out to lunch and handed her an envelope, smiling, that had further instructions in it. Very clear instructions they'd been, about who she was to watch and report on—how many cases he had, who they involved, what the outcomes were. Each instruction had an amount listed next to it, an impossibly tiny amount… and she had, she knew, turned paper-white at how long it would take for those tiny, tiny numbers to turn into the very big sum that she had borrowed from Kioshi's friend. And at the very end of the list there'd been a single typed line, all alone:

_Don't even __think__ about saying no, Miyamoto-san. If you do, Akio won't be the only one who pays your bill._

And Kioshi had taken her hand, smiling. "_Don't worry your beautiful head, Yumi-chan. Just do what they say and everything'll be all right, ne? You take care of me and Akio… and I'll take care of you."_

That had been almost seven months ago. Since then she'd—and they'd asked her to get those records from Missing Persons, and she'd—only, Chirokawa-san'd come through the door and she'd frozen in panic behind a cabinet while he bent to open a drawer, and the door had still been open. _I can just slip out, he won't see me, I'll be safe;_ but then she'd pushed over the cabinet _right on top of him_ and just _left him there on the floor _while she scuttled out into the hall, like she was some sort of—

_(I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I didn't mean to Oh God I don't want to do this Please please I'm so sorry)_

-of murderer, but then she'd seen him stagger bleeding into the hallway and he'd fallen down and she'd SCREAMED and everyone had come running. Everyone. To see what she'd done.

The tissue was gone, destroyed. Destroyed. That was the word, _destroyed, _that was what she'd done and now they were going to make her pay. It didn't seem fair; she'd been paying and paying and paying and now she was going to pay some more. Her hands were shaking; she stuffed them in her pockets and silently wished she could cry. But she couldn't, she was out of tissues—

The door opened; she stood so quickly that her chair nearly tumbled over.

"Miyamoto-san? Thank you for waiting." Megure filled the doorway, and it was funny, she had never thought of him as the kind of person who could _loom,_ he was too round and unimposing. But now… Her thoughts fell to pieces as, behind him, Miwako-chan, _Officer Sato Miwako, _gave a small, somewhat strained smile to her friend. There was very little comfort to be found in it.

"Sit down, Yumi-chan," said Sato gently, "we have a few questions we need to ask you."

Silence in the small breakroom down the hall from Megure's office; silence between the two officers who sat there, cooling coffeecups in their hands. Neither spoke a word, but stared into the tepid liquid with troubled eyes. Two files lay on the table, one of them Miyamoto Yumi's personnel record and the other one thick and unlabeled, bristling with notes.

"She wouldn't have known we'd put cameras in Chirokawa-san's office after the first break-in," said Sato quietly. "If she had- Megure-keibu, she's not a bad person, you _know _that-"

Her superior officer shook his head. "Sato-san," he said with gruff sympathy, "I am aware of that. Miyamoto's record is exemplary, she has never been under any disciplinary action in her six years on the force... a few mentions of occasional tardiness, nothing more. She's well regarded by her coworkers, even affectionately by some." He cleared his throat and Sato nodded ruefully; Yumi had dated a number of her fellow officers, even played one against the other (though never to the point of violence; as she had told Sato whimsically, she liked to see which of the pretty salmon were better at swimming upstream.) "However..."

"However," repeated her friend to her coffee, voice flat. "She's broken any number of laws and assaulted Chirokawa-san. I know." Her fingers tightened around the mug until the dregs sloshed. "And when I get my hand on this 'Sagata Kioshi' of hers-!" Sato's tone rose wrathfully. "Has he been picked up yet? Who went after him?"

Megure raised his cup to his lips, thought better of it, and sat it back onto the stained breakroom table. "Officers Watanabe and Koga. They-" His cellphone beeped, and he dug it from a pocket, pudgy fingers punching at the keys and grunting at what he saw there. "Gone," he muttered, unsurprised, and smacked the phone down on the table in exasperation. "We weren't fast enough."

"Gone?" Sato shook her head. "Yumi-chan, WHY can't you have better taste in men?" Her outcry was born of watching her friend play the field far, far too many times. Megure harrumphed with a trace of embarrassment but she sighed. "I _know,_ Megure-keibu. At least she confessed. Will it help her case at all?" Miyamoto Yumi had more than confessed, she had broken down and written every detail she could dredge up, as hard or harder on herself than any inquisitor. "We need her- she had contact with _them,_and she's not insane." Sato frowned, turning the coffeecup around in her hands and linking the rings it made on the table, one after one. "In fact, that's something we need to think about, isn't it? She had to be a weak link for them, an officer of the law and an unwilling accomplice..." She rubbed at her eyes. "They'll have taken out 'insurance' of some sort, won't they?"

"Chemical insurance." Megure's voice was grim. He rose. "And I doubt it just began. We need to look into what medications she takes on a regular basis, vitamins, kitchen supplies, anything Myamoto-san ingests daily. We'll need to find it, and quickly. Afterwards we'll need to consider further treatment, but first we'll need to keep her alive and sane." Sato's quick look received a nod.

"I'll take care of it, Keibu." She rose as well and went to the door, but hesitated with her hand on the knob. "Keibu? What will happen to Yumi-chan? Right now, I mean?"

His eyes met hers, as black and honest as they'd ever been. They were sick with regret and fury at the blight that had touched one of his own; it had stained him as well, and shaken him. Yumi had done little enough damage- it would be easily traced and probably could be put to rights without too much difficulty, though the guilty parties that had doubtless escaped rightful blame would be long gone. "Hrm. She'll be moved to a safe house, more for her own security than anything else, and treated well. If you could pick up a few changes of clothes as well-? Thank you, Sato-san. But until the, ah, matter of her health is resolved, she'll be kept here. -No, no, not in a cell; in one of the back rooms." One of these same rooms had been witness to Edogawa Conan's admission of his true identity and the discussion following the capture of the Black Organization's agent, and Sato's shoulders relaxed after hearing this. There was no more secure place in the building.

"Then I'll be back as quickly as I can." She paused a moment longer. "You'll contact...her?" She held her hand out level at about waist-level, a question in her eyes.

"Of course." Megure sighed, flipping his cellphone open again, and dialing a very private number. "Just hurry, Sato-san."

_And that's it for this week. Yes, we're swimming in dark waters now; and there are sharks in the deep... big ones. But there are islands and shoals too, and the occasional Coast Guard boat. You'll see; next week picks up where this one leaves off with __**Book Six, Chapter Twenty-one**__**: "Tell them that the Black Organization's been cleaning house again."**__ We'll see you then! _


	90. Cleaning house again

_Evening, all! Or, well, early morning or whatever; our apologies for the late posting- through a combination of bad weather in one location and technical issues in the other, the Intarwebz decided to be revolting. So this is going up way later than usual; we hope you all think it's worth the wait._

_Tonight's episode picks up where we left off; the water's getting deeper, the waves are getting higher, and shore's getting further away. Let's hope our heroes can swim... The Management_

_P.S.: Many thanks for the omake suggestions! They were LOVELY, and if you want to suggest some more, feel free- we can use 'em! Now, on with the show!_

_._

* * *

_**Book Six, Chapter Twenty-one**__**: "Tell them that the Black Organization's been cleaning house again."**_

_**.**_

By one-thirty in the afternoon, Ran, Hattori, and the elder Kudos were all beginning to wonder if the Shiratori estate had fallen into some sort of time-locked vacuum, external to which the remainder of the world proceeded cheerfully on with their lives while those within the estate's walls were forced to trudge through the minutiae of every second, as though each tick of the clock's hands must be accomplished manually.

"Hattori-kun, what's the date today?" Yukiko asked, crossing paths with him in the kitchen.

"Still the 11th, Kudo-han." Hattori grinned, a bit of wry humor slanting his voice. "I know, I gotta keep double-checking, too."

"It just amazes me, how much changed in not even a week!" With easy precision, Yukiko was assembling a series of bentos as she spoke, occupying half the ample counter space of the kitchen. Two of the Shiratori family's staff members stood to one side, looking anxious to be standing still while their guest worked.

"Just think, last Saturday was the fourth, Shin-chan's birthday. And it's Saturday again, and we've been shot at, exploded, chatted with Shinichi's friends - I really did like that badge - and then we escaped, almost like refugees! Saw that agent lose his mind, poor thing, arranged schooling for you children, had a lovely tea, lost our appetites over my silly uncooperative blood, lost Shin-chan, found him again, passed around scoldings like candy, and I'm sure there's bits I've been forgetting!

"And now it's only the eleventh, and it feels like it's been just _years_." The lids of six bentos thumped onto their boxes in sequence, and Hattori stepped up next to Yukiko to help her tie the furoshiki cloths around them. "Hasn't it?"

"Sure feels like, Kudo-han," Hattori sighed. "I had a kinda interesting day or two before I got here also, so...I think everybody's tired and worn at the edges."

Leaving the main area of the kitchen, Hattori stepped softly and approached the traditional, low-set table, where Ran, head propped on her palms and dozing, was in sincere danger of falling into her miso. Gripping her upper arms gently, Hattori tipped Ran back, supporting her against his shoulder.

"Neechan, I think you oughta take a nap and save your bento for later," he suggested. Ran mumbled, attempting to construct what she obviously believed was a very sound argument against needing more rest; the fact that most of her words weren't enunciated defeated her case on its own.

"Don't care if you got six hours or eight last night, Neechan, you aged a decade yesterday, and so did the rest of us, worrying 'bout the shrimp. Go get some more rest. Nothing's going to blow up cause you're taking a nap. Hell, I'll put Kudo on a baby leash if that'd make ya feel better," he added, grinning to see Yukiko's expression. "His okaa'll help me. C'mon. Bed. Now."

"Don't think it'll fit as well as we'd all hope, Hattori-san." From the doorway, Kaito - _How the heck can I tell? But it is him_- joined the conversation with a little nod of deference to Yukiko. "Tiny tensai says that if he hasn't shifted back to pocket-size by this point, then it's safe to say he's stable for now."

"Six hours is enough for her to be sure?" Yukiko asked, obviously uncertain.

"Well, he didn't even stay shrimpified that long," Hattori pointed out.

"Mnno, w's six anna fifth," Ran mumbled. Quietly amused, Hattori levered her to her feet, supporting her sleepy toddle toward the hallway.

"Well, one way or another, Haibara-san gave him a clean bill of size stability," Kaito continued, pressing close to the wall to let the other two pass. "And she just had to say it where he could hear it, too."

Yukiko's face fell, and she and Kaito shared a moment of companionable sympathy based in knowledge of their difficult detective.

"He's already up, then?"

"And trying to get out the door. Your husband's doing his best to dissuade him."

Yukiko rolled her eyes, knotting the last bento regrettably tight in its furoshiki; someone'd have a tough time getting it out. "Tsk. Yuusaku always _was _an optimist. Kaito-kun? A hand here, darling? Thank you." A few moments later, the actress dusted off her hands and looked around at the well-stocked kitchen; a little smile quirked one corner of her mouth, and she turned it towards Kaito. "Now... what shall we do to entertain ourselves next, hm?"

* * *

Shinichi had, in fact, won a somewhat Pyrrhic victory; that is, he had made it to the porch edging his building and now sat on the bench left of the doorway, a little white-faced and shaky but stubbornly holding to his decision to be up and moving. Wrapped in a striped navy yukata which bagged on his overly thin body, he soaked up what little sun was filtering through the overcast that blanketed Tokyo that day; the city had bowed its head to Japan's famously muggy late-Spring climate, and a thin drizzle had been coming down intermittently all day.

"If you'd stay in bed a little longer, you wouldn't feel so weak," said his father calmly, taking a seat beside him.

"If I'd stayed in bed any longer, my butt'd begin to put down roots," sniped Shinichi back, trying not to sound as sulky as he felt. He was nineteen, dammit, not nine, but he seemed to be handling inactivity about as well as your average bored nine-year-old. Sometimes he wondered if his brain was attempting to match his appearance, only on a vastly different schedule.

He watched two figures come out of the main building across the ornamental grassy courtyard, squinting against the rain; that was Heiji under his umbrella, and… Ran? Looking more than a little wobbly. Shinichi stood up hurriedly and then immediately sat down, swearing vociferously as his body protested with a wave of dizziness. "Do you kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?" asked his father without rancor.

"Yes. _And _my boyfriend," muttered his son, just to be annoying; predictably, it didn't work. Instead, Yuusaku snorted and stood up himself, dropping a hand briefly onto his offspring's shoulder before heading out into the soft rain to help.

Ran was curled up in their bed and dead to the world less than fifteen minutes later; Shinichi had very nearly given in to the urge to wrap himself around her and sleep further as well, but pride (and a perverse desire to shove against his own body's chemical constraints) kept him awake despite the soporific sound of rain on the tiled roof overhead. Instead, he, Heiji and his father sat on the bench and worked their way through their bentos. A servant had brought them over only moments before; poking at one of his meal's components with a chopstick, Shinichi shook his head in disbelief. "_Octodogs? _Really, Kaasan?"

"Hey, don't cramp her style," admonished Heiji, biting the head of one of his own; the pathetic headless Octodog wiggled its limp tentacles as he waved it in the air before chomping it bodily in his next bite and swallowing. "She made 'em with her own two hands; thought the kitchen staff were gonna have heart-attacks, but I think yer Oka needs something t'do. She's bored, Kudo, and bored doesn't suit her well. Bet she'll go to all sorts of lengths to avoid bein' bored, too-"

"You have no idea," muttered Yuusaku darkly, fishing a slice of pickle from his own bento.

"—and I left her with Kuroba-han. In a kitchen. Wanna bet they come up with somethin' really un-boring to entertain themselves with?" The other two blinked at Heiji in alarm; shoveling down the last of his rice, Yuusaku packed his bento up without a word and stomped off into the rain a second time.

There were two other bentos sitting stacked beside the bench, labeled 'AI-CHAN' and 'HAKASE' on yellow stick-notes; "Wonder if they get Octodogs too?" Heiji glanced towards the small building a small distance away where the two scientists had ensconced themselves that morning after Megure's phone call. "You think they'd open up if I banged on the door again? Even mad science geeks gotta eat sometime, an' the servants are kinda freaked out by Haibara."

"Worth a shot." Shinichi put his own empty bento down, shoved himself up... and sat down yet _again_as the building in question's door slid open, showing both Agasa and Ai in the entrance. Without paying any notice to the rain, the diminutive blonde splashed across the grass to their steps and up onto the porch; one hand held her cell phone, charm swinging. Face set, she proffered it to Shinichi. "Here."

He frowned. "Who is it? Is that- Megure again? Haibara, what's wrong? Is there a problem about Miyamoto-san?" He looked at her in dread. "She's not-" Megure had called that morning, heavy voice clipped and tight; Shinichi had hurriedly passed his phone over to Haibara, who had spoken briefly and pointedly with the officer. When Sato-san had arrived with her boxload of anything remotely pill- or powder-shaped from Miyamoto Yumi's apartment, she had wasted no time in beginning her tests. The addictive drug, it had turned out, had been in Yumi-chan's coffee-creamer; it had also been the most common of the loyalty-ensuring substances, and Ai had been able to provide an adequate substitute. The young woman would retain her sanity and her life, if very little of her confidence or self-esteem.

Now, though, Haibara waved her phone back at him in uncaring imitation of Shinichi's earlier actions. "Megure-keibu, yes," she snapped out. "But no, not Miyamoto. Just _take_it, Kudo-kun." She sat down on the bench, fists clenched tight; Heiji gave her a puzzled look, but leaned sideways to put his ear as near to the receiver as was possible.

Moments later, face even paler than before, Shinichi rose to his feet; this time he did not waver. "Heiji?" he asked carefully. "Can you ask Tousan to see about borrowing the keys to one of the estate's cars? Agasa-hakase, I'll need you and Haibara to stay here and guard Ran and Kaasan." Ai made a sharp movement, but Shinichi held up one hand. "You have the only gun, Haibara," he said quietly. "I need to know they'll both be safe... just in case. Please?" The war between Ai's instinctual urge to hide away and the desire to protect was visible; after a few moments, she nodded a little jerkily. "Thank you," said Shinichi as gently as possible, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "Heiji? I-"

"Kudo, if the little I could hear was legit, there's no fuckin' _way_I'm stayin' behind!"

Furious blue eyes stared at him incredulously. "...If you think for a minute that I was going to ask you to, you're crazier than I am," said his friend, voice flat. "Hell **no. **No, I want you to go get Kuroba while I dress. Tell him-" Shinichi hesitated; bombs and fire and dead bodies weren't going to be something that either Kid or Kaito would be able to handle without some very painful buttons being pressed, but they would just have to deal. "Tell him and Kid both that Miyamoto-san's 'boyfriend' and his little brother've been found, but not in any kind of shape to answer questions. Tell him-them-" Shinichi swallowed, hanging onto the doorjamb. "Tell them that the Black Organization's been cleaning house again."

* * *

Officers Koga Ino and Watanabe Satoshi had been partners for more than fourteen years, five first in Chiyoda Ward's main office and the rest in Beika-cho. They were smart, quick on their feet and capable of acting with commendable judgement and expertise in violent situations.

This had not helped them at all.

When the car-bomb had gone off in the vehicle presumably occupied by Sagata Kioshi and his younger brother Akio, they had been in close pursuit, acting on a tip called in by an alert tollgate operator. Backup had been requested, cement blockades had been pushed into place on the highway access road that the car was eventually chased onto, and all should have gone well. Instead, the nondescript black sedan had swerved erratically, scraped a ramp with a scream of crumpling metal- and exploded into a violent fireball worthy of the best cinematic special effects. Officers Koga and Watanabe had been caught in the holocaust, crashing head-on into the mass of burning metal.

Experts examining the charred remains would later determine that the pipe bomb that had been taped to the fugitives' vehicle had held enough C4 to not only blow them and any cars nearby to kingdom come, but to utterly obliterate anything organic inside. There had been very little left to autopsy in either vehicle.

Now, though, covering his face against the stink of gasoline and incinerated rubber, Kudo Shinichi stared at the flames over the top of his car-door and wondered bleakly what kind of war he and his could possibly win against opponents who were not eager to employ this breed of base techniques, but also to throw away their tools with so much abandon. Miyamoto Yumi hadn't even been successfully seduced into helping their aims; she had been blackmailed with the most insidious of levers, the painful death of a child. And now the child was dead, as was his keeper; watching molten chrome from the flaming squadcar pool like tears around the charred rubber of the wheelrims, he prayed silently that Sato would be allowed to be the one to tell Yumi-chan this.

While Shinichi stood quietly taking in the vivid scene, Hattori exited on the other side of the car, circling it to stand beside his friend. "Ya didn't do this, Kudo. Now lemme get you a chair t'oversee the proceedings."

Shinichi shot a glare at him sidelong, unamused. "I can stand," the detective insisted.

"Yes, you can. You can also sit. Wisdom states that sitting is more prudent than standing," Kid opined. The Kuroba brothers had ridden along as well, in the seat directly behind Shinichi; so with their door open as well, they surveyed the carnage with a quiet posture. "It's not the time for ego."

"...Fine." Shinichi sighed, allowing Heiji to shove him onto the nose of the car Yuusaku had borrowed from the Shiratori estate. While his father went off to greet Megure-keibu, and Hattori trotted off to grill the first-responders, Kid and Kaito slid up onto the car's hood beside Shinichi and watched the fire with him.

"So...what's the plan?"

Shinichi blinked at them, finding it easier to accept their collective voice and mixed eyes in a context like this, where the only relationships that really mattered at the moment were 'ally' or 'enemy.' "Plan?"

"Yup. Plan. What's yours?"

The detective sighed, getting a grip on the smooth finish of the hood with his sneaker treads, and let his head hang down between his knees. "Let me guess, I don't wanna know what yours is."

"Probably not," the brothers answered candidly. "So you'd better come up with a better one. Fire puts us in an awfully bloody-minded mood."

Their tone was cool enough, but Shinichi knew better than to poke at it. Their Poker Face was a rock that could weight down and hide nearly any other emotion. But gods and goddesses protect the man stupid enough to pry that rock up against their will. Rather more substantial creepy-crawlies hid underneath it than most people would believe, and Shinichi wouldn't imagine for a moment that the Magician's brand of trauma management was any more socially sanctioned than his brother's.

_Better to hope I never see him act on that bloody-mindedness, _the detective fervently wished.

"Well, I've got better ideas," Shinichi said aloud, forcing action and confidence into his voice and manner though he didn't feel them in his heart. "With the brothers gone, Yumi is the only loose end from this failed operation. What she retrieved from Chirokawa's office is a problem - maybe, if it's still not too late, we could swap the data with misleading figures and substitute it for her normal information drop. I don't doubt they'll still want to clean her up, but we might still be able to plant some traceable misinformation in the Org and wait to see where it pops out next."

"Feasible," Kaito agreed, nodding lightly. "Yumi's headed for protective custody, I'd presume?"

"Probably, if not a completely new legal identity," Shinichi agreed. "They killed a child - but we can keep them from adding a woman to that, too. Call it chauvinistic if you will," he continued, a little bitterly, "But it always hits me hardest when a person's death isn't any more important to the killer than to pull someone else's emotional heartstrings. Especially when the killer uses their victims' virtues as weaknesses to reel them in."

"Sympathy for a child," Kid murmured. "A very feminine emotion - or to them, a predictable handle for manipulation." His tone was neutral, careful. "I can't say I disagree with your disgust."

The pair smiled at each other, sharing a brief quiet moment of allegiance, before a brusque voice demanded their attention from five yards away and closing.

"WHAT are you two doing?" Megure-keibu bustled up to Shinichi and Kid with frustrated harumphing, glaring at them both with such ferocity that the desire to shove them both in burlap sacks was almost palatable.

"You couldn't have at least worn _hats_?" he scolded the pair, addressing both with equal aggression. "And Ran-chan, what've you done with your hair? Did you cut it all off?"

Heiji, some ways behind Megure with a folding metal chair tucked under one arm, halted in his tracks with his eyes comically wide; Shinichi didn't even have to look to know what was going on. Kid was doing that _thing _again, impossibly rearranging his features until they were more Ran-like than they had been seconds before—a stress on the muscles of the eyelids, a way of angling the jaw and rounding the cheeks, an inclination of the head, the easily-misinterpreted brush of a hand over the hair back to the nape of the neck... All of this combined with the subtle shift of body language and the way he tugged the collar of the light windbreaker he was wearing against the rain up, and suddenly an embarrassed and somewhat disheveled Mouri Ran (or a plausible facsimile, at least) was sitting beside Shinichi.

'Ran-chan' hunched down defensively, ducking her head. "It's just tucked down inside my collar to hide it," 'she' answered in the young woman's voice, cheeks visibly pink, "and you're right. Just a minute—" With a squelch of damp denim against metal, 'Ran' slid off the car and ducked back inside, coming up with two caps with Shiratori's family crest on them. "Here, Shinichi, put this on," his supposed girlfriend ordered him, and he did so with commendable meekness.

Kid leaned against the car-hood beside him, leaning into Shinichi just a little and tugging the cap-brim down against the rain; behind Megure, Heiji's burden slid to the ground with a muted clang.

"Better," Megure said, still scowling; he looked tired and more than a little distracted. Behind him, fire hoses from the nearest truck cut in; the noise made a good barrier against being eavesdropped on, but it was difficult to talk. Shinichi motioned towards the car, sliding into the driver's seat as Megure took shotgun; Heiji and 'Ran' slipped into the back, the other detective flicking a quick, incredulous glance at the thief before leaning forward and resting an elbow on the back of the driver's seat.

"Here," Shinichi said before the man could get another word out, tugging a small package from inside his jacket. "Haibara gave me this for you. It's…" he hesitated. "…for Miyamoto-san. She'll have to be sure not to miss a dose; the instructions are inside." Ai had only been able to produce a week's worth of the necessary drug with the limited supplies that she had on hand; she would have to provide more in the future, a task she had viewed with obvious revulsion.

Megure took the package with a nod, lips tightening. He frowned a little, eyes drifting towards the back seat where 'Ran' sat attentively, hands clasped—there was obviously something triggering his cop's radar, but for the moment (and especially considering the company he was in) he was willing to ignore it. "Thank you, Kudo-kun," he muttered. "That's one worry out of the way, at least. This entire business—" Fury turned the officer's voice flat and harsh. "I've known Watanabe-keiji for nearly a decade, and Koga-keiji for almost as long. If we hadn't known about Sagata and his brother being agents, they would've fled and two fine officers would still be alive."

"And you wouldn't have put up roadblocks to chase their car into less-populated roads, and the bomb would've gone off in downtown Tokyo," said Shinichi quietly, "and Miyamoto-san would've collapsed and gone permanently insane in a couple of days. You would never have known why, and who knows how many people would've died? Keibu, I'm not denigrating their deaths, not in the least; but what do you think they would have done, given the choice?"

"I know," said Megure heavily; he sighed. "I tell myself that every time we lose someone in uniform. It's true, but it never helps."

They sat in silence for a few moments while the sound of the rain rose from a whisper to a patter and then to a soft drumming; through the streaming windshield Shinichi could see his father, umbrella in hand, talking to Takagi; he counted heads and came up short. "Where're Chiba-keiji? And Sato-san?"

The head of Division One blew out his breath through his damp moustache like a walrus, an action vaguely funny despite - or perhaps because of - its less humorous context. "Chiba-kun's with Chirokawa, God help us; I couldn't send him home after his attack, so I asked him where he wanted to go. Turns out there's a small ryokan in Nerima that's run by someone as, err, fond of cleanliness as he is... a relative, I think; their housekeeping staff must be incredible. Or near-homicidal. I sent them both there, Chirokawa to rest and recover for a day or so and Chiba to keep an eye out. And Sato-kun's with Miyamoto-san." He growled beneath his breath, smacking both fists down on the dashboard. "Kudo-kun, this is intolerable!"

"Yes. And how many deaths have they caused in the past that they've covered up? How many cases of insanity?" Shinichi's voice was grim. "But you know what concerns me the most here?"

"What?"

The Detective of the East's hands knotted on the steering-wheel, knuckles showing white. "The use and disposal of a child. How old was Sagata Akio? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Thirteen, according to the records we found. Looked younger than that, according to Miyamoto."

"Children..." The voice from the backseat was Mouri Ran's, intonation and inflection and everything, and she would surely have shared in the anger and distress evident in the single word. "Everything comes down to children. Missing children, runaway children, children as agents, kidnapped children..."

"Dead children," finished Heiji bleakly. "Bet when you run that kid's prints- you found where they're livin', right?- you'll match him up as one've the missing kids sooner or later." He scowled at the rain, staring out. "But most've the agents you've had t'do with, Kudo, 've all been older- that psycho Gin, Vodka, Vermouth, Pisco- and then you got the kids." Both his black eyebrows drew down and he stared at Megure out from beneath them. "What was Miyano-han supposed to do in Chirokawa's office?"

With the air of someone nudging one more piece into a puzzle and watching it go _click!_Megure replied: "She had been told to remove several specific files pertaining to the kidnapped children case. And," he added, "to plug this into Chirokawa's computer." He pulled a small, nondescript flashdrive from one pocket. It was of the cheap kind that you could buy at any electronics department in at least ten thousand stores in Tokyo alone; Megure held it up between thumb and forefinger, looking at the bit of hardware with loathing. "In this," he said morosely, "is a virus that maps stored data and, when that data is accessed, breaks it down and scrambles it like- like eggs in an omelette. It doesn't touch anything until a file's actually copied, used in calculations or opened; it just sits there and waits. If Miyamoto-san had plugged this in..." He shrugged, brown trenchcoat creaking soggily. "We would've stopped it eventually, but not before it had eaten half of the records in Chirokawa's database system. And it would have replicated and then sat buried in someone's hard drive, waiting... It's not a virus; it's a cancer." His thick fingers clenched on the metal and plastic. "Nasty little thing. She didn't know, though, and Chirokawa interrupted her before she could use it."

Shinichi felt his surprise show on his face; Megure caught it and shrugged. "Ahrm, Kudo-kun, I'm aware that I don't exactly seem very, ah, technically astute; but a tool is a tool." He pursed his lips. "And I know better than to waste a tool, even if I have somebody else use it instead of me- I'm a terrible typist."

Delicate fingers reached forward from the backseat, gently lifting the drive from Megure's grip. "I'll keep track of this," Kid murmured in Ran's voice, leaning forward just enough that Megure, twisting to see, could see part of his smile. "Shinichi's awful about keeping track of little things like this, but...if you'd be okay with it, Megure-keibu, I think he would be good at knowing when to use it. I'll keep him from losing it."

Nodding, Shinichi seemed pleased by 'Ran's' proposal. "If you'd let me, Keibu, I think I'll end up with a good opportunity to use it sooner than later. It could be useful if we apply it in the right places."

Megure hesitated, lips pressed tightly together; 'Ran' smiled winningly at him, and he sighed in acquiesence. "Oh, it won't be any more incriminating in your hands than in mine, Kudo-kun. Rather less, I'd think."

"Quite," 'Ran' agreed. "I'll make sure Shinichi's careful with it."

In the front seat, the detective in question aimed a rather choice glare at his boyfriend while Kid tucked the virus into a small pocket on his person, hands mincing and girlish, and Megure-keibu, feeling some relief once rid of the distasteful device, let his gaze go distant, thoughts clearly spreading across the wide net of moving people and information for which he was responsible. Taking advantage of that momentary distraction, Shinichi's glare addressed Kid, not 'Ran.'

_The hell, Kid? Where are you going to take that thing?_

The thief's returning smile was as inscrutable as it was glossed with venom. _Faith, Tantei._

Feeling like he was the only one in the car both sane and in on the full story, Heiji cleared his throat and addressed Megure. "So where's that leave us, Keibu-han? I'm not about to sit around doing nothing after somethin' like this. So where do we go next?"

"That's something we're still determining, Hattori-san." Relaxing in his seat, gaze drifting unfocused through the rain-coated windshield, Megure sighed. "This is entirely off the record, of course," he murmured, voice soft, "but times like now I don't much care if you children are detectives or civilians. I just want someone who can see the whole picture to tell me what to do before I lose more people."

"I know the feeling intimately, Keibu," Shinichi sighed, sinking back against his seat, eyes closed. "I drive myself mad sometimes, wishing I could just see a little more clearly."

"You would be an excellent officer, Kudo-kun," Megure chuckled tiredly. "Presuming you ever learned to play by the book."

Shinichi laughed softly, opening his eyes to smile at the officer who, more than once, had put his career and even his department in the line of criticism because of his support of Shinichi's unconventional procedures. "I'm afraid I'll have to just stick to consulting, then," he grinned, comforted that everyone in the car, Megure included, could appreciate the reference and the ambition layered into his joke.

But jokes wouldn't solve their case, and the four lapsed into silence, each struggling within their own minds to spot a clear line of action from which they could launch their counter-offensive against their enemy. When the silence finally broke, it startled all four of them, even the speaker himself.

"There's two factions in the Organization."

Shinichi, 'Ran,' and Megure all tensed, turning to meet Heiji's suddenly sharp, intense gaze.

"It's just an idea, but listen, I think this makes sense. You were saying how everything's been about children recently, how it's all aggression against kids. And what kinds of kids? Smart ones, talented ones, threatening ones, ones that they can use as tools. They're fixated on kids suddenly - well, not suddenly. Cause the kidnapping's been going on for ages."

"Nine years, isn't it?" 'Ran' put in. Kid's body language was tight and coiled, and Heiji glanced left, meeting the thief's eye for a brief moment - and looking away quickly, chilled by what he saw.

Shinichi, looking as well, felt a puzzle piece click into place. _Nine years back from now - one year after Toichi was murdered - one year after what Kid and Kaito were telling us about Pandora. _He tucked the thought into his mental post-it-note collection and turned his attention back to Heiji.

"But the thing's, we didn't notice it for ages, right? Cause they kept it careful, quieter. Suddenly, it's everywhere, and even though we know where to look it's still going on. Why? Let's pretend they got a fire lit under 'em. Some reason to rush. What might that be, huh?

"Lighting a fire under somebody - let's say they're someone in a place of power in the Org, somebody who can make up their own agendas and missions. Say they're the one who came up with the kids plots, and say they're suddenly a lot more interested in that plan. They wouldn't keep going if they'd gotten what they were working toward. Right?

"So, longterm plan, suddenly gotta rush it. Why? Something happening, something that'll stop them from keeping on going with their plan for a long time. Or they're impatient. Or they thought they'd have a result by now and don't?"

"Deadlines," 'Ran' put in. Heiji nodded.

"Yeah, maybe there's a deadline. Maybe it's a date, maybe it's some event that they want to beat to the punch - or have their result ready for, or whatever.

"Doesn't matter much what the result they're going for right now is, hang on to that for a sec," Heiji continued, his voice getting stronger and brighter as he worked through his logic train, building support for the stroke of lightning he'd begun the explanation with.

Shinichi watched with satisfaction: whereas he worked by singling out the truth from other possibilities disproved by the evidence, Heiji tended to deduce by stumbling upon the true solution and then backtracking to arrange and make sense of the supporting evidence he'd already observed but had yet to catalogue.

It was a completely different process from his own, often just as effective, and a pleasure to observe. And in this case, it had gotten Heiji to a spark of clarity while Shinichi himself was still grasping for comprehension, so the Eastern detective was doubly grateful for his friend's intense reliance on intuition. In situations like their current one, where the facts were a murky sea of information around them, too numerous to sort by hand, too thick to see through, sometimes you just had to grab a spear, close your eyes, and stab. If you were Shinichi, you'd stab the water a lot, and go hungry for dinner. But if you were Heiji, you usually ended up with a shishkebab'd fish and a satisfied curiosity.

"So we got somebody who's hearing the clock ticking and rushing, and getting sloppy. But we're not seeing the normal lugs around - Kudo, have you spotted Gin, Vodka, any of those creeps around here recently?"

"Not a whiff of them," Shinichi nodded, grinning. "I think I see what you're getting at, Heiji."

"Good, I know I'm not haring off into crazy land, the incredible shrinking Kudo agrees with me," Heiji laughed, making the rest of the car's passengers smile as well. "So why suddenly rushing? I think what Ku-uuh, Kudo's contacts were saying about some of the chemicals the Org uses might hafta do with this, too."

Megure perked up, brows lowering. "Care to share any of that with me?"

"Not sure 'bout that, Keibu-han, but we'll get you what we can soon's we can," Heiji promised sincerely. "Right now it's pretty need-not-t'know, cause it's already gotten a lot of people killed."

Megure nodded tightly, pressing his lips together. "You know how much faith I'm putting in this source every time you or Kudo-kun ask me to do something like this, right? I don't want officers dead on the ground because this contact-"

"He wouldn't ever do that, Megure-keibu," 'Ran' interrupted, and the tone of feminine fire in Kid's voice, perfectly replicating Ran's fierce, defensive attitudes, made Shinichi gulp, lips zipped shut. "Shinichi trusts him. And Shinichi's not stupid. He only trusts people who deserve it."

"Everyone can be fooled, Ran-chan," Megure said gently, patting 'Ran' on the hand. "Even Kudo-kun."

"I just _know _the source is trustworthy," 'Ran' pressed, clenching her fist beneath Megure's palm. "I feel it in my feminine intuition!"

Suppressing a desire to kick his boyfriend in a place that was anything but feminine, Shinichi talked fast to cover Heiji's momentary coughing fit. "I can promise you, Megure-keibu, that if this particular source wasn't reliable and totally trustworthy," _-in everything except for a tendency to DRIVE ME CRAZY- _"we would've been compromised long ago. My contact has as much integrity as... as anyone in this car right now."

Megure considered this. "Hrm. Well, then." From the backseat, 'Ran' offered him a seraphic smile.

Heiji, who had seemed on the verge of choking to death on his own sense of incredulity, managed to clear his pipes enough to talk again. "So," he said doggedly, "two factions. We got one that's dealin' with the kids, and- one that's handling the usual stuff? Two agendas, anyway. Somebody pulling in recruits and raising 'em up as their own little pet agents for the past nine years, and somebody else who's pushin' for, uh..." (he hesitated, thinking about Pandora and the fact that Megure was in no way privy to that little can of snakes) "...something else, some other goal, one that _doesn't_involve the kids."

Shinichi watched rain stream down the glass; a lone drop snuck in at the top of his window and traced a wet line across the inner pane. "And that might very well indicate which faction put Miyamoto-san up to destroying the missing persons data," he said thoughtfully; "To take the risk, they had to see enough benefit to make it worthwhile. The existence of the data would be far more hazardous to the faction kidnapping the children, both in what we could extrapolate from it and in what it could reveal to any counter-faction. So-"

"So Miyamoto-san got blackmailed by the first bunch, not the second. Got it." Heiji began drawing in the condensation on the inside of the window with a fingertip. "Ichiban, that's the one with the kids, they're the smaller faction- they wouldn't be recruitin' if they didn't need numbers and strength. Niban, that's the other one, they got the push going for whatever their other goal is. Most've the time when you get a civil war going on, both sides want the same thing; might just be to keep it from the other side, but sometimes that's all you need t'win, right?" At Shinichi's impatient movement, Heiji hiked a shoulder. "I'm just thinking aloud," he explained a little sheepishly.

Megure was also looking restless; he tugged at his hatbrim, screwing it on tighter. "That can wait," he said shortly. "Right now I'm more concerned with finding out if I have any more agents among my force, under coercion or outside it." He chewed his moustache in frustration. "Short of testing every officer in the building-"

"Why couldn't you?" asked Shinichi suddenly. Megure eyed him doubtfully. "No, hear me out. Suppose you required a blood sample from every member of every department, starting today? According to Haibara the test that shows whether or not a person's been addicted to the loyalty drugs is pretty quick and definitive- look how fast she was able to define which one Miyamoto-san was on. Get a sample from everyone, have her run the tests... and you'll know."

"And make sure you get samples from non-law enforcement staff too," 'Ran' said softly from behind them. "If I was hiding in a building full of policemen, I'd be, oh, a janitor or something. Or one of the people who fill the vending machines, or a secretary, or maybe a file clerk. Somebody who wears a uniform and looks like they belong there but doesn't wear a badge."

Megure nodded absently. "Good thinking, Ran-chan. I'll need an excuse, though. Immunization? No, too complicated. Damaged medical records? -never mind, I'll come up with something." His dark eyes examined Shinichi. "Your, ah, pharmacist- she'll agree to this?"

"I'm certain I can persuade her," answered the detective, not without a sinking heart at the prospect of telling Ai that she had no less than several hundred sets of analysis in her near future. "She'll probably need more resources than she has at the moment, though, chemicals, that sort of thing. I'll get her to make a list."

"It oughta work," said Heiji, a little sharkfin of predatory excitement circling in his green eyes. "And if they run instead've forking over a sample, you'll know you got your agents that way too." He looked out at the column of smoke and steam that was battling the rain outside and the gleam turned anticipatory and more than a little bloodthirsty. "Might wanna make plans about what to do with your catch ahead of time, Keibu. Might think about lettin' them see what happened to their buddy after he missed a couple pills, hm?"

Megure's grim smile held an answering hint of teeth. "I could certainly make that information available to anyone who might be under suspicion, yes." He cleared his throat. "We would never, of course, withhold any necessary medication or medical care from a suspect."

"'Course not."

"…although it might take some time to, ah, _identify_any pills found on their person as such. Hours, perhaps."

Shinichi turned his head to watch the smoke rise as well, four lives' worth; he wondered how many tarnished badges this, the first real strike against the Organization, would net them. "Do it, Megure-keibu," he said quietly. His eyes met Kid's beyond Megure's shoulder, and in that moment there was very little of Mouri Ran within their indigo depths. "Find them."

* * *

The group left the car, spreading amid the response personnel managing the scene, each quiet with their own thoughts. Shinichi found Yuusaku, and for a few moments, distracted himself by savoring the novel comfort of being near his father in the face of a scene like the one before them. Most of the time, as Conan, Shinichi was forced to stay apart from the comfort of those who knew him as himself. The most memorable case for which Yuusaku and he had been able to collaborate was the virtual reality kidnapping fiasco - including the adventure in pursuit of Jack the Ripper through a virtual London.

At the end of it, having pulled a victory out of the last few seconds of peril, 'Conan' had stood on the deactivated stage of VR pods, looking across a crowd of grateful, sobbing parents and children to meet his father's proud gaze - and knew he couldn't move a step closer. It had hurt, and he wasn't interested in denying that; his father had always been his strongest role model, aside from the fictional detective they both loved, and Shinichi had wanted to tell him all about the events within the VR - the details only he had witnessed, after even Ran had fallen. Yuusaku could have told him about programming the scenes, and answered the questions Shinichi'd had about the nature of Noah and his interaction with Yuusaku's programming as written.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Shinichi sighed, leaning his shoulder against his father's briefly. Yuusaku glanced over, his quiet smile a warm constant in the rain, and opened his mouth to ask Shinichi what he'd been thinking.

"_KUDO-KUN!_"

Both Kudos flinched as Megure came rolling up to them, breathing hard and looking rushed. "Kudo-kun, didn't you hear me? I called for you three times. I wanted you to stop Mouri-san before she left."

Shinichi and Yuusaku - who had apparently been wrapped in his own thoughts - both blinked.

"Left?"

"Yes, of course. I saw her stop to speak with you briefly, but I was across the scene and I couldn't catch your attention. Where did she go? It's not safe for her to go off without an escort!"

"She, ah..."

Father and son traded awkward glances, and Shinichi clenched his fist - and felt the prickle of paper, a wadded-up receipt with script on the back.

_Make an excuse._

"Ah, yes, right!" Beaming at Megure, Shinichi folded his hands behind his back, crushing the note. "Sorry, I was really deep in thought when you came over...distracted with the case, I guess. Ah, Ran had to go back to talk with her tousan; no, um, they're not meeting at the apartment," he hastily added, seeing Megure's seed of panic. "No, he just wanted to see her and you know how Mouri-san can get, sometimes he won't take no for an answer."

"Yeeees, I know that trait of his far too well," Megure sighed, rolling his eyes. "What was so urgent he couldn't call?"

"She didn't say," Shinichi shrugged, doing his best to look innocent. "She, ah, probably just knew he wouldn't be satisfied she was safe til he saw her. They're only meeting for a snack at a coffee place nearby, and then she said she was, ah, headed back toward the, um. Base. She said she was fine on her own."

"Naivete," Megure grumbled, giving Shinichi and Yuusaku a knowing gaze below the brim of his hat. He waved a hand toward the crumpled cars behind him, now engulfed by less flame and more chemical foam which had smothered the blaze. "And just after this? Well, she'll be safe once she gets there, but not until. You should call her and find out her location, so I can send an officer after her."

"Keibu," Yuusaku put in, slipping an arm around his son companionably, "Wouldn't it be more suspicious to see an officer clearly trailing, then meeting up with, Ran-chan? I'll scold her on her impulsiveness after she returns home tonight. Is that alright?"

Megure frowned. "I'm not happy about it."

"Neither am I, Keibu," Yuusaku agreed, gesturing broadly with one hand. Meanwhile, the other lifted the note from his son's grasp, and palmed it as he tucked his hands into his raincoat. "This whole situation isn't an easy one, and I imagine it wears hardest on those who show the strain least."

"True enough," Megure sighed, still frowning but slightly less determinedly. "It's about time to get the rest of you back, too. Letting civilians loiter around a disaster like this is just asking for it to be doubled."

* * *

_I'm going to kill you, you know. I'm going to put my hands around your neck and kill you one of these days._

_Tantei! _ Kid managed his phone with one hand, tapping the keys with his thumb, and held on to the straps above him earnestly with the other. _What's gotten into you? Such a violent streak. I almost want to-_

Before he'd finished typing, a second mail alert pinged, and he closed the draft message to view his inbox.

_PS, this is Hattori, I stole his phone. I don't wanna hear it so delete the flirty text you were gonna send, got it?_

Kid grinned at his phone, very satisfied, and all but purred as he tapped out a new reply.

_**Well**__ then! What a capable detective my Tantei has been entrusted with. I'm sure you'll look after him quite excellently. Most of all, don't let him come looking for me - it would be unwise. More accurately, unhealthy. Are we clear, Hattori-han?_

_KID WHAT TH-_

_Dammit, he got the phone back for a minute. Now his dad's sittin' on him. Anyway - Crystal clear, you nutbar. And don't do anything especially idiotic, alright? I owe you a good workover for scaring the crap out of me with that trick in front of the Keibu. That was __**inhuman**__, the way your face did that._

_Perhaps._

Tucking his phone into his pocket, Kid - with Kaito riding a close shotgun, viewing everything his brother did over his shoulder - rode on into the evening, the light tension in his legs gently countering the jarring bounce of the light rail as it whisked him out of Tokyo.

* * *

"Perhaps?" Shinichi, torqued into a very interesting pretzel-like configuration around and over most of Hattori's limbs in an attempt to read his phone's screen, read Kid's closing text incredulously. "Perhaps? That's not an answer! What the hell does 'perhaps' even mean, anyway? Perhaps it was inhuman? Perhaps Hattori owes him a beating? Perhaps WHAT?"

Hattori blinked deliberately, his mouth level, his eyebrows approaching his hairline. "Care t'not blow my eardrum offa my head, Kudo?"

Shinichi slumped back into his car seat, frowning out the front windshield as his father drove the three of them back toward the Shiratori estate. "...Sure."

* * *

.

.

_And that's it for this week. Next week, a little more light-hearted (we can't be deadly serious all the time, can we?) and quite a bit less worksafe (it's been a while, hasn't it?) Same bat-time, same bat-channel; stay tuned for __**Chapter 22**__**: "It'll be interesting to see what kinda fish we catch."**_


	91. What kinda fish we catch

_Hallo, all... Time for a little fun this week. Yes, quite a lot of seriousness too and some very important plot-points, but definitely a bit of fun as well. We've had a lot of heavy-duty plotting going on, and you'll see quite a bit more this time too; but... well. Enjoy._

_Your suggestions for omakes are being poked at! Hopefully we'll be able to honor some of them! In the meantime, if you read, please let us know what you think of how things are progressing, hmm? Comments are the cream in our coffee, the portabella mushrooms in our sautee, the marshmallows in our cereal..._

_Anyway. On with the show! Please enjoy... The Management_

_._

_._

* * *

_**Chapter 22**__**: "It'll be interesting to see what kinda fish we catch."**_

"He did _what?"_

Students of some of the more gruesome aspects of Tibetan art might have recognized the look on Mouri Ran's face as she wheeled to stare at Shinichi, who lounged nervously in the doorway of the bedroom they had been sharing. "He did it AGAIN? Pretended to be me? Ooooh—" She made strangley motions with her two hands, grinding and twisting as if she had Kid's neck between them.

Shinichi winced. "It wasn't his idea," he offered, a trace of guilt making the words hangdog. "I mean, Megure just… sort of assumed… I think, and I'm not absolutely sure he actually... uh... and we all went along with it, because the alternative was… uh… and I'll just shut up right now, okay?"

His girlfriend glowered at him. The Detective of the East, victor of innumerable tough cases and responsible party for many a murderer's arrest, edged behind the doorjamb until most of his body was covered—and squeaked like a little girl when Ran's fist impacted the folded futon that she had been putting back into the closet. "Erk! Um, he really didn't have a choice, Ran—"

"That's not the POINT," she said wrathfully, thumping the futon a second time. "He could've pretended to be somebody else! -I don't know, one of Shiratori-san's employees, a driver or—"

"Raaaan, he's not even old enough to drive. I'M not even old enough to drive," pointed out the more lawful of her two boyfriends from the safety of his bit of architecture.

Sliding the closet door open, Ran shoved the abused futon in and gave it a resounding kick for good measure. "If he can pretend to be me," she said darkly, "he can pretend to be a chauffeur or a houseboy or, or—anything else. He wasn't even wearing a bra!" At Shinichi's blink of incomprehension, she cupped her hands in the air in front of her chest. "I am NOT that flat! And he still got away with it? Oooh!"

"..."

A pillow followed the futon into the closet, impacting hard against the inner wall; Ran's fists tightened on the second pillow, wringing it severely out of shape. "I threatened to break his kneecaps the last time he did that," she growled, "and when he gets back I'm going to smack him so hard— What?" she demanded angrily.

Shinichi pointed. "You just killed the pillow." There were feathers drifting towards the floor. "And anyway, you're NOT flat, you're anything but flat, you're just right—Megure just, uh, wasn't looking at your chest—I mean, not that I want him to look at your chest, but anybody in their right _mind_would if they, you know, wanted to—AAACK!"

Feathers flew.

* * *

"He did _what?"_

Haibara Ai, her negligible height notwithstanding, was a fearsome creature when enraged; just then, filled with a mixture of sheer incredulity and disbelief, she stared up at Heiji and ground her teeth.

"Told Megure-han you'd handle the blood tests. Why, you wanna send 'em off to some lab you don't know? You do that and you'll have to explain what they're looking for, and it's not like you can do that, can you?" Arms crossed, Heiji looked down from his superior height at the small, angry woman and (with the dregs of his rapidly-diminishing survival instinct) bit back a grin. If Haibara had any clue how _cute_she looked when she was pissed- It was like being confronted with a Hummel figurine that some mad ceramicist had infused with homicidal fury. "You do that, somebody figures it out, we're all up th'big fat black-trenchcoated creek without a paddle."

Stomping around behind a counter—they were in the room being used as a lab, though not inside the plastic 'bubble' itself- Ai waved a hand, cutting him off. "Of course not. But Kudo-kun could've had the courtesy to ask, at the very least. Do you have any idea how much time I'm going to have to devote to this? Do you?"

"Uh—no?"

Baleful blue-gray eyes regarded him above the counter's edge. "Well, you're going to find out. You and Mouri-chan have at least a degree of coordination, due, no doubt, to your experience with martial arts; Kudo-kun does not, and as for his _parents—"_ The eyes closed briefly, filled with strong emotion. "You are both drafted, do you understand me? You will observe basic laboratory sterile procedures and assist me in the—" (she gritted her teeth again) "—the _hundreds_of tests that we will be undertaking. With Agasa's, yours and Mouri-chan's assistance, we may manage to get this done in a reasonable time. And as for Kudo-kun—"

A yelp sounded from outside the room's open door, and they both turned; from their vantage point they could both see Kudo Shinichi as he shot out the neighboring building's doorway, trailing feathers, Mouri Ran in pursuit and gaining fast. Thin legs skidding on the rain-drenched ground, Shinichi's lack of stamina failed him in the pinch and he staggered as Ran thumped him with the maltreated pillow.

"—as for Kudo-kun, I'm sure he'll find ways of assisting that do not involve glassware or other delicate laboratory equipment."

Another thump! from the pillow punctuated Ai's flat statement, and as Heiji watched his friend collapse panting against an ornamental pine, he shrugged. "Hey, could be worse," he said philosophically. "'Sides, it'll be interesting to see what kinda fish we catch."

From past the counter-top, Haibara's eyes gleamed. "Yes," she murmured, "it will."

* * *

"He did _what?"_

"Um. Grew again. And then shrank, and grew a second time." Ran fidgeted with a pen, doodling nonsense on the margins as she explained things to her tutor.

Arriving late with a boxful of textbooks, Jodie Santemillion looked far more like her instructor alter-ego than the FBI agent that she actually was. She had shown up full of apologies nearly an hour past her scheduled appointment, citing a last-minute report ('Interpol- such a bunch of busybodies, and so strict about paperwork! It must be all that jet-lag') that she'd had to complete. Finding out that her class had expanded both in numbers and in body-mass had been quite a surprise.

"I can hardly believe it," she murmured, eyes wide behind her glasses as she gave Shinichi a discomfitingly thorough once-over from head to toe; he felt his face redden under the agent's gaze. "So _you're _Kudo Shinichi! Hajimemashite, Shinichi-kun!"

"We've already met," he pointed out. "Lots of times, actually. I was just, err..."

Jodie-sensei chuckled. "Shorter. Though not, I might add, any less ka-wa-i, Ran-chan!" She beamed at her other student, who blushed. "Lucky girl! Well, there's no reason why this won't work as well. Now, what's this about another student?"

Still flushing, Shinichi traded glances with Ran and cleared his throat. "He's, ah- well. He's an... associate of ours who had to drop out of school for, err, safety reasons. Ones to do with this case." Sharp worry replaced the embarrassment, but with an effort Shinichi forced it back and continued. "...and, well, we thought that since you were tutoring us, you wouldn't mind; would you?"

The blonde agent raised an eyebrow. "Well, Shinichi-kun, it rather depends; is he trustworthy? Is he in the know about all aspects of your situation, the Bureau's involvement, Division One's participation and possible repercussions of being a part of this? Is he..." (she hesitated, her other eyebrow rising to join the first) "...or perhaps I should ask, _has _he been a factor at any time in the past?"

Two heads nodded firmly. "Yes to all three," answered Ran for them both.

"Really?" Jodie-sensei blinked. "My my, you two do have the most interesting friends- Well then! I see no reason why he can't join us; and to begin with, let's test your knowledge in some basic subjects." She riffled through her box, pulling out scoring sheets and some regrettably thick test booklets. "By the way, where _is_he?"

"That," said Shinichi with a sigh, "is a very good question."

* * *

"He's going to be upset."

_I know._

"_She's_going to cry after a day or so."

_I __know__._

Kaito nodded, the gesture transferring from the mental conversation into his physical bearing, as he and Kid slipped quietly out the back of the Shiratori estate house. They had come to collect their things, meeting no one. When the car returned in a few minutes, they'd already be gone, continuing on their way. They'd already stopped at their own home, speaking briefly with their mother and gathering necessary supplies.

_We should coordinate more closely with Kaasan, Kaito. I know she would appreciate our help with her own things, even if she says she can handle that end on her own._

"We will," Kaito murmured quietly, relaxing a little bit as the pair cleared the border of the estate. "I promise. But I have to do this now, Thief. It's been put off far, far too long."

_You never intended that,_ Kid reminded his brother, one hand on his shoulder. _The way you say that, it sounds intentional._

"Well, I've been avoiding it. That's as good as intentional. And your life has made it easy for me to do that - so much more pressing things to focus on."

_Well, more bullet-shaped._

"That too."

Kid smiled thinly, leaning against a wall in their shared mental rooms. "Though, those sorts of things only seem more pressing than this, if you look at it a certain way. Another way, these are the really dangerous things, not the bullets. They have the potential to unseat a person's balance more than a wound to the leg. -Speaking of!"

Kaito snickered to himself, smirking. "I was wondering when you'd realize that."

"Have you been soaking the whole cost this whole time, Magician?" Alarmed, Kid spun Kaito around to face him, hands on both his brother's shoulders. The room around them, smooth and calming wood and glass, was gently lit with late afternoon sunlight, at odds with the darkening twilight in the real world around Kaito as he walked the streets away from the Shiratori estate, toward the train lines. Within, Kaito just smiled quietly at Kid, shrugging noncommittally.

"Kaito!" Kid leaned into the accusation, brows drawn together and up with his worry. "Benten's sake, Kaito, do I need to teach you about your own magic? You'll drain yourself dry."

"I've got it handled," Kaito said dismissively, pulling out of Kid's hold. He rolled his eyes. "You're a nag sometimes."

"_Magician, you will listen._" Kaito stopped cold, a tremor crawling its way up his spine. He was the Magician in the equation while his brother was just the Trickster, yes, this much was true. But the power to invoke a Name wasn't the type reserved for only full magicians to command. Even non-magically-inclined people could learn it, with enough motivation and experience; the Detective was a perfect example of this.

Kaito pivoted in place, shoulders hunched in wariness, to meet his brother's angry eyes. "Kaito." Again Kid Invoked Kaito by using one of his Names, this time his given name. And the sheer pressure of focus which an invoked name created was levered on him from a mental distance of a few neurons away.

"_Ow,_" he said.

Blinking, Kid reeled in his emphasis; the effect was similar to dialing down a volume control, and Kaito found himself able to uncoil his spine as Kid relaxed.

"There was really no reason to turn that up to eleven, Thief," Kaito sulked, throwing an Invoked title back at his brother. Paybacks were a migraine at close quarters.

"There really was no reason to lie to me, Kaito," Kid replied, squinting one eye with a frown. "Again."

Kaito sighed. "Jeez, Kid, is that-"

"After you promised not to."

"-For the love of-"

"After I told you not to do things behind my back anymore."

"-Are you my _mother?_"

Kid snorted, raising one unimpressed eyebrow at his sulky brother. "I can bring her in to this too, if that would make you feel better."

"Auuuuughhh!" Exasperated, Kaito willed up a bed and flopped into it face-first, muffling his next growl of frustration in the pillows. "Benten's SAKE, brother, you are a NAG!"

"And _you_," Kid replied, sitting down on the edge of the bed and beginning to tickle the insides of his brother's knees, "Are a self-sacrificing bull-headed martyr complex IDIOT."

Silence for a moment, while Kaito attempted to glare holes in the wall and Kid mourned his brother's ability to choose to not be ticklish within their mental space.

"...Fair enough," Kaito finally huffed. Kid grinned, puffing up like a happy bird.

"Good!" he preened, until a pillow, rather heavier than any reality-based pillow would dare to be, smacked him in the face, pressing him down to the bed across Kaito's legs.

* * *

Nakamori Ginzo knew what he didn't know, what he did know, and what he chose not to know. But he wasn't sure how much further the lines could continue to blur until someone else knew these things, too.

_"I'm sure it's related!"_ Aoko had declared, fists raised to fight her imaginary opponent, stomping around the common room on the day Kuroba Kaito's withdrawl from Ekoda High was announced to the class. _"That moron probably was at the damn heist even though I told him not to go, and he probably got hurt when everything happened. That moron! He promised he wouldn't hide anything from me, and now he's off in some hospital room, probably, and he won't even admit what happened! When I see him, I'm gonna break all the bones he still has!"_

_"Are you __seriously__ still under the illusion that this is all a game? Is this funny to you, a dead civilian out there, people discharging rifles at your heist like they're at the duck hunt?"_ Nakamori remembered his own hateful words, remembered the rage that flowed through him like clear, scalding water. He would have been furious no matter what - _'dead civilian' _tended to have that effect - but...the suspicion, the probability, the need-to-not-know knowing creeping in through the chinks in the corners of his concentration...

_"Obaa-san, for you!"_The boy laid a rose on the memorial altar, every aspect of his bearing serious and careful. They'd all laughed. His wife would have laughed too if she could have heard, too, he knew.

_"That's no way to address a lady," _he'd instructed the boy, ruffling his wild hair and smiling across the sitting room at Kuroba Chikage, warm of aspect and generous with her time, a priceless blessing to himself and to his little girl in the wake of his wife's passing. Chikage-san was able to help the two of them limp along, respecting their business as their own yet supporting and caring for Aoko while Nakamori struggled to mourn and keep his job on track at the same time.

_"It has never been a game to me, Keibu."_ Nakamori could remember every shift in the felon's voice, and wished he couldn't. He'd never heard it so clearly, so closely, and so honestly - lacking the hauteur and theatricality drawn like screens across its familiar cadences. But now he had. _"Better to hide a chase in the open than constantly duck and dodge, yes?"_

"Depends who's dodging, you insufferable rat." Growling out a long sigh, Nakamori supported himself on his elbows against the bartop in front of him and lifted his glass, swirling the amber liquid inside. It was an attractive rocks glass, for bar ware; the heavy, faceted base wasn't as accurately cut as some of the ones in his own collection, but that didn't affect the quality of the alcohol within.

_"I __hate__ him, I hate him more than anything else in the whole world, Tousan. I hate him for making you look like a fool, for making you upset so much. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him! I hate that thief the most __ever__!_"

It was only his first glassful, and was likely to be his last for the evening as well. Ginzo wasn't out at a bar to drink himself stupid; he was there to think, and try to breathe. At home, worry for Aoko made it hard to keep his thoughts straight. Impartiality and logic went mostly out the window, like a certain pestilence he was acquainted with, and the desire to make his little girl smile was what mattered most. Tonight, though, he wanted mental clarity and a freedom, if brief, to think without bias.

_"I have made it a game for you because the cat and mouse game that I have been playing with them is too grand a scale to have been played in secret."_

Nakamori had dug fast and deep in search of the truth in that bold statement. And what he'd come up with wasn't pleasant. He hadn't found information which could provide evidence of the thief's claims, nor of the supposition, forwarded by Kudo-tantei as he had departed, sheltering the wounded felon, that the Task Force was compromised.

Instead, he'd found evidence of _missing_information, holes where there should have been complete records, gaps where data shouldn't have been omitted. He'd contacted Megure-keibu, and in a secure conversation inquired as to the other's findings. Their results had come up worryingly similar, and Nakamori had requested guidance. Tomorrow, a blood test similar to the one being executed at Division One would be conducted throughout the Task Force and all of its support staff, casting a broad, fine-grained net intended to both catch active 'concerns' and dredge up others still lurking and choosing their time. The day after, Nakamori didn't doubt there would be, to put it delicately, a number of 'fish' on his cutting block.

_A giant diamond - a giant fucking __diamond__ - inside the fish Aoko had brought home from market for their dinner. The __particular__ diamond he'd been chasing, which Kid had stolen, made off with, carried away to parts unknown. Now, somehow, in Aoko's fish._

Nakamori Ginzo wasn't stupid.

Nakamori Ginzo loved his daughter more than anything else in the world, more than his job, more than his pride, and more than he loved himself.

He took another drink, draining his glass, and sighed. "Bartender? Another, please, and my check. Thank you."

* * *

Ice clinked in a glass, cracked as liquor spilled over it in a rich golden stream; the cubes tinkled and rattled against against the sides as the level rose. Thin, strong fingers wrapped around the glass, raising it to red lips. "I could've taken any of them out, you know. It wouldn't even've been a challenge. That fat bastard with the hat would've looked a lot better with his head splattered all over the pavement."

Korn, nursing his own drink, spared his partner barely a glance. "Stupid. Rest've the cops'd come boiling out of there and blocked everything, we were stuck as it was. You want to end up like Calvados?"

Chianti's eyes narrowed at the mention of the former agent, dead by his own hand; she turned her head and spat on the dingy carpet underfoot. "Shut the fuck up," she muttered.

"Then stop being an idiot."

Calling it chance that they'd been there at all would've been a lie; as soon as the order to leave had been put through to Sagata and his trainee (Korn had already forgotten the boy's name; it didn't matter), the two assassins had been dispatched to follow. The carbomb had already been placed, but it was the sort that required a personal trigger-remote rather than a timer- Korn and Chianti'd had their orders, and while bombs were distinctly not their chosen field of expertise, if anything had gone wrong they had been given leave to... improvise. Sagata and the boy would have died one way or another.

Staring into his glass, the wiry grayhaired agent felt a flutter of satisfaction in his otherwise emotionless heart; watching the police squadcar explode immediately afterwards had been a bonus.

Beside him, Chianti was still muttering angrily into her scotch about targets and range and missed opportunities; she was hard enough to rein in as it was, and Korn knew that she'd be hitting the practice range later. She'd made her own arrangements with one of the trainers; while Korn preferred a still target, Chianti liked her prey to run, and a decent bribe to one of the city's animal shelters netted her a few stray dogs to practice on every week. She wasn't the only agent to keep her skills sharp this way, though, and Korn shrugged internally; if it settled her psychotic tendencies to a more controllable level, then all to the good, right?

He studied his partner out of the corner of his eye. Chianti's butterfly-tattoo was towards him, pulled a little out of line by her sullen expression; not for the first time he wondered why she'd gotten such a recognizable mark on her face. _Probably as just another challenge. Makes them aim at her face. _It was part of the psychology of being a sniper, you tended towards markers- if you shot at a person in uniform, nine times out of ten you ended up aiming for a badge or other insignia. Chianti's entire existence was built around challenge; setting herself up as a target would be just the kind of thing she'd do.

Or what the hell, maybe the girl just liked butterflies. Creepy damn things.

A shadow settled down at the end of the bar, darker and more solid than most shadows. The silent, elderly man who served as bartender and had as long as Korn had been with the Organization poured the shadow a drink without a word (rumor had it his tongue had been cut out; rumor was probably correct) and shuffled over to begin washing glasses. "Report," said a cold voice flatly, and Gin's oddly pale green eyes surveyed them.

Chianti snorted. "You already _have _our report," she answered, unintimidated. "Sagata and that little prop of his're dead, we fried two cops in the bargain, we got away. Boring fucking job, you could've given it to anybody, even a no-name pissant on the same level as Sagata. Why us?"

The silver-haired senior agent studied her for an uncomfortably long time without answering. Gin's hat and trenchcoat were absent here in the Organization's stronghold; face, hair, eyes and his habitual white turtleneck made him oddly ghostly. There were _stories_ about Gin; he'd always been there, he never trained anyone, and you didn't cross him, didn't breath anything that sounded like treason against the Organization around him. Rumor had it that he was one of the 'inside' agents, the ones without any sort of life but the Organization: no cover, no public face, no nothing, just... his work.

And now he was looking at Chianti with those flat, icy eyes of his, the ones that told you that _this was a shark watching you_ and a shark was a killing machine; death was what it was for. "Your orders were to see that they died. The bomb was efficient, but shots from a distance would work as well. You were insurance. You are also," he added remotely, "trained to pick out faces from a crowd. _He _wants to know if any new faces caught your eye."

Korn's usual scowl deepened. "Yeah," he said shortly. "Car with four people in it; drove up late. One got out, the Division One head got in, talked a while, left. Got a glimpse of one of the faces on my rifle scope but no photos- didn't have the equipment there." He swirled the remaining liquor in his glass, thinking. "Not cops," he said at last, "...or probably not. No uniforms; looked too young, the one I saw."

"Hm."

"That's all? 'Hm'?" demanded Chianti, draining her glass and waving at the old man for another scotch. "Insurance. BORING fucking job, I said so. Why don't you send us out after-"

There was a whisper of movement, and suddenly Gin was **there**, hand twisted in Chianti's collar; the assassin froze, utterly still, while eyes with no humanity in them at all focused on her own from far too close. And he was _smiling._

"You have a _complaint, _Chianti?"

The woman licked her lips, pupils dilated, very little sense in them either. Korn watched, detached, wondering if he'd be training a new partner the next morning.

It ended with Gin simply releasing Chianti's collar, dropping her back onto the barstool; she nearly toppled over, recovered, and hunched angrily over the fresh drink that was slid in front of her. "Report to Profiling," said Gin in a cold, level voice. "Work with a sketch artist; see what you can give us from the face you saw."

Korn downed the last of his drink, nodding; pity there'd only been one in the vehicle who he'd seen well enough through the rain to describe, but if it'd get the psycho off his ass... "Done. C'mon, Chianti." Defiantly draining her scotch, his partner slid off her stool and followed him out, leaving Gin to finish his drink alone.

"...boring _fucking _job-"

"Shut the hell UP, Chianti."

* * *

Dinner had been quiet. Yukiko had flatly vetoed discussion of the two officers' deaths, strategies attacking/defending against the Organization, speculation on their enemies' motives or anything else upsetting to the digestion during the meal. Kid's absence left a quiet gap at the table, and it was all that Ran and Shinichi could do to keep from glancing at the place where he should have been; his ghost was both too easy to conjure and too hard to dismiss.

Afterwards, Heiji buried himself in the laptop he had hauled along, purportedly tracking down a few theories; from the offhand way he'd spoken ('You two just... keep yerselves busy without me, ne? Don't think you'll have much've a problem'), though, Shinichi had the distinct idea that he'd deliberately vacated the area to give them some privacy.

...something that he, in particular, could appreciate. It had been another long day.

The rain was falling in a light drizzle; watching it from the porch of the main house, Shinichi could almost ignore the crackle of lightning and low rumbles emanating from the heavy cloud-cover above. Ran had gone on to the building they shared with Heiji and his parents; the detective wondered a little wistfully if she'd like some company. They could curl up together in front of the library's small television, maybe catch a movie, or maybe just... wing it.

Winging it sounded pretty good, actually.

Puddles splashed around his ankles as he crossed the wet grass; the air was full of humidity and the ozone-scent of distant thunder, coming closer. The wooden steps thumped hollowly under his feet as, breathing deeply, Shinichi headed up onto the porch and toed his soggy sneakers off just inside the doorway.

"-Ran? I was w- Uh, what's wrong?"

A pair of jeans flopped limply against the wall. "I can't find it!" wailed Ran distressfully, digging through the hamper that had been provided for their laundry. "I was wearing it yesterday, and I thought-" She flopped back as well, crosslegged on the floor with a woeful look on her face. "I must've dropped it when we were looking for you... I remember, my wrist caught on a branch when we were picking you up."

The teenager frowned, leaning against the doorjamb. "Picked me- _oh._You mean when I- What'd you lose?"

She held up her wrist. "My bracelet. You remember, the one from graduation?" Silver clovers and white-enameled chrysanthemums flickered through Shinichi's memory- Kid had slipped it into his pocket, and it had been Conan's small hands that had fastened it around Ran's wrist. The bracelet was such a simple thing, but it was a tangible reminder of the bond linking the thief and detective to Ran; '_Chrysanthemums for truth, clovers for luck' _whispered Kid's voice in Shinichi's memory, and now he knew why Ran looked so stricken.

There wasn't even a question of waiting til morning; it took them a little bit to locate flashlights, and by the time the two made it out the door, the threatening thunderclouds overhead had begun to make good their bluff. The one umbrella that Ran had grabbed up proved to be less than workable (one rib had given up the ghost and it canted at a lopsided angle) but it was enough to fend off the worst of the rain as they hurried across the estate's soggy expanses towards the ornamental garden.

The bracelet was found with almost laughable ease; it had snagged on a dead branch a half-meter from where Shinichi's shrunken frame had been found curled up, and it caught the lightning like a tiny constellation in a pine-needle sky once they were close enough to see. Ran made an inarticulate noise of relief and untangled it, examining the links with anxious fingers in the beam of Shinichi's flashlight. "The clasp's twisted, but I think I can fix it," she said above the pounding of the rain, and carefully tucked the precious thing away in an inner jacket pocket. "I'm so glad I found i-"

_**BOOOOOOOOM!**_

Deafened and blinded by the enormous explosion less than thirty meters away, both Ran and Shinichi huddled flat on the muddy ground as possible in pure instinctive terror. Ran's body vibrated with her unheard shriek beneath Shinichi's chest- he had curled over her- and she wrapped her hands around her head, covering her ears. The umbrella, abandoned, tumbled crazily across the sodden garden and was lost; grabbing Ran's hand, Shinichi hauled her to her feet and the two of them scuttled together through the wind and wet like hermit crabs.

There was a small garden-shed off to one side of the trees; if Shinichi had seen it the night before in his transformation-induced trauma, he probably would've taken shelter there. As it was, the two made a beeline straight for it, stumbling over roots and rocks and each other. Thankfully, the door was unlocked, open even, banging in the wind. They struggled inside and slammed it tight behind them.

Leaning against each other in the sudden relative silence, their hearts hammering through their skin like drums, the two clung together. Thunder rattled the walls of the shed, and gleams of lightning burst through the crack of the door and through the building's sole tiny window like flashbulbs. Pulling back a little, Ran stared at Shinichi with eyes as wide as saucers, panting. Her hair was in rats, streaming drenched down her face and shoulders; she gulped breath and tried to speak. It came out as a stutter. "I- I- Sh-Sh-Shinichi-"

He half-laughed, trying to breath a little slower. "Y...eeeeaaahh. Whoah..." He swallowed. "Must've been that- that big pine down by the path. Hope it didn't take out a roof too." Shinichi dropped his forehead forward to rest against Ran's, their breath mingling, warm in the cool air. "You okay?" She nodded, arms still wrapped around him tightly, shivering with reaction. As thunder muttered all around them, she pressed close, and Shinichi became aware that they were both soaking, sopping wet and more than a little chilly.

_Bzzzzzzzzzz!_...and that his cellphone was going off in his pocket.

"Kudo? You an' Neechan okay? We heard the boom-"

"Yeah- yeah, okay." Shinichi coughed. "There was a strike- you know that big pine by the maintenance building? I don't think it's so big anymore. We're okay, though, we're waiting out the rain." Still leaning against him, Ran burrowed her head against her chest; the evening was cool and the rain, with typical Japanese climatic perverseness, had been the cold kind you sometimes got in mid-Spring instead of the sticky hot downpours of Summer.

"_Good t'know. We got power out over here, but the backup generators oughta be coming online about... yeah, there they go." _Shinichi could hear his mother's and Agasa's voices exclaiming something in the background.

...and Ran had just unbuttoned his shirt and was, apparently, attempting to wrap herself in its soggy folds. It was more than a little distracting.

There was a sly trace of humor in Heiji's voice when next he spoke. "_You two take yer time coming back, okay? Rain'll probably be a while before it lets up; no reason you should risk a cold're anything, right?"_

"Uh-"

"Right," mumbled Ran from just below the cellphone, still shivering. Shinichi's free arm was wrapped around her waist, and it tightened as she did her best to climb inside his clothes. Which was WAY more than a 'little' distracting, and if she kept doing that it was going to become obvious that he-

She paused, plastered flat against his body from the knees up; there was a speculative silence.

_Oops._

On the phone, Heiji cleared his throat. "_Kudo? You still there?"_

"...yeah. Gotta go, Hattori. We'll be back as soon as, uh, as soon as... the weather clears." Ran had goosebumps. Shinichi could feel them. He also thought he felt her hide a smile against his collarbone.

"_Yeah, you do that."_ Was that a snicker? Damn Heiji- "_Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Kudo." _The phone clicked off, and Shinichi shoved it into a pocket.

"Um... Ran?" He was blushing, he knew it. Good thing the shed was so dark. "I, ah..." Shinichi's arms, both free now, wrapped around her as if they had a will of their own (like certain other body-parts.) He tried to think. "Are you- you're shivering."

"I'm COLD." She had come out with nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt on, and now she did her best to worm her way closer still, sliding her hands up inside his wet shirt and trailing her nails along his back. "I'm soaking wet and ch-chilly and _really cold. _And you're warmer than me."

_Oh god, fingernails. Not. Helping._ It also wasn't helping that the chill had given Ran two rather prominent points of interest, and that they were pressed against his body right at that minute. A little desperately Shinichi tried to think about something other than the shiver-inducing lines that his girlfriend was currently tracing up his back. "Haibara, she, uh, she said I'm usually running a low fever most of the time... Guess that's why I'mmmmrrgh!"

"Why you're what, Shinichi?" asked Ran, who had just hooked her calf around his. "Oooh; st-still cooooold..." She tucked her hands flat against his shoulderblades, and as the detective attempted not to squirm, shivered again in one long shudder. "Why you're what?"

"Wh-" He'd not simply had his train of thought derailed, the tracks had just been torn up and the engine demolished for scrap. But as Shinichi cast about for where to go next, he distinctly felt something that was _not_a shiver tickle the skin just above his collar:

A giggle.

"You." Indignantly Shinichi pushed Ran back, hands on her shoulders- not far, just a little, far enough to stare into her face. "You've been doing this DELIBERATELY."

Very attractive devils glinted in Ran's beautiful eyes, dancing and waving their pitchforks. "Doing what?" she demured, one corner of her mouth curving up. Behind his back her fingers laced together. "Trying to get warm?"

"Trying to get ME warm," he murmured, and bent down a little to kiss her. Her lips were cold from the rain, but the way she surged up eagerly to catch his own had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with temperament.

Rain drummed on the wooden shingles overhead, accompanied by a long, rolling cadenced grumble that the two within the shed could feel down to their footsoles. Trailing little nips and kisses along Shinichi's jawline, Ran wrapped as much of her body as she could around him; his own hands slid down and cupped her hips, then lower, fitting his palms to the sweet curves there. He tilted his head back, breathing deeply as she tasted her way along the line of his throat, then bit his own bottom lip as Ran did something to his earlobe that he'd had no idea she'd picked up from Kid. With very little bloodflow making its way to the larger of his heads, it was all Shinichi could do to ask, breathlessly, "W-What brought this on? I mean, not that I'm complaining, but-" God, sometimes it was _great _being nineteen.

Ran paused, her fingers stroking his back and sending tiny jolts directly along his spine. "I... don't get you all to myself much," she said shyly. "A-and I really _AM_cold, and, um..." Thunder rattled the walls again; she squeaked and hid her face.

"...and you don't like storms," he remembered, thanking the weather gods mentally and biting back a chuckle as Ran nodded violently and tried to slide her arms nearly to the shoulder beneath his shirt. The thunder rumbled once more, louder, this time accompanied by an absolutely apocalyptic crash of rain and wind- and that was when things got a little out of hand.

Shinichi was conscious of fingers tugging at his shirt, his jacket, burying themselves in his soaked hair; but mostly he was busy with the feel of Ran's mouth on his, her tongue teasing his, her skin sliding along his. At some point unnecessary things that were in the way got removed; at some point Shinichi felt himself backed up, _slam!_into a wooden wall, and then Ran's breasts were filling his hands and her bra was nowhere to be found and she was trying to climb him while the storm danced over their heads.

Lightning flashed like a strobelight outside, giving them glimpses of each other: Ran, eyes wide, pupils dilated, gasping as Shinichi arched his body beneath hers; Shinichi, head twisted to one side, mouth open as Ran slid her hands beneath the wet denim of his jeans without the benefit of an open zipper. There was another huge, bone-rattling _**KaBOOOMMM! **_outside as lightning struck something else nearby, and Shinichi groaned as Ran bit his shoulder sharply.

They sank down onto something scratchy but soft; reason came back long enough for Ran to pause, her bare skin throwing back dim gleams in the darkness. "Shinichi- do you- we need a-"

"Wallet," he murmured, and gritted his teeth as he dragged the squelching thing out of a pocket. With the optimism of all his nineteen years and the undeniable, totally magnificent and mindblowing fact of his relationship with his two lovers, Shinichi'd taken to keeping certain things on hand... and as he found the square foil packet by feel and felt Ran tug it from his fingers, he congratulated himself on his forethought, his practicality, his-

"If you don't pay _attention,_ Shinichi," Ran growled, hands pausing in what they were doing, "I'm going to save this to use on _Kid. _And I'll tell him why, too!"

_Oops again. _Chastened, Shinichi did just that. After all, he wasn't the only one who ought to be getting undressed here...

Cold dampness around them, warm fire within them; as the roof rattled and leaked onto their heads, their skin became slicked with both condensation and sweat. It was Ran who centered herself atop her lover and eased herself down, rising and falling with the most delicious look of focus on her face. Slowly at first, she braced her hands on Shinichi's ribs; he locked his hands around her hips, thrusting up with with his knees bent behind her for traction as the rhythm steadied, thumbs digging into Ran's skin until they left white marks when they shifted. And all the while-

"Shinnnniiichi- ooh, th- there, there, nnnhhg-"

-they gasped, whispered against each other, moaned-

"Ran, _god _Ran, yes-"

-and the thunder punctuated every sigh and every long shudder, every push and quickening of the pace. Their skin slid over each others, thighs slippery; lightning illuminated Ran's face when she arched her body backwards, keening in the back of her throat.

"Oh~! Do that! That! Shinichi, so good, so-" Her nails bit into his skin. Frantic, Shinichi pushed himself up and caught her mouth with his, one hand tangling in her hair. It was all part and parcel of the storm above and around them, utterly carnal and absolutely tender, the ozone in the air and the smell of the rain and the earth.

They slowed a little, trying to catch their breath. Ran, bent over her lover like a bow, pressed kisses on his eyelids, his cheeks, the place where sweat gathered at the hollow of his throat; her detective stroked every inch of her skin that he could reach with his fingertips, from the slope of Ran's shoulders to the place where their bodies joined, wet and hot with friction and their shared pulse. He pulled her down, lips on her breasts, teeth scoring each aureole gently; and as Ran's breath caught in the back of her throat and she writhed with her first orgasm, Shinichi bit his lip nearly bloody to keep from following.

The rain stuttered against the shed's small window when at last he bucked his body up hard beneath her, hot and desperate, her nipples pebbling between his fingers. And when the lightning struck again, their cries were almost loud enough to drown it out.

* * *

"We ought to head back. Sooner or later, I mean."

"Mmhm... do you want to?"

"_No."_

"Me neither." A kiss. And another, and another, and another...

"Ow. You know, I think we're lying on a pile of old tatami mats. Old _scratchy_tatami mats.

"Mmmmm... didn't notice."

"That's 'cause you're on top of me."

A pause; peach-painted fingernails traced little patterns on a bare chest. "Shinichi? Do you have... um. How many of those do you... have in your wallet?"

Slow grin, somewhat smug. "One for each've you, and, uh, a little travel-pack of skin lotion. In case, y'know."

"In case..." She giggled and then sobered a little, wistful. "I wish he was here."

"Really?" The grin grew teasing. "Thought you _liked_having me all to yourself."

"Well, I DO, silly. That doesn't mean I don't want him here too, though, an awful lot. And anyway..." A blush. "...anyway, I like to see you two. Together, I mean."

"Yeah, I kind of gathered that." Another kiss, gentler, more thorough, lingering. "So tell me, if he was here, in here with us right this minute... what would you like to see him do with me? Right now?"

Fingers reached for Shinichi's wallet, sliding it open. "Well," she murmured, sitting up. "Let's see. First of all, I'd like to see him kiss you." Something inside the wallet crinkled as Ran slid it out. "And not just a little kiss, either, Shinichi; you know those ones where it's like Kid's trying to explain things to you, only by touch? And he sneaks his hands in before you notice? Like those."

"Oh?" Shinichi lay back lazily, hands clasped beneath his head as he grinned up at Ran, loving her. "Hm, I'm not sure... maybe you could demonstrate?"

Ran could, as it turned out, do just that.

And- what with one thing and another, and the fact that there turned out to be a third foil pack in Shinichi's wallet after all instead of just two, it was quite late when they returned, disheveled but warm and smiling, through the rain.

Ran wore her bracelet to bed.

* * *

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Next: We see where Kid's journey has taken him and where Division One's choices are leading, in _**Chapter 23**__**: "The teal door."**_ Much mysteriousness occurs, and a new player joins the cast!


	92. The teal door

_Welcome! At long last, it's Nightengale at the helm once more, because tonight's chapter is all about my specialty: Kurobas and their secrets. Because this chapter is slightly short, you'll also get an omake tonight as well! As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts on both of tonight's offerings - Enjoy!_

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* * *

_**Chapter 23**__**: "The teal door."**_

In an increasingly digital world, the brothers Kuroba were of the opinion that the simplest solution was pretty much always the best.

Microprocessors directly integrated into the microphones or cameras gathering data make the whole surveillance process more secure by removing the reliance on radio or wireless broadcasts between input and analysis. Universal standards for compatibility between computing systems, combined with the subtle profile of a Micro SD card embedded in a USB reader, could pull a whole laptop's contents in a matter of moments, yet was small enough to be concealed, if necessary, in a person's mouth, between cheek and gums or under the tongue.

Encoded messages, written in as common a coding language as Morse, were still afforded a reassuring level of security when digitally encrypted and transmitted along an indirect path to their destination, through a series of preferred secure networks - say, for example, the banking systems of Sweden and Elba.

The greatest beauty of all these highly complex digital systems of security and espionage, in the brothers' minds, was that, for most people of the first world nations, they were the _only_systems acceptably "advanced" enough to be trusted with the transmission of financial, personal, and sensitive data. Therefore, the technology was forever in revision, always being updated by its guardians against the latest threat from its opponents.

Those with trust in the system believed in the watchful power of the Forces of Good who would protect their credit cards and savings accounts from the evil hackers and thieves who trawled the 'information superhighway' seeking an easy payday or some juicy confidential government secrets.

Those without blind trust in the system chose instead to knock.

_Tap-tap-tap Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap Tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap._

Three knocks, two, pause; four knocks, one, pause; five knocks.

Kid and Kaito turned away from the teal door marked '58' and leaned against its doorframe, faded and obviously repainted less recently than the fresh, smooth coat that had been carefully applied to the paneled wooden door. The thief and magician smiled up at the relatively clear night sky, picking out the few constellations they could identify from amid the many unfamiliar ones in this place's far-away sky. The door's color told them that they hadn't come in vain.

Things which were repainted because they had to be tended to accumulate layered, uneven coats of paint, growing lumpy and awkward-looking the more they were 'spruced up'. Things which were repainted because their color had a purpose tended to be more precious to their owners; in the case of this door, it had clearly been taken from its frame and stripped down, sanded to repair weather damage, and probably primed before the deep teal color was applied. And if the teal door was still being cared for as carefully as it had been fifteen years previous, then it stood to reason that the door's owner, or its owner's successor, still remembered the reason that it was necessary that the door remain a fresh, recognizable teal.

After a few minutes, a series of smooth metal clicks preceded the humid _pop_of the door opening, pulled from its sticky adhesion to its frame by the person within. Kid and Kaito pushed off the frame, turning so they could be clearly seen, and smiled winningly.

_"We're looking for a friend of Toichi Kuroba,"_Kid said, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar syllables of the Montenegrin variant on the Serbo-Croatian language. Through the narrow crack of the opened door, bushy dark eyebrows lifted, and the sharp dark eyes beneath them narrowed carefully.

_"I don't know a name like that,"_the man responded. The brothers felt a jolt of adrenaline shoot through them - though they'd hoped, some part of them hadn't really believed that the decade-old password would still be remembered. They had studied it over and over on the flights from Tokyo to Montenegro, wondering what logic or credentials they could use to gain the trust of the person behind the teal door if the information in their father's journal had been forgotten. Now, they swallowed, smiling, and leaned in close, feeling the unfamiliar syllables as if delicious sweets on their tongue:

_"No one here wants the box to remain open, friend. Let's drink and forget all about the box's name, and our own too."_

Abruptly, the teal door jerked open, and a broad, work-roughened hand grasped Kid and Kaito's forearm strongly. Yanking the boy inside, the short, tough old man they could now see clearly by lamplight latched the door firmly behind them, then turned to look at his new visitor.

_"I'll have to learn your name before I can forget it with drink, friend,"_ the man said after a moment, bringing his gaze up the length of Kaito and Kid's lithe, young body to meet the brothers' dark blue eyes. _"This isn't the man I drank with before."_

_"That man is dead,"_ Kaito said, holding the old man's gaze. _"And that man's son is a poor substitute._Can we speak in English?" he continued. "My father's notes didn't mention that Japanese would be known here, but I know English well."

"That works well for me, friend," the man nodded, matching Kaito's language shift. A gracefully worn kitchen table stood proud of the wall only six feet back from the front door, and the old man pulled out a chair, sitting down and gesturing for his guest to do the same.

"I had hoped, when you took up your father's work, that I might see you visit my door someday."

"You've been keeping track of the Kid's progress?" the brothers asked, trying to sense how candid they should be with this man who, despite the information given in their father's notes which had led them to this point, was a completely unknown quantity to them. "How did you know it was Toichi's son, and not himself returned?"

"I have," the man answered, addressing their first question. "And I knew because you just told me so. I did not know until then, but now I do."

Kid smiled, amused by the man's straightforward logic. "And you? I don't know anything about you, friend, except that my father trusted you and that you helped him try to _close the box_." Kid used Montenegrin as he finished his question, using the precise phrasing recorded in Toichi's journal, memorized by both Kid and Kaito. The old man smiled, nodding.

"How long has he been gone?"

"Ten years." Kaito frowned, swallowing slowly, and allowed some of his wry uncertainty to show on his face as he continued. "This son of his was only eight years old when he died. So he's only learned from journals and letters. _I came for guidance._"

"_Guidance you shall have,_" answered the old man in Montenegrin, covering Kaito's hand gently with his own. "Your father was an excellent man. He had strong morals. It is more common to decide the dragon is not so much of a monster, after all, when your first sight of it is to look down its throat, your blinders ripped from you.

"He was more than that," the man continued, standing. His motions were like his speech, deliberate and calm. His voice, round and rich in the way of Mediterranean tongues, reassured the brothers as he patted their hands, encouraging them to stay at the table while he moved a few paces away to draw hot water for drinks.

"You have both suffered the strain of growing yourselves." Thick-walled, handcrafted mugs thunked gently to the man's old, smooth-worn wooden countertop, and the soft hiss and burble of heating water slowly built a cushion of white noise behind the old man's slow, warm words. "It must be some contortion, to sow and water the soil under your own feet when there is none else to do it for you."

"Both?" Kaito and Kid together blinked at their host. In the back of their mind, Kaito considered how rare it was to find an individual who possessed the talent to put a person at ease while deeply confusing and perturbing them, and that it was a talent similar to a skilled performer's ability to weave comfortable suspense for their audience. Kid observed that their host was already well progressed in the process of earning their trust, despite withholding his name from them, and that the ability to cultivate factually baseless trust was one of the most essential tactics in successful espionage.

"Yes, both." The old man smiled, bringing two heavy mugs and a small honey pot with wooden wand back to the table. "I can see two of you easily." He pointed at Kaito, then shifted his aim half a meter to Kaito's right, in the space between Kaito's chair and the empty one standing beside him. "If you are unused to being seen, it may be because you only recently have become so? You do not overlap as you used to, perhaps?"

Kaito and Kid - who had been mentally locating himself in the brothers' shared map of the room as "occupying" the space to Kaito's right, directly where their host had pointed, glanced at each other in no small amount of alarm.

_I blame your Tantei obsession, _Kaito remarked flatly. Kid giggled nervously, shimmying past his brother to take the reins.

"Friend, you've got better eyes than almost anyone else we know. Tell us your name? You know more than that of us."

The old man chuckled. "I am Stracimir Gvenkovski," he smiled. "For today."

Kid laughed as well, smiling with both his hands curled around his waiting mug. "You should choose a name easier for this foreign tongue, friend. I'm afraid I'll never get that right."

"Then you can call me Sava," the old man said, standing to retrieve the kettle which had just begun to whine. "Your father always did."

"A pun?" Kaito again, as the brothers smiled in recognition. "All his jokes were based in Romance languages. He was predictable that way."

"Only that way," Sava returned, inclining his head slightly. "Move your hands for a moment, or I'll splash you."

Kaito withdrew his hands while Sava poured; honey, a few spices, and a small pinch of tightly curled dried flower buds were added to the water in each mug. "A tisane?"

"My own making," Sava answered, wincing through his smile as he sat again. "So, my boys, let's talk about how I can help you."

"We...were hoping for guidance," Kaito said, curling his hands around his mug. "We don't know exactly how you'd provide it. But our father's journals - we haven't mentioned everything we've found in them to anyone, though our mother or Jii may have read them on their own, before we knew -"

Sava nodded, quietly listening. The brothers thought they could see a similarity between this old man, leathered by the sun and a comfortable oceanside life, and the pale, deliberate old men of Japan, with their matcha and voluminous clothing. Sava's features seemed to be outlined by the way age had drawn his skin away from them, his bold, angled bone structure proclaiming loudly his nation of origin. The old men of social hierarchy with which several of Kid and Kaito's false faces were well-acquainted tended to be more withdrawn in physiology, small round faces hiding sharp eyes and mouth within a network of crossing wrinkles and valleys. But it seemed that those men shared much with this new acquaintance in temperament; though Sava had been quiet to this point, Kid and Kaito didn't doubt that if he had been close friends with their father, he was capable of strength.

_Insert joke about setting up Kikoman-sama here, _Kid mentally snickered.

_Focus, _Kaito reminded him. Kid rolled his eyes.

_You seriously __are__ going to give us an ulcer._

"The teal door. Tousan mentioned it frequently. He wrote that the crystal teal Mediterranean was like the door, or the door like it. His tone tends to the melodramatic at times," Kid continued, smiling briefly, before catching himself in the slip - while Toichi's written voice was always present, accessible in the permanence of the literary present tense, the man himself was long gone. For the second time in five minutes, the brothers had to stop to steady themselves.

"Tousan has been gone and Kaasan has been idle," Kid continued, studying the sway of a flower petal in his mug, rolling with the hot current of his tea. "Jii-chan has focused more on vengeance than furthering what Tousan left unfinished - when he's moved to action on his own, which was only the once - when we discovered him, and ourselves besides."

"That leaves about ten years between Tousan's last information and where things are now," Kaito continued, looking up to meet Sava's eye boldly. "Tousan was based much more in Europe than Japan, and he spent much time here, if we're reading his little coded poems and references properly. We concluded that the teal door was a hub of information - for leaving information here and for picking up deliveries by other people.

"We believe that if anyone other than Tousan was aware of the _box_, and if they were of the same mind as he was about it, then they would have known or found out about the teal door, also," Kid pressed, excitement lighting his eyes as he leaned forward, gaze steady on Sava's. "That means that to catch up on the ten years that the Kaitou Kid has been out of the game, we only needed to go one place."

The brothers sat back in their chair, and Kid's excitement flickered over into Kaito's guarded cynicism as the magician lifted his mug to his lips, pressing its hot edge against his bottom lip while he waited through a quiet moment, allowing Sava to process what they'd declared so far.

"There's one more thing," he added finally, and the quirk of Sava's brow, amused and expectant, told him that he'd measured the situation properly. "We also knew that to share the information that the Kaitou Kid has collected in the last two years, we only needed to go one place to make sure it reached the right hands - and only the right hands."

Sava leaned forward in his chair, propped his elbows on the table, and propped his chin on his laced fingers over his mug. His smile was broad. "Very good, friends. You decided all of this from a few poems about our good mother Mediterranean?"

"We'll say yes," Kid smiled back, showing fangs. Sava laughed, a rich and satisfied sound, and nodded roundly.

"Then you are as clever as your father always told me you are. Come. I have stories to tell you."

* * *

It was a clear midmorning in Tokyo when Kid stepped off the airplane onto the jetbridge at Narita International, but disembarking was an anticlimactic process for the thief and his brother, who still could smell the Mediterranean sunshine on their skin.

With no checked luggage and only one small carry-on, the brothers scooted out of the secured area of the airport and breezed through baggage claim, heading for the curb where ground transportation and taxis waited to pick up freshly grounded travelers. But rather than hailing a cab, Kid pulled out his cell phone and switched it on. The contacts list was empty, of course, but the thief had a memorised collection of phone numbers at his command. Tapping one in, he found a pillar to lean nonchalantly against and listened to the line ring.

"Hello? Tantei? Are you busy? I could use a ride~"

* * *

On the other end of the connection, Shinichi swallowed down a lump composed of two parts exasperation, fifteen parts relief, and roughly a zillion parts of strangle-a-certain-thief-at-first-opportunity. Or something involving a firm grip and a definite lack of letting go, anyway; he'd figure that detail out when the chance came up.

Shinichi wiped sweat off his face with the tail of his t-shirt, plomping down onto the corner of a compost-bin; he had just carried an armload of cut branches and other garden debris to the refuse pile and right now a break to talk to his favorite uncaught felon sounded very good- that, and a chance to steady himself against the surge of _Oh thank God_ that had unexpectedly shaken him. "Kid. _KID. _Where the HELL have you been? And yeah, give me a few minutes, I'll get one of the staff to drive me." He stopped as a distant, familiar noise in the background registered. "Is that a plane? -which airport are you at?"

"Mmmm, yes," the thief drawled languidly, sounding utterly unconcerned, as though nothing at all could possibly be out of the ordinary. "Narita," he continued, doing an intentionally poor job at muffling a huge yawn.

"Ugh. I am SO jetlagged! Mmmmwhat time is it, Tantei? It feels like two AM..."

Brushing off dead leaves, Shinichi squinted at his watch; Agasa had replaced the strap with an adjustable one, and now it fit comfortably on his adult-sized wrist as a singular reminder of his smaller state. "A little after nine. Narita?" A yawning Kid gave him the gate information, and Shinichi cut the call short to catch one of the estate drivers before it got any later.

Nearly an hour after the call had come in, a nondescript dark car pulled up to the curb in the pickup zone for Terminal Two. From the back Shinichi craned his head, trying to spot a familiar figure (or an unfamiliar one with at least a fair-to-partly-cloudy chance of being the Kuroba brothers) waiting for a lift.

Sitting on the concrete at the base of their pillar, knees askew and head drooped down, Kaito and Kid were visible from Shinichi's angle as little more than a dark, unruly mop of hair and two denim-clad shins. One arm was braced across his knee, supporting his forehead; the other drooped limply at his side, fingers loosely curled around the handle of his bag.

The solution to Kid's strange posture was, while improbable, obvious. Shinichi blinked in surprise, tugging the car door handle hard enough that the door popped open. _He's asleep!_

For the thief to let his guard down _that_much in a place as full of unknowns as an airport, he had to be well and truly exhausted. "Keep your eyes open for anything unusual," he told the driver, frowning, "and yell if you see anybody approaching, okay?"

Tugging his hat down and blessing the forethought that had sent him dragging on an anonymous pair of workman's coveralls, Shinichi approached the brothers cautiously. "...Kid? Kaito?" He kept his voice low and his body just out of reach. Sleepers sometimes reacted violently to a sudden wake-up, and the last thing he wanted to do was get clocked in the jaw by a groggy boyfriend; it was going to be bad enough when Ran and Heiji found out what he'd gone off to do on his own. "Hey- it's me."

"Mnh," Kid mumbled, lifting his head halfway. "I'll have the brandy..."

His detective of choice smothered a snicker. "No brandy, but I've got a thermos of coffee in the car. C'mon, hotshot, let's get you home... or the current equivalent, anyway." 'Home' had come to have a very altered meaning as of late, but right now the Shiratori estate would do.

He slid the bag out of Kid's grasp, settling it over one shoulder and easing the groggy thief to his feet. Beneath the new sheen of sun on his skin, there were shadows under Kid's eyes and the slackness of exhaustion. "How long've you been traveling?"

"Mmm, just a weekend trip, thanks," the thief murmured. It appeared he still thought he was on the plane, speaking with another passenger, or perhaps the stewardess. Once Shinichi got one of Kid's arms over his shoulders, progress was easier; the car edged up the curb and Shinichi half-led, half-shoved his boyfriend into the back seat, circling around to climb in beside from the opposite side.

"Here. Coffee." Shinichi pressed the thermos into Kid's hands, letting his own linger on the other's warm skin. "Drink."

Kid did as he was told, eyes only half-open, shoulders molded to the car seat back, clearly the only thing keeping him vertical. A few sips later, his lids fluttered higher, wakefulness flickering into his eyes, and the thief tipped sideways against the seat, coming to a stop when his shoulder ran into Shinichi's. Nuzzling the detective's throat as he made himself comfortable, Kid cuddled his thermos close and sighed in the first breath of deep relaxation he'd felt in several days.

"Mmm. Home. London."

"No London, just home." Brushing Kid's thick hair back from his forehead, Shinichi ignored a snicker from the front seat; the driver, one of Shiratori's older staff that had been with his family for years, regarded the two through his mirror with amused eyes. "C'mon, coffee. Coooooffeeeeee. More. Don't hug it, _drink _it." It took some doing to disentangle the thermos from his boyfriend's grabby hands, but after that had been achieved Shinichi managed to get a little more into Kid by dint of badgering, poking him in the ribs, and generally being a persistent nuisance about it. By the time they were halfway back to the estate, the thermos was mostly empty, and Shinichi let it slide to the seat beside him with a sigh.

He tugged Kid's head onto his shoulder, turning just enough so that he could press his lips against soft hair; Kid smelled... different. _Like sweat, but kind of like the sea. Where on earth did he go? _"I've missed you," he murmured, and breathed the other's scent in deeply. "Ran has too. We were starting to get worried."

"Kind of you to say so, Tantei," Kid yawned, drowsy but much more coherent now. An hour of idle waiting at the curb had dragged him deep into the grip of exhaustion which had, of course, had no place during the continuing motion of global travel. But coffee and his Tantei's warm touch could do a lot to revive a thief, and this one snuggled closer, wrapping his arms around Shinichi's nearer one, and sighed.

"I appreciate your tact, but it'd be nicer if I knew exactly how much mortal danger I'll be in once Ran gets her cla-aaaw-awwwhhhhhs, ah, excuse me - into me."

A pause, while Kid succumbed to a second yawn. Then, philosophically: "Though, I guess any amount of mortal danger would be equally effective...unless someone invented degrees of deadness and didn't tell me."

Shinichi chuckled, tilting his head to touch his temple against Kid's. "Mmm, if you put 'Mildly Maimed' at one and 'Eaten By Sharks' at ten- err, sorry. Bad choice of references. But anyway, I'd say right now she's got you at somewhere around a four." A little grin quirked the corner of his mouth. "My tousan once told me that, when it comes to fighting with women, 'when in doubt, apologize _immediately._' So that's my advice. Even if you aren't sure what you're apologizing for, it'll keep her from defenestrating you and then feeling guilty about it later."

Another snicker from the front seat, though much muted; Shinichi's grin widened a trifle and he turned his face enough to kiss Kid's hair. "I won't ask what you've been up to, not until we get to more secure circumstances. But I hope it was worth your time." He settled himself against Kid a little more solidly, providing a buttress for the weary body to lean into. "We really did miss you. A lot. And a lot has happened since you left."

"It has," Kid murmured, leaning more heavily on Shinichi's shoulder. "A lot can happen in ten years, after all."

Shinichi's face would have been well worth a laugh from his thief, if he could have seen it; as it was, the sudden tenseness of Shinichi's shoulder told him all he needed to know.

"Oh, Tantei." Kid sighed, much of the tension leaving his body as he drifted happily closer toward sleep. "For once, I'm not enjoying confusing you as much as I'd hoped I would."

Fingers stroked his hair. "For once I'm not enjoying the confusion as much as usual," said Shinichi a little dryly. "Heiji'd probably call me a masochist- maybe I'm just getting used to being confused. Whatever." He shifted his shoulder so that they fit together more comfortably. "Are you awake enough to listen?"

"Mmm, perhaps," Kid purred, pressing his scalp into Shinichi's scritching. "Is it a sexy story?"

The detective half-laughed. "Not unless your tastes are even weirder than mine," he told him. "It's full of cranky policemen and an even crankier Haibara, plus drug-tests and a lot of creative bullshitting on Megure-keibu's part. Never knew he could be so good at dodging bullets, but I guess it comes with the territory." Shinichi glanced up at the passing buildings, judging how much time they had left in their drive. "Want to hear about it now or after you've dodged your _own _bullets? -you know, the Ran-shaped ones," he added helpfully.

"Everything's about shape with you," Kid murmured through a yawn, wincing as his jaw and something in his neck cracked. "I'll listen now, if you don't mind repeating yourself a little bit when I doze off..."

Shinichi laughed lightly, pushing Kid's hair back from his forehead, and tapped the thief's temple scoldingly. "Now now. You have to at least try to stay awake, okay? So, it started around the same time we realized that you'd disappeared. They've already nicknamed it - Division One, and some of the others. They're calling it..."

"...the cleanup.._"_

* * *

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_**Next week, Book Seven begins. The book's title is "Trading Queens" and we'll start off the book with chapter 7.1, "Storytelling".** _And now, we have a little surprise for you. Book Six has been rather dark, we admit, and Book Seven is likely to get even more so. Therefore, after you're done with reading tonight's chapter (6.23), you're invited to come back to this entry and read a light-hearted bit about a girl, a detective, and a Shovel Speech. But not the one that you'd expect...or that he did, either!

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**TT Omake - The Talk**  
**Part 1 of 2**  
(Colons indicate text messages. Literary quotes are taken from Morehei Ueshiba, founder of the current school of Akido.)

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Tomoya Kazuha stared down at her phone, bit her lip and hit the send button. She supposed she had to start somewhere, because Heiji sure as hell wasn't going to.

_:Heiji – want to meet at the fountain for lunch? That new pizza place finally opened.:_

_:Can't. Packing for Beika, leaving in 90 min:_

_:? _ Don't tell me, Kudo again. No, REALLY don't tell me, I already know.:_

_:Lay off, Kazuha:_

_:Not this time:_

_:O rly? Gonna block the trains or what? Kazuha I need to -go-.:_

_:Not stopping you, Heiji. Need to talk tho, will be at your place in an hour. If you leave before I get there I'll kick your ass.:_

* * *

Kazuha sat cross-legged on the end of Heiji's bed, watching her best friend and occasional target-in-need-of-a-good-headsmack pack his suitcase. Heiji owned three suitcases, she knew from innumerable shared trips in the past: a large, clunky black one with wheels for family travel, a midrange matching bag with a wonky handle that tended to stick, and an old canvas duffle that had once been used to carry kendo equipment before being replaced with something better. Overnight trips usually just had him stuffing a shirt and spare underwear in a backpack; anything more went in the other three.

This was a duffle trip. He'd already stuffed a week's worth of whites and five shirts inside, and now he was adding a second pair of sneakers. Two pairs of folded jeans and some green cargos sat on the end of the bed beside the most telling thing of all, a practice gi. And while she might not be some sort of big-headed detective freak, Toyama Kazuha _had_picked up a trick or two over the years...

Taking stuff with you for leisure was different than just taking clothes you planned to wear while you worked on a case. If Heiji was taking a gi along, he expected to have enough free time to practice, and that argued for the ahou being gone for more than just a few measly days. He wasn't taking his equipment or a bokken, but if he was planning on being some place with the facilities to allow practice then they probably had loaner bokken or at least shinai, and-

_Heiji. I wish you'd talk to me._

-and that meant he wasn't just visiting little Conan-kun this time. If he'd been going off to see family friends on his parents' orders he would've grouched and complained about it and she probably would've been invited along; if this'd been another effort to drag Heiji kicking and screaming into the ranks of the police department, he would've whined to her endlessly about it. So-

_We've always talked about almost __everything__, haven't we? Until you got mixed up with Kudo-kun; that's when you started keeping secrets. I really, really hate that, I... really do. But people change._

-he wasn't doing any of those things, which meant...

Kudo. Always Kudo.

_People change._

_ziiiiiip! _went one of the duffle's side compartments; Heiji stuffed a couple of wadded-up pairs of socks inside and yanked it shut before glancing half over one shoulder. "You just gonna sit there, 'Zuha? Not like you t'be so quiet."

She bristled. "Are you saying I'm a motormouth?" she demanded, but the automatic response didn't have her heart in it. It was just as well; Heiji snorted and flapped a brown hand in her direction. "Anyway, what'm I supposed to say? Not like _you_to be so quiet either." She propped her chin on her hands, flopping down across her portion of the bed. "Usually when you're off on a case it's nothing but yadda-yadda-yadda. What's so different about this one?" When her friend scowled and turned away to tug his phone-charger free of the wall, Kazuha sighed and let her head slide down until it was hidden in rumpled bedclothes. "Never mind, I know what it is."

A breath of momentary silence followed her exasperated grumble, and she tilted her head to look up at Heiji's startled face. "What?"

"...nothin'. You don't know a thing about nothin', Kazuha."

She rolled over, elbow digging into the canvas; a zipper scratched along her arm and she twisted a little, tucking her hands behind her head. "Oh yes I do. _Kudo_ again, just like I said on my text. He calls, you come running. Good Dog Heiji! Arf! Arf!" That last was enough to make him turn and stare at her, caught by the sarcastic tone in her words; Kazuha swallowed a little of her anger and tried to gentle her voice a bit. "It's just..." She sighed. "Sometimes I wonder what you'd do if _I_yelled for you in the middle of a case."

Hands still full of phone-charger, Heiji stared down at the girl he'd known since very nearly his earliest memory. "'Zuha?" he asked, black brows knitting. "What're you on about?"

She propped her chin on her hands again, dropping her gaze to the bedspread's pattern as if memorizing its every detail was vitally important. "Heiji? You remember back when I thought Ran-chan was Kudo-kun? And I got all pissy over you and told her to back off, and you thought it was funny? And laughed at me, because I thought Kudo was the 'other woman', sort of?"

"Uh-"

"It wasn't all that funny. Not really. 's not all that funny now, either."

"...?"

She kept her eyes on the bedspread. "And now you're running off to Kudo all over again and it-" Kazuha swallowed; she'd _practiced_this, dammit, worked it all out, and she WAS going to say it. "-it feels like he's being the Other Woman all over again. Only this time for real."

Heiji made a sort of strangled sound, somewhere between a gurgle of horror and what might have been laughter. "'Zuha, NO WAY is he- he- 'Zuha, you've got the wrong- oh for-"

"Heiji? Shut it, okay? Just listen." Kazuha took a deep breath, held it, let it out. _Just like Akido, just like a kata: keep to the form you established, redirect the force, follow the flow. Don't push headlong, just... let the words do the work._ " Ever since you got mixed up with Kudo-kun a couple of years ago you've been keeping secrets from me. Okay, I can understand that a little, I know he's on some big damn case that keeps him away and all, and Ran-chan's been happier lately so- I guess she's okay with it. But all he has to do is wiggle his little finger and you jump, and... Heiji. Heiji, people... sometimes they, y'know, start changing inside without knowing it... and things start getting important to them without them even knowing about it. They- No, Heiji, you **LISTEN **to me, dammit!"

He had made that sound again, only this time it had a lot more horror in it and the phone-charger was bouncing off the carpeted floor. Kazuha curled her legs up under her and sat abruptly upright, eyes blazing. "Heiji, you're gonna _sit the hell down_ and you're gonna _listen to me_if I have to staple your damn ears to the wall! Understand? RIGHT. NOW. Sit!" She pointed to the swivel chair that stood in front of the room's corner desk; dumbly, her best friend sank down and sat, scooping up the charger from the floor on the way and winding its wire around his fingers so tightly that they went pale under the pressure.

_Okay. Okay. First moves accomplished, step into your opponent's intent and take hold. _Pushing back the tremor that kept wanting to rise up in her voice, Kazuha knotted her own fingers together in her lap and went on, unhappily. "When you're with him on a case, nothing else exists. You've never had a friend like that, Heiji, not even me; and... I can't help but wonder if he's something more than a friend. Or you might want him to be more than a friend. I mean, it happens a lot these days, right? So... I wanted you to know that I'm, I'm..."

_Move with the force, don't let it overwhelm you. Don't let it win, you can do this._

"...I'm not happy with it. Really, really not. But. But I'm here for you. I'll always be here for you, you may be an ahou but you're MY ahou and even if you d-don't want me... like that, I won't just g-go away." Her hands ached with tension; if she twisted her fingers any tighter, Kazuha knew she'd break something and that would be _really_stupid. So she took another gulp of breath.

_And pull and lift, let the force pass you, put it over your shoulder, focus on where you want it to go-_

"So. So that's it. You go off with Kudo and think about this, okay? And when you come back... I'll be waiting. And we'll talk about this again." Kazuha raised her chin defiantly. "And so help me, if you try to avoid it, I will break your ARM, Heiji. You got that? Good." There were tears prickling somewhere behind her eyelids, but she pushed them back until they were hidden behind the smouldering anger of having to talk to Heiji about something like this at _all._That worked; no matter what her instructors said, sometimes anger was nearly as good as Akido.

But only sometimes.

Jaw set, Kazuha slid off the bed, dislodging the jeans onto the floor in the process and ignoring them. "Okay, I've said what I wanted to say. You got to get going or you'll miss your train." Heiji was still sitting hunched up in the chair, face nearly blank; she'd seen him look like that before, when his stupidly enormous brain was processing something so fast that his expressions just couldn't keep up. She felt her fingers twitch and balled up her hands; there was one more thing she wanted to do, if she only could manage to follow the last kata, the final pattern she'd worked out...

"Kazuha?"

"...yeah, Heiji?"

"You're wrong. Oh my **god**, so, _**so **_wrong." For a moment he cradled his head in his hands before looking back up at her, and his green eyes were strangely bright.

She hesitated, eyeing him from the doorway, judging his mood and her chances before stepping back inside and sliding the door just barely shut behind her. "Really."

"Yeah. Really."

_...and __**throw! **_Quickly, before she lost her nerve, Kazuha brought her hands to Heiji's shoulders, bent, and kissed him on the lips. It was soft and not at all hurried, nothing more than an unpracticed press of skin on skin... but it had all the effect that she had hoped for.

The charger fell to the floor again, rolling beneath the desk where Heiji would be sure to forget it. His eyes were shocked wide open, and he looked adorably stupid. "Prove it to me when you get back, then. Goodbye, Heiji."

She was out the door before he could say another word.

* * *

_:Heiji? You know I meant all that, right? I wasn't just trying to mess with your head.:_

:Kinda figured that out, yeah. Almost missed my goddamn train.:

_:Stupid. Run faster next time.: _

:Think I been running too much already.:

_:Rly? From me or from Kudo?: _

:Not funny, Kazuha. Not funny. E:

_:Don't you E at me or I really will kick your ass next time I see you.: _

_:Why the hell are all the girls I know so violent?:_

_:Why the hell are all the guys I know so stupid?:_

_:Self-defense.:_

_:My sensei'd say that a move that only stops one attack isn't much of a move.:_

_:He'd be right. Kazuha? When I get back, we'll talk, okay? I gotta clear some things first, but it's just one holy hell of a mess. Can't tell you more yet. But we'll talk. Okay?:_

_:...way to make a girl worry, Heiji.:_

_:Way to make a guy have a HEART ATTACK, Kazuha.:_

* * *

Kazuha moved.

_'If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, you can see right through them and avoid their attacks.  
__And once you envelop them, you will be able to guide them along the path indicated to you by heaven and earth.'_

_She wiped sweat from her upper lip, focusing on her movements in the mirror opposite. There wasn't enough space in her bedroom to do anything beyond stances and polishing her form, but it wasn't the same without an opponent anyway. As she angled her torso sideways to minimize her visible target area, she glanced at the phone lying on the bed nearby, waiting for it to blink, before swearing at herself mentally and pushing the impatience away. Impatience had no place in Akido._

_'If your opponent tries to pull you, let him pull. Don't pull against him; pull in unison with him.'_

_It was easier now; years of practice and the need to focus made her movements fluid, less tight and erratic as they had been when she began. Already Kazuha could feel the ache in her shoulders and neck easing, and if the knots weren't entirely gone yet then they would be eventually. Right now it was just reach and slow and retreat and advance, never stopping moving, never stopping flowing, never ending or beginning- _

_'When an opponent comes forward, move in and greet him; if he wants to pull back, send him on his way.'_

_Kazuha moved. On the bed, the phone's text-here light began to blink._

* * *

_:Just passed Nagoya stop. Wish I had time to grab dinner first.:_

_:You and your stomach. Heiji, I -know- your Okaa wouldn't send you off without something to snack on. Did you already eat it all?:_

_:She doesn't exactly know I'm on my way.:_

_:...:_

_:I left a note. Cmon, you know how they get.:_

_:You are in SO MUCH TROUBLE.:_

_:Kazuha it's not like I'm nine or anything. Hey look, all grown up, can tie my shoes and everything.:_

_:Yeah, til you trip over them. Still running, Heiji.:_

_:I'm not running away from anyone.:_

_:Not even from me? Right. What about your Oton? He keeps pushing, you keep pushing back. Might work in Kendo but not in real life, ahou.:_

_:We'll see. Got other things to think about, Kazuha.:_

_:Yeah. I know.:_

* * *

Heiji watched his reflection in the glass. There wasn't much else to see.

The Nozomi line ran from Hakata all the way to Tokyo; depending on which train you took, you could hit every stop if you really tried. His train, the 58, whirred to a two-minute halt at the main Kyoto station and then threw itself headlong through the night until it reached Nagoya. After that it was a straight shot on to Shin-Yokohama, less than twenty minutes outside the line's terminus.

Heiji's phone yammered at him; a glance at the screen showed an incoming call from his father's number, the third in the past hour. Like the other two, he ignored it until the ringer went silent. His mother's single call had been harder to ignore, but he had managed despite how guilt had gnawed beneath his ribs.

Lit stations zipped past: Toyohashi, barely more than an open platform; Kakegawa with its weird gold pyramids reflecting back as they streaked by, and Shizuoka with its vibrant neon... In the scant two-and-a-half hours that the trip took, Heiji felt his eyelids beginning to droop and his attention drifting. There weren't many people in his car, just a scattering of businessmen and tourists. He kept himself awake for a while by guessing their occupations based on dress, scuff-marks on sleeves, shoes and pantslegs, the way they held their newspapers and the visible contents of pockets and baggage. For a while, it was enough, but he wished he had Kudo along to-

Shit. I am so ripping you a new one, Kudo. What you've gotten yourself into this time, you and that pet lunatic of yours-

Atami station flickered past; Heiji caught a gleam of moving water from the hot spring next to the small terminal. A little distantly he realized that he had never tried it. He watched the glimmer fade into the darkness and it wasn't until the train began to slow for its stop at Shin-Yokohama that he realized his eyes had closed.

There was a tiny daa-da-DAAAAH! from his pocket as a text came in; Heiji fumbled the phone a little as he tugged it free.

* * *

_:Hey. Are you there yet?:_

_:You sound like a little kid. Are we there yet? Are we there yet?:_

_:Like Conan-kun?:_

_:Not exactly, no. And I still got about fifteen minutes. Hakase-han's picking me up.:_

_:Thought it'd be Kudo.:_

_:Lay OFF, Kazuha. I SAID we'd talk.:_

_:After you get back, right. I know what you said.:_

_:Look. I'm tired and I don't want to get into this, okay? It's late and I gotta spend the rest of the evening fending off the scary blonde in the labcoat.:_

_:Scary blonde? You mean Ai-chan? Heiji, she's just a little kid. And anyway, what lab coat? She has a lab coat? That's CUTE!:_

_:No it's not. Never mind. Hey, Kazuha? If Okaa and Oton decide to kick my ass out, you'll keep my stuff for me til I get back, right?:_

_:Maybe. I guess I would. You think they'd do that?:_

_:Oton might, he's gonna be really pissed. Okaa, probably not. Guess I should've talked to them, but shit, it turns into a huge argument every time I do lately and I figured I'd just skip it. And if you say 'running away' at me one more time I swear I'm done, over and out. I gotta go in a minute anyway.:_

_:Guess I won't, then, you did it yourself, didn't you?:_

_:Yeah, I did. Maybe I really am an ahou. -Station's coming up, I gotta go. Kazuha, you just- I'll see you later, okay?:_

_:You better.:_

_._

* * *

(To be continued after a future chapter)


	93. Storytelling

_Welcome to the first chapter of Book Seven, 'Trading Queens.' We begin with a chapter-long flashback to explain just what's been going on while Kid was off on his three-day journey across the wilds of the Mediterranean- interspersed, of course, by comments from the Peanut Gallery. This is a nice, chunky-sized chapter; we have sized our chapters down somewhat, but this one should be quite large enough to satisfy. Enjoy! (and please keep the omake ideas coming, hmm?)_... _The Management_

* * *

.

_**Book Seven, Chapter One**__**: "Storytelling"**_

Three days earlier:

_Later on, the officers and support staff of Division One would refer to what occurred over the next few days as 'the cleanup.'_

_True to his word, Megure began the operation by holding a brainstorming meeting among the small group that was privy to the Black Organization's existence. It was Chiba who expressed the biggest doubt about getting the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to comply with sudden surprise blood-testing; it'd be easier, he said with his usual casual bluntness, to persuade everybody to pee into a bottle instead of submit to a needle. That statement caused a really amazing array of expressions to flit across his supervisor's face (not to mention those of his fellow detectives) and the method of testing was discussed until Sato came up with an alternative: hair samples. A quick call to Haibara Ai turned Megure's countenance from extremely pained to relieved; not only could the diminutive pharmacist run her tests on hair as well as blood, but she much preferred it—the samples would be easier to preserve, gather, store and fit neatly into the already-established parameters of departmental drug-testing._

_Hair samples_ _also __showed up to three months' worth of chemical activity and might with any luck produce the Holy Grail of interrogation suspects: the recent recruit. As Takagi optimistically remarked, nobody was as ready to recant and sing like a bird as someone who still had lingering guilt about their betrayal; a new Organization mole would be a nice, shiny present for Division One to unwrap… and Sato, still burning with fury over her friend Yumi-chan's unwitting blackmail and addiction, was looking forward to the unwrapping with a bloody-minded intensity that made her partner wince._

_Miyamoto Yumi had received the news of her boyfriend's and his ward's deaths in silent bewilderment; Sato had spent quite a few hours with her, providing what comfort as she could. It wasn't much; Yumi's life had been chopped apart and there was no way of tying the two ends back together. She had been sequestered in a safehouse while the details were worked out, but she would most certainly be sent away very shortly with a new identity, and that would be that—the ending of her old life, as much as if an assassin's bullet had been the instrument._

_Just one more death to place at the Black Organization's door. And if they ever found her, then—well, the death would surely go from virtual to actual._

_It was necessary that other staff be involved to organize something as sweeping and widespread as hair-sampling for the entire uniformed force, their support staff and even the building maintenance, custodial and supply workers; how Megure did it was less of a mystery and more of a miracle and doubtless involved pulling not just strings but some major ropes. He spent a day with a harried, hunted look on his face, ducking in and out of small, hurried meetings and answering innumerable phone calls; but when it was done, every breathing soul in the building and quite a few outside it received an email requiring mandatory drug-testing by hair-sample with an appointment time attached. It was all according to bothersome but necessary changes in departmental regulations and health-codes being pioneered in Tokyo, according to the grapevine; of course, it helped that Division One had been very deliberate in planting those particular grapes._

_There were complaints; and Division One monitored them. There were reschedulings; they watched those too. Shiratori was put in charge of this task, and before the first set of samples were couriered to Ai's makeshift lab he had a preliminary list of names to research. Some of them were rather surprising, to say the least; of course, the majority of the reschedulings were likely innocent, but there were a few…_

_Two days earlier:_

_"Really?" said Chiba a day after the sampling had begun, raising an eyebrow as he and the senior detective read over the list. "Mifune in Violent Crimes? He's such a straight-and-narrow type I don't think he's ever even had a parking-ticket." Chiba was taking a brief break from his duties of Chirokawa-sitting; he'd be heading back shortly, but had stopped in to be kept up to date on developments._

_"And Norasake-san in the snack-bar?" Takagi frowned, scanning the list; he blinked at one name, looking up involuntarily at Shiratori himself, who reddened._

_"I had a dentist appointment," he said defensively. "And I rescheduled __immediately__." Chiba let out a snort of laughter, but Megure shook his head in remonstrance._

_"Let's not go overboard," the senior officer said heavily; he looked tired—Megure always looked tired these days. "The majority of these will be false alarms, you all know that. In fact," (he squinted at the list) "if I had to pick out the most high-risk names, they'd be… hrrm…" He thought for a few moments and then named three names, tapping them with a blunt finger._

_Chiba blinked at the list. "Two guys from maintenance and one from Traffic Control? Why?"_

_"Mobility." Megure took a long swallow of his coffee, ignoring the fact that it had gone cold twenty minutes ago. "The most valuable asset a double agent could have would be the ability to move around, go wherever they need to-" He poked the list again. "-and then leave."_

_The others at the table pondered this. "They wouldn't be able to gather much useful information, though," pointed out Sato, scanning through the list with a frown. "The most useful people'd be in Violent Crimes and Drug Enforcement-"_

_"-and in Records," put in Chiba. The others looked at him. "What? You ever had anybody in records annoyed at you? Takes three times as long to get the files you need, and sometimes they're just not there 'til after you've used your second-best leads. You_

_don'twant to pi- err, get a Records clerk mad. And they've got access to everything, right?"_

_Megure drank the last of his cold coffee, grimacing at the taste. "Mhrm. Good point. Ran-chan said much the same, actually. Speaking of which, are the first set of samples ready to go? I'll be delivering them myself." Obligingly Sato held up a locked case of the sort used to transport medical supplies. "Excellent. Sato-san, Takagi-kun? I'd like you both to come along, please." They looked at each other, surprised, but rose together as their superior officer stood._

* * *

"That was how it started," explained Shinichi quietly as traffic-sounds blurred into white noise behind his words. "You see what I mean about Megure-keibu and the bullshitting? The strings he had to pull..." He rested his chin on top of Kid's head; the thief had curled against him, but Shinichi could tell that he was both still awake and still listening.

"Megure-keibu may not like it, but he'll have to become accustomed to doing a lot more of that in the future," Kid mused. "The Light needs a string-puller or two, since the Black certainly has their fair share of marionette..eers? Marioneters?" The thief huffed, momentarily linguistically deadlocked, and Shinichi snickered. "Marionettes and their manipulators. There. Anyway, Tantei, I'm pleased that Megure-keibu is rising to the challenge."

"Challenge?" Kid could hear the raised eyebrow in Shinichi's voice. "Of course he is, he's a very skilled keibu and definitely worthy of his officers' trust."

Kid chuckled. "Not that challenge. The challenge of becoming...less than legal. And holding to his moral compass while he does so.

"It's not something everyone is capable of, but I hope he continues to do well with it."

Unseen above his thief's head, Shinichi turned the verbal raised eyebrow into a literal one. "Sometimes 'less than legal' is pretty much the same as 'making yourself look hard at something so other people don't have to.' Or at least not yet. And anyway, he's a bureaucrat as well as a cop; he's probably had plenty of practice-"

"Perhaaaaps," Kid allowed grudgingly, grinning.

"-and his moral compass is rock-solid; that's one thing I've never had any reason to doubt."

They merged onto one of Tokyo's huge multilane highways; late-morning trucks all around them blocked out the sun, and Shinichi closed his eyes in the momentary dimness as he continued speaking. "Next, they headed to Shiratori's place with the samples, and that's when things got kind of tricky." He frowned, eyes still closed; sunlight flickered back across his eyelids and Shinichi tightened them against the brightness. "I only heard about this part second-hand from Agasa- he was in the next room- so don't mention it to Haibara, okay? Seems like Megure had a plan or two he wanted to put in place..."

* * *

_In the makeshift lab at the Shiratori estate, Haibara Ai was smiling. This was more than a little unnerving._

_"Excellent," she said, fingertips ticking through the labeled envelopes one after another. "Much better than blood samples; I should be able to process these in a fairly short time." She seemed pleased in her quiet, clinical way, and as Megure watched she slid off the tall lab-stool, small plastic-bagged feet pattering onto the floor. Megure's feet were similarly bagged and he had been supplied with sterile gloves; he nodded shortly._

_"Good; ah, thank you." Obviously ill-at-ease with the diminutive scientist, the head of Division One kept his hands clasped over his stomach so as not to touch anything delicate, dangerous or unidentifiable. "We should have the next batch ready for you on a daily basis; Shigure-kun will bring them out."_

_"Excellent. I'd like weekly hair or blood samples from each of your team as well," said Ai from where she had busied herself at a counter. At Megure's startled look of inquiry, she raised an eyebrow. "Or hasn't it occurred to you yet that the simplest way of ridding themselves of immediate discovery would be for the Organization to eliminate your team as well? You all drink coffee or sodas; how hard would it be to add a powdered form of the addictive drug to the coffee-grounds, or to contaminate a load of sodas when the machines are refilled?"_

_The officer went white._

_Labeling sample envelopes of hair, Ai went on in her calm, clinical way. "And then, when you each began to show signs of paranoia and tried to alert other authorities, doubtless it would all be put down to environmental factors— pesticides in the water, something you had been exposed to at a crime scene, perhaps even a new disease… and of course, there would be victims outside your department. That would only serve to destroy any validity regarding your claims. You've even laid the groundwork with your hair-sample request, you know; carefully-planted rumors would ensure that the situations were linked." Small fingers clipped each envelope to a file, stacking them neatly to one side. "And I can promise you, Megure-keibu, that the Organization would make certain that there would __be contaminants or pathogens to be found when Health Services stepped in to quarantine Tokyo Metro. The Organization is very good at presenting plausible cause." She slipped off her stool, opening a drawer and sliding the files into place. "It would be a terrible tragedy," she added thoughtfully. "So many officers losing their reason; I'm sure you'd receive the best of care."_

_Aghast, the head of Division One sank down onto a lab stool. "Twice per week, perhaps? Just to be on the safe side?" he said after a moment in a shaken voice._

_"That would be advisable, yes. And I'd take great care as to what you eat or drink, Keibu."_

_"I- yes." He watched her work, wondering uneasily how it must feel to be shoved down into such a compact shape and size. Megure Juzo was not a large man, aside from his heavyset build; but the thought of being squeezed into the form of a child made him feel queasy. The entire concept of having one's physicality tampered with to that extent disturbed him, and the vivid memories of Kudo Shinichi's own transformation didn't precisely help. He shifted on the stool, wondering how exactly to ask the question that had brought him to deliver the samples himself._

_Therefore it did not help that, having filed away the hair-samples, the not-child who called herself Haibara Ai climbed nimbly back up on her own stool, crossed her arms, and met the officer look for look. "It's generally considered rude to stare," she informed him in a flat, uncompromising tone. "But do go ahead; I'm sure you have your reasons."_

_His first impulse was to apologize; Megure stifled the urge and nodded shortly. "Ahh… yes, well. Haibara-san, I have certain questions to ask you regarding follow-up on the samples."_

_Her small face did not smile, but one corner of the scientist's mouth twitched. "'Follow-up'—I did wonder if anyone had considered just what to do with the fish you succeed in netting. It's all very well to devise plans to catch low-level agents, but afterwards…?" She tilted her head slightly. "I expect you have come up with several options, at least? And one or more requires my cooperation? -oh please, Megure-keibu, it's not exactly a stroke of genius on my part; why else would you come to see me?" Haibara's chin raised slightly; there was an ironic little smile on her face that would never have graced that of a gradeschooler. "Well?"_

_The cool, blue-gray stare rattled him just a little, Megure admitted to himself privately. But he wasn't a novice at the game of intimidation, and he refused to play. "I expect," he said carefully, "that our first sweep will net us very few 'fish', and only small ones at that; I have scant hopes of actually catching anyone of note… but even the little fish swim with the larger schools."_

_An eyebrow raised. "You expect to glean enough from your 'fish' in leads to capture bigger prey?" asked the former agent, not bothering to hide her skepticism._

_"Actually, yes. The more information we have, the greater chance there is that we'll get a breakthrough—a location, a common contact, perhaps even the chance to capture someone who can give us more information regarding the Organization's goals and intents." Megure rested his palms on his knees, fighting back an urge to wipe them; they were sweating. This next bit had to be done right. "And that's where you come in."_

_Haibara Ai's withdrawal was palpable. "I would say that I've done quite enough, don't you?"_

_"No. I would not."_

_The stark denial made her eyes widen. After considering this for a moment, Haibara slid her slight form down from the stool and approached Megure. Standing before him, arms wrapped around her thin shoulders, she looked very much the child he had for so long considered her to be: helpless and very much in need of protection. "And why is that?" Her voice was very quiet._

_Instinct rose up—she looked so __small__, so—breakable. How could he ask her to-? Megure stared down into wide eyes, mind churning. After a moment, though, the reason for her confronting him in this fashion struck the head of Division One and he had to hold back an astonished snort of near-laughter—it took a high level of pure steel-gonad panache to use one's own personal weakness as a defense. She had __counted __on his viewing her that way._

_And so he ignored it utterly and spoke to her as he would to another adult, flatly and without cajoling or condescension. "Because as I understand it, Haibara-__san, __you are responsible at least in part for the creation of the loyalty drugs. Am I correct?" Her eyes narrowed but she did not respond. "I'll take that as a yes, shall I? Kudo-kun has played his part in the interrogation of the first agent we found, the would-be assassin—"_

_"Not a would-be; he wouldn't have been sent out on a mission like that without having proved his worth," she interrupted him, and then clamped down, expression stony._

_"As you say. But the thing is, you see, we don't know what to look for or what to ask; our knowledge is too—" (he waved his hands) "—too generalized. You, on the other hand, do… as your comment just proved. We need your help in interrogating our 'catch', Haibara-san." She began to speak and he shook his head. "You won't be face to face; we'll provide you with a secure one-way mirrored room and a vodor, or possibly we can simply use that voice-changing device of Kudo-kun's. Either way, no-one will see your face or hear your actual voice; your security will be intact."_

_Hard-eyed, all pretense of childishness gone, Haibara glared up at Megure. "No."_

_He glared back. "Haibara-san, please do not make me push this issue. I __will __do so if necessary." Megure took a deep breath. "I can understand your desire to remain in this sanctuary of yours, but—"_

_"You understand_ _**nothing**__, stomping in here, in the only safe place left to me and demanding that I—"_

"Have I demanded anythi_ng?" Black eyes stared flatly into blue-gray. "No, I haven't. Not yet. But MY fellow officers are, as you explained so clearly, IN DANGER. And I refuse to exclude you from responsibility simply because of your disability! If you were blind, Haibara-san, I would require that you do this; if you were crippled I'd ask the same thing. You and Kudo-kun have made it perfectly plain:_ _**we do not have the luxury of mercy."**__ He shook his head. "Not even for ourselves. With all the will in the world, we simply do not know what questions to ask— or how to recognize a useful answer for that matter. Now, __will__you take responsibility for your actions and help me?" Deliberately Megure let his voice drop. "Because I have no one else I can ask. You are, so far as we know, the Organization's sole successful defector. Who else can we turn to?"_

_Haibara was silent. "…no-one," she said at last, and the weary fatality in her voice was unmistakable. "No-one at all."_

_She turned away from him, pacing to the other end of the lab and vanishing behind the tall counter, all but the very top of her head. There was the sound of a drawer being slid open, and for a moment Megure wondered what on earth he would do if she returned with a gun in those childish little hands. But all she had in them was a notepad and pen when she came back around the other end, reaching up and putting them on the counter before she climbed back up onto her stool. "So, then. If that's how it's to be, let us begin by formulating a list of questions." She smiled thinly at the look of surprise in his face. "Megure-keibu, if I have to do this, I will—but I'll do it my way. You understand?"_

_He did. The alternative to helplessness was control, and Haibara Ai had learned to grasp it wherever and however she could. He could only admire that._

_"Good. To begin, I believe we should start with—"_

* * *

"The _soda machine?_" Kid chortled, pushing himself up from Shinichi's shoulder. "Oh, chibi-tensai can be so deliciously sadistic sometimes. That was quite a masterfully sly-ah, um, slyiiight to do to poor Megure-keibu, I, ah, heartily dis...approve. Ahm." The thief coughed lightly, visibly working to keep his grin from faltering under his boyfriend's disapproving glare.

Shinichi harummphed, relaxing against the seatback once more, eyeing his thief sidelong. "_As_you were saying?"

"Ahm." Kid grinned, relaxing, and continued. "While Chibi-tensai's methods are, of course, deplorably overdramatic, I, ah, can't disagee with the unfortunate plausibility of her dangerously non-fanciful suggestion."

Shinichi blinked calmly. "Plain Japanese, please?"

Kid's deadpan was, as to be expected, flawless. "Don't drink the soda."

"Or the cafeteria tea, or food, or the chips from the vending machine, or-"

"Of course, all of that _might _just be perfectly fine...there's no way to know what has, or might be, or won't be, contaminated. Or whether it'll be the donuts in the breakroom. -Do they actually do that?" Kid asked, suddenly perky. "Eat donuts like the American cops do?"

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "I don't know what fallacy to approach first," he said. "So, yes. Could totally be fine - or, it might not be. And that's only the food - we're completely ignoring the rest of what Agasa said Megure and Ai talked about. Chibi-tensai, police interrogator?"

The thief cocked a brow to match Shinichi's. "Feel like packing a bento for your favorite officer?"

"For relief from the food or from Ai?"

Kid grinned.

"...yeah," Shinichi agreed. "I don't know which one's scarier, either." He thought for a moment. "Though I have to admit, having Ai work more closely with the police during the interrogations isn't just a good idea, it's it's a _damn_good idea; she's got a vested interest in getting this right."

Sitting up a little straighter in the seat as well, Shinichi glanced out the window and posited their location again; they still had a little time left. "This next bit I got second-hand as well. It was while Megure-keibu was talking with Haibara; Sato and Takagi came looking for me, but first they found Ran and Hattori..."

* * *

_Sato glanced over her shoulder as Megure closed the door to the makeshift lab behind him. "I wonder what he wants to talk to Ai-ch—Haibara-san, I mean—about?"_

_Her partner gave her a hangdog look. "We'll hear sooner or later, I suppose, probably with a lot of grumbling. Where did she say Kudo-kun and the others were?"_

_'Where' turned out to be in a largish room that had sometime in the past been turned into a sort of miniature dojo. It still bore the marks of shelf-brackets on its walls and had obviously once been used for storage, but the high southerly windows let in plenty of light and the floor was unvarnished wood, scuffed and worn smooth with long use. Heavy mats were folded in one corner, a broom and some messily-broken lengths of board propped against them; other than this and a few practice pells, the room was totally bare of furniture or ornamentation save for a few age-splotched mirrors on the far wall._

"_**Kiiiiiiyaah!"**_

It was not, however, unused. A small _kamidana__ was fixed high on the wall nearest the door; there was no dust on the shrine's mirror and the offerings there were fresh. At another time, Sato's inquisitive mind would have wondered if any of the Shiratori staff practiced there or if the room was simply kept up in honor of tradition… but just then, she was occupied with other concerns. For instance—_

Oh... _Sato blinked._

_"HeeeeeiiiiiiiAAAH!"_

_**WHAM!**_

_A padded pell went flying several meters to thump into a wall. Breathing hard, Mouri Ran brought her hands together and allowed her body to grow still. For a moment she stood motionless; then she bowed to an imaginary opponent and went to move the pell back into place. The air smelled of sweat, dust and sun-warmed wood._

_"Impressive, ain't she?"_

_Hattori Heiji sat crosslegged below the kamidana, wearing a somewhat decrepit white gi and loose sweatpants. His socked feet were dusty; perspiration sheened his throat as he tilted a water bottle up to drink without waiting for an answer. Draining it, he screwed the cap back on and leaned back against the wall, wiping his face with a damp towel. A shinai lay on the floor beside him, along with a pair of gloves that had seen heavy use and looked just a little too large for the young detective's hands. "You ever watched her practice before?"_

_"No, but we've seen her in action a few times," answered Takagi for them both, eyes on Ran. They widened as she lit into the pell again with a precise set of kicks and blows, punctuated by dusty thumps. Intent on her routine, Ran hadn't even looked up or seemed to notice the two officers' entrance. "What dan is she?"_

_"Not sure. Pretty high, though." Heiji scrubbed at his hair with the towel, making it stand on end. "I know Neechan took th' championship at her school before she graduated. You ever seen that multi-punch thing she can do? Bam-bam-bam, right in the ribs." He grinned up at them both. "Me, though, I like Kendo better. Either've you ever done any martial arts?" Sato opened her mouth to answer but Ran's pell smacked into the wall again, shivering dust down from the rafters overhead. She frowned instead, paying attention to the younger woman's face._

_"...she looks upset. What's wrong? Is Kudo-kun alright?"_

_"Huh? Oh. Yeah, he's fine, off thinking. She's just worried- 'bout their, ah, friend, you know?" A slightly sheepish expression on his face, Heiji shrugged. "Guy's been gone a couple days, he took off after that mess with the two cops that got killed." He swiped at a bead of sweat that was making its way down his cheek towards his gi's collar; one thick black brow arched above a green eye as he glanced back up at the two officers. "You might wanna talk t'Kudo 'bout that, actually; he's got a couple've ideas to run across you. C'mon; pretty sure I know where he is." Climbing to his feet, the Detective of the West stepped out of the dojo, sliding on a pair of sandals and leaving behind the engrossed young woman to continue her practice alone._

_Sato glanced over her shoulder as they left._

_Good luck, Ran-chan; maybe I should try your method. I could use a little stress-relief._

* * *

"I know, I know, you'd only been away two days. It was just-" Shinichi hesitated, and Kid made a happy, anticipatory little purring noise that let the detective know exactly how much teasing he was about to be subjected to. Shinichi continued, undaunted.

"When you're around, I knowit, right? However that works; we established that. And when you're not, I know that. And you just... felt..." He flushed a little. "...distant. Really distant, a long ways away." Talking about something so illogical made Shinichi twitchy, and he picked at a thread on his worn workman's coverall. But Kid curled one palm over Shinichi's hand, and when the detective looked up, a little flushed, Kid met his lips with a brief, silent kiss.

"Montenegro," the thief whispered, hovering millimeters away. His detective opened his mouth, startled and already formulating words, and Kid kissed him again, briefly, to stifle the urge. Shinichi realized, and took a moment to collect himself.

"...Right. So, um. Having to pick you up from the airport wasn't so much've a surprise as it might have been. Thing is, though, Ran asked and I was stupid and _told_her that, and we were both just- worried." He sighed, riffling a hand through his hair. "Like I said, stupid."

"Yup." Kid smiled, twirling the single unruly lock of Shinichi's hair around his finger. "The kind of stupid I like."

The detective beside him half-heartedly swatted at the finger, then let his hand fall and leaned into the touch instead. "Well, if you like stupid you ought to love this next bit," he muttered. "Part of it's fine- I think I've figured out something that may be key in at least someof where we go next- but the rest isn't very... that is, it's not... ah, hell." He slumped against Kid.

"I like to think that justice is more important than revenge. It is, isn't it?" Shinichi snorted. "We're supposed to learn that sort of thing when we grow up, right? And I've always gone after justice, not vengeance, or I've tried to." His voice had grown serious, a little halting, and the detective turned his head to stare out the window for a moment before continuing. "Justice isn't supposed to be personal; that's why she's shown as blindfolded, she's supposed to be impartial. So it was kind of a shock when I realized it _had become personal_as soon as I found out about Kaa-san... but..." Shinichi took a deep breath, leaning against his lover's warmth gratefully.

"Let me tell you what I figured out first."

* * *

_Heiji led them across the grounds past a sizeable ornamental koi-pond, a kitchengarden hidden from view by coppiced persimmon trees against a stone wall and a set of maintenance buildings. Sato sniffed; the distinctive scent of burned wood hung in the air. "What's that smell from?"_

_"Lightning. Took down a tree a few days ago 'round the corner. You know, in that storm we had the other night?" For some reason the mention of the storm put a little grin on the Osakajin's face, but sure enough, a lightning-blasted pile of cut branches surrounded a freshly chopped stump not too far away. And sitting on the stump, a scorched pinecone in his hands, was Kudo Shinichi._

_"You're gonna get sap on your ass," warned Heiji, kicking at one of the many charred chunks of wood that littered the ground. "You do that and Neechan'll be after it."_

_Shinichi gave his friend a Look. "The sap?"_

_"No, yer __ass__, and looks like __you're __the sap here, Kudo. Anyway, it's not like she ain't after it alre-" Laughing, Heiji ducked the pinecone that was aimed at his head; it bounced off a shoulder, and Sato suppressed a smile._

It was kind of nice, actually, seeing them act like teenagers for a change. Considering what they'd been dealing with for so long, it was amazing that they still _**could **__laugh and act the fool; but that was the resiliency of youth for you, and it wasn't like Sato was all THAT much older than any of them, was it? And so it was with an impish little hint of a smile that she said, "Kudo-kun, if Mouri-chan were to come after you right now I'd advise you to run. We just saw her, and she's looking very... formidable."_

_The detective cocked his head to one side. "Still practicing?"_

_Takagi nodded, toeing the pinecone, which had rolled to his feet after bouncing off Heiji. "Smacking things into walls. Does she always do this when she's worried?"_

_Shinichi gave a kind of half-shrug; he appeared to be thinner than he had the last time they had seen him, his clothes bagging on him a little. "Not always, but I wish she did. It's better for her than working herself up into a state is, and she'll feel calmer afterwards." He glanced at Heiji, who was examining the blasted tree's branches. "Was she still breaking boards?"_

_"Nahh, she'd gone back to beating up on the pells. You oughta try it, Kudo; might stop __you __from worryin' so much."_

_Shinichi made a bony fist and examined it, wry humor quirking up one side of his mouth. "Or I might break somethingother than boards or cement blocks. I'm not sick," he assured Sato and her partner after noticing their anxious looks. "It's just- I wear out kind of fast, that's all. I, ah, had a... small setback the other evening, though I'm better now."_

_"'Small'; I'll say," muttered Heiji beneath his breath. Shinichi gave him a mock-glare, and Sato resolved privately to ask Ran what had happened first chance she got. "Anyway- Kudo, tell 'em. This oughta be good."_

_Shinichi sighed. "Let's find a better place to talk." He stood, stretched, and took them along the path a little further to a small stylized pine-grove against the estate's far wall, somewhat overgrown but with obvious recent clearing in process; a scattering of tastefully placed stones centered an open area with a small gardening-shed just beyond it; they took seats on the stones and settled in to listen._

_"I've been thinking," began Shinichi, his thin face intent, "about the two factions." Sato and Takagi traded glances; Megure had brought them all up to speed on Heiji's theory of two opposing (or at least unallied) groups several days earlier. "And I've concluded that at least one of the factions has to be under the control of or at least deeply involved with one of the agents who I've described to you before: Vermouth."_

_Mention of the blonde made Sato's lips tighten; she had, she knew, met Vermouth in the guise of Araide Tomoaki, a doctor from Teitan High; she hadn't known it at the time, of course, but the FBI's information regarding the woman they called the 'Rotten Apple' had been enlightening. "Why is that, Kudo-kun?" she asked._

_He began to tick off points on his fingers, as much a characteristic gesture of his as Hattori's tendency to turn his hat around. "First, she knows about me- who I am, I mean, as Conan; and she hasn't informed the two agents who presumably were responsible for my 'death' at Tropical Land, or they'd have come after me. That tells me that the two other agents, Gin and Vodka, are most likely part of the other faction. Second, I've learned recently that she was almost certainly responsible for..." Shinichi hesitated. "...for chemically modifying at least one and possibly more children very early in their development some years ago. __Very__ early. Why? No idea, unless she wanted them as guinea-pigs later on; I'm assuming she has some ulterior motive. And since I'm still alive and free despite the fact that she __could __have taken me prisoner fairly easily, I'm assuming that's to her benefit somehow, but it does link her to the kidnapping cases to a certain extent." Shinichi frowned, staring across the clearing at a particularly twisted and ancient tree in the corner of the grove. "I realize that this is pretty flimsy; it's just supposition, but there's pretty good evidence that she's had some sort of alteration done on herself- something that affects her appearance, makes her look younger than she is. And," Shinichi hesitated again, a shadow passing over his face, "it's possible that she's- experimented on at least one other person with similar drugs."_

_"One other person... another agent?" Takagi asked, brows furrowed._

_"__**No**__," said Shinichi, so emphatically that the word rang in the clearing like a shout. "I- sorry. Just... no. Not an agent. An innocent bystander, somebody who once thought of Vermouth as a friend." On his rock, Heiji watched him in silence, his somewhat set expression hiding something very much like a growl. "That being said," continued Shinichi remorselessly, "when we begin interrogating the agents you capture through the hair-tests, and I'm dead certain there'll be a few, we're going to have to try to sort them out as to which faction they work for."_

_"Hmm; let's catch them first," said Sato doubtfully, kicking at a clump of grass. "I'm not exactly looking forward to that part."_

_Heiji blinked. "Why not? I figured after Miyamoto-san you'd be all fired up to weed out the bad apples."_

_"Yes, but-" Sato bit her lip; from his seat beside her, Takagi touched her elbow reassuringly; they had already talked about this. "Hattori-san, you have to understand: I've known Yumi-chan, Miyamoto-san, for years. And to find out that she'd been dragged into this, even for the best of reasons... How many more of the people I've worked with and respected, my __friends__- are going to turn out to be enemies?"_

_How many more of them will I lose? she wondered._

_Green eyes met hers levelly. "And how many of 'em are gonna turn out to be on their way to an asylum or an early grave without even knowin' it? At least this way that won't happen; Miyamoto-san, she didn't dive into her mess, she got dragged under. If anybody else's in the same fix, this'll help save them. They won't end up lights-on-nobody-home like that assassin did."_

_Shinichi nodded. "He's right; at least this way, they'll have a chance. Even the ones who're voluntary-" His lips thinned. "-and I hope we find a few- even they'll have a better chance than they would have otherwise." He was silent for a moment. "How is the prisoner doing, by the way? Any improvements?"_

_Takagi shook his head. "Worse, if anything; the motor centers in his brain seem to be breaking down, from what I heard. He's not too far from turning into a vegetable." He sighed. "I never thought I'd feel sorry for someone like that, but… there's not much left of him. I doubt he'll live much longer if the degeneration reaches the parts of his brain that govern autonomous functions—breathing, that sort of thing."_

_The young detective's face tightened. "You have film footage of his progress? Keep a copy near when you're discussing terms with any actual agents you discover; it might help if they see it."_

_Heiji stirred at this, frowning. "Oi, Kudo, they can't use that as a threat— they're the Good Guys. W__e're __the Good Guys-"_

_The flat stare he got back held agreement but nothing much in the way of compromise. "Yeah, we are. And they're not, remember? These are the people who're responsible for the deaths of two innocent men as well as two of their own, three if you count the other shooter from the heist a few weeks ago. They're the people who'd kill any one of us to protect themselves, kill your family, your friends and anyone else who might know about them. Don't forget that, Heiji."_

_"I haven't!" protested the Osakajin heatedly. "But Kudo, dammit, you can't start acting __like __them." The flare of temper was mixed with concern; like Ran, Heiji had his worries too, and they were centered around someone other than a missing thief who could in all probability take care of himself quite well._

_Shinichi shook his head. "Who said I wanted to? Who even said we ought to threaten them? I'd just make sure they saw the footage, that's all." His voice held something of the brittleness that had surfaced during his own interrogation of the now-failing prisoner, and with the memory of that looming large in his mind, Heiji visibly flinched._

_"Yeah? Intimidation ain't too far from a threat, Kudo. Don't __you forget that."_

_Still watching his friend, Shinichi hiked one rather bony shoulder in a shrug. "I haven't and I won't. But Hattori? What would you do if these guys came after Kazuha? Or you two—what if the Organization decided that you both knew too much to live? What if they decided that your families as well were too much of a risk to leave alive?"_

_Heiji ran one large brown hand through his hair distractedly; still sweat-damp, it stood on end. "What if, what if, what if! Kudoooo…"_

_"Fine, fine." Shinichi sighed, his eyes dropping to his hands; absently he wiped away a smear of charcoal from the burned pinecone and then laced knobby fingers together. When he spoke again, his voice was low. "I'm sorry. I just—it's hard for me to—feel anything like mercy in this situation. I think about what they did to me, and to… other people I know, and I—" He stopped, taking a deep breath. "For me, it's always been about justice; but now, it's starting to tip over and wants to be about payback. And that's a problem."_

_The clearing was very quiet following this admission. Sato studied Shinichi for a long moment; the thin young man in the baggy clothes studied his clasped hands. "Kudo-kun," she said gently, "when an officer gets too personally involved with a case and their judgement begins to- slip-" She hesitated. "There's procedure for the situation. Generally they're pulled off that case and either placed on administrative leave or on a different case. Time tends to help; time and... distance."_

_"I don't have that luxury," Shinichi said softly. "And even if I did, I couldn't. Wouldn't."_

_"I know."_

_Takagi nodded to himself as if Shinichi had confirmed something he had suspected. "There's a third option," he said, and glanced at Heiji. "Sometimes we assign a fellow officer to act as their advisor, their reminder, their..."_

_"...their conscience," finished Shinichi. He gave a little laugh; it was oddly loud in the clearing, and Sato's heart wrenched at the sound. "I guess it's pretty obvious which option I need to go with." He looked up, meeting Heiji's steady gaze with his own. "Hattori? Feel like babysitting a-"_

_Heiji cut him off, not allowing him to finish the sentence. "Kudo? Shaddup, okay? You need me, I'm there. But, y'know, I kind of doubt you will." He gave his characteristic lazy slant of a grin, the one that said that everything was covered, the case was solved, the deed was done. "Seems to me that knowing the problem's enough t'solve it."_

_Shinichi's eyes dropped back to his clenched hands. "Is it?"_

_Heiji snorted. "KUDO. __Stop__ bein' a __god__damn idiot._ _If th'person with the problem was me, would it be enough for you?"_

_Silence again; a light breeze rippled the trees around them, sending their shadows dancing across the grass. "Yeah," he said quietly. "It would."_

_"Then that should be enough for __us__." Sato nodded just as her partner had. "Sometimes that's all it takes with a fellow officer, too. Procedure's procedure because it __**works**__, Kudo-kun."_

_And it would be enough, she was sure. It would be._

* * *

"Soo, that's my half of the story," Shinichi finished, prodding Kid's shoulder to make sure the thief was still awake. "**I**want to know what the Mediterranean is like at this time of year."

"Ooh, planning our honeymoon? So soon? Tantei~!" The thief's voice managed to be lazy and gleefully troublesome all at once. "Well, Crete is lovely, but what about Bourges?" Kid countered, pronouncing the round French vowels flawlessly. "Or perhaps Capri? We could get some fresh mozzerella. Sevastopol? I hear the Black Sea Navy is a chilling sight. Crimean _shorpo_to warm ourselves up - you've never eaten lamb leg before, have you? How romantic..."

The detective swallowed; mentally smothered half a dozen products of his imagination's _very_ well-supplied murder cabinet, all of them creatively appropriate for the current occasion; and smiled sternly. "_Kid..._"

Looking only superficially chastised, the thief leaned in, close enough to hear Shinichi's breath hitch when he kissed his cheekbone. "I promise to stay around long enough for us to have sex before I have to leave again," Kid whispered, two centimeters from his earlobe. "If we hurry, we'll have time for you to do me twice."

* * *

.

.

...aaaand that's what happened in Beika. As for Kid's story, you'll have to wait just a little bit; but never mind, you'll see. Please join us next week for _**Book Seven, Chapter Two**__**: "Housecleaning."**_ See y'all in seven!


	94. Housecleaning

Welcome back, everyone. This chapter's pretty dense. Grab some comfort food.

* * *

.

_**Book Seven, Chapter Two**__**: "Housecleaning"**_

_One day previous..._

Stage Two of the cleanup began with the results of the first analyzed batch of samples. Out of one hundred forty-three hair samples, one had turned up positive for traces of the Apotoxin-derived loyalty drug, which Haibara Ai had grudgingly reported was actually called _Apropanzetol Phenelexedrine._" In its short form," she had explained. "The correct pharmacological name is considerably longer." Heiji was the one who dubbed it 'Apropan' after mangling the language badly enough that Haibara had threatened to heave a beaker at his head. The label stuck, and when the single positive sample turned a sole test-tube's contents brilliant scarlet, it was Shinichi who made the call to Megure.

But it was Megure who spent three hours closeted with the head of Tokyo Metro's Drug Enforcement taskforce, Division Four; both divisions fell under Tokyo Metro's Criminal Investigation Bureau. Niwa Hajime was a brusque older man, a veteran of more than two decades on the Force and less than five years from retirement; what was said between them was never disclosed, but when it was done his entire department was informed that on-the-spot hair samples would be required that afternoon, no excuses; and Shiratori was sent back to his estate with a new batch of eighty-seven small envelopes.

Two came back positive.

Tapping a pen against his teeth the next morning (at, in fact, roughly about an hour after a certain thief had landed at a certain airport), Takagi doodled in the margin of the notepad in front of him as he and Sato waited for their superior officer to return to the small conference room that was becoming so very familiar. "That's… three out of two-hundred thirty… ah—one point three percent. That's not a lot." He tapped the pen again. "The staff cafeteria seats two hundred twenty-five people—there's that sign by the door, you know? So—"

"_Any_ is too much," muttered Sato, staring at the scrawled figures as if they'd bite. "If they're people who've been taken in like poor Yumi-chan, then that's three people eating lunch with you in the cafeteria who've been poisoned, Takagi. And if they're agents, that's three people eating lunch with you that'd poison you."

He winced, and his stomach growled audibly. "Did you have to mention food?" Takagi asked plaintively; neither of them had had time to stop for breakfast, and the day wasn't getting any younger. Chiba had been sent out to pick up an early lunch (it was his turn), but with the way the day was going it was even odds whether they'd have time to eat it.

Leaning back in his chair, Takagi stretched, groaning as muscles abused by too much stooping over paperwork and too little sleep complained with sharp little twinges. "Did you fall asleep on your couch again?" scolded his partner. She glanced at the room's closed door and scooted her own chair closer. "Lean forward."

"Hmm? –oomph!" grunted Takagi as she pushed him down to rest his head on his folded arms; his eyes popped wide and then slid half closed as Sato began working on his shoulders with strong hands. Thumbs dug into his muscles through his shirt and jacket, and this time the involuntary groan was one of relief. "S-Sato-s—ooohh…" His partner chuckled; there were twin pink spots riding high on Takagi's cheekbones, and she inched a little closer as she continued to work out the knots in his shoulders.

A little voice in the back of Sato's mind chided her, informed her that they were _at the precinct, Miwako_ and that _this was inappropriate, Miwako;_she shushed it and began rubbing little circles at the base of Takagi's neck. He turned his head with a sigh, collapsing a little flatter (which was a pity because she couldn't see him blushing any more at this angle) and made a little contented noise in the back of his throat. "You're going to turn into an old man too early if you keep doing things like that to your spine," she told him, pummeling his shoulderblades with her knuckles. "And then where'll you be? Chasing the bad guys and smacking them with your cane?"

Her partner made another of those little sounds and Sato leaned in just a little, resting her forehead against the back of his neck. "Never mind, Wataru," she murmured, and the luxury of using his given name sent a little thrill tingling through her; "I'll make sure you stay young." She lifted her chin, pressing her lips to the back of his neck, and his breath caught-

_KNOCK KNOCK!_

"Hey, the guy on the corner was out've dim sum but Iiiii_whoooah!"_Chiba blinked, round-eyed, and backed out of the doorway hastily, juggling take-out containers. "I'll, uh, I'll, uh, just be... back in a minute... yeah... Sorry." The door closed behind him as Takagi, face red, jerked up from the table and nearly knocked his partner backwards onto the floor. For the few seconds it took to scramble themselves back into a semblance of workplace dignity (minus points for blushes and slightly mussed hair), they kept their eyes averted from each other's. Then, as silence descended on the room...

Sato bit back a giggle. Takagi swallowed and muttered something under his breath. "Oh yes it IS funny, too," she retorted, and reached out a hand to smooth his bangs back from his forehead. "But-"

"-but," her partner agreed ruefully, and smiled. "Thank you, Sato-san."

"Miwako," she said softly. "...Wataru."

"Miwako." His eyes gentled, and just for a moment she thought he was going to reach out. Sato tilted her chin up-

_KNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCKNOCK!_"Guys? Food's getting cold-" Chiba's voice came plaintively through the door. With a mutual sigh, the two schooled their expressions to nonchalance and Sato reached to open the door.

Chiba's embarrassment had faded in the face of lunch; if he noticed any traces of their own, he didn't mention it.

Most of the empty takeout containers were heaped in the trash by the door when Megure came in much later, eyes tired but triumphant. He sat down in one of the empty chairs, a thick folder and a lock-box of the sort used to transport sensitive material thumping down heavily onto the table. He leaned his chin onto his hand, scratching idly at one corner of his jaw. "We have a problem," he said calmly. "And we have a solution."

Eyeing how his boss's moustache bristled, Takagi smothered a smile. "I think _you_have a solution, Keibu. Don't you?"

"Hrrmmm... perhaps." He reached for one of the remaining takeout containers left on the table, flipping it open and beginning to unwrap the disposable chopsticks that lay beside it. "I can hope so. We now have a contingency plan for Apropan-positive subjects." He took a bite of cold leftover yakitori, chewing and swallowing before continuing on. "Safe House. Not one you three've ever dealt with before, probably." He took another bite and sighed. "Ever heard of the 'Jade Rabbit'?"

Oddly enough, it was the least experienced of the officers who spoke up. "Uh- the bolt-hole?" asked Chiba, frowning in confusion. "Heard a little about it; just rumors..." He cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "It's where people get vanished away."

_"Hidden_ away," grunted Megure, working through the cold yakitori methodically. Sato and Takai listened, fascinated. "It's Metro's most secure facility, not used very often and only for very particular suspects and witnesses, especially ones that require medical care. It's not exactly a safe house, if you want to be specific; it's a very small private hospital on the outskirts of Adachi-cho near the river- a locked facility, fully guarded and... discreet." He took a large bite, washing it down with the coffee he'd brought in with him. "Very discreet. Niwa-Keibu's people used it in that trial back in January to hide away three witnesses- you remember those two drug 'salesmen' they arrested?"

"I remember them," said Takagi grimly. "And the woman they'd attacked, too; I assume she was kept there as well?"

Megure grunted his assent. "She was. You know police procedure- injured witnesses or suspects must receive sufficient medical care, _and,"_he added, "sufficient protection. Generally they're placed in hospitals under guard, but every now and then it's necessary that they, ah... vanish." The senior officer gave Chiba an amused look out of his black eyes. "Temporarily. And it is the opinion of more senior parties than myself that-"

"'More senior parties'? You _told_ someone else? About, about the... drugs? The Organization?" Horror filled Sato's eyes and voice, and involuntarily she half-rose to her feet. "About _Kudo-kun?"_

Megure stopped eating and stared his subordinate back into her seat from under beetled brows. "Sato-keiji," he said with tired patience, "I realize Kudo-kun's vulnerable position as well as anyone; but do you understand just how many pitfalls I've had to avoid in the last few days? The reason for the hair sampling alone-!" He sat back with a sigh. "If I had said that it was necessary because of disease, that would've brought in the NIID; if I had said it was because of an environmental pathogen, that would've required the NIES to be involved. Saying that it was due to a drug kept it under the hand of law enforcement, but it also required that I discuss the whys and wherefores with several people." Megure grunted, taking another bite of cold yakitori. "None of them know more than they have to, but it was impossible to work on something this deeply-entrenched and widespread without the proper authorization. Which, I might add, I've managed to get... though not without a lot of persuasion. And not without calling in a lot of favors." He drank deeply of his coffee, now as cold as the food in front of him. "Maybe too many, but what else could I do?"

Sato looked down, fingers knitting together restlessly; Takagi cleared his throat, beginning to speak, and thought better of it. Twice. Megure sat at the head of the table between them, blunt fingers picking at a vague mark on the tabletop.

"You're doing a good job, Megure-keibu." The voice of their youngest teammate made all three senior officers' heads snap up, and Megure's expression did nothing to conceal his confusion at Chiba's statement. At the other end of the table, a tentative smile answered him.

"I know it's strange, coming from me, and maybe I'm overstepping myself," Chiba continued, gaze fixed mostly on his hands, folded on the table in front of him. Occasionally he glanced up, meeting Megure's, Sato's, and Takagi's gazes in turn. "But nobody else said anything yet, and I don't know, it's more polite to pretend I don't see it, I know that, so- I apologize for my rudeness."

"No, Chiba-kun, it's alright. Thank you, you don't have to concern yourself with me," Megure said quickly, his tone just three shades inaccurate from 'professional'. Chiba shook his head, encouraged.

"Forgive me, but I really feel I have to insist," he said. "I know you're very concerned by this case, Megure-keibu. I've, well, you've been rubbing your hat brim a lot. And with so many civilians involved, too, I know you've got to be..."

Takagi coughed nervously; Megure dipped his head, hiding behind the brim of his hat. His feelings about civilian involvement in violent cases - especially in the roles of active assists or decoys - were well known around Division One, as was his wife Midori's entrance into his life through exactly such a role.

"Well, you're doing a lot of things that are admirable," Chiba said, soldiering on through growing embarrassment. "And I know it means making difficult decisions, and... I think you're doing a good job making those decisions. That's all."

His senior officer let out a breath that might've held a laugh inside it somewhere. "Thank you, Chiba-kun, and I do mean that sincerely. In a situation like this, sometimes it's hard to know how to begin- or worse, where to stop. I've managed to keep involvement of other parties down to a minimum, but it's only a matter of time before this blows up and becomes public knowledge. Or," he added thoughtfully, "at least the more sensational aspects of it." Megure shrugged, steepling his fingers before him on the tabletop. "I've, hrrm, actually wondered a time or two if that would be such a bad thing."

"Sir?" asked Takagi, startled.

"Would it be worse, the knowledge leaking out that there's a national or even international crime syndicate specializing in addictive drugs and assassination riddled through Japan's infrastructure? And that law enforcement is aware of it?" Megure beetled his heavy brows, looking at his three team-members beneath them. "There's such a thing as 'duty to warn'; the press would have a field day- and I'm not naive enough to think that there won't be Organization moles in the news media." He chewed his moustache for a moment. "If we were to go public, make it known that we were investigating the wave of adolescent kidnappings in Tokyo and other large cities with a connection to a non-Yakuza organized criminal element... the fallout just might be less of a problem than we'd get with trying to keep it secret."

"That'd pull in a lot more civilian involvement," said Sato doubtfully. "And it'll stir up the Yakuza, too, and probably even the Triad groups."

"I know." Megure shrugged again. "Just something to consider for the future."

He wiped his hands on a paper napkin and tossed it and the nearly-empty carton of takeout into the trash. "And now, I believe it's time we took our first 'positive' results into quarantine, hrm? I alerted Jade Rabbit's staff about two hours ago; they'll have a van here shortly. Niwa-keibu in Drug Enforcement will arrange for his two officers to be brought back to the secure exit for transport; we'll need to collect the third suspect ourselves." Rummaging in his pocket, he pulled out a folded scrap of paper, spreading it out on the table and reading aloud the names written there. "Kinyo Masami and Hu Shuang, they're both in Niwa's department... and Towa Riku in Traffic."

"Miamoto-san?" asked Chiba, startled.

The others blinked at him. "You know him, Chiba-kun?" asked Megure.

Chiba scratched his head, looking worried. "I know him," he said. "I've known him since I was a rookie. Big guy, likes to drink at that bar over by Hibaya Park. Kind of a rough sort, doesn't say much… not too many friends that I know of, but I haven't heard of any trouble with him." He looked up at Megure. "You were right, huh, sir? Traffic." He rose to his feet, reaching for the door-knob. "Guess I'd better go get him."

Megure and the other two rose as well. "Takagi, Sato, you both go with Chiba," ordered Megure, looking grim. "I'll meet the van and make certain the exit area's secure. Twenty minutes."

* * *

"You know what's worrying me?" said Chiba in an undertone as they hurried through the hallway.

Sato's attention was occupied more with the mental checklist of _gun-loaded/unloaded, badge/yes, good-shoes-for-chase/yes _to answer, but Takagi glanced briefly at his coworker, brow furrowed. "What?"

"Where's the other one?"

Blink blink. "Huh?" answered Takagi inelegantly; he slowed a little. "What other one?"

Chiba's roundish, plain face wasn't made for expressing skepticism or dismay, but a little of both showed in his eyes. "Haven't you noticed? These guys, they always work in pairs. I mean, you got those two from the rooftop during the Kid heist, you got that guy Sagata and the kid that was working with him on poor Miyamoto-san, and you got the two in Drug enforcement that Niwa-Keibu's picking up. But where's _Towa-san's_counterpart? There's gotta be another, right?"

"...What?" Chiba's eyes widened.

Both Sato and Takagi had slowed to a halt to stare at him, faces full of alarm. "I can't believe we didn't see that," muttered Sato under her breath. "I can't _believe _it."

"That might mean he's just a dupe, like Yumi-kun was," murmured Takagi hopefully, voice low.

"Or that we haven't found his partner yet. Who says they have to be in the same department? And there was that third gunman at the heist too, down in the crowd- you know, the one that shot that young woman? If _he _had a partner, we didn't find them." Sato bit her lip, walking again with a little more speed than before. "And I'll just bet he did. Takagi? You have your gun, right? Arm-holster?" Sato's partner nodded, face set. "Good."

* * *

Towa Ryuu was, as Chiba had said, a big man. Heavy-set without being fat with a thick neck and eyes that always looked half-closed, he'd picked up the habit of chewing toothpicks somewhere and seldom was seen for long without a little cinnamon-flavored splinter of wood sticking out of one side of his mouth like a malformed cigarette. He wasn't an unpleasant individual, just rather taciturn; Traffic Division cops weren't required to work with partners, so he went his solitary way without complaint and seemed to prefer it.

He did like to drink, though; Chiba'd been right about that. He also had a thing for horseraces and fights, the kind you bet on in less-than-legal establishments with men who kept very careful, very detailed records. His father'd done it and so had his brothers; it had just been something you did if you had a little extra cash and felt like your luck was in, no big deal in the run-down part of Asakusa-cho where he'd grown up. It'd been a lousy place to live; you could almost taste the fear in the smoggy, stinking slums that made up this less-than-pretty little chunk of Tokyo's old town. Ryuu'd become a cop to get out of there, actually.

It hadn't entirely worked.

There hadn't been a lot of choices for him, growing up, and most of them had been bad. Becoming a cop had seemed the best of a raw deal—Ryuu'd managed to make it through adolescence without a record mostly by sheer luck and an extensive knowledge of the San'ya neighborhood back alleys and streets, but he hadn't put on a uniform for any kind of moral or altruistic reasons, that was for damn sure. And when, say, there'd been an opportunity or three to get his palm greased and let some small-time crook slip by, well… everybody had to make a living, right? Who the fuck cared?

He didn't think of himself as a 'dirty' cop, because hell, he'd never been clean. Matter of fact, Ryuu'd felt a little flattered when he'd been approached about looking the other way in certain situations. Or standing guard; that was even better. Everybody knew there were factions running the city, big ones and little ones—you couldn't get away from that, and anybody who thought otherwise was suicidally naive or just fucking stupid. So he took a little cash, and he paid a lot of attention to blank walls instead of which cars were driving away or what their license plates were. And he took a little more cash to write down different plate numbers when it was needed, and a little _more_to change a few reports here and there—it was good business, and hey, nice being flush in the pockets when he got word about a horse running or a back-alley match.

But sometimes the horse didn't place and sometimes the fighter you were backing went down like a sack of wet concrete; and sometimes the debts mounted up and you couldn't pay them and people started moving away when you sat down at a bar, just in case. And _then_you found people waiting outside your apartment when you got home who wanted to—talk. In the end, when things'd started getting really shitty and Ryuu'd spent the better part of one week expecting to end up a statistic, one of his uncles had stopped by… and everything'd changed.

He never could remember that evening very well. They'd drank, and things had gotten blurry; they'd talked, and things had gotten clear. The next morning he'd had visitors, ones who'd told him flatly how things were and who he worked for now, and what the consequences were for failure or deceit. And it hadn't been so bad, had it? He'd always wanted to run with the big dogs; if that meant he had to play runt-of-the-litter for a few years, Ryuu could stand it. Anyway, somebody always had you on a leash; at least this way he knew who was holding the other end.

…and they'd even set him up with a partner, not one he would've ever expected either. It wasn't so bad at all, no.

Until today.

Now, though, his uniform was clammy with sweat; Ryuu's large hands opened and closed, tightening into fists over and over as he waited in the tiny office he'd been left in. It was locked; he'd heard the key turn, and the door that exited into the hall beyond it was probably also locked. Ryuu could smell his own fear in the air, thick and rank, and bile made a taste of acid in the back of his throat. That's what fear tasted like, heartburn and the edge of vomit; and when the room's door opened and he looked up, Ryuu's face went slack with relief as he saw who stood there.

"'Bout fuckin' time you showed up," he hissed. "God! You gotta get me out've here! They _know,_and they're gonna dig every last little detail out've me— we've gotta DO something, we've gotta-"

"I know," said his partner coolly. "And you're right; we do."

That was when Ryuu saw the thick black barrel of the silencer, sliding out from beneath his partner's jacket.

* * *

Less than three meters from their destination, Sato began digging out her handcuffs. Her partner glanced at her, grim-faced. "You think that'll really be necessary?"

"I think—" she began—

_**Thap. Thap.**_

The sounds were very small, unimpressive and dull; if they hadn't been so close, they wouldn't have heard them at all through the closed office door. Chiba said something brief and very profane, sweeping an arm back towards his fellow officers, but they were already flattening themselves against the hallway wall. A bucket stood just outside the doorway, half-full of soapy water with a mop-handle sticking out of it; and when the door opened and the coveralled janitorial worker stepped out and turned towards them, there wasn't time for surprise or shock or anything else. Chiba moved forward, mouth open-

* * *

"...but I told Ken-kun I wouldn't put up with that anymore, if he wanted me to visit his mother next weekend he'd have to stop being such a— what's that?" Both of the secretaries eating lunch in Beika-cho Metro's crowded looked up at the noises down the hall. There were shouts, a scream, and flat, muted pops.

"Is that—"

"What IS that? Were those _shots?"_

All over the room people were looking up; a uniformed patrolman with an onigiri halfway to his mouth swore, dropped it and rose, heading for the door.

* * *

"_This is TBS Afternoon News, your finest in Tokyo broadcasting! Tune in to TBS! We're there for you!"_

The newscaster was blandly pretty, her face filled with just the right amount of grave concern and gravity. She stood, headset-microphone just barely visible, in front of a familiar official building swarming with uniformed officers and roped off with yellow police-tape; emergency vehicles flashed their lights and blocked the view of much of the entrance.

"_I'm Ishigoro Dai and tonight we're broadcasting live from Beika-cho Metropolitan Police headquarters, where an unknown gunman reportedly fired at a number of officers, killing at least two and wounding several others. We've been informed that the gunman was a non-uniformed employee who worked at the building; names of the assailant, the wounded and the dead have not yet been released." _

At the opulent bar at the equally opulent resort where he'd been spending a lot of time - most of his time - more time, Mouri Kogoro realized suddenly, with a heavy, sinking feeling, than he should have been, more time than he'd been spending with his daughter, time enough that the barkeep had long since learned his favorite beers and which seat to save for him - at that bar, Mouri sat frozen and stared at the television mounted above the racks of glasses, his beer untouched in front of him. The pretty female bartender continued wiping down the countertops just below the set, oblivious.

"_At just past noon today, TBS' sources report that an unknown number of police officers and other employees were called in for questioning in regards to what may very possibly be a drug investigation; speculation is rife that new policies at Metro Headquarters to do with employee drug-tests may have brought suspicion down on these employees, but this is uncertain as yet. Rumor has it, though, that at least one of the dead has been identified as an officer who had tested positive for unknown substances."_

Stuck in a traffic-jam in her family's limousine, Suzuki Sonoko stared at the tiny screen mounted in the back of the seat in front of her in horror, and scrabbled for her cellphone. Fingers shaking, she began dialing Mouri Eri's number. Meanwhile, made small by the size of the screen, the broadcaster moved closer to the emergency vehicles as several gurneys were wheeled out towards their open doors.

"_As you can see, medical personnel have responded rapidly to emergency calls. Traffic near cross-streets of Teimuzu and Yamago has been redirected, and motorists are advised to take alternate routes."_

Across the city, Shiratori stopped halfway through traffic, horrified, as he stared at one of the many news monitors at Shibuya Crossing. Behind the chaotic mess of paramedics and uniformed officers, a third ambulance pulled in with its lights flashing just as a gurney was wheeled out Beika-cho Metro's front door with a closed black body-bag clearly visible on it.

_"While the shooter's identity is currently unknown, TBS will continue to bring you coverage of this alarming incident..."_ The pretty newscaster looked her audience in the eyes, solemn and sincere. _"This is Ishigoro Dai, live from Beika-cho; let's take things back to TBS now. Mishimoto-san, what is your view of the situation?" _As Shiratori's hands knotted white-knuckled and tight and people all around him swirled past and horns honked.

On the gigantic screen, the scene cut back to a black-suited studio announcer wearing his Serious Face. _"Well, Ishigoro-san, the way I see it-"_

Shiratori broke into a run.

* * *

If hospitals are characterized by their air of controlled chaos, the ICU ward of Beika Central Hospital was a perfect example of chaotic control. The sterile hallways held quiet in the way a glass contains water, broken only by the beeps of equipment, the soft voices of nurses and orderlies, and the occasional groan or harsh breathing of a patient.

And the whispers of family and friends.

Two rooms had uniformed guards- not just hospital guards, either, but two armed Tokyo Metro cops, stolid and watchful. The rooms' glass doors were closed, and inside the first one sat two silent figures, one in a hospital gown with their arm in a sling, the lines of an IV trailing from their arm to a rolling stand. The rough hiss of a ventilator filled the room.

"It wasn't your fault," said the bandaged one to the unbandaged one. "It wasn't anyone's fault except for the one who pulled the trigger."

"If I had been faster-"

"Then _you_would've been shot. And Megure-keibu needs us upright and in working order." A hand was pressed to heavy bandages covering shoulder to fingertips. "...well, mostly working order. What's that American saying? 'Close enough for government work.' And anyway, it was my turn to get shot, wasn't it?"

"It'll _**never, ever **_your turn," said Takagi Wataru quietly but fiercely; his fingers tightened on Sato's good hand. In the bed beyond them, Chiba Akira's face was blanched and white beneath the ventilator's clouded plastic, and his breath came in shallow pants that kept a slow counter-rhythm to the insistant chirp of the machinery keeping him alive.

A noise at the door made both Takagi and Seto turn, stiffening, but it was only Megure- a weary, frazzled Megure, with a smear of dark stains across his trenchcoat; one corner of the garment was missing, the edges ragged. "How is he?" he asked without preamble.

"Alive." Takagi rubbed at his eyes with one palm. "If he makes it through tonight, the doctors say his chances are decent." He sighed. "Perforated spleen, internal bleeding, damage to the lower quadrant of the left lung, shock..." The young officer shook his head, gaze resting on the drawn, unconscious face of his wounded friend. "He's going to be out of commission for a long time. If," he added beneath his breath, "he makes it." Sato's fingers, still interlaced in Takagi's, tightened.

Megure's eyes were shadowed, also fixed on Chiba's profile. "He'll make it," he murmured. "Chiba's tougher than you'd think. He's been with me since he was a rookie..." He stared for a long moment, then shook his head. "He'll make it." The repetition held a little more certainty. He turned to look at Sato. _"Why_are you walking around, Sato-kun?"

She made a wry face. "Because I can? Sir," she added at his expression, and sighed as well. "Megure-keibu, I just... I couldn't just sit there. I'll rest, I promise, but I can't. Not right now; and it's not so bad." The pain etched in her face that the drugs Sato'd been prescribed hadn't been able to touch belied her words; the two bullets that had skimmed her arm had torn chunks from her upper shoulder, clipped her inner forearm and left bloody scores across her palm. She'd be striped like a tiger with the scars to the last day of her life, but the muscle damage had been minimal though quite painful. Bloodloss and shock had knocked her down worse than the pain- the shock of seeing her friend and coworker lying in a pool of blood in the hallway, the shock of seeing Takagi draw his firearm-

_("Drop it!" Takagi yelled. "NOW!" But there'd been the muzzleflash and noise again, and behind them there'd been so much screaming)_

"I'll be alright," she said firmly, and if her voice shook a little, she supposed that wasn't exactly surprising. A little wave of dizziness made the world fuzz around the edges, and for a second she lost track- only for a second, but it was enough that when focus came back she heard Megure speaking sharply to someone in the hall. And then there was a nurse in the doorway with a wheelchair; Shiratori was behind her and Takagi's hand was under her arm, helping her to stand. Sato tried to protest. "But-"

"Bed," said her partner firmly.

She gave in, sinking into the wheelchair wearily. The nurse tsked and clipped her IV stand to the side of the chair. "It's alright, I'll take her back to her room." She gave him a doubtful look but stepped away. "Megure-keibu? Will you-"

"I'll stay," said Shiratori quietly. He looked past them at Chiba's supine form; the younger officer's breathing had eased a little, and the machines bleeped on. "I still need to write up my report on all three fatalities, including that of the shooter's. But- Megure-keibu?" he said as he unbuttoned his jacket and settling down, unpacking the laptop he had carried in with him.

"Yes?"

"I would suggest calling Kudo-san and his ah, associates. He needs to know what's happened."

Megure sighed. "Yes, he does." Stepping into the hall, he fished his cellphone from his pocket.


	95. Intermission

_**HIATUS - But first, an Intermission. [7.3]**_

__  
_Hi everyone! This week's chapter is the last one you'll get for a while. And before anyone panics:_

_NO, THE FIC IS NOT DEAD._

_Ysabet is soon departing for the broad, green, glittering world of Japan, and I hope you'll all join me in wishing her safe voyage and many shiny things to do and see and eat. (Not all at the same time.)_

_So, Three Thieves yet again bends to the influence of Real Life, as the progress of posting chapters halts until Ysa and I can gather up a sufficient backlog of chapters to once again ensure uninterrupted awesome for you all, week after week. =D Expect this hiatus to last at least one calendar month, perhaps two._

_Before we go, we have one more chapter to post for you._

_For those of you who prefer the PG or PG-13 related version of Three Thieves, I'm very sorry, you will have to content yourself with Ysabet's copious and plentiful vacation photos from Japan, and squint carefully (or skim) if you do choose to read the beginning of this chapter, in which Plot and Story make their homes before Porn comes along and scares everyone else into hiding._

_If you don't want to read this chapter, comment on this entry saying "Spoilers!" and we will be sure to tell you everything important that you've missed, without the porn, because we love you._

_Anyway. For those of you filthy-minded individuals who prefer the NC-17 version... *curtsies* So do we. :D Enjoy~._

_._

* * *

_**Book Seven, Chapter Three:**__** "Intermission"**_

In the Shiratori estate, inside Ran and Shinichi's bedroom, two pairs of teenagers sat in a small circle. Two of these wore one face, which was pulled into a deeply concerned expression, complete with wide eyes and anxiously furrowed brow, accented by a coordinating pair of open palms raised in surrender.

The other two teens in the room wore matching faces, also. One angry, and one angrier.

"No. No. I think not, _no!_"

Kid and Kaito shrunk backward, trying to get as far away from Ran's anger as their position could reasonably allow. "Erm. Ran, we can explain..."

"_No._ You won't be explaining. You will be staying right here, and listening, and doing a lot of listening and not a lot of secretkeeping and that starts right now. _Tell_us why you have to go to London!"

"Um." The brothers Kuroba glanced toward Shinichi, imploring him with their gaze. "Help?"

"Ran," Shinichi interjected, "You, um, maybe want to let them know whether to explain or whether not to. Because you just told them to do both." He smiled winningly at his girlfriend, feeling an incongruous urge to giggle despite the severity of the topic at hand, and carefully kept from returning Kaito and Kid's glance with a reassuring one of his own. Nothing like siding with the target of Ran's irritation to put yourself in the doghouse, too.

Ran looked to Shinichi, drawing a calmer breath, and smiled lightly as she turned back to Kid and Kaito.

"Explain: Why you have to go to London. Explain: Where you were. Explain: Why this all has to happen now. Don't even try to explain: why you didn't tell us where you were going or let us know you were okay or call or _anything_."

_Gulp. _Kid and Kaito smiled back, hopefully; the smile wilted a little when Ran's frown deepened.

Kaito spoke first. "Okay. Ah, from the top. First..." The air in the room popped, like an altitude change, as whatever magical insurance Kaito and Kid were in the practice of placing on their surroundings snapped into place. "We were in Montenegro. Father's notes told us the Teal Door located there was a trading house of information regarding the Org, especially its international movements."

"Second, we need to do this now because of what we learned in Montenegro and also because of what Tant - ah, Shinichi - is doing with Division One and beyond. And because once the FBI - well, the CIA - gets involved, it's going to get very messy very quickly."

Ran nodded. "Good so far. Why London? Why London, NOW?"

Kid flickered forward, mixing apology with determination in his expression in the way only he had mastered. "We have to go to London because Tousan's notes told us what to ask in Montenegro, and because of what we learned on our trip. The Org - one half of it, at least - thinks they know what I know, but I'm a layer deeper than them already, and what they think is truth is a secret our Tousan wrapped around the real truth. And all of that, all paths, ultimately lead toward the Tower of London."

Shinichi looked up sharply, deductions quickly clicking into place behind his eyes. "The _Tower_, specifically?"

"Yes, Tantei," Kid said, nodding in answer not just to Shinichi's question, but the detective's ultimate conclusion; the gesture was carefully measured and tighter than it should have been, as though it cost the thief something to openly acknowledge the truth Shinichi had just deduced, and which had been revealed to Kid in Montenegro. "Yes, that's why."

Ran looked from one to the other of them, eyes narrowing, and exhaled a breath the others hadn't realized she was holding.

"Okay. Is that everything? Is that everything you'll tell us?"

"It's everything I can tell, chérie," Kid said. "You have to trust me-"

_Thud._

"No." Abruptly pinned to the tatami mat floor by Ran's strong grip on his upper arms, Kid swallowed to double-check the location of his tongue and blinked, a bit startled, up at his girlfriend.

"Ran, you have to-"

"_No._" Wisely, Shinichi had scooted away from Ran and Kid once she'd pounced the thief, so Kid could only barely see their detective's wide eyed face through the loose and lightly tangled curtain of Ran's hair, backlit by the overhead lamp, fallen down over her shoulders to surround Kid's face and her own. That plus the corona of backlight around her head rather effectively blocked out the rest of the room, and Kid had nowhere to hide from Ran's rather inscrutable, but clearly displeased, gaze.

"No, I don't have to anything, and no, that isn't everything you _can_ tell us, it's just what you want to, and no, I'm not stupid enough to not figure out that you could tell us more if you wanted but you don't, and no, you didn't _have _to go off without telling us, it's not like one more bit of information would make us interesting to the Organization when they've got so much on us already.

"And no," Ran added, slamming Kid's shoulders against the tatami to shut him up as she sensed his rising urge to interrupt her, "You're _not_ going to get to go off and do stupid cowboy...thief...stuff when we don't even know where you're going or when you'll be back or what stupid _La La Lah Shoot At Me I'm A Pretty Shiny Target_ bullshit you're going to do next, and did you know that Shinichi and I made love _three times_ since you left and it was in the _rain _and it was amazing and you missed out so you'd better be sorry."

Silence.

"Kid? Remember how I said you were about a 4 on Ran's Maim-And/Or-Kill Scale? I think maybe I underrated how high you'd scored." Shinichi stayed prudently back, but his face was tense and unhappy. "Trust's a two-way street, you knowthat. You also know that the more information we have, the less chance there is that an unknown factor'll bite us on the ass." His face softened, some of the tension fading as memory replaced it. "And she's right about the rain. You really HAD better be sorry. We missed you."

Still crouched over Kid, Ran huffed out a distressed breath and glared at him, shoulders hunching. "_Well?_"

"Oh goddess and little demons," Kid mumbled, all the syllables strung together into one breathless word, and then Ran's shoulderblades thumped hard onto the tatami as Kid rolled her, tackled her, and jammed one thigh high between hers, hips dropping to press against her as he took her mouth in a hungry kiss.

She kissed back, bruisingly hard and desperate for a long moment; then she did something complicated and shoved hard against the mat, rolling them sideways; Kid's head smacked down with a _thunk! _and Ran reared above him, breathing rapidly. Her face was flushed and her color high; staring down at Kid, she fisted her hands tight in his shirt and leaned into another kiss.

Shinichi settled next to them on the mat, kneeling. Above the low sounds from the two in front of him, he spoke softly. "We missed you, yeah; we know you have your own agenda and we know you have things you have to do, but... we're part of that too, just like you're part of ours." Shinichi brushed gentle fingers through Ran's hair, sliding them down to Kid's and allowing the strands to slip through. "If we have to let you go, we will; we just..." He swallowed. Ran's hands had slid from shirt to hair; she was kissing Kid thoroughly, deeply, almost angrily, straddling him, making little noises that were not quite words between each kiss.

"...just need to know why," Shinichi finished, his own breath hitching. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Ran's nape, fingers brushing Kid's shoulder.

"Nnngh," Kid managed, baring his throat as he pulled up and away from Ran's kiss to get a broad gulp of cool air. "I will tell you just about anything you want to know if it means that I can be inside you within the next ten minutes." The thief wrapped himself around Ran, curling one knee across the small of her back as he rocked their bodies together. Ran shoved back roughly, making Kid hiss as the cradle of her hips jammed against some very sensitive bits.

"Augh, ah, oh, goddess. The - the family jewels," he panted, freeing one hand to wave it at Shinichi, as though for assistance.

"Yes, I'm aware the flag's at attention," Ran growled at Kid, boxing Shinichi out as she bent down to nip and tug on the shell of Kid's ear. With a high whimper, the thief bucked in her arms, going tense then slumping against her, tipping his head aside to give her as much access as possible.

Watching from barely enough distance to call it 'safe', Shinichi grinned, stretching to lay a kiss on Ran's cheekbone while she nibbled Kid's ear. "He's a total pushover, really," he said, his tone conspiratorial. Ran grinned with teeth, pulling her mouth off Kid's to kiss her detective, and the thief beneath her squirmed impatiently as the others' attention swerved away.

"R-raaaaan," Kid called, rocking upward; his heat pressed against Ran's through her skirt and his jeans, and without looking back at him or breaking her kiss with Shinichi, Ran pushed Kid back down to the mat with a palm laid flat to the center of his chest.

"Down, you," she muttered. "You still didn't tell us anything."

"I, I did, though," Kid breathed, trying to get some composure back; Shinichi's fingers creeping into his hair, tugging and tickling, defeated his efforts entirely. "The family jewels. The _royal _family jewels."

Kid got the momentary satisfaction of seeing both Shinichi and Ran stop cold, turning toward him with twin stunned expressions on their faces. Then Ran was pinching the skin at the base of his jaw, twisting lightly.

"Ack ack ack I'm not lying, I swear it," the thief babbled; Ran let go, her gaze less aggressive.

"The...the British royal family?"

"But surely you've checked the Tower already, Kid, some of the world's most storied gems are kept there. Wouldn't that have been the first place you'd looked?"

"T-tousan already did," Kid panted, meeting both the others' gazes in turn. "He said it wasn't there."

"Then again, why? If your Tousan said that it wasn't there, then..." Ran trailed to a slow stop, eyes widening; though she was still straddling Kid, the power in the room shifted back into the control of the thief flat on the floor as both Shinichi and Ran realized the very basic key that had been forgotten, the key necessary to understand every single action their thief ever took.

"No way..."

"Au contraire, ma chérie," Kid said triumphantly; his grin wattage hovered just shy of 'fluorescently insane' as he pushed himself up to his elbows to look both his lovers in the eye.

"I won't trust anything unless I see it with my own eyes, touch it with my own hands. Tousan's word is no more than the word of any other human being, all just the same. And maybe he counted on that, or maybe he trusted I'd think like him. The safest place to hide something is in a place it can't possibly be."

Shinichi breathed out slowly, gaze distant while he absorbed the information. "Pandora is in the Tower of London?"

Ran had a slightly more practical concern. "Pandora really _exists?_"

The thief's grin was positively radioactive. "Exists, and has been hidden from the Org for years upon years. The safest place to hide it: the place that's already been triple checked, the place guarded by Organisation agents, the place where no incidents, no break-ins, no trouble at all has happened for over a decade.

"And I'm going to get her out of there, and they _still _won't know she was ever there."

Silence, briefly. Then Shinichi, scooting closer, combing his fingers through Kid's unruly hair with an expression turned inward in busy calculation. "...How?"

Kid glanced from Shinichi to Ran and back again. "Tell me something first - how do I know when I'm out of trouble enough that I can start bartering information for sex?"

"Oh, _**YOU**_-!"

Planting a palm flat on Kid's chest, Ran growled and flattened him again. "You're _never_totally out of trouble, and you like it that way..." Ran kissed him again, pressing her thief back against the mat. "...and you wouldn't be you if you didn't, and I guess we wouldn't love you if you weren't you..." She punctuated her words with a sharp nip to the corner of his jaw; sliding down to lean on one elbow, Shinichi slipped a hand between them and beneath Kid's shirt, toying with his navel. "...and since you ARE- oh! -you, I guess we... mmm... ought to be used to you being all..." (Fingers undid the top button of Kid's jeans.) "...all sneaky and... and..."

"Yes?" murmured Shinichi, changing the angle of his elbow so he got a better view.

Ran turned her head, looking at him hazily through a veil of hair. "...I've forgotton what I was going to say."

"Oh, good," came from beneath her. "We could be using the time we're wasting in talking for so many better uses-"

"YOU shush. For now, anyway." Pushing herself up a little, Ran rolled sideways to let Shinichi scoot closer. He slid his hand behind and around Ran's waist, smooth warm skin against his palm as he nipped Kid's lower lip and then lost himself in his thief's mouth.

"Mmm..." Kid hummed into Shinichi's mouth, flipping up Ran's skirt while Shinichi finished undoing the thief's zipper. When Shinichi's skin finally reached Kid's, the thief moaned into Shinichi's mouth, arching his neck against the pressure of Ran's wandering nibble, and his heat against the warm curl of Shinichi's fingers.

"If- mmh, Tantei, you and your _mouth_..." Swallowing, Kid tried again, pulling briefly away from Shinichi's mouth to nip at Ran's throat. "If I may...I've been wanting to try something with you both for a while." Rocking against them both, Kid squirmed out from beneath Ran's crouch just far enough to gain some freedom of movement, and slid to the side just a bit, rolling onto one shoulder.

Shinichi's hand inside Kid's pants pulled his arm around the thief's waist, caging him against the detective; Kid was happy to feel Shinichi take all the advantage afforded him, squeezing his delicate handful gently. "T-tantei, oh Benten..." Arching his shoulders against Shinichi's chest, neck curling backward to press against his boyfriend's, Kid's eyes fluttered shut in pleasure, mouth open slack.

Ran's hands were busy as well, sliding Kid's shirt up while her mouth moved down; when the fabric was bunched at collarbone-level, she kissed her way past it and tasted the skin of his chest, now faintly salty with the first sheen of sweat. One thumb brushed a nipple and he jerked beneath her touch; whispering something that held his name into his skin, she nibbled at the other nipple in tiny bites as if devouring something sweet a crumb at a time.

Shinichi breathed in his lover's scent, wrapping one leg high along Kid's and hooking it around Ran's. "What did you have in mind?" he murmured into the ear that was so close to his mouth, fingers working gently. His own body was making it harder and harder to think, pressed hot and urgent through his jeans against Kid's; and he didn't want to think, just this once- it seemed like all he'd been doing lately had been thinking and plotting and planning. "What-" Shinichi ground himself against his thief. "-do you want to do?"

"Let me...oh Shinichi, oh goddess, oh Ran, mmmnnh." Shinichi's fingers on Kid's skin were black magic, flames searing across his concentration like fire chasing lines of alcohol across a room; Ran's lips around his nipple were the most pointed sort of cheating, but Kid couldn't find the desire to care. The thief rocked against his detective's touch, toward the flicker of tongue Ran was taunting him with, breath fluttering. His voice followed suit.

"Tantei, Shinichi, fuck me, Benten, fuck me please, please. Goddess, I've been..." Kid swallowed, gulping air, tracing the hot line of Shinichi's cock behinid him with the press and slide of his ass against his detective's groin. "Dreaming."

Leaning forward again, nibbling hard on Ran's ear - though it did little to distract her from her absolutely completely unfair attention to his nipples - Kid purred for their girlfriend, able to hold his voice together a bit more steadily as Shinichi's attention waned, presumably from watching his lovers nuzzle. The thief tugged her close, one hand cupping the plush round of her ass beneath her skirt, the other cradling the nape of her neck to lavish it with more kisses.

"Ran, I want inside you, I want you to take me, too. It's all about who's...driving, and, Ran, you and Shinichi - ride me, however you want. Though-" A nibble, tip of his tongue tracing her throat til Ran giggled. "- I really am in the mood for rough."

"If I missed out so much last time, you- you know," Kid continued, "I should get to - to -" Kid nearly choked on his own breath as one or the other of them - he'd begun to lose track of where the divisions were - did something that made all the muscles of his belly and stomach clench, jamming his cock forward, deep into the lover his body desperately wanted to be there. Instead he could only rock against Shinichi's palm, and Ran's belly beyond that; licking his lips, Kid nuzzled as much of his lovers as he could reach from his position and gripped them tight - one hand on the back of Shinichi's head, one hand squeezing Ran's rear.

"Ookay, too much talking? Y-yeah. Too much-nngh- fffuck. T-tantei, your wallet's in my back pocket."

"In your-" Brain not working at _all_well, the detective tried to summon up enough clarity to feel indignant over this, but there wasn't room; everything was lost under the wash of heat and urgency and NOW that had occupied every cell of his body. He fumbled with Kid's jeans, only to have Ran's fingers get there first; sliding out the fold of leather, she sat up abruptly.

Two pairs of dilated eyes regarding her from the floor, Ran sat for a moment and tried (and failed) to catch her breath. "Bed," she informed them; her lips were very red, flushed with kisses and very full. "No, _bed,_" she insisted when they both groaned. "Bed NOW." Ran licked her lips, looking at them both. "Right now."

The last words were almost growled out, and still watching them, still with Shinichi's wallet in her hand, Ran skimmed her shirt over her head. "Now," she whispered.

Now.

There was less of grace and way more of hurry in the short trip to the mattress; watching her two lovers half stumbling over each other sent Ran into giggles again, but Shinichi smothered them with his mouth and Kid undid her bra with pickpocket's fingers, featherlight and astonishingly quick. They tumbled back onto the sheets; Shinichi groaned, trying to squirm out of denim that was entirely too tight. "A little help here?" he complained, and then yelped as four hands took care of the matter in what had to be record time. The wallet got lost somewhere in the bed, resurfaced, and was plucked away again by Ran, who flipped it open. "One, two-"

Shinichi kissed her thigh, now bare; her jean skirt had been easier to remove. "There should be more, and a little pack of, um, stuff."

"Stuff?" Kid obviously intended the word to trill, a cheerful tease, but Shinichi's fingers nimbly plucked at the skin at the back of Kid's knee, making the thief giggle through his speech like carbonated soda.

"St-stuff, for things," Kid laughed. "Is that right, Tantei?"

Shinichi slid his fingers up and around, tracing the line of leg high to trace the soft crease between leg and belly. "Stuff for us," he murmured. "And try getting hold of THAT sort of thing when you're stuck inside a walled compound sometime." He chuckled. "It's just hand-cream, though." He tickled the thief's skin and scooted a little left on the bed, paying his respects to Ran's navel as she squeaked. "As for the rest… I think Kaasan keeps putting them in my wallet for me, just to get the point across that she doesn't want to be an obasan yet. I mean, I went to put some more in after last time, and there they were."

Ran curled around them both from her place against the pillows; she had stretched out like a cat. "I hope you remembered to clean up from when we were in the garden shed," she teased him, burying her hands in both their hair and playing with the strands.

Shinichi flushed; Ran squeaked again. "Shinichiiiiii~! You DIDN'T forget! Did you?"

"Um." Extremely discomfited, he rolled sideways to spoon against Kid, grabbing the thief's straying hand and bringing it to his lips. "I… did. And when I went back, they were gone. So…" He kissed his way from palm to fingertips. "_Somebody_did it. Probably one of the gardeners." He hid his face behind Kid's hand, busy tasting the delicate skin that webbed the base of each finger, but there was a tinge of red high on his sole visible cheekbone. When he took one of Kid's fingers in his mouth, though, preoccupation had taken the place of embarrassment and stupid teenage mistakes were the last thing on his mind.

"You've got to- mmh- admire the staff around here," Kid gasped, licking his lips and shaking a little as Shinichi laved his fingers with spit. "They don't so much as- nnh!- blink at all of the craziness that's- sho-oh, oh, mmh, nnh-hyaah, yia-ahh!" The thief's voice spiraled up and up, straining thin and tense as Shinichi, encouraged by Kid's whimpers, increased his efforts; finally, the balance broke, as the thief writhed in frustration against his lover's erection, gasping, and began to wrench himself free. "Aaahhh, oh for fuck's sake, oh, f-fuck, Tantei, _fuck me _or I swear to the gods I'll do it myself!"

In front of them both, Ran lay on her right side, watching. Kid's fist clenched within the tangled cage of Shinichi's fingers; the thief's lithe body squirmed against the detective's thin one, pure, straightforward, and utterly out of patience for Shinichi's polite overtures. Kid's toes clenched the futon blankets beneath them, gaining leverage, and Shinichi's curled in sudden pleasure, toes pointed, as Kid's squirming stroked his ass up the length of Shinichi's cock, kept from him by the thinness of worn-in cotton boxers.

And Shinichi stretched his neck forward, seeking the tendons of Kid's throat with nibbling lips and teeth; and Kid's head rolled back, resting the nape of his neck in the curve of Shinichi's shoulder, throat bared in hungry submission, cock laying fat and dark against his belly and left hip, impatiently waiting its turn with the thief's sticky pre at its tip. And Ran slid closer, taking away their isolation with the warm press of her body: smooth with the softness of a woman's skin, hot with desire, all healthy, plush curves and softness that bloomed against Kid's chest as Ran pressed close, breasts and thighs and belly and silky hair draping over Kid's neck and shoulders as she nipped at the place where his skin stretched taut between his collarbones.

She could reach Shinichi's shoulders this way, and gripped there to hold them close together, smiling up at him through her bangs: deep blue eyes rich with love, lips stretched around a hickey-in-progress on Kid's jugular.

_If he has to leave us again, if he HAS to... then at least he'll be taking along some souvenirs,_ she thought through the haze of touch and taste; dark marks were already blooming on Kid's skin. _I don't want him to leave again, I don't want him to go- _Bolder than Shinichi now and growing impatient herself, she slid her hand down along his belly and took him in hand, her eyes closing as he groaned and the vibrations traveled from his chest to her lips. Ran hooked a leg over Kid's, tangling with both her lovers and pressing her own wet heat against the thief's skin. "Shinichi," she whispered, "you're too- mmmmmOHH!- too s-sloooow..." Her fingers tightened, beginning to slide up and down, slick friction, and Kid gasped. "Catch up with the class!"

He bucked against Kid, straining, and then suddenly pulled loose from the other's hold on his hands. Eyes almost all pupil, Shinichi shoved at his boxers with a strangled noise and, apparently, said goodbye to anything that had to do with politeness or self-restraint. Or coherency. "Ran. RAN," he said insistently. "Wallet. _Please._"

Grabbing the wallet, Ran flipped it open, bit the corner of a condom packet sticking up past the top edge of the leather, and handed the rest of the wallet over Kid's shoulder to Shinichi, smiling around the foil in her mouth as it was revealed. "Race you," she murmured through her teeth, stroking hard on Kid's cock; the others responded predictably - Kid with an obvious groan, Shinichi with a gutteral promise of appreciation for his girlfriend's sudden dirty ferocity.

Ran felt a jolt of slick between her legs, rows of muscles all the way up her inner thighs and deep into her body shivering as she listened to them, and she flexed hard, rolling that ripple of muscle all the way up into her body, swallowing it deep inside her sex and loving the way it lit up her whole self, hot and hollow, wanting filled. She flexed again; her lips pressed together with a soft wet sound that only Ran knew to listen for. The boys were busy with their big flashing neon signs; and don't mistake it, Ran really loved those neon signs. But the pulse of want inside of her was just as delicious - no, it was more delicious; it was what made savory her thoughts of Shinichi's cock, Kid's cock, her mouth and lips and legs wrapped around them. The searing, fluid rush of hot water through pipes, or the liquid pulse and grab of a waterbed right as you fall in; the pulse of appetite that your hindbrain can't know, for sure, isn't a dangerous hunger; this is _want_to Ran.

Ran wanted Kid, she wanted Shinichi, and with a condom between her teeth like a bad porn movie, Ran grinned unrepentantly, embracing that edge between being in control and being consumed. Her hand tightened around Kid's cock; her other one, leaving the condom displayed in her teeth for the moment, reached around her hip and upward, neatly trimmed fingernails flicking against her lips, tickling her pearl, and making her whole body shiver. It was harder to finger herself from behind - but, just in case they were looking, she wanted to be sure her boys could enjoy the view. Hell, she was keeping up with the Heisei Holmes and Lupin here; more than keeping up, usually keeping them in line. She was certainly allowed her own dramatic flair.

Hands were suddenly on her hips, clasping tight; the bed bounced as Shinichi pressed her back against the mattress, his face intent and singleminded. Ran dropped the condom and momentarily lost her grip on Kid's cock as Shinichi pressed his face between her thighs, hearing Kid curse and then draw in a deep, delighted breath as the first stroke of his tongue made Ran arch her back and gasp. Thin hands sliding around to cup her ass and lift her up, Shinichi lapped and sucked with abandon, wet noises and the sharp scent of Ran's arousal filling the small room; it was fast and rough and left her twisting and unable to catch her breath. Shuddering, Ran wrapped her fists in the sheets at shoulder-level and cried out over and over-

"Hhhha! Oh, oh god, oh y-yes- oh Shi- Shinichi-! Shin- Shinichi!- _Shinichi!"_

-and he raised his face up, dewed and streaked and utterly blissed, turning to look at Kid. "Think I won," he said thickly, and moved aside to let his lover in.

Kissing Kid, his mouth full of Ran's flavor, lips wet with her essence, his hands stroked the condom into place. Leaning forward, kissing Ran with Kid's own hands on his body, Shinichi slid back and down and a little shakily licked his lips and held his own foil coin out. "Kid?"

"Won't need much," Kid panted, rocking into Ran's hands as she took over for Shinichi, touching and pushing; her palm curled around the back of his cock, pressing him against her stomach, and Kid bucked into that friction as Shinichi's hand traced the thief's smooth angle of waist to hip.

"C'mon, Tantei," the thief grinned, baring his teeth as he arched between his lovers. "Want Ran to feel for herself what it does to me when you take me?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Ran murmured, hooking one thigh over Kid's and shimmying closer. Her hands guided him; his hands guided her. They fitted together delicately, making the first stroke last as long as they could; with one knee angled backward to hook over Shinichi's, Kid tugged their detective with their movement as he bent into the thrust, tipping Ran back, scraping her nipple with his teeth as they came to rest, snugged up as close as they could manage.

"Oh. Mmmgh, Kid, oh. Ohh, oh, Kid. Oh, god..." Ran inhaled, deep and sharp, and shifted restlessly, flexing around Kid as he flexed inside her; her breasts rose with the breath, pressing soft against Kid's cheek and mouth. The thief nuzzled close, stroking Ran's skin with the bridge of his nose, his lips, his brow.

"Goddess," he corrected Ran, sighing in contentment; he heard a breathless giggle above him, and a noticeable quiet from behind; Shinichi would shake himself free of his reverie in his own time, and Kid certainly wouldn't miss it when he did. Nibbling his way across the swell of Ran's breast, Kid rocked his hips back, rubbing Shinichi on the backstroke and driving into Ran, soft but deep, on the return. "Definitely...goddess."

Behind Kid, Shinichi sighed and pressed his body against the other's, hands on his shoulders; reluctantly he slid away- it was hard to stop watching, even with his own need shouting at him to _do something about me already, dammit!_

The little packet of handcream tore open easily; Kid groaned softly, and Ran must have felt the change in his rhythm as Shinichi began the caress that their particular form of lovemaking always started with- she made a noise in the back of her throat and her head jerked up a little, eyes glazed and wide and just visible to Shinichi for a second as Kid pressed back into his hands. "Slow," he whispered, lips brushing his thief's back; "slow and easy- urk-"

_That_ had been neither slow nor easy, the sudden shove and pressure, vigorous and definite as a shout. _Okay, then, I guess not... _Heart beating in his throat, love and lust and a thousand other things locking speech away for the moment, Shinichi settled himself behind Kid and pressed in steadily. The thief thrust back, his mouth opening in a silent gasp as Shinichi seated into him to the hilt. This slid him partially out of Ran; hissing through her teeth, Ran gripped Kid's shoulder to hang on as he rocked forward again, sliding half-off of Shinichi and into her, and between them both the thief trembled, already quickly losing control as his lovers' bodies unraveled his concentration.

"T-tantei, Tantei, Ran, you've-" Kid gulped air, clenching Shinichi within himself and tugging on Ran, seeking to seat them both fully against his body. Ran cooperated as she was able, but the drag of her hips against the futon, and the pressure of both Kid and Shinichi's force as the pair thrust together, forward and upward, ended up rolling her partway beneath Kid's body.

"You've got me coming and going," Kid rasped, collapsing the support of one of his knees so that he wouldn't jam painfully into Ran's pelvis as they came together at the crest of another thrust; she lifted her sex to meet him, strong thighs cording with muscle as she took Kid in until her mound was pressed flat against him, lips flared thick and dark with arousal around the base of his cock.

"N-not coming yet," Ran gritted out, clenching her lover to ensure his attention. "You come n-now and I'll make you try again and again and aga-aaah. Oh, gods, oh, up, up, push u-oooh! Right, mm, right there."

"Found your sweet spot, Ran?"

She smiled, hearing the breathless tautness in Shinichi's voice; though she couldn't see his face with her own tipped back, eyes shuttered almost closed, she could envision the satisfied, heated smirk he was definitely wearing.

"Li-literall-_**OH, **_oh my."

Ran clenched down; Kid jerked, his backstroke halted, and Ran curled down around his head and shoulders, licking and nibbling his ears and nape. "A-and not g-go_oooohhh_, oh god, not going, either," Ran scolded him, continuing as though there'd been no interruption. "You're not going an-anywhere until you, mm, tell us exactly where you're going."

"Oh, goddess, ca-nngh, can I get the lecture after the f-fuuuck, Ran? Dea-_aaahh_, oh, gods, nngh, that's a bit- ooh, oh god." Kid swallowed, making a valiant effort to continue the conversation Ran was obviously determined to win. "I promise I'll be more attenti_iiiiive! _Oh, holy fu-"

Chin hooked over Kid's shoulder, one hand shakily reaching out to stroke through Ran's bangs, Shinichi smiled at his girlfriend and stroked Kid's thigh soothingly, rocking back for a gentler, shorter thrust that nevertheless had Kid gasping.

"Shinichi's got something to say about that too, you know," Ran whispered, reading her boyfriend's intent in his eyes. She thrust forward, clenching down around Kid's cock, as Shinichi thrust up, driving as deeply into their thief as was possible. In the middle, Kid yowled like a cat in heat and scrabbled for handholds on both his lovers, lips glossy with spit and parted slack; skin flushed and hot to the touch, gaze distant, breath fast and shallow, the thief seemed to be glowing.

"Th-there, right- like that, _there," _gasped Shinichi, feeling Ran's own motion jolting right through Kid's body and the way Kid came unstrung between them. Euphoria welled up, overriding even the hot rush of pleasure and the tidal beat of urgency thrumming through his blood: they were doing this to Kid, sending him careening far out over the edge of control, he and Ran. And to themselves, to each other, all three-for themselves, for each other, all three-

The moment overwhelmed him. Eyes closing tightly, Shinichi thrust hard into Kid, into Ran, into the moment between them, and bit down on the nape of Kid's neck. He heard a shriek - Kid's - and a moan - Ran's - and felt them shudder back against him, two waves cresting together, tangling, and crashing in sequence against the same beach.

* * *

It took nearly thirty minutes before any one of the trio forced themselves to speak, but words weren't necessary in the afterglow; pillow cuddles were just as eloquent - actually, considering Kid's penchant for nonsequiturs, probably moreso - than their pillow talk might have been.

Waking from his post-orgasm drowsiness, Kid came back to himself to find Ran wrapped tightly around him, her heels pressing into Shinichi's hip; having misplaced his language skills, the thief at least was able to locate his hands and the handkerchief stashed under the pillow; he pulled out of Ran's body with a sigh, smiling distantly as Ran's breath fluttered and she frowned, missing him even as he slipped free. Cupping one hand between Ran's legs to cradle her sex, Kid wiped them both clean of most of their mess and balled his tied-off condom into the cloth to discard it, all the while stroking gently, oh so gently, across her mound. She sighed, undulating against him in complete cuddly satiation, and Kid kissed the ball of her shoulder in answer.

Behind him, roused by his movements, Shinichi was waking up; the detective winced, already feeling the pinch of a softening erection still buried deep in his lover's ass. Kid rolled his hip forward, spreading for Shinichi, and the detective pulled out with a wince.

"Nnh." Kid's eloquent commentary got a chuckle from Shinichi, and the gentle nibble on the back of his neck, on the tender spot where Shinichi's bite had claimed Kid's orgasm and his pleasure, told him Shinichi felt rather the same. Kid passed the handkerchief over his shoulder; Shinichi added his tied off condom to it and wiped up Kid and himself as he was able, setting the cloth to the side to be discarded later.

Bonelessly happy and tired, Kid tugged both his lovers closer like the touch addict he was, burying his nose in the plush vee of skin where Ran's breasts pressed together. She murmured something indistinct, a nominal complaint; Kid licked the skin in front of his nose and Ran laughed, a sound that shifted into a satisfied hum when Shinichi's fingers came traipsing across Kid's waist to stroke the slopes of Ran's.

_If anybody knocks on the door... or anything else... they'll have to die. Even Hattori; sorry, Heiji, but that's... just how it is... Fact of life._

Deeply content, thoughts ticking along at quarter-speed, Shinichi lazily let touch dominate his world. Sight wasn't needed, speech was irrelevant; all that mattered was the expanse of skin against his own, the soft smoothness beneath his fingertips, and the heartbeat that drummed a slowing counterpoint to his own. Heartbeats really; he couldn't hear Ran's but Kid could, he knew, and that was good enough, Shinichi thought fuzzily- Kid'd keep the beats safe.

There was something tickling his leg; he analyze the sensation with a brain that felt half saturated with something blissfully narcotic, and came to the conclusion that Ran was wiggling her toes against his calf. It seemed only fair to tickle back in a desultory kind of way, and his fingers _were_between both Kid and Ran, so- Shinichi got twin complaining noises in response, and went back to stroking whatever he could reach.

"Mmmm... l'ttle left," mumbled Ran, "'n higher." Obligingly (and feeling like the happiest claw-crane game in the world- the payoff was a LOT better than a plush toy) Shinichi let his hand be directed by muttered, indistinct commands until he was cupping a breast. _Oh. Okay. _That was fine with him, and he stroked the pebbling peak with his thumb as Ran sighed.

…..There was a knock at the bedroom door.

_Nuh-uh. Fuck no._ The detective marshaled a few reluctant brain-cells. "**Go. Away," **he enunciated with difficulty against Kid's neck; the thief and Ran both groaned, and Shinichi kissed the nearest surface (the mark on Kid's nape) in apology for the noise.

There was a faint throat-clearing. "Uh-" said Heiji's voice, sounding uncertain.

_That's it, Hattori. Sorry, but soon as I can move you're a homicide,_ thought Shinichi. "**NNGH. ****Later****."**

"Uh. Right. Later. Gotcha." Hurried footsteps faded from outside the door; Heiji could live one more day, Shinichi supposed.

* * *

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_Well, that's it from us for a little while. Happy Hiatus, everybody, and please leave your comments in the basket at the door as you leave. Especially if you did read the chapter - since we get few comments on each porn chapter, and most of those mostly incoherent, we're by this point rather nervous that you all don't really want to see as much porn as we have been enjoying writing. So let us know whether you'd like the porn to go away._

_And also please comment if you'd like the summary of the bowdlerized version of the chapter, if you're at work/etc or prefer not to read the porn._

_Love you all! :D_


	96. HIATUS

**Due to a mutual decision between the two writers, the current hiatus will continue until some time following March 1st, 2012. Please check back with us- there will be more announcements. In the meantime, we would like to express our gratitude for our your love and patience and for all the things you've given us- the encouragement, the joy, the wonderful ideas and the incredible richness of your enjoyment.**

For what is given, much must be returned. Don't forget us, and check back. Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times thank you.


	97. Welcome to the fallout

_Hello again!_

_Been a long time, hasn't it? But Three Thieves is finally back at last, hopefully better for the hiatus._

_There've been quite a few changes, and there'll be quite a few more. The big ones you've already heard about: this is now a single-writer project rather than being co-written. Change happens, whether welcome or not... and one can only hope that good will come of it. There'll be a few more changes here too, one of which will be the scheduling of Three Thieves. Rather than posting every Friday, the chapters will now be coming out on the first and third Fridays of each. This is primarily due to the fact that it's HARD to keep up the pace! But I promise to do my best; chapters will run around five to seven thousand words per posting, and just for fun the titles are changing formats again; what do you think of song lyrics? A song will be posted with each chapter, with a line from that song as the chapter's title. Today's is a good example._

_**Right now three chapters have been posted at the LiveJournal site since the hiatus; they will all three be posted here today, with a fourth chapter posted this Friday.  
**__  
So: Three Thieves is back, posting will now be on the first and third Fridays, and the chapter titles will be something you can sing. Is there anything I'm forgetting? **thinks** -Oh yeah, there is! Three Thieves is now welcoming fanfics and fanart from readers, to be posted here or linked from elsewhere. Yes, we've had it in the past, but we'd really love to see more. Want to try your hand at an omake? Go for it!_

_Okay, let's get going._

_To recap a bit from the last chapter: Kid has returned from abroad but will have to leave again for parts unknown, eventually heading towards London and the Crown Jewels. Our favorite detective is currently full-sized with an occasional possible reversion as his body readjusts and realigns itself. Ran, resident Voice Of Reason, has made it all too clear that secrets are less than welcome; Hattori Heiji has taken up __residence with the trio as moral support and/or guard-dog. And Hakuba Sagaru is still something of an unknown quality, but no longer among the opposition. Add to this a shooting, the discovery of Black Organization agents among Tokyo's Finest, severe injury to Chiba, somewhat less to Sato and several fatalities... and things are gearing up for a fight._

_This chapter and the next will be a series of flashbacks interspersed with present moments; there are reasons for this. Thanks for being patient, everyone; please settle back in your seats, kick off your shoes, and enjoy the show... __The Management_

_._

* * *

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_**Book Seven, Chapter Four**__** - "Welcome to the fallout-"**_  
_**(Song: "Dare You To Move" by Switchfoot)**_

Three months is a long, long time.

A lot can happen in a quarter of a year; given the right (or wrong) circumstances, it can feel like twice as long. Keeping busy helps the time to pass, of course, and good company helps to keep the seconds from outrunning even the worst distance. But it all gets old in the end; and even the most eager traveler eventually longs to put aside their maps and return home at last.

In the darkened hotel room, thin fingers turned a page in a pool of lamplight; paper whispered in the still air. Somewhere a clock ticked, measuring out the seconds as the reader traced over the words, committing the lines to memory:

"Nnnnnnghh... Kudo? What the _hell _are you doin'?"

"'-murdered," he answered the sleepy, annoyed voice issuing from the depths of the bedcovers across the room. "'Henry's son, Henry V, wore this ruby in the crown he wore around his helmet at the Battle of Agincourt; a bejewelled gold fleuron was struck off this same crown during the battle and lost...'"

Hattori Heiji made a grouchy noise; the only bits visible of his body were a shock of dark hair at one end of the sheets and two bare brown feet at the other- the Osakajin regularly slept with the covers pulled up over his face. He also tended to snore, a fact that Shinichi could've done perfectly fine without knowing but was now far, far too aware of. "Remind me t'keep away from rubies."

His fellow detective snorted, continuing on out of a spirit of sheer perversity. "'The ruby,'" he read in a deliberate tone, "'was similarly worn in the crown of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. When Richard was killed during the fighting it famously rolled under a hawthorn bush to be retrieved by Lord Stanley and placed on the head of the victorious Henry Tudor.'" Marking his place, Shinichi closed _All That Glitters: A History Of the Official Treasures Of Great Britain _with a snap and leaned back, stretching until his vertebrae popped audibly in protest. "And what I'm doing," he added, "is research. And keeping myself awake; we're out of coffee."

In the bed Heiji rolled over, winding himself up like a very rumpled mummy in the sheets; it would've looked more impressive if they hadn't been a particularly garish flower-print. "Yadda yadda... Y'been reading that same section over and over for the last friggin' week, Kudo. Still tryin' to second-guess that pet whacko of yours?" Heiji pawed at the covers, yawning, until he'd dragged them down enough to reveal his face; he stretched as well, making the bed creak. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Two minutes til three."

"Coulda woke me sooner-"

"I was about to." Replacing the book into the backpack that now held all of his (portable) worldly goods, Shinichi dug a one-yen coin out of a side compartment and jingled it thoughtfully in his palm. "Want to flip for which one've us gets to talk first?"

"Heads," said the Detective of the West promptly. Wearing nothing but a pair of dark green boxers and another yawn, he extracted himself from the bed to sit on the end. "Flip it." With a shrug, Shinichi obliged.

The coin was in the air and falling fast when the cellphone on the desk rang. "Tails," murmured Shinichi, not even making an effort to catch it; his face softened as he clicked the phone into life, and Heiji watched his friend's weary eyes light up from within as a thread of voice filtered into the room.

"Ran," he breathed softly, and cradled the phone in his hand as carefully as if it were made of glass. "Hi."

* * *

_**Three months ago:**_

"They're _still _asleep?" Hattori Heiji gave his fellow detective a Look. "What'd you three do, try t'break a world record for-"

Shinichi cut him off, flushing. "Do you really want to know? Ask Kid when he wakes up; go on, I dare you. You know he'll tell you, and," he added significantly, "he'll probably include sound effects."

They were in the small galley-style kitchen that the Shiratori estate's servants used to make simple meals in, putting together a scratch lunch of sorts. While Heiji muttered thief-directed epithets beneath his breath and assembled a ham sandwich of monumental proporions, the Detective of the East looked him over surreptitiously. The other's face bore signs of fatigue: mothwing shadows in the hollows beneath each eye, a certain puffiness of the lids, drag to the slope of each shoulder. "You don't look like you got much sleep yourself. Everything okay?" Shinichi began peeling an orange.

"Eh..." Heiji shrugged, slathering on mustard before setting the knife down with a clatter and attacking a jar of pickled daikon. "Spent some time on th'phone with my parents... and, uh..."

"-Kazuha?"

The pickle jar went _clunk! _against the counter; Heiji grunted, trying to grip and twist. There was a discomfited look in his green eyes, and he cursed when the jar slipped and slid almost onto the floor. "Yeah," he grunted, shaking the jar irritably as if it would help. "She wants to know when I'm coming home, Kudo. So'd my folks, only they were a lot louder about it than SHE was for a change." Brown fingers gripped and twisted, and again the jar slid. "SHIT."

"Here, give me that." Shinichi caught the rolling jar, squatted down to floor level, flipped it deftly over and thunked the lid flat on the wooden floor, _THWACK._He upended it again and twisted the lid as he stood; there was a pop.

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Mouri." Going back to his own sandwich-making, Shinichi wrinkled his nose at the smell of the pickled daikon- he wasn't much on pickles, especially on sandwiches. "And when your hands're small and weak, you pick up all sorts of tricks to manage." A slice of tomato went on with some Kewpie mayo, and Heiji shuddered; the Osakajin felt the same way about mayonnaise that Shinichi did about pickles. "So... what'd they say?"

One shoulder hiked up in a shrug. "Same stuff as usual. They're pissed- Otan is, anyway- and the shooting's got 'em scared I'll do something stupid and end up on a steel slab. They want me home and under their thumb like always, but I'm not going. Otan sounded like he expected that this time at least. Kaasan, though..."

"Let me guess. She and Kazuha double-teamed you?"

"Heh. Funny thing 'bout that; they'd talked, Kaasan made that pretty clear, but I don't think they saw eye to eye this time so much." Heiji paused to take a bite of his gargantuan sandwich, eyes thoughtful as he chewed and swallowed with his elbows propped on the counter. "Don't think Kaasan was expectin' that, either, and she didn't like it. 'Zuha, she didn't push me too hard; she didn't want to know if I was coming home soon or anything, just- kinda a general idea." He took another bite; Shinichi did as well, and they both ate in silence for a few minutes.

Shinichi picked up the little plastic tab used to close the bread and reached for the loaf... which wasn't there. Nor was the mayo, nor the ham, nor the sliced cheese that Heiji had very nearly decimated. The knife lay forlornly on the suspiciously-bare counter until a slim, long-fingered hand slipped sideways between his shoulder and Heiji's, two fingers delicately nicking the implement and drawing it soundlessly between them. The two detectives watched it go with owlish eyes. "You _coulda _asked," said Heiji, beginning to turn around.

"In the interests of what I'm sure you'd deem decency, Tantei-han, I'd remain facing forward if I were you," drawled the thief behind them, voice lazy. The arms that draped over Shinichi's shoulders were bare and warm; one hand held a sandwich with a bite taken out of it. The corner of the detective's mouth crooked up; he swallowed his own bite, considered, and angled his head to take a bite of Kid's as well.

"Mmmph..." Shinichi swallowed. "Too much cheese."

"I like cheese, Tantei."

"No, _really?"_ muttered Shinichi, tilting his head and resting one cheek against skin. He turned his head just enough to watch Heiji's face as the other put two and two together and came up with _Aaagh Naked Whacko Nutjob_and chose the better part of valor, staring fixedly straight ahead at the kitchen shelves as if they were the most interesting things on the planet. A bare foot-sole stroked Shinichi's calf, and the detective sighed. "Where's Ran?"

"Showering. I believe she's still a bit miffed at me; she threw a sponge at my head."

His lover sighed. "Well, she has reason. And I-"

A voice behind him cut Shinichi off mid-sentence. "My, but you're all looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning!" said his mother's voice, and Heiji's face went a little strange for a moment. Kid snickered, tracing a line on his detective's nape with what felt like the tip of his nose before taking another bite of his sandwich. "But then I'd hardly expect otherwise. Kid, I like your outfit in particular; very chic." (Heiji twitched.) "I doubt even your mother'd recognize you like that, though; would she, darling?"

Her husband's voice sounded amused but resigned. "This _is _Chikage-san we're talking about, 'Kiko... I think she'd know her sons no matter what. By the way, does anyone know why there's a taxi waiting by the front gate?"

It was the lack of trauma in Kudo Yuusaku's tone that made Heiji swivel in place- and let out an outraged snort of relief (or a relieved snort of outrage, whichever.) Shinichi followed suit, and received a kiss on the tip of his own nose in reward. The familiar/unfamiliar face beamed at him; "Good morning, Tantei," breathed the thief...

...or rather, breathed one Takeda-san, nattily dressed in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the collar unbuttoned; the charcoal grey pinstripes of the suit-jacket that he had draped over a nearby chair matched his dress slacks, and the tie that hung loosely around his neck was steel-blue silk, 1930's-retro in its narrow width. The thief was barefoot, and he looked criminally good to Shinichi's admittedly biased eyes.

Hattori scowled at them both. "That," he informed the less lawful of the two, "was NOT in yer bag; you barely had room for a coupla shirts and some underwear." He paused. "Taxi?"

Kid/Takeda-san blinked soulful grey contacts at Heiji. "Of course it wasn't, Tantei-han; I'd never mistreat a good suit like that. It's been hanging in a closet here since my first visit. And just because a conveyance _looks_like a licensed taxi, that doesn't mean it actually is one. I fear that's my ride, and right on time, too; Jiisan makes a good cabbie, ne?" He took another bite of sandwich, and Shinichi wondered how he could manage to eat while wearing the subtle prosthetics that he'd used to age and change the outline of his face; 'Takeda-san' looked both more Eurasian and less youthful than Kid or his brother, though still strongly Japanese.

He also looked unbelievably good in a suit. Especially THAT suit; it twitched at Conan-memories from the Poirot Cafe and brought an involuntary smile to Shinichi's face. _But,_ the detective part of his brain whispered, _if he's already in disguise then that means-_

"Oh- moue, Kid, you're leaving? Already?" Ran's crestfallen voice coincided with her footsteps on the floor as she came in behind Shinichi's parents; her damp hair was twisted up in a towel and she wore a flowered lavender bathrobe that had formerly been Yukiko's. "Do you _have_to?"

'Takeda-san's' eyes were full of regret; he half-turned from Shinichi as Ran crossed the room, taking one of her hands and bringing it to his lips. "As much as I'd love to stay- and I would, Ran, truly I would- I've already stretched my tether to its limit. Any longer and it'll break; I have to leave before my time runs out." Ran's fingers tightened around Kid's own as he continued. "So much left to do, so little time... and I can't promise when we'll meet next, except that it'll be as soon as it's..." Behind the grey lens tinting Kid's- and Kaito's- blue eyes flickered with indecision. He ran a hand across his unusually well-styled hair, flattened into Takeda's less unruly sleekness with a liberal amount of hairgel. "Well. 'Prudent' doesn't quite fit; 'safe' is somewhat out of the question, isn't it? And 'less fantastically unwise' is a bit too long and sounds, mmm, a touch lacking in confidence." He kissed her fingers again, turning to gather Shinichi in with his gaze. "I'll see you again as soon as..."

"...as soon as it's right," said Ran softly. She turned his hand over in hers and pressed a kiss of her own into Kid's palm, lips lingering before moving in for an embrace. Over the top of her head Kid's eyes met Shinichi's, his usual humor dimmed down like a candleflame in a wind. Shinichi stepped in, settling into the both of his lovers' holds for a long, wordless moment, breathing in their mingled breath for what he suspected would be the last time for a long, dark while.

Behind them, Yuusaku and Yukiko traded glances with Heiji; the Detective of the West slipped past the embracing trio and, sandwich in hand, slid the door closed, leaving Shinichi, Ran and Kid to their private farewells.

* * *

_**Two months ago:**_

"Eleven positives so far. Kind of freaky, huh? Knowing that they were working with us all that time. And that's just in Traffic and Finance- who knows how many we'll find when they get to Homicide?"

Chiba Isshin scratched absently at the edge of the bandages that still wrapped his ribs. He was pale, his skin sallow with ill health; his face was thinner than Takagi had ever seen it, blue shadows caught in the hollows beneath his eyes. The white bathrobe and light blue scrubs he insisted on wearing beneath it (he'd shown a really remarkable talent for making hospital gowns mysteriously vanish) only emphasized his pallor, but, thought the police detective, Chiba-kun looked one hell of a lot better than he had several weeks before. Takagi shuddered internally, remembering.

_(Machinery beeping countertime to monitors and screens, the sour smells and antiseptic stinks of a IC ward catching in the back of the throat. Breathing harsh and muffled by intubation, needles and cold, clinical instruments measuring a man's life one slow, erratic heartbeat at a time)_

Scratch, scritchscritch, scratch... Chiba shifted in his wheelchair irritably, fingernails picking beneath the edge of his robe. Files and paperback novels lay heaped on his bedside table, but he had been allowed to remain out of bed following a rehab session. The surgery that had saved his life following his shooting had required an extended recovery period, complicated by medical issues that Takagi's ears had simply fuzzed over after the words 'sepsis' and 'staph infection' had entered the conversation. Megure's assistant had passed through the worst part of his recovery minus part of his spleen, a third of one lung and a half-meter of his lower intestine; he'd also acquired a most unlikely room-mate, one who was currently perching like the world's most disgruntled vulture on the edge of his own bed on the other side of the room.

"STOP that," said Chirokawa severly, looking down his nose at Chiba. "You'll spread skin-flakes."

The young officer rolled his eyes. "We're in a _hospital, _Chirokawa-san," he sighed with the air of someone who had already pointed this out a thousand times. "This place is about as sanitary as they get-"

"-and do you have any idea whatsoever what percentage of patients contract nosocomial diseases following surgery? Pneumonia! UTIs! _Staphylococcus Aureus! _You've already managed to-"

"Chirokawa-san, your paranoia is going to-"

"You young idiot, your delusions will-"

_**"That's Enough."**_

Takagi's snapped-out command chopped off the ongoing argument with all the weight of an axe-blow; you just didn't hear that kind of tone from the young officer, you just _didn't-_it was like being bitten by a rather shy but friendly dog. One pair of widened eyes and one pair of narrowed ones regarded him in silence before the two glanced at each other in a moment of mutual resentment and reluctant truce before turning back to Takagi and visibly backing down. "Uh- Takagi-kun, we're... um. Sorry." Chiba shot a sidelong help-me-out-here-dammit look at his fellow culprit, who grumbled but capitulated with a muttered apology.

"Fine." Sato's partner sighed, running a hand through his hair briefly; his face showed the strain of too many sleepless nights and too much worry. "You said eleven? Has Haibara-san found a palliative yet for the loyalty drug's effects? Her most recent report said that she was running low on some crucial components for the substitute pills she's been providing, and if we were to run out…" Takagi looked at Chiba and Chirokawa in inquiry; they all knew the consequences of an APTX victim not taking the derivative.

Chirokawa made a disgruntled noise. "Not that she's said. There was something about 'four weeks and then you can begin sweeping up their remains,' but beyond that not one word." He shook his head. "Frankly, she's incredibly difficult to work with, Takagi-san, and that's putting it mildly. A more misogynistic individual I've rarely had the misfortune to meet."

Chiba scowled. "She can't be misogynistic, she's female," he objected.

"Hm; point. That'd make her, ah, misandristic, I suppose…" Chirokawa considered this for a moment before continuing with a shrug; he shoved himself back onto his bed with thin, bony arms, his plaster cast sliding across the sheets with a sandpapery sound. His stay at the quiet, sanitary resort that he occasionally referred to with longing had ended, rather ironically, with a slip on freshly-mopped bathroom tiles; the cracked fibula that had resulted from the older man's fall had been bad enough, but the thought of being packed away injured and helpless into his spartan apartment had sent Chirokawa calling Megure-keibu and irately demanding sanctuary.

He'd asked for a private room in a clean hotel somewhere. He'd gotten Chiba as a roommate and Jade Rabbit instead. Chirokawa had been quitevocal regarding his displeasure.

"The eleven 'positives' are being kept at a couple of our secure sites; no contact with each other, 24/7 surveillance, the works," went on Chiba, picking up the glass of water from the small table beside him; he took a sip and shook his head. "I knew some of them. I _worked_with two of them-"

"And we all knew Miyamoto-san, Chiba-kun," said Takagi quietly. "Yumi-chan wasn't- _isn't_ a bad person. She was very professionally persuaded... directed..." He shook his head; "...seduced. Some of the eleven suspects may have been in the same boat, or they may have been willing accomplices; it's not our business to figure that out, that's the job of the officers that Megure-keibu's assigned. _Our _job is to work with the disappearances." He rubbed at his forehead, shoving the memories of the young woman's lost face away; now was not the time. "Chirakowa-san, Chiba-kun, what've you got for me?"

Forty-five minutes later, what Chirokawa and Chiba had could be boiled down to this:

_People were going missing. _Of the schoolchildren determined by Kudo Shinichi and his team's research to be high-risk, thirty-eight had been approached by persons who fit the Black Organization profile; of those thirty-eight, twenty-three had gone missing. Of the twenty-three, nine of the childrens' homes had shown traces of an unknown chemical residue- unknown, that is, unless you were familiar with the traces left behind by activated, caustic Apotoxin agents in a human system- what the substance that had been given to Shinichi had been meant to do. Fourteen more children of varying ages had gone missing from public places; of the fifty-two children whose files lay on Chiba's bedside table, seven full families had vanished. Of the others, twenty individual family members or friends had faded into oblivion, with a total of forty-three adults missing.

The tallies were still coming in.

Five executives working for two different airlines had met in a private boardroom in Kagoshima; thumping noises had registered on security scans, screams, and then the smoke alarms had gone off.

Two buses that had carried sixty-one seventh-grade honor students had been found empty on a road outside Hiroshima; the driven had been nowhere to be found.

Twelve members of Japan's richest zaibatsu families had flown out on a private jet belonging to the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation for a finance meeting; the jet had exploded in a fireball seven kilometers out from Shin-Chitose International.

Tallies.

All over the country people were vanishing, dying, slipping into the shadows; all over the country the unknown, unmissed were dwindling into silence even as more public key figures were being removed more spectacularly and finally.

_Tallies..._

"Why? What's changed?" Chiba stared at columns of names before closing a dog-eared folder. "Something's different now, something's... I don't know. They went from snagging one or two kids and making little penny-ante crooks and minor business managers go 'poof!' to, to this. What's different? What'd they do? What's happened?"

* * *

"What's happened," said Shinichi as he stared out the window at the rain of late afternoon, "is that something's either gotten more accessible or rarer." He tapped a pen against his teeth. "When an attacking force's reserves are cut short they either become desperate and begin emergency strategies or withdraw to a point of safety. If a force gains new resources they begin to branch out, take down new targets, look for openings to move into. Things change-"

Heiji jerked to his feet, unable to keep still. "-and it's not 'cause they're gettin' desperate, Kudo. Don't you see it?" His voice was sharp, clipped. "They're _moving. _ Why're they moving? You remember, we were talking about there being two different teams goin' against us? Two different agendas, two different players?"

Blue eyes met green. "One of them is **winning**," whispered Shinichi. "Or they've already won."

His fellow detective shook his head. "Not yet they haven't, or things'd be even worse. Kudo?" Heiji swallowed. "You... remember what you were afraid of, back when all this started? -yeah, yeah, I know, you were afraid've _every_thing, but- what's been the big nightmare? Whaddya have bad dreams about the most?" The Osakajin's expression was uncharacteristically sober.

Neither had to say; Shinichi's already-pale face bleached to a pallor that would've sent Haibara reaching for her hypodermics. It was the old terror, the first fear born on the same night that Edogawa Conan had entered the world, midwifed by logic and fostered by fire and bombs and gunshots: that the Black Organization would come for the people who knew about Shinichi's double life, or who might know, or who were simply close enough to qualify as collateral damage.

-and then they would all, quite simply, _die._

_Angel, _whispered Vermouth in his memory, smiling, and _your parents' and friends' dead faces _said Haibara softly- The detective took in a hard breath, heartbeat speeding up to run in dark, frantic circles inside his chest. "God. We need to tell Megure. And Santemillion-sensei. And your parents, Heiji, and Ran's, and Kazuha, and oh SHIT the Shonen Tantei's-"

"Hey, hey, calm down!" Heiji's hands were on Shinichi's shoulders; he hadn't even seen him turn, vision too focussed on inner horrors. "Kudo, KUDO, listen to me! Hasn't happened yet, right? C'mon, think- 's perfectly good proof that one're the other side hasn't won yet, 'cause if that blond bitch who screwed your kaasan over was in power she'd've come after you, right? So she's not, at least not yet, and whoever she's up against still is, only they're raisin' the stakes and cutting their losses, so-" He groped verbally for a moment. "-so-"

But Shinichi was thinking again now, the momentary burst of panic slowing into calculation. "...so we have a little time. Not a lot, but some at least. Either way... we need to move. We can't let them move first, no matter which side wins."

He bit his lip, eyes distant; across the room, the rain clattered in a momentary burst against the windowpanes, and Shinichi rubbed his face with one hand as he thought. "The original power's still in position, yeah, but threatened; the adult deaths could be a warning, a show of strength, sorting out loose ends..." He shrugged. "Either way, I suppose one thing's established, at least: whoever's running the Black Organization doesn't know about me- yet. All this time worrying about them, all this time..."

Heiji let his hands fall; they curled at his sides into loose fists. "Wasn't wasted, y'know," he reminded his friend. "If they _**had **_found out..." The rest went unsaid. "They heard yer name enough at that roller-coaster case, they knew who you were."

The other detective nodded. "I suppose so."

"You KNOW so, aho. Don't let panic turn you into more've an ass than you already are."

Heiji watched hopefully for a reaction, working on the principle that An Irritated Kudo Was Not A Freaked-Out Kudo, but Shinichi's mind was obviously on something else. After a moment, he glanced up, dark blue eyes shadowed, almost indigo. "You do know what this means, don't you?" he asked, a note of self-mockery in his voice that made Heiji raise an eyebrow.

"Uh? What?"

"Disclosure." Shinichi gave what might have been a snort of laughter, or maybe just a snort. "Not just of the Organization and its intention, but about me too. To Mouri. And- oh god, to his _wife._I know it's a minor thing against everything else, but, well."

"It won't be a minor thing if Mouri rips yer head off when he figures out you'n Ran've been practicing for your honeymoon," the other said darkly, rolling his eyes. "Add in yer pet lunatic and he won't stop with just your head; better leave that part out." Heiji studied Shinichi's expression from a close distance, frowning; he shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall behind him. "You're really gonna do it, huh? Tell 'em all- Mouri, that lawyer wife've his, the kids, that Suzuki friend of Neesan's? _Kazuha? _ALL of 'em? 'Bout the Org, about you being the shrimp, about... everything?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Nothin' that doesn't involve hara-kiri." Heiji sighed. "So we better think pretty damn hard about just what we're gonna say an' how we're gonna say it. We can't bring 'em ALL here, Kudo, that'd be stupid." Eyeing the problem from several angles, the Kansai detective scowled and nibbled at his own lip. "Mebbe... just family? An' Kazuha? The kids-"

Shinichi sighed. "I know. I _know."_

* * *

_**One month ago:**_

Sirens. Flashes of red and blue light reflecting from Ran's wide eyes, kneeling, staring up at Shinichi, a jacket clutched in her white-knuckled hands. Red and blue and red and blue, her cheeks wet, tears spilling as she threw her head back and screamed-

* * *

_**Present day:**_

Three months are a long, _long _time.

Heiji watched from across the shabby hotel room, trying to listen to tone without listening to words and failing miserably; he considered sticking his fingers in his ears but dropped the idea as lacking in couth. Maybe a pillow over the head?

_Kazuha's on the other end'a that line too; I know Kudo needs to talk to Neechan, but- ah, screw it; we'll get our turn. _He let the quiet endearments and murmurs from the other side of the room flow over him and thought hard about Kendo.

On the other side of the room, Shinichi listened to the voice on the other end of the line. Taut, a little frazzled, more than a little exhausted; he could relate. Every word was precious, though, thin threads tying them together across the distance. He wished that the threads could pull them across the kilometers and draw them together, erase the barricades and wipe away the shadows...

_Ran, you talked about a red thread once, the one from that movie you were supposed to meet me at. It's still there, that thread, tangled around you and me and Kid no matter how far apart we are. This won't last forever; no matter how far we're scattered, the thread'll pull us back together again, Kid and me and you._

_I wish that could be true for everyone._

The voice on the phone trickled to a halt; Shinichi could hear Ran breathing, and his own breath caught in his throat. "Ran," said Shinichi very gently, heartsick and trying not to show it. _**"Ran." **_He swallowed hard, remembering. "Please listen to me. We... need to talk about..."

_Do it, Kudo,_ Heiji whispered soundlessly from his place across the room; the detective's green eyes caught the dim light like glass, like emeralds. _Do it. She needs this. So do you._

"...about what happened to your father."

And from thousands of miles away, Shinichi heard Ran's breath catch in her throat-

* * *

.

.

_Well. We all knew things were getting serious, didn't we? All the signs were there... and now the battle's beginning. See you all again with Chapter Five._


	98. appeared and vanished in a second

_Okay..._

_**First rule:** Don't kill the author._  
_**Second rule:** Especially if she's reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaally sorry, but the chapter about What Happens To Mouri has been delayed._  
_**Third rule:** Because there's something that needs to be taken care of first._

_**ducks fast**_

_See, I was __going to wait til later for this bit, but well, no. There are certain things that need to be covered first, so they were in this chapter and I really, really promise that in two weeks I'll post the one about What Happens To Mouri. Promise! I swear! It's just that there are so many details to take care of, so much that has to be covered! **brain starts sizzling**_

_Anyway... hope you enjoy the chapter. It's got some sad moments but loose ends have to be tied up before life can move on; and that's what I have for you tonight..._

_The Management__  
._

* * *

_**Book Seven, Chapter Five**__** - "...appeared and vanished in a second..."**_  
Music: 'Houkiboushi' (Comet) by Younha/Sato Ema

_Three Months Ago, Second Verse:_

"Coffee, sir? -certainly; cream and sugar?" The stewardess in her _Asiana Air_cap and scarf smiled a professional smile down at the man in Business Class. "Or would you prefer something else from our beverage cart?"

"Mm; a scotch and soda, please. And do you have today's _Japan Times?" _A few minutes later, one Takeda Hiro, modestly-successful young entrepreneur and accredited representative of Nonesuch Enterprises, Inc., sipped his drink as he scanned the sports pages. His somewhat Occidental eyes followed the text with apparent interest, and if you were to ask you his opinion of the past week's games he would have opined that the Hanshin Tigers' game had really picked up since they had fired Akinobu Mayumi as manager.

Truthfully, though...

...his thoughts were on anything but games. Well, at least, not on _football _games. Gymnastics, possibly, or Cops-And-Robbers.

They were three hours out from Tokyo, not quite halfway to Singapore International; a good tailwind had them making excellent time, and Takeda-san expected to arrive a little early. Not a problem; Singapore's enormous airport had plenty of diversions, and the young businessman had any number of calls to make once they had landed. _'You have to keep your contacts happy,'_ he could've explained to anyone who might have asked; _'They need to feel important, they need to feel needed. That's commerce for you, supply and demand and lots of ego-stroking. Some of the stories I could tell you-' _But his seatmate (a hung-over minor manager of an equally minor shipping firm) had fallen asleep right after takeoff, and the plane's staff weren't interested in his stories. Takeda-san'd been a bit disappointed at that; he liked to talk.

Ah, well.

Thin fingers turned a page; they were smooth-skinned and uncalloused, the hands of somebody who had never had to do manual labor for a living. In fact, save for the expected tiny nicks and miniscule traumas of a paper-pusher's life, they were quite bland; even the pads of the fingers were nigh-perfect, distinct, unmarred, very nearly artificial in their regularity. Their utter unremarkableness was remarkable. They folded the newspaper over, creased its folds, and at a murmured request from a passenger across the aisle passed it along for another businessman's perusal. Ice clinked in Takeda-san's glass as he took another long sip, and he sat it aside on the tiny fold-out tray in front of him before settling back to stare absently out the plane's small oval window at the cloud layer far below, remembering.

* * *

"You'll be careful?"

"As careful as... as a..." Kaito paused, a series of expressions flickering across his face as he and his brother attempted, tried again, and totally failed to come up with an appropriate analogy. "Well, we- that is, we'll try to- I think we can promise t-" He sighed. "Kaasan, we'll do our best to stay under the radar and not get hurt. Beyond that? We _are _your and Tousan's sons."

Their mother tried to smile; it wasn't a total success either. "So you are. Then I won't ask either of you to promise what you can't deliver, just- oh, just remember all the failsafes and contact methods we've set up. Don't put anything on paper, don't send any obvious encryptives, stay out of camera-range as often as possible..." Her voice dwindled as her sons bit back a laugh.

"For the first time in history, a mother just told her sons not to write or send photos," Kaito quipped; his voice slid back into seriousness, though, and he continued. "We'll be _fine,_ Kaasan, I promise." He reached up, tapping Kuroba Chikage on the tip of her nose. "You be careful yourself, ne? You're the one staying behind. If you see anything, anything that looks even hints that you're being watched, you bug out of here, okay? Pick one of Tousan's oldest bolt-holes, the ones with the stockpiled supplies in them; there's the one in Ginza, or the one over by Ueno Park, or the-"

This time it was Chikage's finger that tapped her sons' lips. "Shush, silly; who do you think helped your father to set most of those up?" Her expression was rueful, fondness hiding a large lump of fear and excitement mixed with exasperation. The long years of stasis and waiting that had weighed her down and smothered her had been slipping away steadily ever since the night she had watched her sons following in their father's footsteps in person; they had relinquishment their hold only reluctantly, but Chikage had emerged from her self-imposed hermitage like Amaterasu stepping from her cave: eyes open, astonished by the world around her. Jintaro had quietly confided in Kid that a great deal of Toichi's planning had centered around his wife's research. The old man had reminisced wistfully about past triumphs and intricate, detailed plots that covered months of work and produced results that were still listed as some of Interpol's most baffling cold cases.

She wasn't fully back yet... but Kuroba Chikage, the original Moonlight Magician's shadow spider, had been and was still waking up.

"Don't try to teach this old dog new tricks, she'll learn them on her own if she needs to," she scolded her sons gently. "And I'll have Jii here to help me, won't I?" From his place just inside the Kuroba home's foyer door, the elderly man raised a bushy gray eyebrow and nodded, his eyes fixed on his young master. "So," she went on, tweaking her sons' collar straight and reflexively checking over his appearance from his pomaded hair down to the plain dark trouser-socks peeking out of the hem of his suit pants. "You have everything you'll need?"

Kaito's face shifted fluidly as his brother stepped forward. "Everything? Never, Kaasan; we're leaving the most important things behind." The thief gave their mother his most charming smile, hoping for a return in kind; "It's unfortunate but mothers, detectives and Voices of Reason do not fold for easy storage, so we were forced to leave them out of our suitcase. I suppose we'll just have to make do, though." He stepped forward, standing on tiptoes to kiss his mother's cheek as she leaned over the banister. "Go well, Kaasan; give Sava-san our greetings when you see him, hm?" He stepped back mentally to allow his brother to do the same, watching from their shared headspace as their mother tried again to smile.

_She may be rusty, but she played this game for years before we were even born,_ he reminded Kaito. _We really shouldn't worry so much._

His brother gave him the distinct impression of an eyeroll. _Oh, sure. And that's why you've worked up no less than twenty-three different exit strategies for her and Jii if things do go pear-shaped, right? Riiiiiiight. You're not fooling anyone, Thief._ Of course, neither was Kaito.

_Okay; two more things to take care of before we leave._ Walking soundlessly beside his brother, the Magician glanced sideways at the Fool. _Nakamori first?_

"Age before beauty," agreed Kid softly, flipping a black umbrella open against the weather. Kaito winced but said nothing, and they moved on through a fine drizzle of evening rain until the Kuroba home was no longer in view. They did not look back.

* * *

There are cop bars, and then there are _cop bars._ The bar frequented by Division One, _'Red's', _was all well and good; but the Kaitou Kid Task Force had a haunt all their own, one which catered to their fearless leader's particular tastes. In short, it allowed indoor smoking and served ferociously strong coffee that would, given time, either reinforce a drinker's stomach-lining or dissolve it.

The bar officially went by the very un-Japanese name of "Sam's Café 13", but as long as the Taskforce had been frequenting its backroom it'd been called _'Hoshi's'_, meaning 'star.' The side entrance that took customers up a set of rickety stairs to the private area in the back had an old Texas Ranger's badge hammered into the beam above the door; whether the hunk of metal was authentic or not wasn't important- it had just always been there. The place was flashy out front with its ostentatiously foreign food and Budweiser on tap; but in the back you could get plain, local snacks and good Japanese beer.

And coffee. Always coffee.

It was a good place to be on a rainy summer evening. Nakamori Ginzo was nursing his third cup and his fifth pipe of the evening over a half-eaten curry katsu and an open casefile when he realized that someone had slid quietly onto his booth's opposite seat. Frowning, he looked up at the gray-suited young man across from him and raised a black eyebrow. _Another rookie who wants to be on the Taskforce? _he thought resignedly; ever since the last heist there'd been a surge of applicants. "Something I can do for you?" he grunted.

"Ahhah, no, Nakamori-keibu; it's more likely that there's something I can do for _you," _said the smiling man, propping his chin up on one hand. He had an affable, easygoing face, Asian with a strong flavor of Europe in his ancestry; there was something about it, though, something familiar... The cop inside his head that never slept or stopped eyeing the world suspiciously continued to examine the notion as the young man went on. "I've come across a fact or two that I thought might interest you."

Nakamori's scowl deepened. "Really. And just how much are your 'facts' going to cost me?" He didn't ask for a name, not yet.

The young man spread his hands (narrow fingers and palms, odd callus pattern, the inspector automatically noted) and made a little tsking noise. "Not a yen, Keibu, I promise you. Gratis, pro bona, absolutely free. Consider them a measure of my esteem- from one professional to another." His white teeth gleamed in a smile straight from the toothpaste commercials.

"Yeah? Professional what?" The inspector leaned forward, squinting through the gloom and lingering pipe-smoke.

The smiling man in the dapper gray suit half closed his eyes, leaning forward as well until their faces were far too close together for Nakamori's comfort. "Well, Nakamori-keibu," he murmured in an all-too-familiar and very different voice, "you've called me any number of things over the past few years; I suppose you could take your pick." The smile that transformed his face just then was the one that went with the voice, and Nakamori froze like a rabbit staring down both barrels of a shotgun.

Kid beamed. _"Hi."_

The series of involuntary movements that were begun and then forcibly stifled within Nakamori's frame over the next minute or so had a strong resemblance to _delirium tremens_; they ended with him slowly settling back in his seat, fists clenched, every muscle rigid and a look of utter outrage on his face. "You. YOU," he growled under his breath, "have got to be _FUCKING BATSHIT INSANE _to come here-!"

The thief folded his hands and offered the inspector a smile of angelic, unhinged sweetness. "Well, yes; but really I prefer to think of myself as simply having a pair of big brass ones. I've always wanted to visit a cop bar, you know, and this seemed like exactly the right time, so... Ahh-ah-ahh, Keibu," he cautioned Nakamori, who had opened his mouth to scream for reinforcements, aspirin, or possibly just merely to vent. "Shhhh; if you raise a fuss, you'll never learn what I came here to tell you, now will you?"

"I could live with that," muttered the head of the Kaitou Kid Taskforce; his nails bit into the scarred wood of the tabletop.

Eyes that contact lenses had shielded with a gray façade (but Nakamori knew them, oh he knew them) narrowed slightly, though the expression around them remained pleasant. "No, Keibu," said the thief with odd gentleness, steepling his fingers in front of him. "Actually, you couldn't. That's precisely the point. And neither," he added softly, "could your daughter."

Silence.

The growl was almost subvocal: a low, low sound that vibrated the liquid in the half-full coffeecup and sent a stray chopstick rolling a few centimeters. Nakamori's dark eyes were fixed on Kid's, flat and almost emotionless. _**"You. Will not. Threaten my daughter."**_

"I, Nakamori-keibu, am not the threat. **I** am here to warn you. Do I need to be any plainer? If you prefer, I could lay it all out for you in a heist note, but it's one thing to riddle you regarding a gem; it's another thing entirely to play foolish little games with your lives." Kid's words were cool, even calm, but a momentary corona of indigo seemed to radiate out from his pupils like a solar flare and the Inspector blinked, uncertain if he had actually seen that or not. "**I**, Keibu, took time from my own extremely busy schedule to give your daughter a chance to grow up as something other than fatherless. Is that worth a moment of your time, do you think?" Sarcasm gave his voice an acid edge.

"'Fatherless.' Like you?" It was a low blow, Nakamori knew; and the air at the table seemed to freeze momentarily. That strange flare of blue overwhelmed the gray contacts again, and just for a moment the familiar/unfamiliar face opposite the Inspector held nothing but pain. _Don't go there,_ said the eyes; _don't__. You don't want to._ But Nakamori hadn't gotten where he was without pushing into places where he wasn't wanted, so he went there anyway. "All this goddamn time you've been right there, laughing at the stupid fuckup across the street; did your father teach you to do that? Did he tell you how many times he fooled me? Hell, I thought I _knew_ the man! We were friends! And you, you grew up with Aoko. How long've you planned this? Were you raised from the frickin' cradle with lies in your mouth, you bastard? How long were you-"

Nakamori would later on try to understand why he had stopped right there, _RIGHT _there, chopped his own words neatly in half as if the blade of a guillotine had come down on them. Maybe it had been the look in the other's eyes, or the taste of his silence, or the sense that any moment now sheer bloody chaos was about to come down on his head. Or maybe it was pity for the boy he remembered.

Not for the thief, not for the thief's father, not even for a long-dead friend: for Kuroba Kaito, whose pain bled the deep blue away from the gray eyes and turned them back into a stranger's again after that one clear glimpse.

The silence lay thickly around them; the rest of the room's background noise seemed distant and unimportant, something unreachable as the moon. When the thief spoke at last, his voice was still the Phantom Thief's. "He didn't know, Keibu. Not until just before I- came; your friend's son did not know about what his father did for a living." The words were nearly inaudible, just loud enough to be heard.

"Oh really?" Sarcasm dripped like poison; Nakamori couldn't help himself. "And I suppose you're his Evil Twin and Toichi's boy is holed up somewhere while you-" he spat the words out, "-grace us with your presence tonight?"

That spill of blue again, true color roiling just beneath the surface of masking silicone- how was that even possible? "No, Nakamori-keibu," said the thief quietly. "It's not quite that simple. If it were, we'd be having a very different conversation." He sat back, thin fingers linked together on the tabletop. "What will it take to get you to shut up for five seconds and listen? Look." He spread his hands wide. "No smoke bombs, no sonic grenades; no tricks... Is venting your spleen at me more important than hearing what I have to say, Keibu? If it is, then I've misjudged you, and all you are is a petty little martinet." The hands dropped to lie flat and still against the wood. "The Inspector's had his moment; do you suppose that I might speak to Aoko-chan's father now? If that's not too difficult?"

Two of the Taskforce's newer members, ambling past towards the bar for a refill on their beers, glanced towards their commander's table as they went by; the Old Man looked almost whitefaced with fury, and the two wondered what the guy sitting across from him had said to work him up to that state. Not that it was hard, but... Eyeballing each other with mutual grimaces of _Whatever it is it's above our paygrades_, they slipped past and resolved to warn the rest of the squad not to interrupt.

"...talk. Make it short."

With a sigh, the thief in the business suit sat back, muscles untensing slightly. "Short. Well. In brief, it's this: you, your daughter, your home and your workplace are quite certainly under surveillance by a certain... acquaintance of mine who unfortunately has the knowledge to make the connection between myself and Kuroba Toichi. And if she feels that you are a threat, she'll most certainly act." The disguised felon raised a cautioning finger as Nakamori drew breath to explode into questions. "She tends to favor very _final _solutions to her problems, Keibu, the kinds that accompany gunfire. Or bombs, possibly; incendiaries, certainly. She has a history with fire, as members of the American FBI could tell you..." His eyes were fixed on Nakamori's, and the Inspector had the strangest feeling that the thief was looking through him at another face, another time. "If I had only known... well. Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20."

"Name? Description? Who the fuck-" Nakamori's heart was pounding in his ears. _Aoko no you're not supposed to be involved my little girl you're supposed to stay safe-_

The thief shrugged. "She goes by the rather colorful appellation of Vermouth. And I shouldn't worry about her description; you'll never see her coming." A sardonic little smile curled Kid's mouth; it was the feature that his disguise had changed the least. "My advice would be to take your daughter and leave, run as far away as possible; since I know that this is exceedingly unlikely, I'd suggest that you pack her off somewhere distant and discreet as quickly as you can, tomorrow if possible." He sighed, and it seemed to the Inspector that his voice altered ever so slightly when he added in a low tone: "Don't let her tell anyone goodbye. _Anyone, _Nakamori-keibu. I think you understand."

Silence. The head of the Kaitou Kid Task Force sat with his brow furrowed, watching his enemy- his quarry- without a word while talk, laughter and the clink of glasses wrapped them in a cocoon of white noise. When his pulse had slowed enough that he could talk without his vision fogging, Nakamori Ginzo asked (calmly, for him), "Why are you doing this? Why take such a fucking insane risk? All I'd have to do is shout, you lunatic, and you'd be in a world of trouble. You could've told me this in a thousand different ways; why like this?"

The thief's eyes met his, and for the first time that evening the Inspector saw no trace at all of a stranger in them. "Because... I owed it to you, Nakamori-keibu. And-"

His tone altered, changed subtly, dropped in pitch, sharpened: "-I owe it to Aoko. Goodbye, Nakamori-san. Thank you for everything."

And _**that**__, _at last, was in Kuroba Kaito's voice.

Long after the young businessman had slid quietly from his seat and exited the bar, the Inspector sat staring at his stone-cold cup of coffee and the brown ring-stains that made a peculiar artwork out of the booth's tabletop. When he raised his head at last it was to fumble blindly in one pocket, draw out his cellphone and hit speed-dial.

* * *

_"'Yozora o miage hitori houkiboshi o mita no__  
__Isshun de hajikete wa kiete shimatta kedo-'"_

The lyrics of _Bleach's _third ending song woke Nakamori Aoko from her doze on the living room couch; swatting at her cellphone, she managed to smack the right button on her second try and sat up groggily. "M'shi moshi...? Tousan?" The rapid voice on the other end of the line sounded odd- well, odder than usual; Tousan'd had too much coffee again, probably. "What? No, I'm fine, I just fell asleep. What? I- Tousaaan, you're not making sense."

The answer Aoko got made her pull the phone away from her ear and stare at it in puzzlement for a moment, rubbing at her eyes and wondering if she was still asleep. "You want me to _what? _Tousan, I've got a calculus test tomorrow, I can't-"

No arguments; just a flat answer. "B-but-"

And again. Tousan sounded _wrong,_ like he had after the heist in Fukuoka. Almost hurt, like _he'd _been the one who got shot. Almost... scared. Aoko took a deep breath and tried again. "Tousan, I know you're worried but I'm FINE. I mean, it's-" (Aoko squinted at the DVD player across the room) "-after eleven... I can't fly out tomorrow! Why do you want to... wait, what? Send me away? TOUSAN." Temper rising in spite of her worry, the Inspector's daughter scowled horribly while her father's voice rose and fell on the other end of the line. Anyone seeing her face just then would have remarked on the similarity to Aoko's male parent (if they had no regard for life or limb, that is.)

The conversation came abruptly to a close with one terse sentence and the click of a phone being flipped shut. The young woman stared at her own cellphone, perplexity warring with disbelief; the phone slid through her fingers, bouncing once on the couch and spilling out music:

_"'Moshi atashi ga houkiboshi ni nareta naraba  
Sora kakenuke tonde iku, donna  
Ashita ga kite mo ko no omoi wa tsuyoi  
Dakara houkiboshi zutto kowarenai yo-'"_

_If I **could** become a comet, _Aoko thought resentfully, _I'd fly away from here alright. And then I'd come back when nobody was looking. WHY do I have to leave? Tousan wouldn't even __tell__ me, he just said I'd find out eventually. What in the world am I supposed to do about school?_" I'm not going anywhere," she muttered, smoothing her hair and shoving her feet into the house-scuffs that she had discarded by the couch. The house felt too hot and stuffy in the way that Japanese summers got sometimes, so sticky with humidity and pollen that you expected to be able to shovel the stuff out of the gutters like mud. Rising to her feet, Aoko headed towards the back door and the small porch beyond; she needed air.

Outside wasn't much better, but at least there was a breeze. The young woman grunted in impatience when flicking the lightswitch brought no response; the bulb was apparently burned out. She plopped down onto the stairs in the dark anyway, fighting back a yawn; the clouds were thick overhead, and Aoko spent a few minutes watching them before the faintest crunch of feet on grass from the yard beyond sent her sitting bolt upright.

"Hey, Aoko. -no, stay there. The grass's wet and you're in scuffs, baka." She squinted at him; no good, the nearest streetlight was directly behind Kaito, turning him into a lanky silhouette. Only his shape was visible. _Must've gotten soaked; his hair's not sticking up as much as usual._

The pure normalicy of hearing her friend's voice made Aoko breath out in relief. "Baka yourself," she retorted automatically, sticking her bottom lip out at Kaito where he stood silhouetted against the streetlights. "It _rained _earlier. It's still dripping, Kaito- don't you have enough sense to come in out of the rain?"

In answer he held up an umbrella. "I'd share it with you if you needed me to," he offered, and he sounded a little odd... almost sad. "You don't want me to, though, do you?"

"I'm not leaving the porch. _I_know better than to let myself get wet." What was wrong with everybody tonight anyway? They were acting so weird, and Aoko wished she could see Kaito's face. He was just a sharply outlined shape, nothing more. She shifted restlessly on the steps. "Why're you out so late, Kaito? I haven't seen you hardly at all since you dropped out of school, you slacker. Come sit down."

Her friend didn't move other than to bring the umbrella point-down to the side, holding it like a cane or a sword; it had an old-fashioned curved handle. "I'm fine right here. Aoko...? Can I ask you something?"

She propped herself up on her elbows. "What?"

He turned a little, raising his head to watch the fine rain mist down. "I told you my secret. Remember? And you told me you had one too."

Aoko _stared._

"Well? Tell me, Aoko. Tell me."

"..."

"Aoko," he said, and this time there was weary impatience in his voice, and the sadness from before was there again. _"__Tell me__. _Please."

She closed her eyes; the silence of the rainy night was deafening, full of tiny dripping sounds and the distant hiss of traffic. Somewhere a long ways off a car-horn blared. "I..."

_"Please."_

After a long pause she muttered, "Why... do you want to know?"

"'Cause I told you mine. You asked, and I told you."

_I love you, _his words came back; Aoko remembered the moment of shock, the flush of alarm and embarrassment and dismay, the wrenching knowledge that this was something they couldn't share, truly uneven ground. There had been secrets between them especially over the past few years; she hadn't pushed too hard at the barriers that had risen between them, but-

She guessed... she could tell him. What would it hurt? And maybe it'd help... Aoko looked at Kaito, still standing there in the soft rain, just waiting. Listening, so quiet, so still. It wasn't like him at all. He'd keep her secret if she told him, he wouldn't blab, not even to Tousan. Especially not to Tousan. So...

Aoko drew a deep breath and tucked her knees close to her chest, hands clasped around them. Staring at nothing, she fumbled with her words and tried to express what she had kept hidden for so long. "It's... You know how I've always said I hated the Kaitou Kid?"

Kaito's head turned; she couldn't see his features but she could tell he was looking at her. "Yeah?"

"Well, I, um, I... don't. I never have." Her friend made an incredulous noise and she bit her lip. "I know, I know, I make a huge fuss about it. But... Kaito, you know what the big difference is between what Tousan does and what all the other cops do? _Their_ criminals shoot bullets; Kaitou Kid doesn't. People don't get hurt at Kid heists." _Or at least they didn't until this last one-_ "Tousan's SAFE, don't you get it? He doesn't have to go out on homicide cases, he doesn't chase down bank-robbers, and when he goes out because that baka thief is trying to steal something, I know he'll be coming home!" Aoko took a deep breath. "A-and that's why I don't hate the Kid. I'm... grateful to him." She raised her head and gave Kaito a defiant glare. "And I HATE being grateful to him! But I am, and, and I can't t-tell Tousan because he wouldn't u-underst-stand." To her own surprise, Aoko realized that she was crying; she didn't want to cry, she couldn't stand it she _couldn't stand it- _She pressed her face against her knees, feeling the hot tears soak into her jeans.

Wet grass rustled underfoot; Aoko felt a hand brush against her hair, rest lightly on her head. She kept her face down, though, and even when Kaito spoke to her in a voice that was only just barely audible, she didn't look up. When his footsteps had died away and the sound of her backyard gate closing no longer echoed in her head, Aoko stayed where she was for a long, long time.

_Thank you. G'bye, Aoko._

* * *

_I'm truly sorry, brother. I wish-_

"Don't. Just... don't say anything else. Let's just go."

* * *

Four hours later from his seat in Business Class, Takeda Hiro watched the clouds stream past; his gray eyes were the color of storms, full of silence. And somewhere both nearby and far away, Kuroba Kaito sat beside a window full of rain and remembered, wishing he could forget.

* * *

.

.

_I am a sad author. Change happens, but it's never an easy thing._

See you all with the next chapter. Take care, all, and for all the gods' sakes tell me you're all not going to send me letter-bombs in the mail for this! Seriously.


End file.
